by Hieromonk Sava (Yanjic)
English source: Orthodox America,
Vol. XVIII (2000), Nos. 7-8.
Trans. from the Russian source: Pravoslavnaya
Rus, Nos. 1 and 2 (1646, 1647), 2000.
Original Serbian source: two chapters
from Екуменизам и време апостасије, published in Prizren, 1995.
Sergianism and the
Russian Church
We must know what happened with
Russia and her faithful people. After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, which
was organized by a Zionist-Masonic organization, [1] the
Communists began actively to destroy the Russian Orthodox Church, which was the
spiritual conscience of the Russian people and the guardian of its sacred
historical tradition. It was decided that it was simplest to destroy the Church
from within. This gave rise to the movement of the so-called “Living Church,”
which, with the help of the godless regime, wanted to dethrone Patriarch Tikhon
and reform the Church along purely Protestant lines, making it an active tool
of the godless system. This apostasy reached its height in March, 1927, when
Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky), after being held prisoner by the
Bolsheviks for several months, was released, and soon thereafter, on 24 June of
the same year, issued the notorious Declaration, in which the Russian Church
solemnly extolled the godless communist regime. The Declaration openly declared
the Soviet Union to be a new homeland; all the joys and successes of the Soviet
Union were recognized to be the joys and successes of the Russian Church, and
its failures were, similarly, the failures of the Russian Church. Metropolitan
Sergius thereby made his church organization an accessory propaganda organ of
the communist government.
At that time the regime launched
a bloody persecution of the Russian Church, the most frightful since the
persecutions against the early Christians of the Roman Empire. Countless
priests, monastics, and laity were martyred; thousands of churches and monasteries
were closed. Yielding to pressure, Metropolitan Sergius openly denied before
the whole world that there was any persecution in Russia for religious beliefs.
All those hierarchs and other Christians who refused to participate in his
apostasy were branded “political criminals.” The Soviet regime arrested them
and sent them to the Siberian death camps. Those who defended Metropolitan
Sergius claimed that he thereby saved the Church, that otherwise it would have
been totally destroyed. But Sergianism is a synonym for the betrayal of
faithfulness to Christ for the sake of preserving an external church
organization, its earthly welfare, and a false peace. The faithful were
compelled to give unconditional obedience to the official leaders of the
Church, who supported a policy that was frequently realized through the
government authorities. When this policy finally won out, Metropolitan Sergius
occupied the patriarchal throne and the opposition was forced to keep silent.
Sergianism became the official policy of the Russian Church, and for decades
afterwards was the determining factor in its spiritual and ecclesiastical life.
In the years 1969-1970, Sergianism was exported to the West through the
establishment of the so-called American Metropolia, which received its
recognition from Moscow as an autocephalous Church under Moscow’s leadership.
Taking an active role in this proceeding was Metropolitan Nikodim of Leningrad,
a well-known ecumenist and latinophile, who died from a heart attack during an
audience with the Pope. The hierarchs of the Metropolia not only supported
Moscow’s course, but often acted as apologists for the politics of the Soviet
regime. One bishop of this Church, after visiting Russia, instead of telling
about the frightful persecution of the Orthodox faithful and the suffering of
the New Martyrs and Confessors in Siberia, coldly reported that people in the
Soviet Union were “happy and well educated, and if they complain about the
government, well, don’t we have the same here in America?”! Today the Orthodox
Church of America (OCA), which grew out of the Metropolia, is known for its
liberalism and intense ecumenical activity.
After the Bolshevik Revolution,
the Russian emigration formed its own church organization under the name, “The
Russian Church Abroad,” which was headed by Metropolitan Anthony
(Khrapovitsky). It had the solemn task of freely, without ideological pressures,
preaching in various corners of the world the truth of Orthodoxy and the truth
concerning the sufferings of the Russian Church, and of continuing the rich
spiritual and intellectual tradition of pre-Revolutionary Russia. At that time
many bishops openly rejected the Sergianist reforms; among them were
Metropolitans Joseph of Petrograd and Cyril of Kazan. In time this movement
developed into the so-called Russian Catacomb Church, whose establishment was
originally blessed by Patriarch Tikhon and which to this day exists in secret.
