Russian source: Анафема РПЦЗ экуменизму: факты и значение
(Новая редакция), by Subdeacon Vladimir Kirillov (ROCOR-A), Mera, Paris,
2023, pp. 110-117.
“Nothing unclean enters the
Church as an Organism, whereas in the Church as an organization, the wheat and
the tares grow side by side—and must continue to grow, according to the word of
the Lord, until the end of this age (Matt. 13:24–30)” (http://www.pravoslavie.ru/100304.html).
Thus did the New Martyr Michael Novoselov, one of the founders of the Catacomb Church,
so aptly and precisely define the structure of the Church.
And “Just as Christ preaches
saving truths to mankind, so the devil, through his servants—hardened sinners,
heretics, and false teachers—sows destructive falsehoods and delusions in
people’s minds, and various vices in their hearts, embellishing all these
things with semblances of truth and goodness. For this reason, the Lord does
not call them some other kind of seed, but specifically tares (weeds—V.K.),
which outwardly resemble wheat” (see Patristic Interpretation of the Parable
of the Tares…, Part II, Chapter 12).
On this basis, the ecclesiastical
situation in Russia (and indeed throughout the world) described above by Fr.
Lev [Lebedeff] may be likened not only to a tree entwined by a parasitic plant,
but also to a field—the world—throughout which His (Christ’s) universal Church
extends, as the totality of church-organizations, and in which grow both the
tares (apostates and heretics), sown by Satan (the sons of the wicked one), and
the wheat (the sons of the Kingdom), with the former striving to choke the
latter and prevent them from growing fully. And during the process of
introducing and subsequently establishing the dominance of heresy, the most
effective means of increasing the number of tares is undoubtedly the
commemoration of heretics, which gradually leads others to adopt their heresy
as well. Yet at such times, to our shortsighted eyes, it appears that the
entire field has been overtaken by tares alone, with the wheat simply no longer
visible among them. Thus, the Prophet Elijah, witnessing the apostasy of Old
Testament Israel from the truth, cried out to God in alarm, to which God
replied that He had preserved for Himself seven thousand men who had not bowed
down to the idol. The glorious Prophet himself could not see these men, for
this was known only to God, the Knower of hearts.
This is precisely why what we are
witnessing today is taking place, in the words of Metropolitan Vitaly, under
the Lord’s exercise of an “extraordinary economia,” that is, the
granting of grace-filled Mysteries to those who believe in simplicity (the
wheat), despite the presence of a great mass of tares—the graceless hierarchy
of the Moscow Patriarchate and its numerous followers and fellow travelers,
mired in the heresies of Sergianism and Ecumenism (for more on this, see
Chapter 14). And how much longer this extraordinary economia will
continue is known only to Christ, the Head of the Church.
And, as has already been the case
before, everything in Russia today is sustained not by the apostatizing
organization or structure of the Moscow Patriarchate (outwardly very powerful,
imposing, and pompous, but rotten within, like an apple that is beautiful on
the outside but rotten inside, as Ecumenism and other things demonstrate), nor
by its apostate hierarchy, Sergianist in spirit, but, to use biblical language,
by Abraham’s five righteous men (or Elijah’s seven thousand—it makes no
difference), who struggle in defiance of this rotten organization. And it is
upon these righteous men and women—the “white headscarves,” who believe
wholeheartedly and in simplicity—that everything rests, together with the small
number of new confessors (see, for one example: http://www.portalcredo.ru/site/print.php?act=news&id=126949)
who have ceased commemorating the false Patriarch Kirill and who are now being
persecuted by the new Sergianists, just as the ill-fated Metropolitan Sergius
(Stragorodsky) once persecuted the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.
(See http://3rm.info/main/67930-netslov-po-lekalam-nkvd-nepominayuschego-svyaschennika-sudili-za-neprohozhdenie-flyurografiivideo.html
and https://vk.com/video129912296_456243134?list=fc6ff87d8cada83407)
As for the rest (the millions of
so-called “believers,” “sleeping in their cabins,” obedient to heretics), they
have no interest in any struggle for the purity of Orthodoxy, much less in the
anathema against Ecumenism.
