The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and the Catacomb Church: A Shift of Positions

Nun Euphrosyne (Molchanova)

Abbess of the Lesna Monastery of the Most Holy Mother of God, Provemont, France

November 2011 | Chernigov, Ukraine

 

Metropolitan Philaret (Voznesensky), the third First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, who tirelessly spoke in defense of the Catacomb Church, explained the divisions that split the Orthodox Church in the 20th century by comparing them to the disputes of the 4th century. The difference between these two epochs, he said, lies in the subject of contention. In the 4th century, the disputes were Christological: the Church was in the process of defining the essence of Christ. In the 20th century, the contradictions became ecclesiological and sociological: Orthodoxy was responding to the questions: what is the essence of the Church, and what is the role of the Church in society? The problems addressed by historians and theologians in discussing various directions, movements, and factions—“Sergianism,” “servilism,” “centralized and decentralized church authority,” “ecumenism or isolationism”—are merely details of a broader picture. The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and the Catacomb Church, which arose and grew under very different circumstances, gave identical answers to the fundamental questions of the 20th century. Divided administratively, deprived even of the possibility of communication, let alone cooperation, these two Churches, throughout almost the entire 20th century, perceived themselves as united in spirit and purpose, confessed the same faith, lived and died for the same Orthodoxy. In what did their spiritual unity consist, and why did it disappear?

The term “Catacomb Church” was introduced into usage by Metropolitan Anastassy (Gribanovsky), the second First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, in one of his Epistles speaking about the tragic situation in Russia of Orthodox believers who refused to accept the 1927 Declaration of Loyalty to the Soviet Government [1] issued by Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky). It cannot be said that this thought was particularly original: the bloody slaughter unleashed by the Bolsheviks upon coming to power in 1917 could not help but evoke memories of the mass persecutions of early Christianity in the Roman Empire. In 1918, Patriarch Tikhon (Belavin) said: “The commandments of Christ concerning love for one’s neighbor have been forgotten and trampled underfoot: every day we receive reports of horrible and savage killings...” [2] He sternly condemned the lawless and brutal execution of the last Russian Tsar, especially the murder of innocent children: “We have lived to such a time when the open violation of the commandments of God is no longer recognized as sin, but is justified as something lawful. Thus, in recent days a terrible deed has been committed: the former sovereign Nicholas Alexandrovich was shot... not for any guilt, but merely because someone allegedly wanted to kidnap him...” [3] In 1918, the Patriarch pronounced his famous anathema against the Bolsheviks: “By the authority given me by God, we forbid you to approach the Mysteries of Christ, we anathematize you, if indeed you still bear Christian names and, by birth, belong to the Orthodox Church.” [4] This anathema proclaimed—liturgically and even canonically—that Russia had ceased to be an Orthodox country and that Russian society had split into two warring camps. Both the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and the Catacomb Church used this anathema as a liturgical expression of their raison d’être. It was precisely from this anathema that the modern division within Orthodoxy began: between those who agreed to find a place for themselves in the new “post-Christian” society and those who refused this and preferred to live outside of society.

In Russia, the post-Christian era began with the victory of the October Revolution, which drastically changed the ideological and social status of the Russian Orthodox Church—in a matter of weeks, if not days, it ceased to be the state religion and became a reactionary ideology. The Church responded to this trial by restoring the Patriarchate and electing Patriarch Tikhon. The Patriarch replaced the Holy Synod headed by the Emperor and became the head of his own administration. For the first time in several centuries, the Russian Church gained true freedom from political pressure and any external influence. At first, the Patriarch tried to take a neutral stance toward the Soviet regime, remaining outside of politics. On September 25, 1919, he addressed the people with a statement in which he urged the clergy to stay away from politics and released the faithful from any political obligations—on the basis that, according to the Soviet constitution, the Church had been separated from the state. He called on believers to submit to the new government in everything that did not contradict their Christian conscience. As for the civil war, this new freedom from political obligations allowed each clergyman to make his own personal choice and freed the Church from responsibility for those who supported the White Army. It is known that the Patriarch refused even to give the White Army a secret blessing, saying that the Church does not bless fratricidal war. Soon the Patriarch realized that declarations of political neutrality and civic loyalty would, at best, only slightly delay the inevitable.

As early as September 1918, in his decree “On the Protection of Ecclesiastical Holy Treasures from Sacrilegious Seizure and Desecration,” he instructed that no violence be shown toward the government, but in the event of a church seizure, the parish was not to disperse, but to support their pastor and continue to hold services—including the Divine Liturgy—in private homes or other appropriate places. This decree laid the foundation for the future catacomb existence. The Patriarch began to perform secret ordinations and chose and consecrated a wide variety of individuals as bishops. Not all of them became hierarchs of the Catacomb Church. Many died as martyrs, such as Maxim (Zhizhilenko), Bishop of Serpukhov. Others over time became zealous supporters of the regime and even Stalinists, such as Luke (Voyno-Yasenetsky), Archbishop of Crimea and Simferopol. Still others founded and led the Catacomb Church, such as Peter (Ladygin), Bishop of Glazov. However, the most far-sighted, or even prophetic, was Patriarchal Decree No. 362 of November 20, 1920, which prescribed the establishment of separate independent higher church authorities and other administrative units in conditions where communication with the Supreme Church Authority and the Patriarch was absent. It is precisely this Decree that constitutes the written canonical foundation of both the Catacomb Church in Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad.