In recent times more information has come to light concerning this martyric
Church, which has no canonical communion with the official Moscow
Patriarchate. [3]
The Soviet regime strove to
destroy the Church through its spiritual leaders, who served as apologists for
the Soviet regime abroad and preached a so-called “communist Christianity,”
which paved the way for the triumph of communism not only as a universal
political regime, but as an ideological and pseudo-religious tyranny. In order
to understand this, we must explain just what communism is. It is not only a
senseless political regime but an ideological-religious system, whose aim it is
to overthrow and uproot all other systems – Christianity in particular.
Communism is, in fact, a heresy; its foundation is chiliasm, the teaching that
history can attain its culmination in an indefinite state of earthly
blessedness, like a perfect humanity that lives in perfect peace and
harmony. [4] This
“gospel” became the official “sacred scripture” of many Moscow hierarchs, who
preferred various ecumenical, pacifist, ecological, and interreligious meetings
in grandiose Stalinist palaces under the approving patronage of the Soviet
government. In this way, the Church provided a perfect alibi for the
Bolsheviks’ insidious and anti-Christian undertakings. At that time the true
Russian Church, the faithful of the Russian land – some bishops and priests
together with confessors and martyrs – from Solovki to distant Siberia endured
unimaginable sufferings and persecution. None of the Moscow hierarchs said
anything about this; it was a forbidden subject. In the eyes of the world there
could be only one “truth”: in Russia there was no religious persecution; those
in the camps were political prisoners. The schism that occurred in Russia in
consequence of the Bolsheviks seizing power was, therefore, not simply a
political schism between “red” and “white” bishops, as it is commonly
portrayed; it was an open conflict between the earthly kingdom and Christ’s
heavenly kingdom, an open conflict between two different understandings of the
meaning of the Church on earth.
On the one hand, there is the
“Sergianist” method of preserving the outward church organization at the price
of betraying the spirit of Christ’s Church and the martyric path on which the
Church suffers externally but internally is spiritually strengthened and
renewed.
This, however, does not mean that
grace has left the Sergianist Church and its present heirs, [even though it]
has suffered greatly and has been tormented by the godless actions of its false
pastors. The Church must never identify itself with hierarchies and
jurisdictions. Even should a majority of hierarchs fall away from the
theanthropic path of Christ, the Church will always exist, although it will
suffer, like a flock that is scattered by false shepherds. Jurisdictional
boundaries cannot, of course, limit God’s grace. [5]
/…/
It should be noted that in the
early years the Moscow Patriarchate had a very cautious attitude towards
ecumenism. This is evident from the bishops’ council of Local Churches, that
took place in Moscow 8-18 July, 1948, on the occasion of the 500-year anniversary
of the proclamation of the autocephaly of the Russian Orthodox Church. At this
council representatives of the Alexandrian, Antiochian, Russian, Serbian,
Romanian, Georgian, Bulgarian, Polish, Czechoslovakian, and Albanian Orthodox
Churches rejected participation in the secular ecumenical movement and in the
World Council of Churches, [6] which
was formed at that time. Nevertheless, soon thereafter, in consequence of
pressure from the communist authorities in these countries on the one hand, and
the ecumenical Patriarchate on the other, all these Churches soon became
members of the WCC. Moscow distinguished itself in this regard when, on 29
December 1969, it announced the possibility of communing with the Roman
Catholics. There began to be ecumenical meetings, joint prayers with heretics.
Following this course, under pressure of the Soviet authorities there developed
an active collaboration of all religions on the territory of the USSR, which,
in accordance with this morality, together worked for the benefit of “their
great homeland.” Today, in the post-communist era, when the official Russian
Church is able to act freely, it is noticeable that it is avoiding decisively
unshackling itself from its Sergianist past, openly condemning the heresy of
ecumenism, recognizing and glorifying the choir of New Martyrs, and remedying
known church and canonical disorders that crept in during the time of the
Soviet tyranny. It is these deviations that constitute the fundamental
disagreements preventing the possibility of the uniting of the entire Russian
Church – in the homeland and abroad – into a single jurisdiction.
What Is to Be
Done?