“However, for the sake of
objectivity, it must be said,” Metropolitan Vitaly (Ustinov) testified, “that
there are genuine ascetics, righteous men, and confessors in Russia, ‘of whom
the whole world is not worthy!’ They, of course, are almost always hungry and
eat their meager but honestly earned crust of bread. They are few in number,
and they have no desire to travel or fly anywhere, but only a little leaven is
needed for the whole lump of dough. May God grant them the strength to leaven
the entire Russian lump.” “I am not saying that all the clergy are like this.
There are very good priests who groan under the burden of remaining in the
Moscow Patriarchate, but they have nowhere to go: they have families and
children, and they would immediately be thrown out onto the street” (http://www.portal-credo.ru/site/print.php?act=news&id=126723).
“Now,” Metropolitan Vitaly
continued in his interview with Canadian radio, “if you ask me about our
parishes, who are our parishioners? I will answer you this: our parishioners
are not only those 90 or perhaps 100 parishes (in Russia, which belonged to
the jurisdiction of ROCOR in the 1990s—V.K.). To us belong all those
priests, those wonderful priests, who strive with all their might, by the sweat
of their brow, to fulfill the will of God while remaining in the Moscow
Patriarchate, and who groan because they realize that the leadership above
them, which governs them, is not of God. And so, all those priests who groan
and sigh are ours! All those people in Russia who now understand, and to whom
the falsehood of the Moscow administration, shall we say, is becoming
increasingly apparent—they are all ours! Now just try counting how many there
would be!” (see Supplement No. 12b or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19D9BTR99Rw).
Even earlier, St. John
(Maximovich) had written essentially the same thing:
“Although the Russian Church
Abroad has no visible relations with her Church in the homeland, she remains in
spiritual communion with all those who suffer and are persecuted there,
languishing in prisons and exile. We believe and know that the Orthodox Faith
is strong in Russia. The Lord God, Who preserved seven thousand men who had not
bowed the knee to Baal in the days of Elijah, even now has many servants of His
who secretly serve and pray to Him throughout the Russian land.
“And among the hierarchs who are
outwardly submissive to the Soviet authorities, many are inwardly tormented by
this, and when the opportunity arises, they will follow the example of those
who, at the Council of Chalcedon, declared with tears that they had been
compelled to affix their signatures at the Robber Council, and the example of
St. Patriarch Paul, who, tormented by his conscience, received the schema,
conscious of his weakness during the time of the iconoclasts. This is attested
to by many who left their homeland during the Second World War.” (St. John of
Shanghai, A Brief History of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia
– http://www.russian-inok.org/books/arhtih.html#local2).
St. John believed that “All parts
of the Universal Church have one common goal—the preaching of the word of God…
In pursuing this common goal, each Local Church has its own significance… All
of them together constitute the one Universal Church and contribute to her
their own distinctive characteristics and gifts… Our Russian Church Abroad is
the free part of the Russian Church… Spiritually, the Russian Church is
indivisible… Being part of the Russian Church, we cannot have communion with an
ecclesiastical authority that is subordinate to and enslaved by a power hostile
to the Church… The ecclesiastical authority in Russia is in such a position
that we cannot distinguish and understand what it does freely and what it does
under coercion… For this reason, the Russian Church Abroad is not
administratively bound to such an authority. But we are spiritually united with
the Holy Russian Church, for we are part of the Russian Church. We must not
think that everyone in our homeland is spiritually enslaved by the authorities
existing there… In our dispersion throughout the world, we do not submit to the
Local Churches, not because we are hostile toward them, but because we are
preserving the Holy Russian Church.”
(On the Spiritual
and Moral Significance of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Ioann_Maksimovich/slova-i-propovedi/5)
For the Saint, the Orthodox
Church is one, just as her Head, the God-Man Christ, is one, despite the fact
that the Church's earthly organization may be divided, for the sake of
convenient administration, into various parts and jurisdictions, which at times
are not in communion with one another. “Owing to circumstances, we have found
ourselves cut off, but liturgically we are one. The Russian Church, like the
entire Orthodox Church, is united eucharistically, and we are united with her
and within her. Administratively, however, for the sake of our flock and
certain principles, we must follow this course, but this in no way impairs the
mystical unity of the entire Church.”