Those Russian hierarchs who found themselves outside of Russia due to the geographical location of their dioceses—either distant from the center of the country or abroad—as well as those who left with the White Army during the Crimean evacuation, unconditionally supported the Patriarch, seeing in him a stronghold of Orthodoxy. Following his Decree, they formed the Supreme Church Authority, which was eventually transformed into the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. At times, they sent messages to the Patriarch through foreign diplomats or couriers of the White Army. The Patriarch’s bold statements and his refusal to condemn or oversee the hierarchs abroad in any form led to his arrest, and in his absence, the Cheka established the “Living Church.” This was the first attempt by the Bolsheviks to create sham church organizations, to fragment the Orthodox Church, and thereby weaken its influence. The Church Abroad did everything possible to secure the Patriarch’s release, appealing to heads of government, royal houses of Europe, and church leaders. This prevented the Bolsheviks from executing the Patriarch and ultimately led to his release. As long as Patriarch Tikhon was alive, the Church Abroad regarded itself as part of the united Russian Orthodox Church. Despite the fact that, under pressure from the authorities, the Patriarch increasingly made forced acknowledgments and statements and more and more expressed his loyalty to the Soviet government, the Church Abroad did not condemn him, understanding that he was making compromises for the sake of saving the lives of priests and preserving the Church's structure. “...His Holiness the Patriarch, outwardly reconciling with the Soviet authorities, did so not at all to preserve his own life... we can boldly state that Patriarch Tikhon, from a purely ecclesiastical point of view, did not commit any crime—neither against the faith, nor against the people—through his final actions,” wrote Metropolitan Anthony. [5] Even though the Patriarch’s statements had been to some extent conciliatory, even though they had contradicted the unwaveringly anti-communist, monarchist stance of the ROCOR, they still did not deprive the Church of that freedom which had been granted to it through the restoration of the Patriarchate.

After the repose of the Patriarch in 1925, the Church Abroad recognized as the legitimate patriarchal locum tenens Peter (Polyansky), Metropolitan of Krutitsy, and began commemorating him as the head of the Russian Church. However, his immediate arrest, as well as the arrests of all other locum tenentes designated by the Patriarch, and the impossibility of convening a Council, allowed Sergius (Stragorodsky), Metropolitan of Nizhny Novgorod, to declare himself locum tenens and thereby usurp ecclesiastical authority. Soon after, Metropolitan Sergius, broken under pressure from the GPU, issued the infamous Declaration of 1927, in which he recognized the legitimacy of the Soviet government and, on behalf of the entire church people, promised not only civil obedience but unconditional support of the communist regime: “your joys are our joys, your sorrows are our sorrows...” and condemned all who thought otherwise. This document played a decisive role in determining the further course of the official Church, legalized by the government, and in the tragic schism of the Russian Orthodox Church. Metropolitan Sergius proclaimed that an Orthodox believer could be a full member of the new society arising within the Soviet state, and that the Church itself could find a role and place in that society—a notion not only unacceptable, but in the eyes of many hierarchs of that time, outright heretical.

Today, we have conflicting information regarding the number of bishops who accepted or rejected the Declaration, but it is absolutely clear that a very large percentage of the episcopate did not accept it, including all the lawful successors of the Patriarch: Metropolitan Peter of Krutitsy, Metropolitan Kirill (Smirnov) of Kazan, and Metropolitan Agafangel (Preobrazhensky) of Yaroslavl—all of them openly expressed their protest and broke Eucharistic communion with Metropolitan Sergius. They saw an absolute incompatibility between Orthodox beliefs and the communist, atheistic principles of the new regime, and they believed that no compromise would reconcile these two fundamentally opposed ideological systems. When Metropolitan Sergius, with the help of the secret police, began imposing sanctions on bishops who did not recognize either his authority or the Declaration—as in the case of Metropolitan Kirill and especially clearly in the case of Metropolitan Joseph (Petrovykh) of Petrograd—the opposition began forming their own synods and administrative organs. Thus, the foundation of the Catacomb Church was laid. These underground groups were not an organized movement united by a single idea. It was a broad spectrum of opponents to Metropolitan Sergius: from those, on one end, who reluctantly reconciled with him—to those, in the middle, who, led by Metropolitan Kirill, acknowledged the sacraments of the official Church as grace-filled but refused to concelebrate with Metropolitan Sergius, not being of one mind or heart with him—to, finally, those on the opposite end, the most conservative, led by Metropolitan Joseph, who denied the grace of the sacraments of the official Church and asserted that the very idea of a compromise with the godless regime was heresy. The entire opposition regarded the Declaration as unacceptable: “they [i.e., the sacraments] serve unto judgment and condemnation both for the celebrants themselves and for those among the communicants who well understand the falsehood present in Sergianism and by their lack of resistance display a criminal indifference to the profanation of the Church. This is why an Orthodox bishop or priest must refrain from communion with the Sergianists in prayer. The same is necessary for laypeople who are conscious of all the details of church life,” wrote Metropolitan Kirill of Kazan. [6] In the 1920s, the years of its formation, the Catacomb Church grew rapidly and spread, absorbing entire dioceses. Those who became Orthodox Catacomb believers were those who did not seek a place for themselves in Soviet society and naturally did not share with it either its joys or sorrows. “...The Epistle expresses to the government ‘nationwide gratitude for its attention to the needs of the Orthodox population.’ Such expressions of gratitude, coming from the mouth of the Head of the Russian Orthodox Church, cannot be sincere and therefore are unworthy of the dignity of the Church,” objected the bishops imprisoned in Solovki. [7]

The Church Abroad also took a position of opposition to Metropolitan Sergius and refused to accept his Declaration. Prior to the issuance of the Declaration, he had not wanted to interfere in the affairs of the hierarchs abroad and did not attempt to resolve their disputes, understanding that, under his circumstances and constant surveillance, this was impossible. But the Soviet regime set a condition for Metropolitan Sergius: his church administration would not be legalized until he condemned the Supreme Church Authority established in Sremski Karlovci, and the requirement for the hierarchs abroad to give a written pledge of complete loyalty to the Soviet government was included in the Declaration. As soon as Metropolitan Sergius began imposing sanctions, the Synod Abroad refused to recognize him as the lawful patriarchal locum tenens and declared itself an independent church structure.

