The Vacant Churches of the Moscow Patriarchate

“Copy and Paste”: Why are churches becoming empty, and is this connected with the special military operation?

 August 3, 2026

 

“Ye shall see the abomination of desolation <…> standing in the holy place…”

(Matthew 24:15)

 

The Numbers Don’t Lie

The Orthodox television channel “Soyuz,” which belongs to the Yekaterinburg Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church, broadcasts the Liturgy live every day. Cameras are set up in different churches—most often in Moscow or St. Petersburg, but sometimes in provincial churches, even rural ones. Yet whatever the church may be, almost all broadcasts demonstrate a phenomenon distressing for the Russian Orthodox Church: the churches have emptied. As a rule, only a few people are present at the Liturgies. Even at solemn Patriarchal services in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, if it is not Christmas or Pascha, small groups of lay worshippers occupy only a modest part of the church space in front of the iconostasis.

At first glance, the sparse attendance at services in Russia appears paradoxical. In the atheistic USSR, functioning churches were overcrowded. In modern Russia, whose authorities have proclaimed themselves the “Katechon”—the restraining power that holds back the forces of the Antichrist, and the last guardian of a unique Orthodox spirituality and traditional values—the churches seem to have become largely unwanted.

Patriarch Alexy II is credited with the admission: “The people are leaving the Church.” In his report to a meeting of the Moscow clergy in 2004, he argued that what repels people most is “the greed of priests and church personnel.” The merging of the Church with the authorities and large state-owned capital has led to the ecclesiastical corporation becoming less and less dependent on the money of ordinary parishioners and increasingly integrated into budgets at various levels.

Special boards of trustees have been established at major cathedrals and monasteries, bringing together officials and representatives of business, who “make contributions” in exchange for guarantees of relative immunity—not from the Church, of course.

The outflow of parishioners only intensified during the patriarchate of Kirill. At first, attempts were made to combat this with Photoshop—the Patriarch’s press service would “paste in” the missing parishioners onto photographs posted on the Patriarchate’s website. They were jokingly called “kopipastvoy” [copy and paste]. But this practice was quickly abandoned—it only damaged the already difficult reputation of the current Patriarch.

Official Russian sociology records a steady decline in “institutional” religiosity. According to a February study by the Levada Center*, the proportion of Russians who do not attend church services at all exceeded half for the first time since the 1990s, reaching 55%. In June of last year, this figure was only 44%. According to these data, only 16% of those surveyed can be considered relatively church-going, meaning that they attend church once a month or more often. Among young people under the age of 25, the proportion of those who never enter a church reached 68%, and among students, 71%. At the same time, 73% of Russians identify themselves “with Orthodoxy,” but, as numerous other studies show, such identification does not necessarily imply even belief in God.

For many Russians, “being Orthodox” means identifying oneself with a particular ethnoculture rather than with religion as such.

A more reliable picture of the level of religiosity is provided by measurements of church attendance on the principal feasts—Christmas and Pascha—conducted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Thus, in 2024, at the height of patriotic mobilization around the special military operation, Christmas services were attended by about 1.4 million Russians, that is, approximately 1 (one) percent of the population. Attendance at Paschal services is higher, which is connected with a change in the counting methodology insisted upon by Patriarch Kirill. Now the Paschal statistics include not only those praying at the service, but also those who come to have kulichi and eggs blessed. In 2023, there were approximately 2.8 million such people. According to a VTsIOM survey conducted in April 2024, only 12% of Gen Z respondents born in the twenty-first century and 18% of millennials born in the 1990s acknowledged the importance of Pascha. The Sreda research service, which is close to the Russian Orthodox Church, acknowledges that only 5% of Russians who call themselves Orthodox consider “spiritual, mystical life” in the Church important to them.

Factors Behind the Outflow

The decline of real, as opposed to professed, religiosity in Russia is taking place against the backdrop of the cynical use of the Church for the propaganda of state ideology and the special military operation. Church attendance, far more than millions of the most carefully chosen words, speaks to how such propaganda is actually perceived by the people.

COVID also contributed to the outflow of parishioners: first came the active campaigning by the Patriarch and representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church against attending churches, with references to ancient saints who attained salvation even without churches; then came the spread of the virus among the most conservative clergy and parishioners, who demonstrated the strength of their faith by refusing to observe anti-virus measures. Several bishops, hundreds of priests, and tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of laypeople who had made up the old core of active parishioners fell victim to the pandemic within the Russian Orthodox Church.

Growing public dissatisfaction with the Russian Orthodox Church is being restrained by repressive practices, including the more active application of Article 148 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“offending the feelings of believers”). It has begun to be applied frequently and on increasingly trivial grounds. For example, this Pascha, Ksenia Belousova, an employee of one of Moscow’s bars, was detained after she made a “hookah on a kulich.” Despite publicly repenting, she was sentenced to three years in a penal colony, although she has now been released. Recently, a case was opened under the same article against Omsk artist Nikita Pozdnyakov, who was denounced by the “Sorok Sorokov” movement, which is affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church. One of Pozdnyakov’s paintings depicts a police officer in the image of Christ with a halo. The purely “secular,” militaristic propaganda pouring forth from the church ambo, especially when accompanied by repression against those who disagree with it, creates an impression of ideological diktat from which one wants to protect oneself, to hide.

Coinciding with this factor was a “change of generations”—the pool of post-Soviet converts “from the 1990s” began to dwindle, while no new generation of converts arose to replace them.

The neophyte movement of the 1990s was in many respects situational and opportunistic: the slogan of rejecting state ideology and embracing absolute pluralism was put forward in Russia, but was never fully realized. The Soviet type of ideological conditioning was fairly quickly replaced by a pseudo-traditionalist one, embodied by the Russian Orthodox Church and the other “traditional confessions” that recognize the primacy of the Russian Orthodox Church. More precisely, the old Soviet matrix was quickly filled with new—though in fact long-forgotten old—quasi-religious content.

The dissident writer and philosopher Alexander Zinoviev described the “depth” of the religious conversion of the neophytes of the 1990s as follows:

“Convinced atheists from the Party apparatus and the intelligentsia were transformed overnight into equally convinced believers and made their contribution to church-building with the same enthusiasm with which their predecessors in the 1920s and 1930s had contributed to church-destruction.”