(http://www.rocorstudies.org/2017/03/02/evharistiyaot-yurisdiktsii-ne-zavisit-dialog-cherez-strany-i-epohi/#comments)
“The Church is unity in Christ,
the closest possible union with Christ of all those who rightly believe in Him (the
wheat—V.K.) and love Him, and the union of all of them through Christ… All
who believe in Christ and have united themselves with Him by surrendering
themselves to Him and receiving the Grace of God collectively constitute the
Church of Christ, Whose Head is Christ Himself, while those who belong to Her
are Her members.”
(The Church—the
Body of Christ, https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Ioann_Maksimovich/iz-propovedeji-pouchenij-arhiepiskopa-ioanna-shanhajskogo/18)
And yet, alongside them grow the
tares, planted by the tempter, Satan. “The same consequences of sin, which has
not yet been completely expelled from the human race,” wrote St. John
(Maximovich), “operate not only in individual people, but through them are also
manifested in the earthly activity of entire parts of the Church. Heresies,
schisms, and disorders constantly arise, separating a portion of the faithful.
Misunderstandings between Local Churches, or parts of them, have troubled the
Church since ancient times, and prayers for their cessation are constantly
heard in the divine services… Only when Christ appears upon the clouds will the
tempter be trampled underfoot and all stumbling blocks and temptations
disappear.”
(The Church—the
Body of Christ, https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Ioann_Maksimovich/iz-propovedej-ipouchenij-arhiepiskopa-ioanna-shanhajskogo/18)
On the basis of the foregoing,
St. John believed that “the official Church in Russia is, of course, endowed
with grace, although individual hierarchs conduct themselves in an unworthy
manner” (from a letter by Archbishop Anthony of Geneva to Fr. Dimitry Dudko, Posev,
1979, No. 12). In other words, the Church is endowed with grace for the
salvation of those who suffer and are persecuted—“all those who rightly
believe” (the wheat)—and unto the condemnation of all unworthy celebrants of
the Mysteries—the tares.
But was Metropolitan Vitaly not
saying precisely the same thing when he counted among his flock those wonderful
priests “who strive with all their might, by the sweat of their brow, to
fulfill the will of God while remaining in the Moscow Patriarchate,” while at
the same time pointing to the “extraordinary economia” for the wheat and
punishment for the tares?
It is the same thing, expressed
in different words. With regard to the anathema against Ecumenism, it must be
noted that it was, in fact, proclaimed for the “wheat,” that is, for the truly
Orthodox and those who truly believe, who fear and love God and are prepared to
confess His truth, for those who, according to the words of the Gospel, are of
the truth, hear the voice of truth, and follow it (John 10:4–5, 26-27).
But those “tares” who, by their
own free choice, are not of the truth (such as the heretical Ecumenists, the
covetous, the perverts, and their lukewarm fellow travelers) follow other,
demonic voices, and for them the anathema means nothing—it is an empty sound,
just as the purity of Orthodoxy, the commandments of God, and the Holy Canons
mean nothing to them. For them (including such priests), the wholesale apostasy
of their episcopate means nothing, nor does some Declaration or other, some
conciliar decision or other that has legitimized Ecumenism, some imposition of
Latin practices or other reformist tricks. They continue to live in their own
self-contained, virtual world, as though nothing had happened or were
happening. They continue, as before, to celebrate divine services, hear
confessions, deliver sermons, speak with great pathos about faith, the
observance of the commandments, and obedience to Christ, and solemnly teach and
teach… while, with a clear conscience, commemorating heretics and bringing ruin
upon both themselves and their flocks… Meanwhile, some think that the
Patriarch, the bishops, and their ilk may amuse themselves with their
Ecumenism, provided only that they do not interfere with our ministering to the
flock that is “sleeping in its cabins.” And thus, through the pursuit of compromise,
ingratiating evil (in the words of St. John [Maximovich]) triumphs unhindered,
while those with malicious intentions calmly continue their dark work:
methodically constructing a new church for the Antichrist out of Orthodox
bricks. Yet they do not sense that they are sliding into the abyss (or do not
wish to sense it), and even if they do sense it, they successfully suppress
such “unprofitable” (“harmful”) thoughts within themselves, although at the
same time they may “sincerely” admire the confessional struggles of the Martyrs
and Confessors of old and of recent times. Moreover, to those especially
deluded, this descent into the abyss of anti-Christianity even appears to be
some kind of religious “revival” in the Russian Federation. It is truly a
“kingdom of crooked mirrors.”
