Source: The Orthodox Word, Vol. 17, No. 4 (99) July-August, 1981, pp. 149-154.
Despite the apparent fading away
of the power of Christianity from our civilization and the noticeable absence
of Christian heroes in our midst today, God has not abandoned His persecuted
Church in this century and has raised up remarkable Orthodox hierarchs whose
heroic stature only increases with time into historic proportions. These
heroes, unfortunately, largely escape the attention of most people in the
Church.
One such hierarch, who died just
ten years ago, almost in oblivion, was Archbishop Leonty of Chile, a fearless
propagator of Orthodox Christianity at first in Russia and later outside of it.
His historic place is that of a true confessor of the Christianity of the
heart.
When he died on June 19 / July 2,
1971—precisely the fifth anniversary of the repose of his beloved Archbishop
John Maximovitch, another outstanding hierarch of the 20th
century—Archimandrite Constantine of Jordanville stated:
"There are people whose
death fills with light the spot which they have in people's hearts. These
people in all their contacts lived by their great heart. What does this mean?
It means that for them every person with whom they had contact, even if only
for a moment, was a personality of a spiritual nature… One can say that
although he has left us, he has come close to us, but not in an earthly
way."
Archbishop Leonty was born on
August 7, 1907, in a pious Russian family (Filipovich). His distant relative
was St. Athanasius of Brest, who suffered a martyr's death at the hands of
Roman Catholics in the 17th century.
From early childhood he revealed
strong leanings towards the Church and longed to dedicate his life to it. His
early education took place in a private school, where his immense musical
talent made him a leading boy-soloist in choir. He remembered with great
emotion how Emperor Nicholas II visited his town and he saw the unearthly
glance of the future Tsar-martyr. When the Revolution struck Kiev, he was
already spiritually close to the Kiev Caves Lavra, and he was arrested: but
when it was discovered that he came from a "proletariat" family, he
was released, and because of his great tenor voice the Soviet government
offered him a free education and training for the opera. Thus, a great musical
career was open before him, but he turned it down in order to serve the Holy
Orthodox Church.
And what a sorrowful path he took
upon himself!—a path of perpetual deprivation, suffering, and the witnessing of
endless personal tragedies during the Soviet years down to the coming of the
Germans in 1941. He became a novice at the Lavra at the very time when it was
being ruthlessly liquidated. Its monks were tormented and given over to various
deprivations, and many were killed.
Out of his sufferings he became a
comforter of banished clergymen: he washed the wounds of the hierarchs who had
been released and sought refuge in the Lavra. He saved the life of Bishop
Parthenius by pulling him out of a gutter and away from a pack of ravenous
dogs, and then brining him to an old woman who was able to nurse him back to
life again.
After the final liquidation of
the Kiev Caves Lavra, he went to Moscow, where under terrible conditions he was
able to go through the theological course in the Academy; the academy sessions
at that time were conducted in the private apartments of the professors. Here
again he met many bishops and served as a source of contact between them and
other clergymen.
Possessing a document declaring
him a genuine member of the "proletariat," he took advantage of this
opportunity and traveled to many holy places and monasteries in Russia just
prior to their liquidation, or shortly afterwards. Thus, he visited Sarov,
Diveyevo, many monasteries in the Novgorod area as well as in other regions. He
saw the great Rostov vandalized, its relics desecrated, and the clergy
humiliated. All that he saw he recorded in his diaries, a portion of which has
been preserved in manuscript form.
He witnessed the death pangs of
Holy Russia. He heard the voices of holy hierarchs lamenting, holy fools
prophesying, and mothers weeping; but all this did not throw him into despair,
but on the contrary filled his heart with holy zeal, for he understood that he
lived in a new age of martyrs.
Because of his close association
with very many church figures, he was able to be a living witness to their
confessing stand for Christ, which enabled him later in the free world to
testify to their innocent sufferings, inflicted with beastly atrocity by the
Soviet government. Much of the work of Father Michael Polsky in his three
volumes on the New Martyrs of Russia is based on material sent him by
Archbishop Leonty.