The Council of Bishops of the ROCOR, held on September 5, 1927, resolved:

1. The émigré part of the All-Russian Church must cease relations with the Moscow church authority in view of the impossibility of normal relations with it and in view of its enslavement by the godless Soviet power, which deprives it of freedom in its expressions of will and canonical governance of the Church.

2. In order to relieve our hierarchy in Russia of responsibility for the émigré part of our Church not recognizing Soviet power, until normal relations with Russia are restored and until our Church is freed from the persecution of the godless Soviet regime, the émigré part of our Church must govern itself, in accordance with the holy canons, the decisions of the Holy Council of the All-Russian Local Orthodox Church of 1917–1918, and the decree of His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon and the Supreme Church Council of November 7/20, 1920, with the help of the Synod of Bishops and the Council of Bishops, under the presidency of Metropolitan Anthony of Kiev.

3. The émigré part of the Russian Church regards itself as an inseparable, spiritually united branch of the Great Russian Church. It does not separate itself from its Mother Church and does not consider itself autocephalous. It continues to regard the Patriarchal Locum Tenens, Metropolitan Peter, as its head and commemorates his name during divine services.

4. If a decree is issued by Metropolitan Sergius and his Synod excluding the émigré bishops and clergy who have not wished to sign a pledge of loyalty to the Soviet government from the ranks of the clergy of the Moscow Patriarchate, such a decree will be uncanonical. [8]

Metropolitan Peter of Krutitsy was executed on September 26, 1937. In December of that same year, the Council of Bishops of the ROCOR resolved to recognize Metropolitan Kirill of Kazan as the lawful locum tenens of the patriarchal throne and the First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. In order that the Soviet authorities would not attempt to place upon him responsibility for the actions or decisions of the hierarchs abroad, it was decided not to commemorate his name openly during divine services, but only secretly. Instead, the following formula, developed at that time, was pronounced aloud: “the Orthodox episcopate of the persecuted Church of Russia,” which became the liturgical expression of the spiritual unity of the Catacomb Church and the ROCOR with all Orthodox Christians whose conscience could not accept the Declaration of Loyalty. This formula was heard in ROCOR churches throughout the diaspora for 70 years—until the union with the Moscow Patriarchate in 2007.

The Declaration of Metropolitan Sergius brought nothing even to his own supporters, but it did fragment the Church and armed the secret police with yet another repressive tool. The infamous 1930 press conference with foreign journalists only confirmed the correctness of the path chosen by the Catacomb Church and the ROCOR, who opted for independence rather than loyalty. With the intensification of Stalin’s repressions and their spread throughout the Soviet Union, when nearly all Catacomb hierarchs were already languishing in imprisonment, the secret police turned their attention to the official, legalized clergy and hierarchs. By the beginning of the Second World War, only a small number of churches remained open, and only four hierarchs remained at liberty, including Metropolitan Sergius. Nevertheless, spiritual life in the country did not fade—in fact, quite the opposite, this period can be called a time of spiritual revival. It was a time of flourishing secret monasteries, which numbered in the dozens, or even hundreds, of inhabitants, sometimes operating under the guise of collective rural farms or cooperatives, and sometimes hidden in small country houses or urban apartments. Priests—and even bishops—would move from place to place for years, and many literally lived underground.

Information about this underground activity occasionally crossed the border and reached the ROCOR. Sometimes news was brought by foreign diplomats; on rare occasions, someone expelled from the Soviet Union could speak about the secret church activity. Very rarely did anyone manage to escape across the border. Such was the case in 1930 with Protopriest Mikhail Polsky, the author of the first collection of the lives of the New Martyrs of Russia. At every council, at every diocesan assembly or parish meeting, fervent prayers were offered for the suffering Russian Church. The Council of Bishops approved the “Prayer for Russia,” which was offered at every Divine Liturgy—another liturgical expression of solidarity with those persecuted for the faith and with the Catacomb Church, which distinguished the ROCOR from all other Russian Orthodox jurisdictions outside the USSR.

In 1936, at the suggestion of Archbishop Vitaly (Maximenko), two more petitions were decided to be offered at divine services:

“Let us pray to the Lord for the much-suffering Russian people, in grievous circumstances, and for their salvation.”

“Let us pray to the Lord that He may deliver His people from the bitter torment of the godless power, from the invasion of foreigners and from civil strife, and grant us unity of mind, brotherly love, and piety.” [9]

The Catacomb Church included these petitions in its divine services whenever new contact was established with the ROCOR. The Church Abroad itself continued to offer these petitions until the late 1990s, and they stood in stark contrast to the prayers offered by the official Church for Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and other “God-given” authorities.

Starting in the 1930s, an entire literary genre emerged “about the Catacomb Church”—ranging from Krasnov’s novels, in which a secret elite semi-religious order prepared for the liberation of Russia, to anonymous stories about underground church services deep in the Siberian taiga with members of the August Family in attendance, or about the spiritual rebirth of Chekists who became Orthodox confessors, to the novellas of Nikiforov-Volgin about wandering secret priests and children-martyrs for the faith.

Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky) died in 1936, and Metropolitan Anastassy (Gribanovsky) took his place. The ROCOR, governed from its ecclesiastical center in Serbia, had by that time confidently spread across Europe, America, the Near and Far East, hoping, praying, and believing in the inevitable fall of the communist regime. In this spirit, the first generation of émigrés raised outside the homeland were educated in cadet academies and institutes for noble maidens. These institutions were established and operated according to the pre-revolutionary model, with in-depth religious instruction. All of this was done in preparation for the future rebirth of Russia. The overwhelming majority of ROCOR members viewed the beginning of World War II and Hitler’s declaration of war on the Soviet Union in 1941 as an answer to their prayers. At last, after a long period of waiting, real hopes for change began to emerge. A religious revival of incredible scope spread throughout the vast territories occupied by the Germans—from the Baltic states to the regions served by the Pskov Mission in the north, to areas of Ukraine in the south—and promised the fulfillment of those hopes. Twenty-three years of persecution and atheistic propaganda had produced almost no effect on the religious aspirations of the nation. A recently published history of the Brotherhood of St. Job of Pochaev in Ladomirová, Slovakia, recounts how the brethren, devoted to printing work, quickly began distributing service books, prayer books, and other religious literature, sending their couriers farther and farther into the occupied territories. One of the most urgent tasks was to locate representatives of the Catacomb Church, and soon they managed to find Schema-Bishop Anthony (Abashidze), who in the 1920s had been a member of the Supreme Church Administration in southern Russia, but had not left with the White Army. He survived, hiding in semi-seclusion near Kiev. Bishop Anthony helped establish contacts with catacomb communities.

When military success turned against the Germans and they began to retreat, many Catacomb believers decided to leave with them. The overwhelming majority of these Catacomb faithful joined the ROCOR. “I will not survive another encounter with Soviet power,” said Fr. Seraphim (Zagorovsky), a well-known Catacomb priest, to his spiritual daughter, Nun Magdalina (Nozdryna), when he decided to leave Kharkov for the West. Fr. Seraphim died on the way and was buried in Przemyśl, Poland, but Mother Magdalina reached Paris and later entered the Lesna Convent. Another nun, Mother Antonia, entered the Convent of St. Mary Magdalene, Equal-to-the-Apostles, in Gethsemane in the Holy Land after departing westward with a group of monastics from Kiev, which included the young monk Fr. Gelasy Maiboroda, who first joined the brotherhood in Ladomirová, then served as cell attendant to Metropolitan Philaret, and afterward served for many years in the rotation of services at the Synodal Cathedral in New York. Two ROCOR bishops—Bishop Leonty (Filippovich) of Chile and Archbishop Andrew (Rymarenko) of Novo-Diveevo—were active Catacomb members and left the USSR with the Germans. Ivan Andreyevsky (pseudonym Andreev), one of the first professors at Holy Trinity Seminary in Jordanville and a prolific writer, was an example of a Catacomb layman who served a sentence in the Solovki prison camp, where he met many hierarchs of the Catacomb Church. All of them testified to the existence of the Catacomb Church, had direct life experience in the catacombs, and spoke of what they had seen with their own eyes. These people strengthened the spiritual connection between the ROCOR and the Russian Catacombs and had a significant influence on the worldview of the ROCOR in the postwar years. Some of them, such as Bishop Leonty of Chile, found ways to maintain contact with the Catacomb Church in the USSR.

The official Church, with Metropolitan Sergius at its head, took advantage of Hitler’s invasion to demonstrate its fervent loyalty to the Stalinist regime. They issued patriotic appeals, raised funds for military needs, called the war sacred, and condemned collaboration with the fascists. The scale of the religious revival in the occupied territories forced Stalin to change the party's policy toward the Church, and at his behest, Metropolitan Sergius was soon elected and officially installed as Patriarch—an event that marked the founding of the Moscow Patriarchate in the form we know it today. In 1942, The Truth About Religion in Russia was published—a propaganda book filled with lies about the state of the Church in the USSR. On November 7, 1943, a solemn Liturgy was served to commemorate the anniversary of the October Revolution. Numerous messages, decrees, publications, and statements appeared, glorifying Stalin as a God-given leader and his regime as the legitimate government of a God-preserved nation. The Church Abroad, which by then had learned much from members of the Catacomb Church, could not but condemn all this glorification as a blatant betrayal.