But here it must be qualified
that “long-suffering” and “forbearance,” first and foremost on the part of the
clergy, and subsequently of the laity, were possible to a certain extent (by economia)
before the Havana meeting and the Council of Crete—or, more precisely, before
the conciliar signing of the Council’s documents by the episcopate of the
Moscow Patriarchate. After what has taken place, however, such an attitude
constitutes, forgive me, an outright betrayal of the truth of Christ, a
boundary beyond which begins the zone of estrangement.
Admittedly, those who are most
consistent have found an even simpler way of justifying their indifference and
apostasy: either by refusing to regard Ecumenism as a heresy (claiming that
there are not yet sufficient grounds for condemning it as such or, conversely,
that this teaching is supposedly based on the words of the Savior), or by
claiming that it is not a heresy at all, but merely an innocent mistake, a
contradiction, or an unfortunate formulation; or by arguing that “we must not
divide the Church; we must pray for the Patriarch and commemorate him at the
Liturgy”; or by refusing to regard a particular champion of this teaching as a
heretic, whether a patriarch, metropolitan, bishop, or assembly of bishops; or
by asserting that they (the bishops, as though they were little children) were
forced or persuaded to sign questionable documents, and that, for the sake of
the much-vaunted “unity,” they did not wish to cause a scandal and therefore
“swallowed” the heresy; or by claiming that the Patriarch may indeed be a
heretic, but our ruling hierarch, despite being subordinate to a heretic, is
“good” and not a heretic; and so on and so forth.
But among the zealots there are
also those (apparently sincerely mistaken, or perhaps acting out of fear of the
Jews—John 19:38) who uncompromisingly denounce Ecumenism in the Moscow
Patriarchate and sharply condemn its Latinization, yet at the same time
maintain that the Ecumenist hierarchs have not yet been deprived of their
episcopal rank or anathematized. Therefore, they argue, faithful laypeople
should seek out pastors who, although they commemorate the false Patriarch and
his associates, are not heretics “in their hearts” and do not agree with those
who have apostatized from the purity of Orthodoxy (that is, who, to use
Dostoevsky’s expression, keep a “fig in their pocket”—a concealed gesture of
defiance). And these sincerely mistaken people (who reject the necessity of
confessing the faith), perhaps without intending to do so, deny the anathema
pronounced by the Church Abroad through their actions, refuse to recognize this
most important act of the Russian Church Abroad as valid, and, in fact, despite
their half-hearted “zeal,” fall under that very anathema (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZaGhd54Xck).
There are also those who like to
sit “on two chairs at once,” who, while condemning Ecumenism in words, resort
to casuistry in urging others to follow what they claim to be the “royal path,”
that is, to avoid both heresy and schism (to oppose Ecumenism while at the same
time treating the hierarchy of the Moscow Patriarchate, which participates in
Ecumenism, with indulgence and understanding). They fail to understand that,
when heresy prevails, the royal path consists precisely in protecting oneself from
heresy and its proponents—the heretics (http://www.sobor8.ru/768-sobor-na-krite-put-k-raskolu.html).
Thus, the deceitful conscience of
those who are falling away is capable, through their unwillingness to confess
the truth, of inventing all manner of justifications (sometimes quite clever
and ingenious). And for such deluded people, the anathema against the heresy of
heresies might as well “never have existed”—there is no limit to their
deceitfulness and self-deception.