Archbishop Leonty himself did not
escape severe persecution in the years before the outbreak of the Second World
War. He was imprisoned three times and after recalled how, when several bishops
and priests had been incarcerated with him under the close supervision of the
inhuman guards, they had managed to celebrate the Divine Liturgy while
pretending to play cards around a table. The prison conditions in the 1930's
were so bad that most inmates were prepared to die in the most inhuman
conditions. Some performed the Eucharist on the body of a dying sufferer,
recognized as a martyr, since the Divine Liturgy is always performed over the
relics of martyrs.
Somehow Vladika managed to get
out of prison and for some time was forced to hide in an attic, suspended in a
sack-like hammock so as not to reveal his presence by footsteps; the only time
he could exercise was in the dead of night when the tenants below were asleep.
Such living conditions of the persecuted Christians in the USSR seem incredible
to us in the free world only because of the lukewarmness of our own Orthodox
faith. But if we would live by the Orthodox calendar, where every day there are
Scripture readings and the commemoration of saints and martyrs, we would
understand.
When the Germans arrived into
Western Russia in 1941, freedom of religion was restored and a tremendous field
of activity opened for the surviving clergy. At this time Archimandrite Leonty
found himself in Belo-Russia, where he was soon consecrated bishop in the
renowned Pochaev Lavra, which up to then had been Polish territory and so had
escaped destruction at Soviet hands. Between 1941, when he was consecrated, and
November of 1943, when he left for the West, he was bishop of Zhitomir and
consecrated over 300 priests and several bishops, and opened hundreds of
churches. His enthusiasm and deeply-felt attitude towards people made him an
outstanding archpastor who, when celebrating the Divine services, was
transported into another world. His high tenor voice seemed to soar above
earthly tumult, but his keen mind was never detached from human reality. He
continued his church activity in the same spirit in Austria and Western Germany
after the war, when he was appointed bishop of Paraguay and Chile in South America
(Argentina became part of his diocese just before his death).
In Chile he founded a monastic
community, one of whose members was the later Bishop Savva of Edmonton, Canada.
Vladika brought him into his monastic brotherhood, inspired him towards the
monastic ideal, tonsured him and placed him as an independent pastor who later,
as a zealous bishop, started a movement of spiritual renewal in the Russian
Church and is now known as the chronicler of the miraculous life of Blessed
Archbishop John Maximovitch.
During his travels in the free
world Archbishop Leonty made a study of the sorrowful state of his Orthodox
brethren in Greece, who were languishing under the modernistic influences on
Orthodox life, symbolized by the new papal calendar which had been forced upon
them in the 1920's. In his martyric zeal he went to Greece and consecrated
bishops for the believers who followed the Old Calendar, thus establishing a
close contact between them and the Russian Church Abroad.
Soon he was made an archbishop
and founded the Dormition Convent from nuns he brought from the Holy Land; this
convent now operates an orphanage and a parish school in the name of St. John
of Kronstadt. These nuns, headed by the righteous Abbess Alexia, were
originally blessed in their ascetic life by the Optina Elder Nektary, now a
glorified saint, whose traditions they firmly adhered to in the monastic
training of novices.
Archbishop Leonty was a flaming
defender of truth and rose fearlessly in all his spiritual stature to put down
any manifestation of unrighteousness. From his first acquaintance with
Archbishop John Maximovitch in Paris, he immediately recognized in him a living
saint, just like the ones he had seen and lived with in much-suffering Russia.
With all his loving heart he bowed down before the spiritual authority of
Blessed John and supported him whenever he was slandered by those who lacked
his experience of living contact with God's genuine saints. When these slanders
took a serious form and Archbishop John was put on trial in San Francisco in
the 1960's (accused of covering up dishonesty in church finances), Archbishop
Leonty immediately flew to defend him and sat with him, together with Bishops
Nektary and Savva, on the bench of the accused. Archbishop John, of course, was
proven innocent, and the monument of his victory today is the magnificent
cathedral, "The Joy of All Who Sorrow," in San Francisco, under which
Blessed John's own remains lie.