This question stands in the mind
of many Orthodox Christians today, who daily witness the spread of worldwide
ecumenical apostasy on all levels. Numerous examples of modern history clearly
show that today everything possible is being done in order to establish an
anti-Church, a “reborn” Christianity; dogmas are being revised, church history
is being rewritten; there is an intense secularization and modernization of
spiritual life. We live at a time that is more dangerous, in many ways, than
the time of Saint Mark of Ephesus or the time of the Arian, Monophysite, or
Monothelite heresies. At that time our forebears could participate in only one
heresy that threatened the Church. Today’s ecumenism is like a package, a
Pandora’s box, from which hundreds of heresies are breaking loose. We know that
to this day the Church has always been victorious in her battle against all
dangers. For example, after the ill-fated Union of Florence, Orthodoxy
experienced a real flowering of its spiritual life. Today there arises a
serious question: It is possible that the time has come when Christ’s Church
can exist only in the catacombs and deserts, and there meet Christ, from where
she will return to her historical path.
At the present time there
exist two basic ways in which contemporary Orthodox Christians react to the
heresy of ecumenism. The first is battling against ecumenism within the
canonically established enclosure of the local Orthodox Churches; the second-leaving
this enclosure and cutting off all official ties with those Churches whose
leaders actively participate in the ecumenical movement. Those who hold to the
first way believe that it is still possible to restore all of Orthodoxy to the
patristic path, that the heresy of ecumenism can be overcome, or at least they
see that not all possibilities have been exhausted for battling within the
established enclosure. They are not creating schisms in the wounded and
suffering body of the Church. On the other hand, those who openly leave the
official church organization are developing a course that can be defined as an
“ecclesiology of resistance.” Who is right?
Essentially it is understood that
any separation, any divisions in the church body are a negative phenomenon, for
the Church is grounded upon love, peace, and concord. In this sense, any
division or schism comes from personal and non-church aims and is unjustified,
for it rends the robe of Christ. In history, however, we can see that when the
Church was attacked by wolves in sheep’s clothing, even if these were highly
placed church officials, the clergy and the people shunned them and severed
relations with them. In this connection it is important to examine the
fifteenth canon of the so-called First-and-Second Council of Constantinople
from the ninth century:
…So that in case
any Presbyter of Bishop or Metropolitan dares to secede or apostatize from the
communion of his own Patriarch, and fails to mention the latter’s name in
accordance with custom duly fixed and ordained, in the divine Mystagogy, but,
before a conciliar verdict has been pronounced and has passed judgment against
him, creates a schism, the holy Council has decreed that this person shall be
held an alien to every priestly function if only he be convicted of having
committed this transgression of the law. Accordingly, these rules have been
sealed and ordained as respecting those persons who under the pretext of
charges against their own presidents stand aloof, and create a schism, and
disrupt the union of the Church. But as for those persons, on the other hand,
who, on account of some heresy condemned by holy Councils, or Fathers,
withdrawing themselves from communion with their president, who, that is to
say, is preaching the heresy publicly, and teaching it bareheaded in church,
such persons not only are not subject to any canonical penalty on account of
their having walled themselves off from any and all communion with the one
called a Bishop before any conciliar or synodal verdict has been rendered, but,
on the contrary, they shall be deemed worthy to enjoy the honor which befits
them among Orthodox Christians. For they have defied not Bishops but
pseudo-bishops and pseudo-teachers; and they have not sundered the union of the
Church with any schism, but, on the contrary, have been sedulous to rescue the
Church from schisms and divisions.
(Pedalion,
pps. 470-471.)
On the basis of this canon, it is
evident that a Christian is obliged to show complete and unreserved obedience
to his pastors, even if they should exhibit moral weaknesses and other sins
that imply all conciliar decisions. The only case in which it is permitted not
to wait for a conciliar decision exempting one from obedience to one’s superior
is if he openly preaches heresy, inasmuch as he thereby ceases to be a true
bishop and pastor. The Apostle Paul teaches us obedience to our spiritual
fathers:
Remember them
which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God; whose
faith follow, considering the end of their conversation… Obey them that have
the rule over you and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they
that must give account… (Heb. 13:7, 17).