Some, admittedly, console
themselves with the thought that things are not yet so bad, that they can
afford to wait, and that, when the time comes, they will still have time to
jump from the train hurtling toward disaster. They forget that a demonic technique,
perfected over years—or rather, decades—has already been set in motion: the
gradual manipulation of consciousness, the so-called “Overton Window,” the
“boiling frog effect,” and the “substitution of concepts”; in other words, a
technique for destroying taboos or, as in our case, transforming heresy into
something permissible and equivalent to the truth.
Everyone knows that when catching
birds, the main thing is to catch a tiny claw in the net, and thus the entire
bird can easily be captured. And then it is no longer possible to escape from
the “system”… it is too late (and one must also think about the children, the
wife who has threatened to take her own life otherwise, the apartment, salary,
prestige, old age, a “rainy day,” the loan; “and who am I to engage in such a
struggle?”; “and such things have happened before in the history of the Church,
and afterward everything somehow returned to normal on its own”; “and the Creed
has not yet been changed”; “and an Ecumenical Council has not yet condemned
it”; and there has been no ecclesiastical trial yet; and, in any case, “Russia
is the stronghold of Orthodoxy,” and “the Lord will not allow this ‘Third Rome’
to be defeated”; or “any day now a truly Orthodox Tsar will appear and restore
everything”; and so on and so forth, without end).
And so they remain within the
“system”… at first waiting for things to improve, but then, gradually, they
begin to justify Ecumenism (as the unification of divided Christians), claiming
that “this is what the Lord commanded,” supposedly out of brotherly love. And
thus, in this manner, through the pursuit of compromise, they have grown
accustomed to heresy, their consciences have been lulled to sleep, and
eventually they have come to justify it.
“The pursuit of compromise will
become the prevailing disposition among people. Straightforward confession of
the faith will disappear. People will devise sophisticated justifications for
their fall, and ingratiating evil will sustain this general disposition. People
will acquire the habit of departing from the truth and develop a taste for the
sweetness of compromise and sin” (St. John of Shanghai, illustration 71 – http://protivkart.org/main/5296-pravosl%20%E2%80%A6%20e-dni.html).
A good example of “ingratiating
evil” is the gentle, insinuating explanation given by Metropolitan Pavel
(Ponomarev) of Minsk and Zaslavl, Patriarchal Exarch of All Belarus and a
permanent member of the Holy Synod of the Moscow Patriarchate, who explains to
his flock from the ambo why Roman Catholics may be commemorated at the Proskomedia.
(See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42c1GBGKf4w
and http://napravdestoy.livejournal.com/4950690.html).
And the flock, already led astray
by this blatant reformer and manipulator, echoes the heretic, without a single
person among them raising an objection. This is far from the only example
(though it is a typical one) of the introduction of heresy into the Moscow
Patriarchate.
Moreover, it must be borne in
mind that all this is being done by disciples of the Jesuits: cunningly and
covertly, through a combination of gradualism and a step-by-step approach
(although this gradual process is nevertheless rapid and decisive). For this
reason, none of the ecclesiastical reformers intends to alter the wording of
the Orthodox Creed (much less the Lord’s Prayer) and thereby crudely provoke
opposition from those who disagree. Instead, its content is being subtly
altered. Thus, a different, Ecumenist meaning is simply inserted into one of
its articles, for example, concerning the dogma of the Church: the words “in
one” are understood not as referring to one Church, that is, the one and only
Orthodox Church, but rather to a united Church, that is, one united with the
various separated Christian Churches, with which unity must therefore be
sought. And supposedly, the Universal Church itself consists of these so-called
separated “Churches,” which, in our understanding, are heretical. This, of
course, completely changes the very Orthodox concept of the “Universal Church”
as the totality of the Local Orthodox Churches. Moreover, the head of this
Ecumenist Universal Church is the Pope of Rome.
The same can be said of the words
“I confess one Baptism for the remission of sins,” when Ecumenists understand
Baptism no longer as something that takes place only within the Church of
Christ and can be performed only once, but rather as implying the recognition
of the supposed “baptisms” performed by the so-called “separated Christians”
(heretics), which, they claim, must be recognized because the Creed forbids the
repetition of this Mystery.