The end of the war brought betrayal also from the Allies. As part of the Yalta Agreement, Stalin demanded the repatriation of all Soviet citizens. The British and American military administrations began forcibly repatriating all Russians, regardless of the thousands of pleas for asylum, demonstrations, and mass suicides. The Church Abroad managed to save several thousand, while the Moscow Patriarchate was declaring that “the Church is filled... with sacred hatred for the enemy,” and that Christ’s commandment “Love thy neighbor...” “does not apply to fascists.” After the election of Archbishop Alexei (Simansky) as Patriarch in 1945, Stalin continued to use the Moscow Patriarchate as a propaganda tool and as a means to achieve his goals in international politics, especially in the Near and Far East. The Moscow Patriarchate, making use of the diplomatic influence of the powerful Soviet state, began to pressure other Local Churches to cease concelebration with the Church Abroad. The bishops and faithful of the ROCOR increasingly turned away from this new, conciliatory type of Orthodoxy and increasingly looked to the Catacomb Church as the true voice of the Orthodox Church. “Our voice, as we now know from the accounts of those who have arrived from Russia, is taken into consideration there... We are now experiencing the most critical moment in the sense of the further self-determination of the Church in Russia: either church consciousness there will be clarified and the faithful will understand where their new helmsman of the Russian Church is leading them, or God will send them ‘a spirit of slumber,’ that they might ‘believe a lie,’ and then will begin an apostasy worse than anything we have yet seen,” wrote Metropolitan Anastassy in 1945. [10] At its Council in Munich in 1947, the Church Abroad refused to recognize the Moscow Patriarchate and the election of the new Patriarch, Alexei (Simansky), “for as long as the supreme Church authority in Russia remains in an unnatural union with the godless power, and for as long as the entire Russian Church is deprived of the true freedom inherent to Her by Her divine nature.” [11] Archbishop Nathanael (Lvov) of Western Europe wrote even more feelingly and profoundly about a world moving ever further from Christian principles, and about the new role of the Church Abroad and the Catacomb Church in this world: “Who, above all, hinders the fulfillment of the plan to compromise the Church?... Above all, of course... in our Russian Church—it is the Secret Church, it is those martyrs: hierarchs, priests, and laypeople, not simply giving their lives for Christ, but resisting unto torture and death, every minute and every hour, the sophisticated, inventive, and calculated violence that tries to intimidate, to torture into submission, to bribe, or to persuade and convince... They are the true glory of the Church. Our terrible period of church history, which—if not for the Secret Church in Russia—would have been a period of the Church’s greatest disgrace, Her fall, Her betrayal... becomes... the period of Her greatest glory, the visible fulfillment of the Lord’s words that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church... The Secret Church must have her voice in the free world: as far as possible, a unified and organically connected part, which would carry out that share of work which the Secret Church... cannot perform: ...to speak on behalf of the persecuted Church... This is what our Russian Orthodox Church Abroad is doing... Ultimately, we understand the great qualitative difference between our work and the struggle of the Secret Church. If She did not exist, there would be no such churchly glory, the testimony of which is our greatest joy and adornment. If we did not exist, the testimony to the struggle of the Secret Church would still exist. Perhaps, in the words of the Lord, the stones themselves would cry out—but in that case, their cry would be for our judgment and condemnation...” [12] “The free voice of the Russian Church”—this is how the Church Abroad came to understand its role in the world with the fall of the Iron Curtain and the beginning of the Cold War.

The Church Abroad did not yet know that the election of Patriarch Alexei dealt a serious blow to the Catacomb Church. By the end of the war, Bishop Athanasius (Sakharov), one of its most respected hierarchs among those who had survived, recognized the election of Patriarch Alexei as canonical—on the grounds that, unlike the election of Patriarch Sergius, which had been staged by Stalin, this time the election was free, and because the newly elected Patriarch did not preach any heresy and was recognized by the other Local Orthodox Churches. By the most modest estimates, approximately one quarter of the Catacomb faithful joined the Moscow Patriarchate as a result of Bishop Athanasius’s decision, while many historians claim that three quarters of the members of the Catacomb Church joined. Those who did not join withdrew even deeper into the catacombs. Time began to take its toll. The generation that had known the pre-revolutionary united Russian Orthodox Church, had been raised in Orthodoxy, and was deeply rooted in Orthodox tradition—these Catacomb faithful either died a martyr’s death or passed away shortly after the war. The number of priests sharply declined. The lack of religious education and spiritual formation became increasingly acute. The possibility of contact with the Church Abroad nearly disappeared.

Time took its toll in the Church Abroad as well. Metropolitan Anastassy was one of the last bishops abroad to have been consecrated in pre-revolutionary Russia. He personally knew not only Metropolitans Anthony (Khrapovitsky) and Evlogy (Georgievsky), but also their contemporaries who remained in Russia: Metropolitans and future Patriarchs Sergius (Stragorodsky) and Alexei (Simansky), as well as their opposition—Metropolitans Kirill of Kazan, Agafangel of Yaroslavl, Joseph of Petrograd, and Dimitry of Gdov. Letters and epistles were addressed to living people—acquaintances—among them close disciples and dear friends. Undoubtedly, in earlier times, they had many face-to-face conversations about the future of the Church in the Soviet Union. With the passing of that generation, both sides began addressing something more abstract—an organization rather than living persons. The Stalinist Patriarchate not only justified and praised the Soviet regime, but, by its directive, began participating in the so-called “struggle for peace” and in the rapidly developing ecumenical movement. The Church Abroad responded with increasingly sharp and categorical judgments, accusing the Patriarchate of modernism, heresy, and apostasy. At the same time, the Catacomb Church began to be more and more idealized, perceived as a kind of semi-mythical spiritual “City of Kitezh.” This opposition—along with the disputes and legal proceedings over former embassy churches of the Russian Empire and the pre-revolutionary Russian Church’s properties in the Holy Land and on Mount Athos—strengthened the faith and hope of the Church Abroad that somewhere in the Soviet Union there existed another, untainted, true Church.

A new impetus for active support of the Catacomb Church came with the election of Metropolitan Philaret (Voznesensky) as First Hierarch of the ROCOR in 1964, following the retirement of Metropolitan Anastassy. Not long before becoming the third First Hierarch of the ROCOR, Metropolitan Philaret had left communist China, where he had endured persecution by the godless Chinese government and oppression by the Moscow Patriarchate, in which he was then forced to remain. It is also highly likely that he had direct encounters with Catacomb believers and was well acquainted with the life of the Catacomb Church. The border region of Manchuria, where he had lived, was the last stronghold of the White Army, and from there couriers regularly crossed into the Soviet Union, carrying religious and anti-Soviet literature back to the homeland. At the same time, refugees crossed the Soviet border in the opposite direction—among them monks from destroyed monasteries—who could speak about the life of the Catacomb Church in Stalin’s camps and exile settlements in the Russian Far East. Immediately after his election, the new First Hierarch of the ROCOR felt the need to speak out in support of the Catacomb Church, citing Soviet sources that had by then become accessible:

