What is Sergianism?

Protopresbyter Thomas Marretta

 

Sergianism is the policy of collaboration adopted on July 16, 1927 (Old Style), by Metropolitan Sergiy of Nizhny Novgorod (1867–1944), then Acting Deputy Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne of Moscow and later Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus’, on behalf of the Russian Orthodox Church with respect to the government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1922–1991). It was unveiled in a “Declaration on the Recognition of the Soviet Regime” which appeared in the Soviet newspaper Ізвестія (“News”), in which the Metropolitan announced the joys of the Bolshevik state to be the joys of the Russian Orthodox Church and its sorrows to be the Church’s sorrows. [1] The issuance of this declaration immediately provoked protests, then a break in Communion between those who accepted it and those who rejected it, and, finally, the descent of many who rejected it into the catacombs. However, some of those who remained in Communion with Metropolitan Sergiy also disagreed with the “Declaration” and the ecclesiastical policy that was implemented following its release.

According to the ecclesiological position paper of the Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece, “The True Orthodox Church and the Heresy of Ecumenism,”

The quintessence of Sergianism is the adoption of the delusion that deception could be used as a means to preserve the Truth and, likewise, that collaboration with the enemies and persecutors of the Church was the way to ensure Her survival[…]. [2]

Indeed, Sergianism entailed a craven submission on the part of the Church to the atheistic Soviet regime as it was imprisoning and executing thousands of Orthodox Christians for their Faith. This was something quite different from the Orthodox Church’s usual cooperation with the civil authorities and was characterized by a false but complete oneness of mind (at least publicly) with the atheistic regime, expressed by Sergianists through active measures on the regime’s behalf.

Thus, Sergianists issued repeated proclamations to the effect that there was no persecution of the Church in the Soviet Union, even as the most violent of all persecutions was raging; insisted that Hierarchs and clergy punished by the government had in no way been sentenced because of their religious convictions, but only because they were political criminals; and loudly affirmed that the Soviet state was in fact extremely considerate to the wants and needs of the Church. Sergianists complied with absolutely every demand of the Communists; praised Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (1878–1953)—the worst persecutor of the Orthodox Church in history—as “the new Constantine,” and the “wise, God-established supreme leader,” “whose radiant memory will never be erased from our hearts”; demanded that the Russian clergy abroad take oaths of allegiance to the Soviet state; never protested even the most blatant transgressions of the Church’s freedom or the bloodiest deeds of the Communists; betrayed and reported to the state security organs those who did not accept Metropolitan Sergiy’s “Declaration”; betrayed and reported to the security forces the faithful who brought their children to be Baptized, even in the Churches of the Moscow Patriarchate itself; cooperated with the Soviets in the closure of parishes and monasteries, and their defilement, all the while insisting that this was being done not on the initiative of the Communists, but of the parishioners and monastics themselves; and so forth. So we see that, despite the (flawed) argument of Sergianists that their complicity in lies surrounding Soviet religious policy would ensure the “greater good” of the Church’s survival, in practice Sergianism actually entailed the Church’s collaboration with Her persecutors in the Church’s own dismantlement and destruction. By contrast, the Gospel enjoins only two choices to the Christian facing open persecution: confession or flight. Furthermore, Christians believe that the Church is the Body of the Savior Himself. As such, the Church is self-sustaining and perpetuating, in cooperation, to be sure, with those who are organically united to Her, but not through the agency of hostile or indifferent secular power. Obedience is shown to secular authority fundamentally as an act of submission to the will of the Lord, not as a quid pro quo for self-preservation.

After the Second World War (1939–1945), Communist regimes were installed in other Eastern European countries besides the Soviet Union, and the Orthodox Churches in those nations adopted approaches toward the atheistic governments that resembled in varying degrees that of the Moscow Patriarchate toward the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Near the end of the twentieth century, with the collapse of the Communist governments in Eastern Europe, Sergianism as such passed into history. However, the failure of the Moscow Patriarchate to address openly and objectively the inherent contradiction between Sergianism and the proper Orthodox response to persecution meant that this flawed and sinful policy stands, in the minds of many, as an acceptable, even a positive precedent for future periods of persecution.

The correct Orthodox response to the terrible pressures a totalitarian, militantly atheistic state can exert is exemplified in the approach of the foremost of the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, Saint Tikhon of Moscow (1865–1925). In accordance with the decision of the All-Russian Council of 1917–1918, he repeatedly insisted that the clergy must stand apart from all politics, keep away from those spreading dissension and strife, make no political utterances, and support no party. He explained that since nothing happened without the will of God, the Soviet regime must be accepted, but that the Church must remain neutral toward it. Nevertheless, the Holy Patriarch did not refrain from protesting the Soviet government’s hostile actions, to the degree practicable.

Finally, Sergianism is better understood if we identify what it is not. Sergianism is not the same thing as the ordinary obedience owed by Christians, even Hierarchs, to the government in all except the most extreme situations or in matters that exclusively pertain to the Church. Sergianism is not the same thing as the Church having a cooperative relationship with the government in spheres where both have a common interest in furthering the public good. Sergianism is not the same thing as Christians or the Church extending all reasonable benefit of the doubt to the civil authorities with regard to their basic good intent in the exercise of governance. Sergianism is not the same thing as the Church praying for the civil authorities or refusing to encourage rebelliousness against them. Sergianism is not the same thing as the Church securing for Herself proper legal status, registration, incorporation, title to property, etc. Sergianism is not the same thing as the Church discouraging people from devising or accepting theories connecting current political situations and events to the reign of Antichrist. Sergianism is not the same thing as the Church reminding the faithful to judge their own faults and not to judge them that are without. [3] Sergianism is not the same thing as obeying the government in matters in which the government’s policies may be flawed, but are not indubitably evil. Sergianism was one of the very worst perversions of Christianity ever, and to identify it with any of the above or to equate it with anything other than itself is to trivialize it. It is also to trivialize the supreme sacrifice made by the thousands of Holy New Martyrs who gave their lives for Christ because they refused to accept Sergianism.

 

NOTES

1. Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky), “Declaration On recognition of the Soviet Regime” (www.rocorstudies.org/2017/06/09/3098/).

2. The True Orthodox Churches of Greece and Romania and the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, “The True Orthodox Church and the Heresy of Ecumenism: Dogmatic and Canonical Issues” (2014), pp. 10–11 (www.imoph.org/pdfs/2014/03/22/E20140322aCommonEcclesiology15/E20140322aCommonEcclesiology15.pdf).

3. I Corinthians 5:12.

 

Source: Orthodox Tradition, Vol. 38 (2021), No. 2, Spring, pp. 28-31.