For many of those who came into the Church, such “conviction” went no further than the elementary impulse, cultivated by the experience of Soviet life, to keep in step with the authorities, bending along with the “Party line.”

The head of the Department of Sociology at the Russian State University for the Humanities, Academician Zhan Toshchenko, divides post-Soviet Orthodox converts into five categories: ordinary careerist officials; hypocritical imitators, who actively filled the ranks of the clergy where there were shortages; “Orthodox atheists” of the Luzhkov or Lukashenko type, who paradoxically combine their old and new identities; professional “advocates” of the Russian Orthodox Church, whose incomes are tied to working for the corporation; and radical extremists.

If the first four categories can hardly be described as “deeply religious,” the last became disillusioned with the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church fairly quickly—already in the 2000s, and especially under Kirill—replenishing the ranks of the numerous jurisdictions of “alternative” Orthodoxy or the “non-commemorators,” “Tsar-worshippers,” “anti-vaxxers,” and the like, who constitute a muted opposition within the Russian Orthodox Church.

“Divine” Ideology and “Civil” Religion

Konstantin Kharchev, chairman of the Council for Religious Affairs under the USSR Council of Ministers during the Gorbachev era, claimed that the broad and pompous celebration of the anniversary of Russian Orthodoxy in 1988 had been initiated by the authorities—that part of the Party (and KGB) nomenklatura which realized that, in place of a communism that had lost its value, the people had to be “given” a new ideology.

This ideology matured gradually, absorbing various elements, and today it is called “traditional values” or “spiritual bonds.”

No one knows the complete list of these values or bonds, but at every opportunity it is emphasized that they are opposed to everything “Western”—individualism, liberalism, human rights, and so on.

So opposed, in fact, that, in the words of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, “when it became clear that there was no longer anything in common [between us and the West], this led to military confrontation.”

Thus, in Russia, Christianity—and Orthodoxy in particular—was replaced by a “civil” religion, which gradually became a “political” one. The difference between them is that the former ostensibly rests upon a Higher, religious sanction, while the latter proclaims itself to be the primary source of Truth and itself grants sanction to institutions, including the Church. Putin’s “prophetic” phrases, such as “We will go to paradise as martyrs, while they will simply croak,” are quoted from church ambons without being questioned, while the Patriarch declares that Putin’s rule should continue until the end of time. In Christian eschatology, the teaching concerning the end times, “political” religion is embodied in the figure of the Antichrist—a totalitarian ruler “who exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped” (2 Thess. 2:4)…

The New Atheism and the New Faith

And yet, in proclaiming the complete incompatibility of the “Russian world” with the West, Patriarch Kirill is presenting wishful thinking as reality. The process of parishioners drifting away from traditional churches and the onset of an era of “individual spiritual do-it-yourself constructions” are unfolding simultaneously in both worlds.

Approximately 20 years ago, the term “New Atheism” (NA) entered the scholarly vocabulary of Western religious studies. This phenomenon is described as a secular response to the challenges of religious fundamentalism, primarily Islamic fundamentalism, with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 serving as its point of departure.

The American publicist and popularizer of science Sam Harris published the “programmatic” book The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason in 2004, which became a manifesto of the New Atheism. It was followed by Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion; Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon; Victor Stenger’s God: The Failed Hypothesis; and Christopher Hitchens’s God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. All of them were translated into Russian and published in Moscow between 2008 and 2013, something that is difficult to imagine under present conditions.

The “New Atheism” differs from classical atheism, especially militant atheism, in that it opposes totalitarianism from liberal positions while entering into dialogue with “reasonable forms of religiosity.”

Some researchers call it “intheism”—a doctrine that does not categorically deny the existence of God, but rejects dogmas and opposes all forms of coercion in matters of choosing one’s worldview.

Like the “New Atheism,” a “new religiosity” is also gradually taking shape, which is described as “post-secular.” Its adherents find the confines of traditional religions too restrictive and assemble personal spiritual constructs from elements of different traditions that they find useful or simply interesting.

The fertile ground for such construction within the Western Christian milieu was prepared by Ecumenism—the movement for Christian unity across confessional and theological boundaries. By the end of the twentieth century, this movement had grown to the scale of super-Ecumenism, postulating unity with believers even beyond the bounds of Christianity. The basic—and perhaps only—“dogma” of super-Ecumenism is the recognition that all religions are different paths to one and the same Higher Principle. The Parliament of the World’s Religions is engaged in developing this doctrine. Within the syncretistic “New Age” movement, even this doctrinal minimum is not required; spiritual practices are considered equally accessible to believers and nonbelievers alike.

“New Atheism” and “post-secularism” have helped Western society travel an enormous distance from the head-on collision between religious fundamentalism and secular culture, about which Samuel Huntington warned, toward a pluralism of individual spiritual constructs. No religious tradition, even one that only recently seemed dangerous or hostile, is rejected or dismissed out of hand. It is regarded as a resource for adding to the storehouse of “spiritual knowledge” and for seeking new “practices of self-purification.”

Professor Jürgen Habermas of the University of Frankfurt sees the essence of “post-secularism” in the fact that the question of philosophical truth is bracketed out of the political process.

The state and its institutions recognize the equal standing of the religious and the secular, since absolutizing either of these principles carries the danger of totalitarianism. In other words, if the state or a powerful political leader begins to “philosophize,” they are close to sliding into totalitarianism.

A leader has the right to “preach the truth” only in his free time, outside the performance of his official duties.

…But this is an ideal of religious studies and philosophy. In the specific historical conditions of the Russian Federation, New Atheism functions as one of the few permitted forms of legal protest, albeit one confined to the private sphere. Most often, it is a social position, an indicator of group identity, rather than the fruit of a serious choice of worldview or a rejection of a religious tradition that “protest” atheists, as a rule, have never properly studied. For many, the Russian Orthodox Church itself has blocked the path to such study. Under conditions in which the free competition of ideas and teachings, including religious ones, is effectively prohibited, it is hardly possible to speak of a responsible choice of worldview. Everything becomes far too black-and-white.

 

* Designated a “foreign agent” by the authorities of the Russian Federation.

 

Russian source: https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/08/03/kopipastva

Two schisms: Why did Bulgaria succeed in what Ukraine cannot?

Kirill Aleksandrov | January 15, 2020

[The recent Bulgarian schism was ostensibly a contributing factor in the denial of legal recognition to the Bulgarian GOC. – Blog Admin. note]

 

 

How the Pan-Orthodox Council helped to overcome the schism in Bulgaria that arose simultaneously with Filaret-initiated split.