“...The Soviet press has more and more begun to write about the secret Church in the USSR, calling it the ‘sect’ of the True Orthodox Christians... united around the bishop of Leningrad, or as we call him, Metropolitan Joseph (Petrovykh) of Petrograd. The Josephites, or... Tikhonites, in 1928 created a leading center—the True Orthodox Church, which united all groups and elements opposing the Soviet regime... The True Orthodox Christians have established and continue to establish domestic, that is, secret, catacomb churches and monasteries... fully preserving the doctrine and rites of Orthodoxy...” [13]

Metropolitan Philaret rejected the attempt to classify the Catacomb Church as a sect, stating:

“Honor and glory to the True Orthodox Christians—heroes of the spirit and confessors who did not bow before the terrible power... The free, émigré part of the Russian Church is called to speak in the free world on behalf of the persecuted Catacomb Church... it reveals to all the truly tragic condition of the faithful in the USSR, which the godless authorities, with the help of the Moscow Patriarchate, so carefully try to conceal...” [14]

Metropolitan Philaret held this view of the Russian Orthodox Catacombs until his repose in 1985.

The newly found confidence in spiritual unity with the True Orthodox Christians in Russia gave strength to the new First Hierarch of the ROCOR—and with him, to the entire episcopate of the Church Abroad—to take the step of glorifying Fr. John Sergiev, the beloved pastor of Kronstadt from the early 20th century. Known for his strongly conservative and monarchist views, his constant calls to repentance and warnings of Russia’s inevitable collapse, Righteous St. John was venerated also by the Catacomb Church, and the ROCOR firmly believed that it was acting on behalf of the Catacomb faithful: “In normal times, when the Russian Orthodox Church enjoyed unhindered freedom of its life, the glorification of newly revealed saints was the work of the whole Church... At the present time, as everyone knows, the highest church authority in Russia is, to our sorrow, in bondage to the godless power, which regards the memory of this Saint of God with special hatred—destroyed the church in which he was buried, obliterated his grave, hid his holy relics, and reviles his holy name... but this does not stop the fervent veneration of his memory by the Russian people. The Russian Church Abroad, having preserved her blessed freedom in Christ, has an urgent duty and extreme necessity to be the herald of the faith of her spiritual children... in the sanctity of our father John of Kronstadt, the Wonderworker.” [15]

The glorification took place in November 1964.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a dissident movement emerged in the Soviet Union, and the struggle for human rights began. In the West, a new interest and sympathy arose for those persecuted for their faith in the USSR. Human rights organizations—Keston College, Amnesty International, Pastor Wurmbrand’s mission, and others—began reporting on religious persecution on a significantly broader scale. In 1970, Alexander Solzhenitsyn received the Nobel Prize in Literature, and three years later he published his monumental work The Gulag Archipelago about the Soviet system of concentration camps. Disillusioned with communism, Marxism, and Leninism, Soviet youth increasingly began to turn to belief in God. Within the Moscow Patriarchate, church dissidents began to appear, and for those in the West who were aware of current events, the names of Fr. Dimitry Dudko, Fr. Gleb Yakunin, Fr. Nikolai Eshliman, Fr. Georgy Edelstein, and Alexander Ogorodnikov became known.

By a twist of fate, it was the dissident movement that caused the first serious rift between the Church Abroad and the Catacomb Church.

Initially, the ROCOR greeted signs of a new religious awakening with enthusiasm: “Our Russian Church suffered the most severe persecutions immediately after the revolution, and there was a short period in Her history when, in the dreadful torture chambers and prison basements and in concentration camps, the first generation of hierarchs, priests, and laity devoted to the Church was destroyed, and She fell almost entirely silent. But now, for nearly two decades after that, fearless voices are again being heard... proclaiming the truth of the Church,” wrote Archbishop Nathanael (Lvov). [16]

Many Russian émigrés—especially the youth—and with them ROCOR clergy, began to participate in demonstrations and protests, joining organizations such as “The Orthodox Cause” and similar groups. Some hierarchs actively supported them, for example Archbishop Anthony (Bartoshevich) of Geneva and Archbishop Nathanael (Lvov) of Vienna. Against this backdrop, Metropolitan Philaret appeared almost as a reactionary. Like “a voice crying in the wilderness,” he warned of the dangers on this new path: “...I am always grieved when I hear about ‘protests,’ ‘demonstrations,’ etc. In the USSR, life is ruled by him (with horns) who fears only Christ and the Cross and fears nothing else in the world. And he only laughs at protests and demonstrations.” [17]

Human rights activists also reported on the persecution of the Catacomb Church and of the True Orthodox Christians, included their names in widely distributed lists in the West, and appealed on their behalf—but much more attention was given to the expelled monks from the Pochaev Lavra or persecuted priests of the Moscow Patriarchate, who could be contacted by phone or even visited in person. Amid the general enthusiasm, activists stopped distinguishing between the Catacomb Church and dissidents from the Moscow Patriarchate. Even Metropolitan Philaret once made a mistake, recommending the publication of an account of the life and work of Elder Tavrion (Batozsky), explaining that the elder had left the Catacomb Church for the sake of his flock in order to shepherd them more effectively. Realizing the error, he publicly acknowledged it and asked forgiveness. “True Orthodoxy is not what is spreading there,” Metropolitan Philaret warned, [18] referring to the religious revival in the Soviet Union that everyone was suddenly speaking about—“The official Church preaches cooperation with the God-fighting regime, praising it in every possible way. The True Orthodox Church has gone into the catacombs—hidden from the public.” [19]

