Metropolitan Valentin on the MP and ROCOR
(Interview with NTV.RU, December 2001)
NTV: Why did you leave the MP in 1990?
M. VALENTIN: The atmosphere of betrayal, lies,
corruption, and a multitude of unchurchly events that
permeated the air in the Moscow Patriarchate. Over
the course of many years I believed that by
compromising with little evils one avoided
participation in the large-scale evil in the
Sergianist lie...But human strength is not unlimited.
When...it became utterly clear to me that the price
for any ecclesiastical success would be large-scale
betrayal (of Orthodoxy), I had to either betray my
parishioners, giving them up for..."the well-being of
God's Church," or retire. I could not ignore this
betrayal. I could not do it no matter what were the
rationalizations. Therefore I proposed that my flock
join me in going to the Church Abroad. Besides,...the
total untruth of the MP---an organization that is
based upon total lies and betrayals---became clear to
me. Beyond this lie that the New Martyrs were
political criminals, there was the lie that the church
in the Soviet Union was never subjected to religious
persecutions, that the godless authorities are "from
God." Therefore when I read now the justifications of
Sergianism, that it was necessary for the sake of
saving the church for the faithful, I can only feel
sad and grieved. I served in the MP for 30 years and
I saw the Sergianist system inside and out, and I know
that in order to "save it" it was absolutely necessary
to betray. The Sergianist hierarchs have betrayed the
faithful...Practically all those who were with me in
1990...remained with me, and now many more have come.
NTV: If you were prepared to leave the MP before, why
then did this materialize only in 1990?
M. VALENTIN: Before 1900, actually, there was nowhere
to go. The parishes of the Church Abroad were deep
underground, and if there is no alternative, then one
thinks that there is nowhere to go and it is possible
somehow to suffer a bit longer...After joining the
ROCOR I was appointed an Exarch to the Russian
parishes and I remember well, there was not a week
when people did not join us... (We had) parishes...in
Moscow and Petersburg, in the Baltic States and
Ukraine, in the Caucasus and Siberia and the Far East.
In this process throughout Russia at that time we saw
the beginning of (the) cleansing (of the Russian
people) from the atheistic leprosy and its
ecclesiastical variety: Sergianism. Or recall...when
Alexis II made a clearly heretical speech before the
rabbis of New York, when he said that Judaism and
Orthodoxy are actually the very same religion. At that
time many priests of the MP ceased to commemorate him
as patriarch, but then did not decide to leave. At
that time a widespread persecution of our Chruch
began...and everything went back to...usual. The Lord
always calls one to Himself, to the Truth, but one
also has to listen to this call.
NTV: Why did you leave ROCOR in 1992?
M. VALENTIN: There were two main reasons. The first:
the outrageous disorganization introduced into the
life of the Russian Church by (the) controversial
decisions of the ROCOR synod. It created the danger
that the True Church simply would cease to exist in
Russia...Secondly was the apostasy from Orthodoxy,
from the uncompromsing relationship toward the
heresies of Ecumenism and Sergianism. Generally
speaking, the controversial decisions of the Synod
were the reason for this apostasy. The (ROCOR) didn't
clearly know what to do in Russia: should they
minister (by) building up and developing their
dioceses and parishes, or have negotiations with the
MP? So it wavered from one side to the other. I
...tried many times to warn my brother (ROCOR) bishops
of the destructiveness of what they were doing. The
very wise elder Bishop Gregory Grabbe also sounded the
alarm regarding the situation, but we were not only
not heard, but showered with slander. Due to the
slander...I was dismissed form the cathedral,
suspended from serving, and after my departure from
the ROCOR, in violation of numerous Church canons
"dismissed from the ranks." I was making the same
choice as in 1990: to submit to all of this, accept
untruth, and...betray my flock, which at that time was
not in Suzdal alone, but all over Russia, or to
fulfill my duty as a bishop, even if this meant formal
administrative loyalty had to be disregarded. I swore
to be a bishop to the Church and my duty before the
Church and my flock was most important, the more so
since the activity of the ROCOR was heading toward
curtailing ecclesiastical life in Russia and was
harming our dioceses and parishes. Therefore we, the
bishops of one mind in Russia, have severed our
submission to the ROCOR.
NTV: Why in 1995 were you against the rapprochement
of ROCOR and the MP?
M. VALENTIN: Because there is no reason for such a
rapprochement. The Moscow Patriarchate is not the
true Church. She ceased to be so when she accepted the
heresies of Sergianism and Ecumenism and agreed to
actually apostatize from Christ. And she is only
deceiving her faithful, pretending to be the True
church. The Church Abroad, on the other hand, for
decades was famous for her stand in the Truth, no
compromise regarding any kind of heresies and lies.
What would rapprochement of the ROCOR and MP require?
Either a change of mind by the hierarchs of the MP,
their request to those who have preserved the Truth
for instruction and teachings. Such a rapprochement we
would honor. Or the apostasy of the Church Abroad for
her steadfast position. This we consider to be
betrayal. The first one has not happened, but the
second has happened. And I, as a bishop whose duty is
to watch over the Truth, in no way could support such
a one-sided rapprochement. As the events that followed
showed, the "rapprochement" of ROCOR and the MP means
not the cleansing of the Patriarchate, but the total
capitulation of the Church Abroad, the denial of her
own ideals and a readiness to be swallowed up by the
MP. Contemporary hierarchs of the Church Abroad
honestly admit that they are afraid to remain in the
minority, they are overwhelmed by the splendor of "the
ecclesiatistical revival" in Russia, the cathedral of
Christ the Savior, and they want to participate in all
of this. But I believe that over the last decade
(meaning, SINCE communism has fallen), the MP has
gotten even worse. Before, her heresies and sins
could be justified by the persecution of the godless
government. But now that she is free to cleanse
herself of all of it, of her own free will she has no
conscious intention of doing this. The latter lies
are worse than the first.
NTV: How do you feel now about the rapprochement of
ROCOR and the MP?
M. VALENTIN: At present this is the rapprochement not
of churches, not of the faithful, but of the Synod's
hierarchal bureaucrats. Actually, a leadership
revolution happened in the ROCORites. A faction of
the bishops, who for many years were aspiring to
power, have done all they could so that the legacy of
their First Hierarchs Metropolitan Anthony, Anastasy,
and St Philaret be forgotten; that there would be a
rupture with the Russian bishops, among whom I was
one...The present leaders of the ROCOR are basically a
new generation of Church bureaucrats, void of any
clear ecclesiastical religious view. Therefore for
them it is natural to blend into one structure with
the same kind of bureaucrats from the MP. And the
latter, in their turn, are interested in appropriating
not only the Church buildings, but also the right to
the name, the relics of the saints, so that this great
and glorious name from the past---ROCOR---would no
longer "tempt" the flock of the MP by unmasking her
untruths and the apostasy of her hierarchs. The MP
would like to have the right to say: "St John of
Shanghai---he is ours...And even Metropolitan
Philaret, who didn't consider us to be a church, look,
he is now ours, not yours anymore." And this is by
people who are far from the Spirit of Truth To them
it seems that it is enough to switch the tags and omit
from the books "the wrong words" in order to believe
that the matter is settled. But something like this
will not happen. The Church of Christ cannot be conquered...