In 1992, almost simultaneously with our so-called “Filaret’s split”, there was a split in Bulgaria. In 1998, it was healed [sic: not completely – Blog Admin.]. Why did it work in Bulgaria but not with us? What role did the Constantinople Patriarchate play in the former and the latter case? And is it possible to draw on the Bulgarian experience to solve the Ukrainian church issue?

In short, the history of the Bulgarian schism looks as follows.

In the late 1980s, when the so-called socialist camp had already disintegrated and the Soviet Union was on the verge of this, the wind of change was also blowing in Bulgaria. This wind brought along the conviction that everything Western and capitalist is good, and everything Soviet and Communist is bad. Moreover, one must break immediately and decisively with this hated past.

We will not evaluate how justified this approach is in the realm of politics or economics, but let us say that in church-related matters it is basically inappropriate. Yet, unfortunately, such a rebellious spirit penetrates the Church. And in the Church there are people, usually young and ambitious, who urge to destroy everything “to the foundation, and then ...”, as the International song goes.

Back in 1989, Hieromonk Christopher (Sybev)* came to the fore in Bulgaria, who stated that the Church needed a “new democratic Synod” instead of the old one, which allegedly tarnished itself having relations with the communist regime. Contrary to the opinion of his hierarchy, he founded a committee for the protection of religious rights, which was supposed to contribute to the "democratization" of church governance.

And in 1990, priest and professor of canon law Radko Poptodorov published an article in which he directly accused the Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church (BOC) in collaboration with the communist government and criticized the election of Bulgarian Patriarch Maxim in 1971.

The wind of change brought along the conviction that everything Western and capitalist is good, and everything Soviet and Communist is bad. Moreover, one must break immediately and decisively with this hated past.

In 1991, the Union of Democratic Forces party won the next election in Bulgaria, the ideology of which was a radical break with the “hated” past and a reversal to the West. Hieromonk Christopher (Sybev) not only became a member of parliament from this political force but also headed the Parliamentary Commission for Religious Affairs.

In 1992, this commission raised the question of the illegality of the election of Patriarch Maxim in 1971. It was supported by the Directorate of Religion to the Council of Ministers of Bulgaria, which by its decision declared the election of Patriarch Maxim in 1971 illegal, while the patriarch himself as deposed.

The Bulgarian authorities of that time demonstrated a very peculiar understanding of the democratic principle of separation of the Church from the state. In this they even were able to one-up the Ukrainian authorities, which did not recognize the Kharkov Council in 1992 as legal and the removal of Filaret Denisenko from the administration of the UOC.

Here is the first difference between the Bulgarian schism and the Filaret-led schism. Whereas in the former case, the authorities ganged up against Patriarch Maxim for allegedly collaborating with the KGB, then in Ukraine the authorities warmly supported Denisenko, who was simply the embodiment of such cooperation in its closest form.

Almost simultaneously with the decision of the Directorate of Religions, the illegality of the election of Patriarch Maxim was also announced by a group of six bishops. By the way, literally a few days later this group increased to seven, since it "ordained" Hieromonk Christopher (Sybev) "bishops".

In this respect we can point out the following difference: in Bulgaria, although scanty but still a group of hierarchs, who were canonical clergymen at the time of the split, fell into schism. In Ukraine, only one vicar bishop, Bishop Jacob (Panchuk) of Pochaev who had been earlier expelled by the brethren from the Pochaev Monastery, followed Filaret.

The rebellious Bulgarian hierarchs demanded to remove Patriarch Maxim and call new elections. However, most hierarchs and clergy remained loyal to the Patriarch and the Synod. Then the rebels organized an “alternative Synod”, at the head of which they appointed Metropolitan Pimen (Enev), senior by ordination and, relying on the support of the authorities, began the raider seizure of the canonical Church.

They "ordained" the "alternative hierarchs", took over the Synodal Chamber in Sofia, which housed the Supreme Administration of the BOC, as well as Sofia Theological Seminary and Academy, which became known subsequently as the Theological Department at Sofia University of St. Clement of Ohrid. By the way, Professor Radko Poptodorov, the author of the first article with attacks on Patriarch Maxim, was appointed the new rector of the Academy.

The Bulgarian authorities recognized the “alternative Synod” as the only legitimate governing body of the BOC and transferred all church property to its disposal.

In Bulgaria, although scanty but a group of hierarchs, who were canonical hierarchs at the time of the split, fell into schism. In Ukraine, only one vicar bishop followed Filaret.

In 1996, Metropolitan Pimen of Nevrokop was elevated to the rank of “patriarch”. Filaret Denisenko took direct part in his enthronement, who by that time had already become the Kiev “patriarch,” replacing Vladimir Romaniuk, who died under obscure circumstances.

At that time, both Filaret and his foreign schismatic colleagues actively promoted the theory of the self-sufficient “alternative family” of the Orthodox Churches and therefore entered into communion with all religious crooks in different countries who agreed to this state of affairs.

In the same 1996 year, a Bishops’ Council of Bulgaria was held, which resolved to remain faithful to Patriarch Maxim. It excommunicated Pimen from the Church and deprived all hierarchs, who were “ordained” in schism, of their dignity.

Since 1992, when the Bulgarian schism arose, along with the "ordination" of the "alternative hierarchs and the seizure of church property, the reverse process took place. Some bishops and clergy brought repentance and returned to the fold of the canonical BOC.

A common feature of the Bulgarian and Ukrainian schisms is that all the Local Churches dissociated themselves point-blank from any support for the schismatics only until 2018, when the Patriarchate of Constantinople entered into communion with Ukrainian break-away groups.

It is believed that the Bulgarian schism was healed in 1998. That year, from September 30 to October 1, the Pan-Orthodox Council was held in Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, in which representatives of almost all the Local Orthodox Churches, except the Georgian and American, which, however, some Local Churches do not recognize as autocephalous. Seven Local Churches were represented by their Primates. Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople and Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow were also present at that Council.

There are two more significant differences in the Bulgarian and Ukrainian schisms.

Firstly, the Patriarchate of Constantinople was consistently on the side of the canonical BOC led by Patriarch Maxim and did not change its position, as in the case of the Ukrainian split.