Metropolitan Philaret’s concerns about the loss of discernment between the true Orthodoxy of the catacombs and the Sergianist Orthodoxy of the Moscow Patriarchate came to pass when Solzhenitsyn, expelled from the USSR after the publication of The Gulag Archipelago, addressed the Third All-Diaspora Council of the ROCOR in 1974 with a warning: “I would like to caution the leaders of the Church Abroad against the error... of considering this many-millioned Church of ours ‘fallen,’ and of opposing to it some ‘true,’ ‘hidden,’ ‘catacomb’ Church... It is a delusion to extrapolate... the existence of an alleged ‘secret church organization’ as a pan-Russian phenomenon... Let us not, today, replace the real Russian Orthodox people with an imaginary idea of the Catacomb Church.” [20]

Even more pessimistically, Fr. Dimitry Dudko spoke about the catacombs, saying that due to the lack of priests, the Catacomb Church virtually no longer existed, having turned into a priestless sect: “The Catacomb Church—it would be good if it existed, but where is She? True Orthodox Christians—they are good people, steadfast, convinced. But they have almost no clergy; they simply can’t be found, though many hunger for them... I have met them, rejoiced at their steadfastness, their strictness, their courage and asceticism. But looking at them, they have no unity of mind. And most importantly, they have almost no clergy. They are led by women in black, supposedly nuns, who consider everyone else heretics and only themselves sinless. They belong in a museum—and I say that without irony. In a museum, where people, looking at them, might learn something. But in the end—life is not a museum...” [21]

This new mood influenced the character of the Message of the Third Council of the ROCOR, in which there was no mention of the distinction between the persecuted Catacomb faithful on the one hand, and the persecuted dissidents from the Moscow Patriarchate on the other. “The Council has detailed information about faithful pastors and laypeople of our Church, even unto death, who to this day are languishing in Vladimir prison, in the Perm, Mordovian, and other camps... The Council took into account a number of documents from the so-called Samizdat, in particular—those originating from circles of the True Orthodox Church...” Although the Message did condemn the compromising position of the Patriarchate, it no longer spoke of unity between the ROCOR and the Catacomb Church. It ended instead with an all-encompassing statement: “To live not by lies and to honor the memory of the holy martyrs and confessors of our Church—this is the line that separates true Tikhonites from the ‘Herodian leaven of Sergianism,’ as was written by Boris Talantov, who died in confinement...” [22]

Western church historians, theologians, and sociologists of religion, who studied the dissident religious movement in the USSR, confused the matter even further when they began referring to any underground or illegal religious activity as “Catacomb”: whether it took place within the Moscow Patriarchate (such as baptisms at home or secret monastic tonsures), or in communities once established by the original Catacomb bishops and never affiliated with the Patriarchate, or even simply in groups gathered around a charismatic religious leader without any official authorization.

In private conversations, Metropolitan Philaret always confirmed the existence of an ongoing connection between the ROCOR and the Catacomb Church, but he never went into detail about what that connection was, and even more so, never mentioned any names, so as not to endanger those who were in contact with him. We now know that in the 1970s and 1980s, Metropolitan Philaret received into communion several Catacomb parishes and monastic communities: Fr. Mikhail Rozhdestvensky and his flock, the last Petrograd Josephites; the spiritual heirs of the New Hieromartyrs Peter (Zverev) and Alexei (Buy) from Voronezh and Moscow, as well as communities from Vyatka, Tatarstan, Chuvashia, and Mordovia. In 1981, after many years of discussion, and at the persistent request of both Catacomb believers and dissidents, the ROCOR finally glorified the New Martyrs of Russia—in the hope that this liturgical act would serve for the unity of True Orthodox Christians throughout the world.

With the onset of perestroika, it became easier to obtain visas to travel to the USSR, and the ROCOR decided to take advantage of this in order to ordain a bishop for the Catacomb Church. In Europe, a secret consecration was performed for Bishop Barnabas (Prokofiev), who in turn secretly consecrated Bishop Lazarus (Zhurbenko) in Moscow. Despite the best intentions of the hierarchs who organized and performed these consecrations, it was already too late—restoring normal relations and proper liturgical and canonical ties with the remnants of the Catacomb Church was no longer possible. In 1980, the Church Abroad began openly commemorating clergy of the Moscow Patriarchate, adding petitions at the Divine Liturgy for the release of Fr. Gleb Yakunin, and later for other dissidents as well. Metropolitan Philaret reposed in 1985. His final exhortation was a quote from the Apocalypse: “Hold fast that which thou hast”, with which he warned his flock of the danger of losing the spiritual treasure entrusted to them.

Perestroika was in full swing in the 1980s, and all of Russia was preparing for the celebration of the millennium of the Baptism of Rus’. The newly regained religious freedom allowed thousands of believers to write from the USSR to the West with requests for Gospels, prayer books, patristic and other religious literature. Many were swept up in the euphoria of the 1990s—churches were opening everywhere in Russia, thousands of people of all ages were being baptized, and monasteries were being restored. Russian émigrés increasingly traveled to Russia, both clergy and laity, establishing their own contacts with clergy and believers—typically from the Moscow Patriarchate—while ignoring the True Orthodox communities and parishes, even though the Catacomb faithful were then emerging from the underground and beginning to act openly. These face-to-face meetings brought many surprises. For many pilgrims from abroad, it was a shock to discover that believers from the Moscow Patriarchate considered themselves Orthodox while also being loyal Soviet citizens—that is, reconciling the irreconcilable from the point of view of the traditional teaching of the ROCOR. Émigrés had always believed that this compromise had been forced upon Soviet believers, while in reality, it had already become a widely accepted norm. The émigrés eventually reconciled themselves to this, calming down from the initial shock.