These are difficult times, times
of change, and it was concerning these times that Venerable Anatoly (Potapov),
the Elder of Optina, warned: “Therefore, my son, when you see the destruction
of the divine order of the Church, the Patristic Tradition, and the order
established by God, know that heretics have already appeared, although they may
at times conceal their impiety and will distort the faith imperceptibly, so
that they may succeed all the more in deceiving and enticing the inexperienced
into their nets.”
(http://www.sobor8.ru/334--budut-iskazhat-veru-nezametno-prorocheskie-slova-svyatyh-otcov-onastupayucshih-tyazhkih-vremenah-dlya-miryan-i-monahov.html)
Thus, in order to avoid falling
into the nets of experienced heretics and manipulators (and Ecumenism is a
Masonic project behind which stand infernal, hellish forces; Patriarchs,
bishops, and others are merely their instruments), it is necessary, at the very
outset, to avoid becoming entangled in their nets, and to this end, to sever
decisively all ties with the community governed by heretics.
And it is desirable to do this
even at the level of everyday social relations. Let us recall the Testament
of Metropolitan Anastassy of ROCOR, whom Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky)
described as the “Wisest”: “As for the Moscow Patriarchate and its hierarchs,
since they are in a close, active, and friendly alliance with the Soviet
authorities, who openly profess their atheism and strive to instill atheism
throughout the Russian people, the Church Abroad, in preserving her purity,
must have no canonical, prayerful, or even ordinary social communion with them,
while at the same time leaving each of them to the final judgment of a Council
of the future free Russian Church” (http://ortolog.livejournal.com/16425.html).
In other words, the only effective means of preserving the purity of Orthodoxy
(and protecting oneself from becoming infected with spiritual delusion) is to
separate oneself from heretics by ceasing all forms of communion with them.
Otherwise, the fruits of the manipulation of people's consciousness are already
plainly visible: what for centuries was considered heresy is now no longer
regarded as heresy in the Moscow Patriarchate. Thus, Ecumenism (supposedly for
the sake of “bearing witness” to Orthodoxy) is no longer considered the heresy
of heresies, but rather a teaching that does not contradict Orthodoxy and,
moreover, is supposedly commanded by Christ. Previously, ROCOR did not
concelebrate with Constantinople because of the latter's apostasy from the
truth (and this was recorded in official documents), but now, apparently,
everything is permitted, and joint prayers with the Papists are next in line.
As modern priests teach: “The APOSTOLIC Canons… are losing their relevance, and
a new tradition is taking shape.” It is evident that this “new tradition” is
directly connected with preparations for the acceptance of the Antichrist and
the construction of a new church for him (https://vk.com/id138064177?w=wall138064177_40682).
More precisely, however, what is being constructed is a single, universal
church of Satan, and when the false Patriarch Kirill speaks of the one god of
Muslims, Jews, heretics, not to mention Freemasons, we must correctly
understand what is meant by this.
And if we consider from this
perspective the Havana meeting of the two “brothers” in spirit, during which a
high degree of mutual understanding was achieved (according to the false
Patriarch Kirill), and what has continued to take place since then, it becomes
clear that this construction is not only proceeding at full speed but is also
supported by the existing authorities of the Russian Federation.
Let us harbor no illusions: there
is not only the published version of this Havana meeting, but also secret
agreements between the false Patriarch and the most influential representative
of the new world order: the Roman Pontiff—the high priest of a new
anti-Christian religion (and perhaps even the apocalyptic false prophet). And,
as it seems to me, the Russian ecclesiastical leadership, Sergianist in spirit,
has bargained for important privileges for itself from this high priest of the
Antichrist (Satan). Therefore, since it has something to gain from its efforts,
we are witnessing a slow but open and brazen transformation of the Orthodox
Faith into an Ecumenist faith (the gradual habituation of the people to it,
like a frog being slowly boiled over a fire). In other words, the reformers are
initially placing new, poisonous content within the old shell, and subsequently
they will turn their attention to the old shell itself (the form and rite).