Secondly, Patriarch Bartholomew did not at all reject the possibility of a conciliar solution to the Bulgarian issue by all Local Churches. He did not try to solve this problem single-handedly, as in Ukraine, although the Bulgarian Church was much longer part of the Patriarchate of Constantinople than the Kiev Metropolitanate, therefore Patriarch Bartholomew had more grounds to say he could resolve the Bulgarian church conflict single-handedly.

The Pan-Orthodox Council supported Patriarch Maxim of Bulgaria and his Holy Synod, condemned the actions of the schismatics and called them to repentance. Indeed, most of the “hierarchs” and “clergy” who’d backslid in the schism brought repentance right at the Council and were reunited with the Church.

But there were those who remained in the split. They chose a new leader, "metropolitan" Innokenty (Petrov) of Sofia, and continued their schismatic activity. The Bulgarian schism finally ceased to exist in 2012, when Innokenty (Petrov) sent a repentant letter to the BOC Synod and was reunited with the Church.

Thus, the Bulgarian and Ukrainian schisms have both common features and significant differences.

Common features:

• Both splits emerged for political reasons.
• Both splits were supported by the state.
• In both cases, schismatics quickly began to “ordain” “alternative hierarchs”.
• In both cases, most hierarchs, clergy, and believers remained faithful to the canonical Church.

Differences:

• In Bulgaria, a split was directed against the Patriarch, who was accused of relations with the communist regime. In Ukraine, the split was led by the person who embodied cooperation with the communist regime.
• In Bulgaria, the split was initially supported by a significantly larger number of canonical bishops than in Ukraine.
• In Bulgaria, the problem of schism was resolved collectively by all the Local Churches, while in Ukraine the Patriarchate of Constantinople tried unsuccessfully to resolve it alone.
• In Bulgaria, all Local Churches were on the side of the canonical BOC and did not change their position. In Ukraine, after many years of consistent support of the canonical UOC, the Patriarchate of Constantinople sided with the schismatics, followed by the Alexandrian and the Greek Churches.

Despite the very significant common features, it must be recognized: the cardinal difference between the Ukrainian and Bulgarian schisms is that in Ukraine, the monolithic unity in the position of the Local Orthodox Churches, which was the case in Bulgaria, was violated. Therefore, it is quite difficult to learn any lessons from the experience of healing the Bulgarian schism and apply them to Ukraine. But there are some ideas to draw on from the Bulgarian experience.

Firstly, it can be stated that the decisions adopted in 1998 at the Pan-Orthodox Council in Sofia constitute part of the corpus of canonical law of the Church. And these decisions indicate that the schism can be healed only by repentance and nothing else. In addition, there is also a signature of Patriarch Bartholomew under these decisions.

Secondly, a Pan-Orthodox Council can be initiated to heal the schism exactly where it exists, i.e. in Kiev.

Of course, in the context of the opposition of the Patriarchate of Constantinople to any attempts of seeking a collective solution to the “Ukrainian issue”, it would be hard to organize such a Council.

Still, if a Pan-Orthodox Synaxis of the Primates of the Local Churches in Jordan does take place at the invitation of Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem, it can become a testing-site for the similar full-fledged Pan-Orthodox Council in Kiev.

Indeed, at a meeting in Jordan, it is proposed to only discuss the problem of pan-Orthodox unity, which was violated by Patriarch Bartholomew. But it would be appropriate to resolve the "Ukrainian issue" precisely in Kiev – at least such an idea could be voiced in Jordan.

Finally and most importantly – what can be learned from the Bulgarian case? The split there would not have been healed even by the Pan-Orthodox Council if the episcopate, clergy and believers had not rallied around their canonical Patriarch Maxim. In Ukraine, this unity of all members of the Church around His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry exists and is even more potent than in Bulgaria. Therefore, there is hope that the Ukrainian schism will someday become a turned over page in history.

 

* Blog Admin. mote: Interestingly enough, Christopher (Sybev) – now the soi-disant “Metropolitan of Serdica” – entered into fraternal communion in 2014 with the independent GOC hierarch Metropolitan Christophoros (Angelopoulos) of Mesogaia and the Islands, a former member of the “Lamian Synod.”

After his recognition by the Greek Bishop Christophoros, Sybev himself established an independent Bulgarian community under the name “Orthodox Christian Church” (Православна християнска църква) in 2016.

Like the Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria, he attempted to register his organization with the State, which was rejected in 2025 on the basis of the name being deemed insufficiently distinguishable from the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.

 

Source:

https://spzh.eu/en/zashhita-very/67816-dva-raskola-pochemu-u-bolgarii-poluchilosy-to-chto-ne-poluchajetsya-u-ukrainy

 

On the Martyrdom of St. Joseph of Desfina (+1944)

Among the hieromartyrs of this period was Hieromonk Joseph Antoniou, whose biography as a True Orthodox priest is very illustrative of the sufferings of that period. Fr. Joseph joined the True Orthodox Church from the State Church in 1933, and was assigned to the parish in Karystos on the island of Euboea. He immediately came into conflict with the fierce Metropolitan Panteleimon of Carystia and Skyros, who had already shown his antipathy to the True Orthodox by throwing the 80-year-old Fr. George Antoniou into prison in Chalkis, where he died. Fr. Joseph’s vigorous missionary activity, combined with his charity and healing gifts, only increased the wrath of the new calendarist hierarch, who succeeded in getting Fr. Joseph’s church sealed. Once Fr. Joseph, like a new John the Baptist, publicly denounced the metropolitan for celebrating an uncanonical marriage and having no pity on the couple who would suffer as a result (two years later, they were burned to death in a car accident).  Finally, Fr. Joseph had to flee in order to escape arrest, and was assigned to another parish in Dombrana, near Thebes.

On August 4, 1936 the democratic regime was replaced by a royal dictatorship with John Metaxas as Prime Minister. Metaxas was very liberal in relation to the True Orthodox, but in 1938 the Minister of Public Order, egged on by Archbishop Chrysostom Papadopoulos, gave an order for the arrest of True Orthodox priests and the sealing of their churches. Although this order was soon repealed, Metropolitan Panteleimon used it to urge the authorities in Thebes to arrest Fr. Joseph and seal his churches. Fr. Joseph was cast into prison in Chalkis, deposed and forcibly shaved. On his release he was sent by Metropolitan Germanus to Xylokastro, near Corinth. Once installed in Xylokastro, he brought his parents there and continued his apostolic activity.