But how are our teachers to be
zealous for good? Saint John Chrysostom replies: “And what if a (leader) is not
good? Does that mean one does not have to be obedient to him? Not good in what
sense? If it is in relation to faith, then run from him and have nothing to do
with him-even if he be not just a man but an angel from heaven.” (Commentary on
Hebrews, #34) Holy Scripture teaches us the same: Though we, or an angel
from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached,
let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again: If any man preach
any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. For
do I now persuade men, or God? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the
servant of Christ (Gal. 1:8-10. Many ecumenists deny that they are
preaching another faith. Moreover, they openly declare that they possess the
correct interpretation of Christ’s teaching. Let us see what Saint Theodore
Studite says about this: “We who are Orthodox flee every heresy and accept all
generally recognized councils, whether Ecumenical or Local. And we likewise
firmly stand by the sacred canons which they adopted. For no one can fully
teach the word of truth, supposing himself to have the right Faith, if he does
not accept the guidance of the divine canons.” [7]
(Letter 1:30)
Can a person who scorns the holy
canons be Orthodox? Can one consider oneself an Orthodox Christian and an heir
of the Holy Fathers and at the same time do what is contrary to the works of
the Holy Fathers, martyrs, and confessors of the Faith?
The example of Saint Theodore the
Studite is instructive for our time as well, just as are similar examples of
Saint Athanasius the Great at the First Ecumenical Council and of Saint Maximus
the Confessor at the Sixth. Saint Theodore saw in iconoclasm not only a fight
against the holy icons, but a more wide-ranging heresy. The heretics demanded
the implementation of a single, broad church reform that would gradually have
done away with the veneration of saints, relics, the Mother of God. The Liturgy
was abbreviated, fasts and feasts were eliminated, monastic rules were
liberalized, monastic holdings were confiscated, the number of clergy and
monastics was reduced, and bishops were chosen only with the approval of the
royal council. The result was a kind of Eastern Reformation. [8]
But let us return to the
ecclesiological basis of “Orthodox resistance.” It comes from the contention
that those church communities that participate in the ecumenical movement are a
sick part of the Church of Christ. This contention differs from the radical
ecclesiology of extremist traditionalist groups, that go so far in denying that
these Churches have grace [9] that
they fall into a much greater danger than ecumenism itself. What at the present
time is the basis of the above-mentioned church communities that constitute the
front for the Orthodox resistance to ecumenism? These are very diverse. On the
question of the Russian Church Abroad alone there are disagreements. On the one
hand, the official Moscow Patriarchate never stripped hierarchs of the ROCA of
their rank, nor anathematized them; nor did the ROCA do so in regard to
hierarchs of the MP; the Serbian Church unofficially is in communion with the
hierarchs of the ROCA in view of their spiritual faithfulness to Tradition.
On this question Constantinople
[i.e., the Ecumenical Patriarchate] holds an extreme opinion. Still earlier,
the patriarchs of Constantinople fought to gain a consensus on the matter of
the ROCA, officially and definitively declaring it a schismatic group. [10] This
harsh contention was prompted by the fact that hierarchs of the ROCA had
ordained several bishops for the Greek Old Calendarists, which enlivened that
movement considerably. Additionally, the ROCA assisted many opponents of
Constantinople’s ecumenical course, receiving them around the world under its
omophorion. Currently, there is a great deal of controversy over the fact that
the ROCA has opened dioceses of its own in Russia, a fact that has badly
strained its relations with the MP. The hierarchs of the ROCA explain this by
the need to meet halfway those individual parishes and priests that are clearly
displeased that Moscow has not renounced Sergianism point-blank, that it does
not acknowledge the truth concerning the suffering of the Russian Church, and
that it continues to participate in the ecumenical movement. The Moscow
Patriarchate accuses the ROCA of fanatical extremism, of broadening the schism
within the Russian people, and of taking away her right to assert that she
herself underwent those sufferings that came upon the Church in the homeland.