When Archbishop Leonty learned of
the sudden death of Archbishop John, he, together with another righteous and
persecuted hierarch, Archbishop Averky of Jordanville, drove all the way across
the United States to be at his funeral. There he shed bitter tears over the
body of Archbishop John, whom he loved so much that his wish was to be closer
to his grave, perhaps as Archbishop of San Francisco. God, however, did not
grant this, and exactly on the fifth anniversary of Archbishop John's death,
after having prayed for the repose of his soul in his own cathedral in Buenos
Aires, he gave his soul over to God, joining his beloved Abba.
The sudden death of Archbishop
Leonty, who had been recovering from a heart ailment, was a great sorrow for
his flock. They buried him in the cemetery which he himself had established.
The sick, dying child of a local Chilean woman was placed on his grave and was
miraculously healed. There were other cases of similar heavenly intervention
through the prayers of Archbishop Leonty. But the most touching account of him
comes from a venerator of his memory, who was granted a series of visions of
him, a portion of which we offer here:
"This vision took place
exactly on the day of the decision of the Council of Bishops in 1971 concerning
the beginning of preparations for the canonization of the New Martyrs of
Russia. It was on a Saturday. During a light sleep my spiritual father (who is
still alive in Buenos Aires) appeared to me in spirit, confessed me, and
released my sins.
"At the beginning of this
dream I saw myself in a huge temple not built by human hands. On the right
kliros for quite a distance was a huge crowd of people dressed in white: I
could not make out their faces. Around me there was a quiet, heart-rending
singing, although I couldn't see anyone there. Then both side doors of the
altar swung open and from them began to come out holy hierarchs and monks,
fully vested in gentle blue vestments; among them I could recognize only St.
Nicholas the Wonderworker of Myra in Lycia. From the door near me, among the
passing bishops, Vladika Leonty passed by and stopped near me, saying: 'You,
brother Basil, were called and you did come. You know we have a great
celebration here today!' 'What kind of celebration, Vladika?' I asked. And he
continued: 'The heavenly glorification of the Tsar-martyr!' And having bowed to
me slightly he continued on his way to the kathedra (in the center of
the church).
"Finally, the holy doors of
the altar opened, and out of them came the Tsar-martyr, looking just as he
appears on his official portraits during the first years of his reign—that is,
very young. He was dressed in the Tsar's royal mantle, as during his
coronation, and he wore the emperor's crown on his head. In his hands he held a
large cross, and on his pale face I noticed a slight wound, either from a
bullet or some blow. He passed by me at an even pace, descended the step of the
ambo, and went into the center of the church. As he neared the kathedra
the singing increased in volume, and when his foot touched the step of the kathedra
it became so loud that it seemed that a whole world of people had gathered and
were singing with one breath.
"Here I came to my senses on
my bed, immediately shaken, with a little wound on my right eye. It was about
four o'clock in the morning. For a long time, I was under the deep impression
of what I had experienced."
The same man saw Archbishop
Leonty in a dream just before the fortieth day after his repose: "On the
37th day after the repose of Archbishop Leonty I had a vision in a dream. I saw
him in church vestments and a mitre heading a solemn pontifical church service.
When he saw me, he quickly got up and hastened to greet me. He embraced and
kissed me and said, 'How happy I am to see you, brother Basil. I am now quite
well. I feel no pain, and here I am very happy. In a few days I will receive
new quarters with all comforts, as they say on earth; it has already been
promised me.'
"A month after this I saw
another dream, which indicated to me that he had been granted a heavenly abode.
I heard beautiful music and saw millions of sparkling stars, and I was already
on a boat which was to bring me to the other shore where he was. This is what
God prepared for his faithful servant of the catacomb hierarchy, and later of
our Church Outside of Russia" (Orthodox Life, 1971, December, pp.
18-20).
Through the prayers of the
righteous Archbishop Leonty, confessor of the Orthodoxy of the heart, may our
Lord have mercy on all of us. Amen.
F.H.