During the German occupation, communist guerillas entered the area and occupied several of the villages. Fr. Joseph fearlessly denounced their false teaching and terrible cruelties against the people. Two or three times they warned Fr. Joseph to stop speaking against them. But he replied: “You are waging the anti-Christian communist struggle, but I am waging the opposite struggle, the Christian struggle.” Soon the decision was taken by the communists to execute the troublesome priest.

Shortly after Pascha, 1944, an unknown old man entered the church where Fr. Joseph was serving, and told him that throughout the service he had seen blood flowing from under this cassock. From that time, Fr. Joseph prepared himself for martyrdom. Attacks on priests were increasing at this time. Only three months before Fr. Joseph was killed, he invited Bishop Germanos of the Cyclades to baptize the son of his spiritual son John Motsis. The local communist chief ordered the bishop to leave immediately.

On July 20 Fr. Joseph celebrated the Liturgy in the village of Laliotis. Then the communists entered the house where he was staying, arrested him and threw him into prison, where he was tortured. On July 22, he was taken out of prison with another young man by three guerillas. On seeing the youth of the executioners, Fr. Joseph sadly shook his head and urged them not to commit the crime. The communists forced their victims to dig their own graves, killed the young man, and then turned to Fr. Joseph. He was allowed to sing his own funeral service.

Then one thrust a knife into his back, but the blade broke. While another knife was being fetched, the executioners smoked and watched Fr. Joseph’s death agony. He said: “I will be the last victim of this knife, but the one who kills me will be the first to die from this knife.” After killing the martyr, as the executioners were returning, they quarreled and the one who had killed Fr. Joseph was killed by his comrades, while the first one was later executed by the Germans… In September, 1945, Fr. Joseph’s father and brother, with the help of his donkey, found and exhumed his body. It was fragrant. A heavenly light was often seen over the tomb of the hieromartyr during the evenings.

- Account from Metropolitan Kalliopios of Pentapolis, Saint Joseph de Desphina (St. Joseph of Desphina), Lavardac: Orthodox Monastery of St. Michael, 1988. Cited in New Zion in Babylon, Part IV, by Vladimir Moss, pp. 62-63. [Corrected]

Clerical Opposition to St. John Chrysostom in Constantinople and in Neighbouring Provinces

By J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz

Source: Barbarians and Bishops: Army, Church, and State in the Age of Arcadius and Chrysostom, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), pp. 208-216.

 

Theophilus would not have succeeded in mobilizing so formidable an attack on Chrysostom if there had not been a great deal of latent hostility. After so many generations have felt sympathy and admiration for the personality of John Chrysostom, it is difficult to believe that he was disliked by many of his contemporaries, and not only the wicked, jealous, or ambitious. But there is plenty of evidence of hostility among the clergy of Constantinople and neighbouring provinces. These were the people whom the four dissident bishops could most easily organize into a pressure group against their bishop. The charges brought against Chrysostom at the Synod of the Oak show that his ecclesiastical administration had been extremely contentious. He had-so it was claimed-unjustly dismissed a deacon for striking a servant. [1] He had been abusive of some of his clergy, describing them as dishonourable, corrupt, capable of anything, and not worth three obols. [2] He had written a slanderous pamphlet bringing his clergy into disrepute. [3] He had allowed clerics to be tried in public courts and to die in prison. [4] A number of charges concern his financial administration. [5] To most of us the charges seem trivial, as they did to contemporaries at Rome. [6] But this does not mean that they seemed trivial to the clergy of Constantinople: in fact one can be sure that Theophilus and the other bishops masterminding the trial would not have accepted (or perhaps helped to compile) [7] this particular charge-sheet, unless they had thought that it would win them support and do damage to Chrysostom. It is clear even from the sympathetic accounts of the ecclesiastical historians and Palladius that Chrysostom's government of the Church of Constantinople left many people discontented. He was a strict disciplinarian. He expelled a considerable number of clerics from the Church. He appointed the stern and unpopular deacon Serapion as his second in command. [8] He tried to prevent the clergy from living under the same roof with their housekeepers, usually dedicated virgins of good family. [9] This arrangement was evidently widespread. It seems to have been related to the ideals of Eustathius of Sebaste one of the leaders of the ascetic movement in Asia Minor. [10] In this branch of the monastic movement women sought to overcome the distinctiveness of their sex by themselves becoming as much as possible like sexless men, cutting their hair, wearing masculine clothing, and sometimes living in mixed monasteries of men and women. [11] The chaste cohabitation of male and female couples was another way in which ascetics could achieve a state in which 'there is neither male nor female'. [12] Eustathius of Sebaste was a close ally of Macedonius, [13] Arian bishop of Constantinople, and patron of an Eustathian form of monasticism in the city. [14] The συνείσακτοι, were therefore well established at Constantinople, and Chrysostom's attempt to suppress them caused widespread indignation. [15] So, right at the start of his episcopate, he was involved in a controversy which was related to the much more serious conflict he was to have with the monks of Constantinople. [16]

Chrysostom had overhauled the finances of the Church of Constantinople in a way that was resented. He personally intervened regularly in the way the funds of the Church were spent. [17] He checked the extent to which the clergy kept the offerings of the faithful. There is no evidence to assess how far he was trying to subordinate the minor churches to the Great Church of Constantinople – if such was his aim at all. [18] He certainly cut expenditure in the bishop's household and transferred the money saved to the upkeep of a hospital. Presumably this caused redundancies among the household staff, as the men dismissed from the household were not necessarily the same as the doctors, cooks, and celibate workers whom he appointed to the hospital. [19] He abolished episcopal banquets, which had provided perquisites for the church's stewards (οἴκουροι). [20] Chrysostom gave very high priority to helping the poor. He refused to use marble which his predecessors had bought for the decoration of the Holy Apostles, and sold it.  [21] He also sold many valuable items from the treasury of the church. [22] The men who had looked after finance under his predecessor considered this irresponsible and improvident – or worse. At any rate, both items figured among the charges at the Synod of the Oak, and Arsacius, brother of the late bishop Nectarius, gave evidence against John on the charge of selling valuables. [23] Chrysostom was accused of having sold an inheritance left to the Church by a lady called Thecla [24] and also failing to produce accounts for his expenditure of ecclesiastical revenues. [25] It is obvious that there was great dissatisfaction with the financial side of Chrysostom's administration.

