A Response to "Church News" (1995)

 A RESPONSE TO CHURCH NEWS

Several readers from the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad have written and asked us to respond to editorial remarks about the restoration of liturgical communion between our Synod of Bishops and the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad in the Russian-language periodical, Church News [No. 5 (40), September-October 1994]. We would like to clarify a number of points, which we shall briefly enumerate below, about which the editor of the publication in question was wrongly informed, apparently by untruthful individuals ill-disposed towards Metropolitan Cyprian and our Bishops. The gratuitous and unfair comments about Metropolitan Cyprian's character we shall leave unanswered, since those who know him or who have read his works have good reason to question the accuracy and propriety of such characterizations.

First, it simply is not true, as the editorial in question claims, that in 1979 our Bishops were secretly Consecrated without the knowledge of Archbishop Auxentios, then head of the united Old Calendarist Church of Greece. Eight Bishops were Consecrated, at the request of Archbishop Auxentios, by Metropolitan Anthony and Metropolitan Callistos. The latter, having been received by Auxentios from the "Matthewite" schism, was particularly concerned about the breach of relations between the Old Calendar Church of Greece and the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad in 1975, on account of the disorder and utter chaos among the Greek Bishops. The eight new Bishops were Consecrated to restore liturgical communion with the ROCA and, at the insistence of Metropolitan Cyprian, the first new Bishop to be Consecrated, to establish a firm ecclesiology with regard to the validity of the Mysteries of the New Calendar Churches. When Archbishop Auxentios' older Bishops refused to accept the new Bishops, all eight, along with Metropolitan Anthony and Metropolitan Callistos, formed as a Synod.

This Synod under Callistos did not "quite quickly fall apart." It was plagued by disputes over the ecclesiological position of Metropolitan Cyprian, who contended that, while ailing in die Faith and worthy of isolation from the True Orthodox, the New Calendarists were not without Grace. These disputes occasioned the retirement of Metropolitan Callistos as President of the Synod and the eventual retreat, but not until 1984, of every Bishop, except Metropolitan Cyprian and Metropolitan Gio-vanni of Sardinia, into the jurisdiction of Metropolitan Gerontios, who broke away from Archbishop Auxentios in 1984. Later, Gerontios and Auxentios joined together, lifting, in fact, every deposition between the two groups, including, of course, those against the Synod formed under Metropolitan Callistos. Therefore, not only did Callistos' Synod not immediately fall apart (indeed, it continued under Metropolitans Cyprian and Giovanni and survives today), but the depositions of its Bishops by Archbishop Auxentios and his Synod, another point of the editorial in question, were, even if valid, rendered null and void by the same.

As the editorial correctly points out, the Old Calendarist Synod founded by Metropolitan Chrysostomos, when the union of Bishops under Gerontios and Auxentios deposed the latter, had no canonical authority over Metropolitan Cyprian when it also deposed him for "ecumenism" and "creating a personality cult." What it does not point out is that in this ludicrous non-deposition, Metropolitan Cyprian was convicted in absentia, without having been notified of the charges against him, and without ever having been given an opportunity to respond to them.

The editorial contains other untrue accusations. It is not true, of course, that Metropolitan Cyprian Consecrated the Old Calendarist Hierarchs of Romania, whose Church for decades constituted the martyric True Orthodox Church in that country. Nor did our Synod of Bishops Consecrate a Bishop in Sweden. The accusation that Metropolitan Cyprian indiscriminately communes New Calendarists and "employs New Calendarist choirs" to perform Divine services is utterly absurd. We are a Synod of Bishops in resistance to the errors of the New Calendarists. And the monastic choir at the Holy Monastery of Sts. Cyprian and Justina, Metropolitan Cyprian's monastery in Fili, is considered one of the finest Byzantine choirs in Greece, as evidenced by the popularity of its many recorded performances. While we do not deny that New Calendarists are Orthodox, despite their fall in the Faith, and have perhaps several times let gifted New Calendarist chanters sing with our choirs, these things do not constitute, we think, significant lapses in our resistance movement—at least for any rational observer.

Claims that Metropolitan Giovanni of Sardinia, a "Capuchin" monk, "without being Baptized... was received by the Moscow Patriarchate as a Priest" are ridiculous. By a miracle of St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco, Metropolitan Giovanni, then a Franciscan (but not a Capuchin) converted to Orthodoxy. Chrismated and then Ordained a Priest by Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom), he and his flock were later abandoned by Moscow because of its concordat with Rome, disallowing missionary work in Italy. Out of despair, Giovanni fell into the hands of Nestorians, who made him a Bishop, but later repented of his lapse and was received, through Baptism, by the Synod of Metropolitan Callistos and Consecrated a Bishop. As the editorial in question rightly notes, Metropolitan Cyprian opposed this action – though not "violently," as purported –, since we believe that the Moscow Patriarchate, though errant, has Grace and that Metropolitan Giovanni – indeed, having been a valid Orthodox Priest – should have been received by other means.

Church News deeply regrets the renewed relationship between our Church and the ROCA, as it has every right to do. We do not question this right or the sincerity, integrity, and good intentions of its editor. We simply wish to point out instances in which the editor has been misled by faulty information provided by malicious individuals. We would also note that an appeal to certain Greek elements, now estranged from the ROCA, as an example of how the Greek Old Calendarists should be approached is faulty. These elements did not originate in the Old Calendarist movement and entered into the ROCA before that Church had in fact opened communion with the Greek Old Calendarists (which was in 1969). Moreover, no one should ignore "the internal conflicts of the Greeks," as Church News advises, when matters of Faith are involved; our Church is ultimately neither Greek nor Russian, but Orthodox and Catholic, as should be our loyalties and responsibilities to one another.

- Orthodox Tradition, Vol. XII (1995), No. 1, pp. 64-66.