Final Testimony of St. Cyril of Kazan

 The Final Testimony of New Hieromartyr Cyril of Kazan (+1937)

    

With regard to your perplexities concerning Sergianism, I can say that the very same questions in almost the same form were addressed to me from Kazan ten years ago, and then I replied affirmatively to them, because I considered everything that Metropolitan Sergius had done as a mistake which he himself was conscious of and wished to correct. Moreover, among our ordinary flock there were many people who had not investigated what had happened, and it was impossible to demand from them a decisive and active condemnation of the events.

Since then much water has flowed under the bridge. The expectations that Metropolitan Sergius would correct himself have not been justified, but there has been enough time for the formerly ignorant members of the Church, enough incentive and enough opportunity to investigate what has happened; and very many have both investigated and understood that Metropolitan Sergius is departing from that Orthodox Church which the Holy Patriarch Tikhon entrusted to us to guard, and consequently there can be no part or lot with him for the Orthodox.

The recent events have finally made clear the renovationist nature of Sergianism. We cannot know whether those believers who remain in Sergianism will be saved, because the work of eternal salvation is a work of the mercy and grace of God. But for those who see and feel the unrighteousness of Sergianism (those are your questions) it would be unforgivable craftiness to close one's eyes to this unrighteousness and seek there for the satisfaction of one's spiritual needs when one's conscience doubts in the possibility of receiving such satisfaction. Everything which is not of faith is sin.

Source: Letter of New Hieromartyr Cyril of Kazan to Hieromonk Leonid, dated Feb. 23 / Mar. 8, 1937, published in Pravoslavnaya Rus’ [in Russian], August 15/28, 1997, p. 7. Translated by Reader Vladimir Moss.

New Hieromartyr Cyril was shot and killed, together with New Hieromartyr Joseph of Petrograd and others, near Shymkent, Kazakhstan, by the Bolsheviks on November 7/20, 1937.