Concerning the Old Calendar
question in Greece, Romania, and Bulgaria, the Local Churches that remained
faithful to the Julian Calendar had no desire to imitate that movement under
threat of severing ties with the new calendar Orthodox Churches, which have an
extremely intolerant and aggressive attitude towards their Old Calendarist
brethren, an attitude that has frequently resulted in terrible
persecutions. [11] Besides,
they see no difference between the quite dissimilar positions of the various
Old Calendarist groups. The conduct of the Jerusalem Patriarchate is unique; in
recent times it has purposely maintained ties with some moderate Old
Calendarists and the ROCA, which has had a long-standing presence there in the
Holy Land.
However, independent of official
church positions and other grounds for schism that have received attention, we
cannot but note that these church communities, without going into their
irregular and uncanonical status (from the point of view of the modernists-Russian
editor), through their anti-ecumenical position, serve today as a living voice
of Orthodox Tradition, serving as a strong support for all those who are
battling against ecumenism within the official Orthodox Churches. We have only
to recall the impact of the so-called “sorrowful epistles” of the head of the
ROCA, Metropolitan Philaret (Voznesensky) (1965-85), who, in 1966, began an
active battle, with his open letters to the heads of the local Orthodox
Churches and other bishops, in which he exposed the pan-heresy of ecumenism as
a sign of the coming kingdom of Antichrist. While these epistles received a
very positive response among some Orthodox Churches, the official reaction of
all local Churches to this “voice crying in the wilderness” was and remains
silence. In agreement with these epistles were Archimandrite Justin (Popovich)
and Elder Philotheos (Zervakos), when they warned not only the faithful people
but the hierarchy of the danger of the false path of ecumenism. In their works,
just as also in the works of Bishop Nikolai (Velimirovich) and Archbishop
Averky (Taushev), we can see how the Orthodox Church in truth views ecumenism
and the “reforms” of Orthodoxy. Fathers Justin and Philotheos [12] shared
the same considerations as those people who left the official Churches in sign
of protest against ecumenism, modernism, growing secularization, and
cooperation with godless authorities, although they themselves never took that
path and from the outset did not approve it, trying to avoid a still greater
schism and disturbance. But they continued until they died to profess standing
fast in the Truth.
This position, we can say with
full justification, represents the royal, middle path, which on the one hand
openly opposes the heresy of ecumenism, and on the other avoids the chaotic
panic and confusion caused by new schisms, and, at any rate, the “super-orthodox”
opinions of individual zealots. In other words, they always bore in mind that
it was essential for Orthodox truth to be preached to the heterodox with love,
without embellishments-not by means of any false “dialogue of love,” but rather
by means of a true Orthodox life, by following the Holy Fathers and the holy
Ecumenical Councils. The “super-orthodoxy” of individual zealots differs
significantly from the spirit of the Holy Fathers, who were strict concerning
questions of the truth while at the same time they had ample capacity for
love-not for heresy, for heresy itself merits abhorrence and condemnation, but
for people who become victims of this great spiritual deception. The
exaggerations of the zealot extremists in the battle with ecumenism only harm
the truth of Orthodoxy and do not serve for its benefit. Today, unfortunately,
many zealots of Orthodoxy declare all ecumenists to be heretics. There used to
be people who courageously confessed before heretics the truth of the one
Orthodox Church as the Church of Christ. Unfortunately, in recent times more
and more people are silent on this score. In so doing, they come to the verge
of heresy, for they are silent about the truth of love, which is the same as to
deny truth.
/…/
In any case, one must not imagine
that some Great united Council could bring a complete stop to the apostasy or
hinder its advance. It is possible, however, that a local Church, or at least a
part of it, can free itself from these destructive nets by hasting to withdraw
from the WCC and to cut off all communion with heretics. It is very important
here to expose the heresy of ecumenism, which exists and is spreading thanks to
the fact that many are unaware of its true course and of its real aims. In any case,
if ecumenical activity continues to increase, and if eventually communion with
heretics is legitimized, it will be necessary to act according to the
above-mentioned canons, i.e., to separate oneself from the ruinous influence of
heretics.