Hostility to John Chrysostom was by no means restricted to members of his clergy. There is evidence that the monks of Constantinople were to a large extent against him. We have no satisfactory account of the origin of this antagonism, because the fact of it was as embarrassing to Palladius as an apologist for Chrysostom, as it was to the biographers of the monks Isaac and Hypatius, who wrote after John had been rehabilitated. [26] Nevertheless, there can be no question about the hostile attitude of the Constantinopolitan monks. [27]

Palladius described Isaac as the leader of false monks, who spent all his time abusing bishops, and as one of the principal conspirators against John. [28] In fact Isaac was very unlikely to represent only himself when he took so prominent a part in the attack on Chrysostom. [29] At the trial Isaac produced his own list of seventeen charges, [30] and he was one of the men who brought the final summons for John to appear before the Synod. [31] One of the charges was that Chrysostom had caused a lot of unpleasantness to Isaac personally. [32] Sozomen explains the cause of this hostility:

John had several disputes with many of the monks, particularly with Isaac. He highly commended those who remained in quietude in the monasteries and practiced philosophy there, but the monks who went out of doors and made their appearance in the city he reproached and regarded as insulting philosophy. For these causes he incurred the hatred of the clergy and of many of the monks, who called him a hard, passionate, morose, and arrogant man. They therefore attempted to bring his life into disrepute, by stating confidently that he would 'eat with no one, and that he refused every invitation to a meal'. [33]

It is significant that while our sources mention Isaac as leader of the false monks they do not mention any corresponding leader of the good monks. The ascetics belonging to John's party, that is, Olympias and her home of dedicated virgins, [34] the Gothic monks living on the property that had belonged to Promotus, [35] and the Tall Brothers and their sympathizers [36] were, none of them, typical Constantinopolitans. There were no mass demonstrations by monks in favour of Chrysostom to compare with the violent rioting of monks to prevent his return from his first exile. [37] It is also significant that one of Chrysostom's principal enemies among the bishops was Acacius of Beroea, a Syrian like Isaac, and an ex-monk highly respected by the monks of his native province. When Chrysostom was on his way into exile, he was actually attacked by monks as he was staying at Caesarea in Cappadocia. [38] There is every reason to believe that the monks were against Chrysostom.

Unfortunately we have no account written from the monks' point of view. Most of the monks were probably illiterate, and if literate, were not concerned with writing. The oldest hagiographic source, Callinicus' Life of Hypatius, written about 447-50, [39] i.e., after the rehabilitation of Chrysostom, is carefully neutral between Isaac and Chrysostom. Each is given a paragraph of praise. Not a word is said of the conflict between them, or of any part that Hypatius himself might have played in those troubles. [40] Incidentally the early part of the Life amply illustrates the informality of monasticism at Constantinople around 400, and this helps to explain the antagonism between those uncontrolled monks and their administratively active bishop. In his Constantinopolitan writings Chrysostom occasionally mentions monks with approval. But the references are not to urban monks. The monks are described as 'those of the hills', [41] the 'brothers of the hills', [42] 'those who dwell in the mountains', [43] 'those who have embraced life in the desert'. [44] The passages look like nostalgic memories of the hermits of the hills on the desert edge around Antioch. [45] He says nothing either in praise or blame that might be applicable to monks roaming the streets of the capital.

So the history of the conflict between Chrysostom and the monks of Constantinople has to rely heavily on the passages of Sozomen already cited and some inferences based on scraps of very interesting but totally inadequate evidence on the nature of monasticism at Constantinople. Dagron has pointed out that monasticism at Constantinople was started by Eleusius and Marathonius, assistants of the semi-Arian bishop Macedonius, and was strongly influenced by the ideas of Eustathius of Sebaste. It had features which some contemporaries, and certainly the leaders of the more disciplined and controlled monasticism of later years, found discreditable. The theology might be semi-Arian. [46] Some monasteries contained both men and women. There was little discipline. Monks moved in and out of monasteries, changed monasteries, retired from monastic life almost as it pleased themselves, certainly without reference to any ecclesiastical authority. They wandered among the urban population. They had a strong social conscience. [47] While the founders and financial supporters of monasteries belonged to the official class the bulk of the monks were ordinary people, who like much of the population of the city were recent arrivals from the provinces. [48]

One can see that the monks might be considered a threat to public order - indeed they were. They also offered a challenge to any bishop who took a monarchical view of the government of his Church. After all, they were largely outside his jurisdiction. Sozomen suggests that this was precisely the point where they clashed with Chrysostom. The behaviour of the monks at Constantinople did not correspond to what Chrysostom thought proper. He tried to confine monks to monasteries and to subject them to the control of their bishop. This provoked resentment. Dagron goes as far as to interpret Chrysostom's charitable foundations as an attempt to transfer welfare work from monks to the episcopal Church. [49] There is no evidence for this motive. That the monks of Constantinople maintained hospitals or other social institutions is an inference from what is known of the monks of Eustathius of Sebaste. But Chrysostom's own passionate interest in helping the poor went back to his Antioch days and was certainly not simply a reaction to the charitable works of the monks of Constantinople. [50]

It is difficult to estimate the importance of Chrysostom's conflict with the monks since we know so little about their numbers and influence. According to Callinicus there existed crowds of monasteries in and around Constantinople, each with around 50 monks, at the turn of the century. [51] If this was so, a conflict between monks and bishops would cause endless disturbances of a kind which would seriously worry the administration. We know that the opposition of the monks of Constantinople was to contribute significantly to the fall of Nestorius thirty years later. [52] We simply lack the evidence to assert that the monks' contribution to the fall of Chrysostom was comparable. But it is likely.

The disaffected monks certainly were natural allies of Theophilus, and therefore made his task of building up opposition to Chrysostom much easier. Just as Chrysostom was the natural protector of the Tall Brothers, the intellectual monks of Egypt, so Theophilus was the natural ally of the ordinary monks of Constantinople. After all, he seems to have quite deliberately chosen to side with the unsophisticated. [53]

It is certainly not a coincidence that two of the most prominent laymen among the opponents of John Chrysostom, the general Saturninus, [54] and Aurelian, [55] twice praetorian prefect, had close links with the monk Isaac. Saturninus had given him the land for his first cell, and indeed built the cell itself. [56] Aurelian arranged for Isaac to be buried in the martyrium of Stephen which he had built. [57] Perhaps the body of Isaac was a substitute for relics of the body of Stephen himself which Aurelian had failed to obtain. [58] The ability of monks to combine with ordinary people to make an extremely powerful pressure group had already been demonstrated in the events leading to the abdication from the see of Constantinople of Gregory of Nazianzus. [59] In antagonizing the monks Chrysostom had made formidable enemies.

