A Letter from Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky to Hieromonk Polycarp

 

 

Most Honorable Batiushka, Fr. Polycarp, [1]

I wish you many years of priestly service, to be saved and to save others, according to the Apostle (I Cor. 9: 22). I received your sad tidings yesterday and grieved much over the pitiless hard-heartedness of the Greek hierarchs, while I consider Herman [2] to be a mere layman, as one consecrated without the permission of the Archbishop, regarding which, see the Sixth Canon of the First Ecumenical Council, and concerning which I wrote to him in reply to his letter. It is clear that a heretical gang, headed by Meletios, [3] has made its way into the Patriarchate of Constantinople: is it any wonder? — after all, Macedonius, Nestorius, Pyrrhus, Sergius, Peter, and Paul were all Patriarchs of Constantinople and heretics, heresiarchs even, condemned by the Sixth Ecumenical Council; I make no mention of the many Ecumenical Patriarchs of the eighth and ninth century who were Iconoclasts, or the Uniate ones of the fifteenth century.

Your petition to the pseudo-bishop Herman was composed so intelligently and so piously, that it would do honor even to our Bishops’ Sobor, if it [the Sobor] should compose such a document. But poor Ephraim4 has apparently fallen into prelest [spiritual deception], since he went off into the wilderness, where the struggle is no more against flesh and blood, but against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places (Eph. 6:12). As long as it was a matter of innovations not directly forbidden by the canons, you know, I counseled you to show obedience, [5] but now, in the name of God, I advise you not to obey the pseudo-bishop Herman, nor Patriarch Gregory VII, who died a shameful death, having destroyed the Patriarchate by his own affair, [6] for his thus-far innocent successor has been driven out of Constantinople by the Turks. I have already interceded in behalf of the Patriarchate and His Holiness, Constantine VI, and I will intercede again, if he does not stray from the path of Orthodoxy. [7] And you I advise to hold firmly to this one, saving path, and to bear everything: both the destruction of the monastery, and exile, and every sort of privation for the Holy Faith. I am certain that in Serbia room will be found in the monasteries here for those exiles for Orthodoxy; but if, contrary to one’s expectations, one should have to bear the most severe calamities, even then one must not apostatize from our Divine Faith. After all, until the ninth or even eleventh century, the primacy in the Church belonged to the Popes of Rome; and what of it? — they are cut off from the Church together with all their flock, and they drag out their pernicious days as heretics.

It is possible that Constantinople will be subjected to the same fate, if it follows in the tracks of Meletios and Gregory VII. [8]

In three days’ time, your case will be presented before the session of our Synod, which will probably address a complaint to the Eastern Patriarchs.

I ask for your holy prayers, and I pray for your salvation and for that of your monastery.

I remain your well-wisher,

Metropolitan Anthony

 

1. Dated January 27, 1925 (O.S.).

2. Herman Aav, first Bishop of the Autonomous Church of Finland, under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.

3. It was Meletios Metaxakis who had convened the infamous “Pan-Orthodox” Congress in 1923.

4. Hieroschemomonk Ephraim, spiritual father of Valaam Monastery, living in the Smolensk skete, later reposed in Finland, at the New Valaam Monastery, whither he had moved with other of the brethren in 1940.

5. In this letter to Fr. Polycarp, and in the series of letters which he wrote to the Elder Theodosy of Karoulia and to other Russian monks on Mount Athos, Metropolitan Anthony counseled them against severing communion at this time with the other Local Orthodox Churches over the introduction of the new calendar — as long as the Paschalion was not altered. Metropolitan Anthony, employing his accustomed discretion, discernment, and compassion, sought to demonstrate to them the proper balance between akrivia (strictness) and economia. Above all else, he asked them to consider the pastoral implications of too zealous a position; while at the same time making it very clear that he agreed with them in principle. From these letters (which hopefully will be translated) it is obvious that Metropolitan Anthony considered the introduction of the new calendar to be a grave mistake, but one of a temporary nature and which would be corrected by the entire Church before too long. In several of these letters he mentions current events which led him to believe that those in error were on the verge of returning to the use of the ecclesiastical calendar. It must be remembered too that Metropolitan Anthony reposed in 1936, only one year after the three Greek Metropolitans renounced the innovation and assumed the leadership of the traditional Orthodox Christians.

In this regard, see Metropolitan Anthony’s very pointed “Sorrowful Epistle” of Feb. 4/17, 1925 to Ecumenical Patriarch Constantine VI, which deals with many of the subjects mentioned in this present letter.

6. Perhaps a reference to the ecclesiastical, political, and military reversals suffered by the Greeks in Asia Minor at the hands of Kemal Ataturk’s forces, the culmination of which was the massacre of thousands of Greek Orthodox Christians, and the forced exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey.

As Patriarchate of Constantinople, Gregory VII (Dec. 6, 1923–Nov. 16, 1924) had recognized the resolution of the “Council” of the Living Church deposing St. Tikhon as Patriarch of Moscow. Patriarch Gregory demanded of the Russian hierarchs then residing in Constantinople — Archbishops Anastasy and Alexander — that they cease both their public denunciations of the Soviet authorities and their commemoration of Patriarch Tikhon, and he advised them to recognize the Bolsheviks. Not meeting with any co-operation on their part, Patriarch Gregory initiated an investigation and banned them from serving. He also appealed to the Serbian Patriarch, Dimitry, requesting him to dissolve the Synod of Russian Bishops in Sremski Karlovci, to which he received a refusal. It was Patriarch Gregory who established the autocephaly of the Polish Orthodox Church.

7. Patriarch Constantine VI (Nov. 1924–Jan. 1925) proved unacceptable to the Turkish authorities and was forced to depart from Turkey, leaving the Patriarchal throne to Basil III.

8. Alas, Metropolitan Anthony’s words have proved to be prophetic. These and similar, even harsher, pronouncements by Metropolitan Anthony expose the folly of those current modernists who wish to find a precedent in his words for maintaining communion with “World Orthodoxy” even today — after all that has taken place in the intervening eighty years.