Furthermore, on the basis of some
writings of more modern church fathers as, for example, Bishop Ignatius
(Brianchaninov) [13] and
Bishop Theophan the Recluse, we can conclude that it is precisely in our time
that the apostasy will overtake the mainstream and that heresy will take
complete hold even of the official church administration, compelling the true
Orthodox Church to go into the catacombs. Concurring with this prophecy, many
contemporary spiritual fathers-for example, Elder Lavrenty of Chernigov, [14] Hieromonk
Seraphim (Rose), and Archbishop Averky (Taushev) foresaw that the new, false
“united Christianity” will spread the lie that in all the world it alone is the
Church of Christ. Churches will be built, majestic ecumenical “liturgies” of
peace (very likely of the type we saw in Canberra and Assisi) will be held, and
everywhere there will be talk of a new era of peace and truth. But in all this
tower of Babel, which may well bear a perfect external resemblance to the
Church, there will be no truth, God’s Spirit will be absent. The One and true
Church of Christ, the Orthodox Church, living in little catacomb communities in
towns, in deserts, and in forests, headed by God-bearing bishops, priests and
monks, will be completely hidden from the bright lights of projectors and TV
cameras. Many of these little ones will not know of one another. They will be
united not by apparent administrative ties but by a unity of Orthodox faith, of
patristic tradition, and, most importantly, by a unity of communion in the Body
and Blood of the Lord. These communities of faithful may be cruelly persecuted,
just as in Roman and Soviet times. The adherents of the false “Christianity”
and other united religions will accuse them of being fanatics, of being
intolerant and hateful people, opponents of the New World Order and, by
extension, of the welfare and happiness of mankind. [15]
Many may be imprisoned in special
camps for “reeducation,” where they will be severely tortured in an effort to
force them to deny the Living God and His Church, and to bow down before the
rulers of this world. And thus the Church, like a pure and undefiled virgin,
washed in the blood of martyrs and confessors just as in the early years of
Christianity, will wait to greet her Bridegroom.
Thus, we are faced with a number
of questions. How many Orthodox Christians will be able to await that day,
remaining in the faith of the fathers, for the Lord Himself said: When the Son
of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth? (Luke 18:8) How many
Christians will there be then who claim to be Orthodox but who will be
separated from the spirit of truth? The answers to these questions will become
evident only with the times that are already drawing near.
Church tradition
and the example of the Holy Fathers teach us that no dialogue is conducted with
Churches that have fallen away from Orthodoxy. To them is always directed
sooner the monologue of the Church’s preaching, in which the Church calls them
to return to her bosom through rejection of every teaching not in accord with
her. A genuine dialogue supposes an exchange of opinions, admitting the
possibility of the persuasion of the participants in it for the attainment of
agreement…. [A]ny agreement with error is foreign to the whole history of the
Orthodox Church and to her very being. It could lead, not to unanimous
confession of the truth, but to a visionary external union similar to the
agreement of the differently-minded Protestant societies within the Ecumenical
Movement. May such a betrayal of Orthodoxy not penetrate to our midst!
Metropolitan
Philaret, “An Appeal to Patriarch Athenagoras,” 1966.
And what do we
see now in contemporary “Orthodoxy” – the “Orthodoxy” that has entered into the
so-called “Ecumenical Movement”? We see the… renunciation of true Orthodoxy in
the interest of spiritual fusion with the heterodox West. The “Orthodoxy” that
has placed itself on the path of “Ecumenism” thinks not of raising contemporary
life, which is constantly declining with regard to religion and morals, to the
level of the Gospel commandments and the demands of the Church, but rather of
“adapting” the Church herself to the level of this declining life.
Archbishop
Averky “Should the Church Be In Step with the Times?”
…For what does
it mean to be Orthodox? It means: to be constantly struggling away from man
toward the God-man, to be constantly making oneself divine-human through
struggles. /…/ In Western Europe, Christianity has gradually been transformed
into humanism... In both [Roman Catholicism] and Protestantism, man has
re-placed the God-man as both the supreme value and the supreme criterion. A
painful and sorrowful “correction” has been made of the God-man, of His work
and of His teaching.