Chrysostom's clerical enemies were unfortunately not restricted to Constantinople and its immediate environs. In the first quarter of 402 [60] John travelled to Ephesus in answer to an invitation by the local clergy, and proceeded to exercise patriarchal authority in the ecclesiastical province of Asia in a way which was unprecedented, and extremely controversial. [61] Since the Council of Constantinople of 381 the bishop of Constantinople had enjoyed a 'seniority of honour' second only to that of the bishop of Rome, [62] but he had no unambiguously recognized regular jurisdiction even over the bishops of the cities of the diocese in which Constantinople was situated,

Thrace, [63] let alone the bishops of the diocese of Asia. The outcome was certainly dramatic. Invited to consecrate a new bishop of Ephesus, Chrysostom travelled to Ephesus and convoked a council of seventy bishops. [64] He also expelled Novatian and Quartodeciman sectarians from a number of churches. [65] Finally, on his way home, he replaced the bishop of Nicomedia in the diocese of Pontus. [66] Chrysostom was asserting the disciplinary authority of the bishop of Constantinople over the bishops of neighbouring dioceses. [67] It is clear that he did this with the full consent and backing of the emperor. For he was able to offer deposed bishops the consolation that they would probably receive immunity from curial service, [68] a privilege which would require the imperial signature. Moreover, only the emperor could provide any armed force needed to enforce the decisions of Chrysostom's synod. The depositions and consecrations decided at Ephesus angered and worried very many people. Citizens naturally resented the imposition of a bishop. The Nicomedians wanted Gerontius back, [69] and there were riots against Heraclides, the newly appointed bishop of Ephesus. [70] Bishops must have been deeply worried by such empire-building on the part of the bishop of Constantinople. Where would it end? Events showed that many bishops did become hostile to Chrysostom. For the time being the emperor was with Chrysostom, but perhaps not wholeheartedly: after all, a year earlier he had prevented Chrysostom from going to Ephesus to depose its bishop. [71] But if Chrysostom were ever to lose imperial support his unpopularity with many bishops would be extremely serious. After all, the future of an accused bishop would be decided by his fellow bishops sitting in synod. [72]

Chrysostom's way of life did not help to reconcile those he had alienated. He preferred solitude to sociability. He evidently made a habit of dining alone. [73] His motives were admirable: to spend the Church's money on any other object than the poor was sacrilege. [74] He was of course very busy. In addition to carrying out his duties as an administrator and preacher with extreme conscientiousness he was also a prolific writer. No doubt he thought he had better uses for his time than communal dining. Furthermore, as a result of prolonged asceticism in his youth he had acquired a weak stomach which could not stand elaborate food. The fact remains that his dining habits made it much more difficult for people, whether clergy or laymen, to meet him. This was bound to cause resentment. People expected to be able to meet their bishop in order to call on his assistance and patronage. [75] Patronage was required of a bishop. Moreover conversation over a meal has always been a good way of discussing contentious situations, and calming passions aroused by them. Chrysostom's zeal produced lots of such situations, but his way of life made it more difficult to discuss them with the people involved. His aversion to sociability was listed among the accusations of the Synod of the Oak, and Palladius felt obliged to include a very long defence of it in his Dialogue. [76] The solitary habits of Chrysostom made it easier for the visiting bishops and Theophilus to isolate him and to organize a strong pressure group for his deposition, and indeed to turn a large part of the clergy of Constantinople against him. [77]

Now the existence of a large body of ecclesiastical opinion, including a significant number of bishops, was something the imperial government woold take into account. In accordance with a tradition going back to Constantine, Christian emperors felt responsibility for the discipline and unity of the Church, but preferred to base their policy on the advice of ecclesiastics, and especially of councils of bishops. [78] If it happened that the Church spoke with two voices, it was left to the emperor to decide which to support and enforce. This was the situation in the case of Chrysostom. The Church was divided. The bishop of Constantinople had fervent supporters as well as determined opponents. The emperor had to make up his mind between them. In a situation like this he would consult with his officials, especially those who would be concerned with enforcement of any decision reached. [79] Unless the emperor was a man of strong personality, holding strong views on the issue concerned, the opinions of the great secular officials were obviously going to be very influential. Arcadius was not a strong emperor, and on the subject of Chrysostom he seems to have been uncertain what course to follow. So the advice of the officials is likely to have been decisive.

 

NOTES

1. Pall. Dial. 22–4; Socr. vi. 7, 13; Soz. viii. 11–12; J. N. D. Kelly (1975) 243–5, 259–61.

2. Dial. 24–5; Socr. vi. 9; Soz. viii. 13.

3. Dial. 26.

4. K. Holl (1928) 327.

5. Jerome Ep. 98, translating Theophilus’ Easter letter of 402, has no reference to the summons.

6. See above, p. 118.

7. Alan Cameron (1987) 349–50 with ref. to PG lii. 421 (Latin) and A. Wenger, ‘L’homélie de saint Jean Chrysostome à son retour d’Asie’, REB xix (1961) 110–23 (Greek text).

8. Jerome Ep. 98.

9. Ibid. 98. 23.

10. Dial. 26 (p. 43. 10).

11. P. C. Baur (1929–30) ii. 184.

12. Dial. 26 (p. 43. 14).

13. Ibid. (p. 43. 15).

14. Ibid. pp. 43. 21 ff. Photius Bibl. 59. 18 a, 18 b, 19 a: Chrysostom charged with having caused imprisonment of the accusers of the Tall Brothers.

15. Dial. p. 43. 19.

16. Jerome Ep. 90.

17. Soz. viii. 15.

18. RE vi. 193 s.v. Epiphanius 3.

19. Socr. vi. 15; Soz. viii. 16.

20. ‘Martyrdom’ 480 a–b, cited by F. van Ommeslaeghe (1979) 150.