* * *
But there are also those who,
quite consciously apostatizing from the truth, attempt to slander (taking
advantage of ignorance of history) and discredit in every possible way the
historical Russian Church Abroad as it existed before the schism, which had
confessed true Orthodoxy for decades. They seek to declare it unlawful,
uncanonical, some sort of gathering of schismatics, and consequently to regard
its acts as unlawful and without validity. Such people, who do not know the
history of ROCOR’s origins, do not understand the significance of its struggle
for the purity of Orthodoxy, and believe the decades-long slander directed
against it by the pro-Soviet leaders of the Moscow Patriarchate, would do well
to read at least the Act of Canonical Communion “within the one Local Russian
Orthodox Church,” in which there is not a single word, nor even a hint, about
schism or schismatics.
(http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/155920.html),
or to read the interview with Patriarch Alexy II, who signed this Act (http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/247856.html)
Thus, the legitimacy and
canonical status of ROCOR were confirmed in 2007 by the Moscow Patriarchate
itself through the Act of Canonical Communion and the restoration of full unity
with it. Admittedly, this communion and unity, as was to be expected, did not restore
the Moscow Patriarchate to health, but successfully infected the greater part
of ROCOR that united with it with heresy and apostasy (evidently, the “Wisest”
was right).
Significantly, the Vatican also
welcomed the restoration of the unity of the Russian Church in 2007 (since
“such a successful conclusion of the dialogue may also serve as an incentive
for the intensification of Orthodox-Catholic relations”), fully understanding
that this “unity” would silence the free voice of the Russian Church in its
struggle for the purity of Orthodoxy—a struggle that ROCOR had waged for
decades and that culminated in the 1983 anathema against the heresy of
Ecumenism (http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/247108.html).
And it may be said that, had it not been for this much-vaunted “unity” (brought
about by the departure of the bishops abroad from their historical path, their
secularization, and their adoption of the spirit of falsehood and deceit—see
Part II, Chapter 3), there would probably be no worldwide disgrace today:
neither the signing of the documents of Crete nor the Havana meeting… However,
the independent position of the Russian Church Abroad in relation to the Moscow
Patriarchate was rooted in her steadfast adherence to the truth and her defense
of ecclesiastical righteousness. Having departed from their historical path,
the path of confessorship, the bishops abroad no longer had any need for
independence or separation from heresy, and thus their union with the Moscow
Patriarchate was a foregone conclusion. The “boiling frog effect” had taken
hold—a gradual habituation to the vices of the Moscow Patriarchate. Time
passed, and there was no longer anything separating them…
As Fr. Seraphim (Rose) wrote in
one of his letters, “The independent existence (independent of other
jurisdictions) of our Synod (meaning the Synod of ROCOR—V.K.) is
justified only if we are zealots for the Faith and set an example for those
jurisdictions that have fallen away or are falling away from Orthodoxy” (http://oseraphim.livejournal.com/127946.html).
The apostasy now taking place is
undoubtedly providential. The Lord is testing the hearts of each and every
person for their faithfulness to Him, including the clergy and laity of
ROCOR-MP. And it is to them that the words of the last legitimate First
Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad, Metropolitan Vitaly, are addressed: “And
now, what are we to say to those… clergy and laity of our Russian Church Abroad
who are being deceived by the historical outward appearance of the Moscow
Patriarchate? Yes, throughout the entire history of the Church of Christ, the
Lord has providentially permitted some manifest heresy, unrighteousness, or
falsehood to emerge from within the Church herself and lead the people of God
astray, thereby testing our faithfulness to the Truth itself. In this way, the
Lord has made everything hidden and unclean manifest, so that we might see, in
black and white, what we need to repent of!”
(http://www.portalcredo.ru/site/print.php?act=news&id=126723)
Let us therefore wish that the
unwary and trusting clergy and laity of ROCOR, who have been deceived by the
outward splendor of the Moscow Patriarchate, may repent of their apostasy from
the truth of God while there is still time.