Archimandrite
Justin Popovich, “The Supreme Value and Infallible Criterion”
…The Eastern
Orthodox Church does not have a habit of making innovations, but rather follows
the teachings of the Apostles, the Teachers, the Holy Fathers and the Seven Ecumenical
Councils, whose teachings the wise among the Latins and Protestants ought also
to follow…, so that they might be delivered from the penances the anathemas and
excommunications of the holy Ecumenical Councils and of the Holy Fathers. We
are obligated to pray for them so that God may return them from delusion to the
straight path, and so that we may all become one flock with the Ruler and
Founder of our true Orthodox Faith as Leader, our Lord Jesus Christ and
Saviour, the Deliverer and Liberator of our souls and bodies.
Elder
Philotheos Zervakos, “Paternal Counsels”
Notes
1. Of 22 members of the
first communist government, 17 were of Jewish extraction. In the
post-revolutionary period, of 554 political leaders of the Soviet Union, 447
were of Jewish extraction. Clearly, the revolution was organized chiefly by
non-Russian forces with the help of highly placed freemasons.
2. Founded in
Sremski-Karlovats [Serbia] in 1920, with the blessing of Patriarch Tikhon.
3. The Catacomb Church in
Russia never went so far as to declare the Holy Mysteries of the official
Church to be invalid. While it separated itself altogether from the official
hierarchy, which adhered to the Sergianist course of collaboration with the
communists, it did not forbid its faithful to receive the Mysteries in churches
of the Moscow Patriarchate if they found this necessary and if they had faith
in this.
4. It is important to
understand that communism is not only an ideology but a religion. For this
reason, it is not possible to speak about atheism in communist countries;
rather, one must speak about antitheism, about theomachy, militant godlessness.
Communism vulgarized familiar church traditions and rituals, substituting its
own surrogates. Church processions were replaced by May Day parades, holy icons
were replaced by portraits of important leaders, church services – by
gatherings, funerals-by civil memorial services, holy relics – by embalmed
dummies of party leaders. It follows that communism cannot be overthrown by a
simple decree, but, as with any heresy, recovery and healing come only through
repentance.
5. In his later years,
Father Seraphim (Rose, +1982) wrote, “The heart of Sergianism is bound up with
the common problem of all the Orthodox Churches today – the losing of the savor
of Orthodoxy, taking the Church for granted, taking the ‘organization’ for the
Body of Christ, trusting that Grace and the Mysteries are somehow ‘automatic’...
(Not of This World, Platina 1994)
6. From an article that
appeared in the journal, Orthodox Press Service (No. 47, 29 Nov. 1994),
under the title, “The Russian Orthodox Church examines the possibility of
leaving the ecumenical organization,” we learn that a commission has been
formed within the Moscow Patriarchate to examine conditions for and possible
consequences of the withdrawal of the Russian Orthodox Church from the World
Council of Churches, and the possibility of dialogue with heretics. One of the
principal obstacles to such a dialogue is the uncontrolled proselytism in
Russia by Roman Catholics and Protestants. The Vatican, even after the Balamand
agreement (1993), continues to consider Russia its missionary territory.
7. Letter 1, 30 (PG 99:1005
D). In this case, the allusion is to the unlawful marriage of Emperor
Constantine VI, who contrived to get a blessing for it from Patriarch Tarasius,
with whom Saint Theodore thereupon broke communion, for the former had acted
contrary to the church tradition. For this confession of the faith and
conscience, Saint Theodore was exiled and imprisoned for two years. He was
released in 798 when Empress Irene came to the throne.
8. “Not one heresy that has
rocked the Church is as dreadful as the heresy of iconoclasm. Demonic in its
acts and words, it denies Christ and destroys His personhood. On the one hand,
it foolishly claims that it is impossible to depict Christ’s bodily form. In so
doing it denies the incarnate Logos; even if He did become incarnate, He cannot
be depicted. It says that He is a phantom-which is typical of the Manichean
“gospel.” On the other hand (iconoclasm) destroys to the foundations and burns
up God’s temples and all sacred objects on which are depicted the face of
Christ, of the Theotokos, or any of the saints.” (St Theodore Studite, letter
II, 81 / PG 99:132 D-132A).