21. Socr. vi. 15; Soz. viii. 16.

22. Dial. 30 (p. 50. 25).

23. Not dated in sources. Autumn 430 according to P. C. Baur (1929–30) ii. 202.

24. Dial. 9 (pp. 9. 16 ff.).

25. Ibid. pp. 9. 25 ff.

26. G. Karo and other pupils of F. Buecheler, eds. Callinicus, Vita S. Hypatii (Leipzig, 1895) xiii–xv proved that Isaac the enemy of Chrysostom was identical with the father of monasticism at Constantinople. AD 383, which according to the Vita Isaacii, AASS May, vii. 258d was the year of Isaac’s death, was the year when his successor Dalmatius entered the monastery. Isaac almost certainly died after 3. 12. 415, for he was buried in Aurelian’s martyrium of St Stephen, which could hardly have been built before the body had been found. On this E. D. Hunt (1982a) 211–18 and Alan Cameron and others (1989). But the Novatians had a church of St Stephen in 404 (Soz. viii. 24).

27. See the important G. Dagron (1970), esp. 263.

28. Dial. 21.

29. On Vita Isaacii, AASS May, vii, see R. Snee (1985).

30. Photius Bibl. 59 (18b. 33 ff.).

31. Dial. 40.

32. Photius Bibl. 59 (19a. 28).

33. Soz. viii. 9, translation by C. D. Hartranft in vol. 2 of the Postnicene Fathers series.

34. A.-M. Malingrey, ed. Jean Chrysostome, Lettres à Olympias et la Vie anonyme d’Olympias (Paris, 1968) 418 ff.

35. John Chrys. Ep. 5, 14, 207.

36. Soz. viii. 11 ff.; Socr. vi. 7; Pall. Dial. 23 ff. Bibliography: G. Dagron (1970) 259 n. 152. Doctrines and intellectual background: A. Guillaumont (1962).

37. T. E. Gregory (1973) 61–83.

38. John Chrys. Ep. 14. 2.

39. G. J. M. Bartelink, Callinicos, Vie d’Hypatios, Sources Chrétiennes 177 (Paris, 1971) 11–12.

40. G. J. M. Bartelink, Callinicos, Vie d’Hypatios, 11.

41. Hom. VII. 4 in Act. Apost. (PG lx. 68).

42. Hom. XIII. 4 in Act. Apost. (PG lx. 110).

43. Hom. X. 4 in Hebr. (PG lxiii. 87).

44. Hom. XXXIV. 3 in Hebr. (PG lxiii. 236).

45. But Isaac and the bishops Antiochus, Severianus, and Acacius were all Syrians.

46. Soz. iv. 27; an example: ibid. ix. 2. The Macedonian origin of Constantinopolitan monasticism is surely the reason why so little was remembered about it. Maybe the real importance of Isaac lay in that he was an Orthodox follower of the Nicaean creed (Soz. vi. 40) and that he persuaded other monks to accept it too. Episcopal discipline was another matter.

47. On ‘Eustathian’ monasticism at Constantinople see G. Dagron (1970), J. Gribomont (1957). For a description of monastic life see Callinicus, Life of Hypatius, editions cited nn. 26 and 39 above.

48. G. Dagron (1970) 255.

49. G. Dagron (1970) 264.

50. P. C. Baur (1929–30) i. 312–16; R. Brändle (1979).

51. V. Hypatii 11. 1.

52. T. E. Gregory (1979) 129–43.

52. Soz. viii. 11.

54. PLRE i s.v. Saturninus 10; his widow continued the enmity.

55. Ibid. s.v. Aurelianus 3.

56. V. Isaacii 4. 11.

57. Ibid. 4. 18.

58. Alan Cameron and others (1989) cite extract from an otherwise unpublished Life of Isaac cited by F. Nau in Revue de l’orient chrétien xi (1906) 199 ff.

59. G. Dagron (1970) 262; Greg. Naz. Ep. 77. 1.

60. For date see Alan Cameron (1987), correcting P. C. Baur (1929–30) ii. 127. Chrysostom was away over 100 days, returning soon after Easter. See Oratio post reditum (PG lii. 421).

61. G. Dagron (1974) 466–9.

62. Mansi iii. 560.

63. G. Dagron (1974) 458–9.

64. Pall. Dial. 47 (p. 82): 16 bishops deposed, according to Theophilus; Soz. viii. 6: 13 bishops; Dial. 47 (p. 83. 6): 6 bishops.

65. Socr. viii. 11.

66. Soz. viii. 6. Pansophius, former tutor of Eudoxia, was appointed.

67. According to Soz. viii. 6 bishops were deposed in Lycia, Phrygia, and Asia, as well as Nicomedia in Pontus.

68. Pall. Dial. 51 (p. 51. 16).

69. Soz. viii. 6.

70. Socr. vi. 11 (alternative version). He was a pupil of Evagrius Ponticus and a former monk of Scetis (Soz. viii. 6), and therefore close to the ‘Tall Brothers’.

71. Pall. Dial. 49 (p. 86. 22).

72. Mansi iii. 560–64; V. Grumel, Les regestes des actes du patriarcat de Constantinople (Istanbul 1932–) i. 4, no. 5.

73. Photius Bibl. 59 (18 b): charge 25; Pall. Dial. 39–45 is a lengthy defence.

74. Dial. 40 (p. 70. 4).

75. A. H. M. Jones LRE 915. On the use and abuse of meals and other forms of social intercourse between governor and governed, see Lib. Or. 51 and 52.

76. See n. 73 above.

77. Dial. 9 (p. 8. 27).

78. J. Gaudemet (1958) 457–60; see also above, p. 162.

79. See A. H. M. Jones LRE 361.

On priorities when resisting heresy…

 

If someone tells you that to be good Christians, you must engage in a struggle against heretics and evil people, that person is leading you astray. We fight against the antichrist by manifesting love towards our neighbors. We stand against the demons through our love for each other. And our “apocalyptic spirit” is born from the awareness that the death of each one of us is possible at any moment, and we must seize every minute in our lives to show love towards others, rather than to condemn them.

- Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Etna (+2019)

* * *

Certainly, you must be informed about modern errors because preaching the truth involves preaching about distancing oneself from error; but do not make the negative, secondary aspect into the most important! Your first aim is not to fight against error but to know the truth. Your central concern should be study, your sanctification, silence, meditation, and the exercise of charity.

- Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (+1991, Latin Archbishop of Tulle, France)