When foreign pilgrims met with the True Orthodox, they often could not understand why the Catacomb faithful valued fidelity to Christian teaching and confessorship far more than ritual and other outward expressions of faith. Thus, trips to the historical homeland and encounters with believers of the Moscow Patriarchate brought further changes to the value system of the émigrés: loyalty to traditional Orthodoxy and freedom from external pressure and influence—once most highly valued—were now forgotten, and in their place came sentimental enthusiasm over restored churches and monasteries. Domes, bells, church singing, iconostases, and vestments overshadowed ecclesiology and even history.

By 1991—when the Church Abroad agreed to receive Russian parishes into its jurisdiction—its hierarchs and clergy were already no longer taking into account the distinction between the True Orthodox, who had preserved the traditions of Catacomb confessors, and those who had come from the Moscow Patriarchate, raised and shaped by it. The chaos of that time contributed greatly to the eventual union of the Church Abroad with the Moscow Patriarchate in May 2007.

One of the last documents concerning the Catacomb Church was published on the ROCOR website in June 2007, addressed to that part of the flock which did not enter into union with the Moscow Patriarchate but instead joined the remnants of the Catacomb Church. The document stated that the Catacomb Church had ceased to exist in the USSR in 1945—something that contradicted the ROCOR’s own Messages from the 1960s and 1970s. Moreover, it contained such glaring factual errors that it had to be removed from the website. Nevertheless, the document accurately reflected the mentality of that ROCOR which chose union with the Moscow Patriarchate—for without a dizzying shift in positions, such a union would have been impossible.

Union with the Moscow Patriarchate would have been impossible if the faithful of the ROCOR had held to their former views—if they still believed, as Metropolitan Philaret believed, together with the martyrs and confessors of the Catacomb Church, that “...whatever may be around us, however fiercely the stormy waves of the sea of life may rage, we must remember that the Lord will require from us faithfulness to Him in everything... if the entire many-millioned mass of Russian people had shown such faithfulness... and had refused to obey the bandits who had descended upon the Russian people... God’s help would have come, which miraculously saved those who were going to certain death.” [23]

 

NOTES

[1] Hereafter simply “the Declaration”

[2] Message of Patriarch Tikhon. Anathema against the Bolsheviks. The Russian Orthodox Church in Soviet Times (1917–1991), compiled by G. Strikker, Moscow, 1995, p. 110

[3] Yakovlev, Alexander. The Patriarchal Cross. Moscow, 2008, p. 126

[4] Message of Patriarch Tikhon. Anathema against the Bolsheviks. The Russian Orthodox Church in Soviet Times (1917–1991), compiled by G. Strikker, Moscow, 1995, p. 111

[5] Letters of His Beatitude Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky), Jordanville, 1988, p. 93

[6] Letter of Metropolitan Kirill of Kazan (1934). The Russian Orthodox Church in Soviet Times (1917–1991), compiled by G. Strikker, Moscow, 1995, p. 304

[7] Response of the Orthodox Bishops imprisoned in Solovki (September 27, 1927). The Russian Orthodox Church in Soviet Times (1917–1991), compiled by G. Strikker, Moscow, 1995, p. 275

[8] Church Bulletin, No. 17–18, September 1927, Sremski Karlovci, 1927, p. 3

[9] The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad 1918–1968, Vol. 1, New York, New York, 1968, p. 91

[10] The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad 1918–1968, Vol. 1, New York, New York, 1968, p. 101

[11] The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad 1918–1968, Vol. 1, New York, New York, 1968, p. 137

[12] Nathanael, Archbishop. Talks on Holy Scripture and on Faith and the Church, Vol. 5, New York, 1995, pp. 39–40

[13] Message of the First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, Metropolitan Philaret, to the Orthodox Bishops and to all those who care about the fate of the Russian Church. The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad 1918–1968, Vol. 1, New York, New York, 1968, pp. 349–350

[14] Message of the First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, Metropolitan Philaret, to the Orthodox Bishops and to all those who care about the fate of the Russian Church. The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad 1918–1968, Vol. 1, New York, New York, 1968, pp. 349–350

[15] On the Glorification of Our Holy Righteous Father John the Wonderworker of Kronstadt. The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad 1918–1968, Vol. 1, New York, New York, 1968, pp. 409–410

[16] Nathanael, Archbishop. Talks on Holy Scripture and on Faith and the Church, Vol. 5, New York, 1995, p. 20

[17] Kassia, Nun (Senina, T.A.). Pillar of Fire, St. Petersburg, 2007, p. 194

[18] Kassia, Nun (Senina, T.A.). Pillar of Fire, St. Petersburg, 2007, p. 194

[19] Kassia, Nun (Senina, T.A.). Pillar of Fire, St. Petersburg, 2007, p. 194

[20] Letter of A. I. Solzhenitsyn. Orthodox Russia, No. 18, 1974, Jordanville, New York, p. 6

[21] The Orthodox Word, No. 92, May–June 1980

[22] Message of the Third All-Diaspora Council of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad to the Orthodox Russian People in the Homeland. Orthodox Russia, No. 20, Jordanville, New York, 1974, p. 20

[23] Kassia, Nun (Senina, T.A.). Pillar of Fire, St. Petersburg, 2007, pp. 304–305, 199

 

Russian source: https://web.archive.org/web/20170724015906/http://golos-epohi.ru/?ELEMENT_ID=10469