9. Metropolitan Chrysostom
of Florina (+1955), a leader of the Greek Old Calendarist movement, in answer
to the question of whether the grace of the Holy Spirit was present in the
Mysteries of the official Church, replied in 1937: “The New Calendar Church is
guilty before God for what it has committed, and for that reason true Orthodox
(Old Calendarists) cannot have communion with it. However, inasmuch as its
priesthood has in no other way strayed from the Sacred Tradition, it preserves
the grace of the Holy Spirit.” He noted that the official Church “exists in
potential but not in actual schism, until the time that a pan-Orthodox Council
should assess the calendar reform.” On the basis of this statement, two bishops
– German of the Cyclades and Matthew – accused Metropolitan Chrysostom of
corrupting the fundamental principle of the Old Calendarist movement and
separated from him, falling away into extremism, which their followers continue
to propagate to this day.
10. In response to the open
declaration of the Phanar [Ecumenical Patriarchate] that the Russian Church
Abroad was a schismatic group, Archbishop Averky (Taushev) once wrote that the
term schismatics should be applied to those who, by their innovations,
themselves fall away from the Sacred Tradition of the Church, but not to those
who, for the sake of the purity of the Orthodox faith, have withdrawn from such
ones. Such a statement reflects that faith which from the beginning has been
preserved in the Orthodox Church: the true measure of Orthodoxy is how faithfully
we adhere to Sacred Tradition and live according to it, and not how faithfully
we adhere to majority opinion. Saint Maximos the Confessor was against the
entire Christian East, which had fallen into the Monothelite heresy, but it was
not he that was in schism, it was all the rest. The preservation at any cost of
external unity with heretically disposed hierarchs, ostensibly for the sake of
peace in the Church, is actually a true schism and a betrayal of Orthodoxy.
11. There are a few who,
like Archbishop Dorotheos of Athens (1956-57), consider that, “The Old
Calendarist movement is neither a heresy nor a schism, and its adherents are
neither heretics, nor heterodox, nor schismatics, but Orthodox Christians.”
12. Elder Philotheos
(Zervakos, +1980) was one of the most significant spiritual personalities
of Greek Orthodoxy in this century. Having a keen understanding of patristic
Orthodox Tradition, he constantly warned the faithful against spiritual
stagnation, against the contemporary dangers of modernism and ecumenism.
Although he never severed ties with the official Greek Church, he did not agree
with those who departed from patristic traditions and from the Old Calendar. At
the same time, he was also strongly critical of those who became extreme zealots
and who declared that the official, new calendar Church was without grace,
thereby leading astray part of the old calendarist faithful. The same view was
held by a number of other spiritual personalities of Greece known for their
moderate traditionalism, as for example, Fr. Joel Yannakopoulos and Fr.
Epiphanius Theodoropoulos, who considered the extremism of the Old Calendarists
equally dangerous to ecumenism. Between these two extremes, in their opinion,
one must confess the Orthodox Faith before the heterodox, but avoid so-called
“political ecumenism,” which takes on heretical and uncanonical dimensions.
13. Bishop Ignatius
(Brianchaninov) – spiritual writer and great prophet of 19th century Russia – said
that in the end times all official church organizations will submit to the
antichrist and to the spirit of this world. He repeatedly drew attention to the
fact that in the last times there would be a difference between the official
Church and the true Orthodox Church. On the one hand there would be only a
church organization without the true spirit of Christ, and on the other – a
catacomb community, united by one faith, one spirit, one Body and Blood of
Christ. His prophetic words were precisely fulfilled in Russia after the
Bolshevik Revolution.
14. Elder Lavrenty (+1950)
told his spiritual children: “The time will come when even the closed churches
will be renovated, not only outside but inside as well. The cupolas of churches
and bell towers will be gilded. And when all this is finished, the time will
come for the reign of antichrist. Pray that the Lord grant us more time to
strengthen ourselves, because terrible times await us. Just look at how
everything is being so cunningly prepared. All the churches will look
absolutely magnificent, as never before, but one will not be able to go to
those churches. Antichrist will be crowned as king in a splendid temple in
Jerusalem with the participation of the clergy and of the patriarch.” (Nadezhda,
No. 14, 1988)
15. There was a widely held
opinion among pagans in the first centuries of Christianity, that Christians
were cannibals, that they held orgies and drank the blood of sacrificed
infants.
