The Bitter Fruits of Ecumenism in the Life of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate

A Letter Concerning the Meeting of the Patriarch with the Pope and Concerning Ecumenism.

Mitred Protopriest Vladimir Malchenko,

Rector of the Holy Trinity Cathedral in the city of Toronto,

Dean of the Eastern District of the Canadian Diocese of the ROCOR-MP

April 7, 2016

 

 

The unexpected meeting of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill with the Roman Pope at the airport in Cuba on February 12, 2016, on the day when our Church celebrates the Synaxis of the Three Hierarchs, caused and still causes great confusion and pain in the hearts of the majority of the clergy and laity of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. This image of the meeting of the Patriarch with the Pope compelled us to recall those photographs and video broadcasts of the meetings of the Patriarchs of Constantinople with the Popes, first on January 5–6, 1964 in Jerusalem, then twice in 1967, as well as in November 1979 in Rome, where both sat in vestments before the altar of the Cathedral of the Apostle Peter; in 1987, 1995, 2002, 2004, 2005 in Rome; in 2006 in Constantinople, on October 21, 2007 in Naples, in 2008 in the Vatican, in 2011 in Italy, in 2012 and 2013 in Rome, and in May 2014 in Jerusalem. I remember how these meetings greatly disturbed us in the Church Abroad, for at these meetings various documents and statements unacceptable for our Orthodox Church were signed, leading to a rapprochement of the Orthodox Church with the Catholics. In these photographs we saw how the Roman Pope and the Orthodox Patriarch stood together in vestments, performed joint services, and all this for us was unacceptable and, frankly speaking, repugnant. Therefore, the sight of such an image in the news on February 12, 2016, this time already with our Patriarch and the new Pope, caused us great pain.

Our late Canadian hierarch, Archbishop Vitaly (Ustinov), subsequently the 4th Metropolitan of the Russian Church Abroad, in the 1960s sternly warned the entire flock about the great threat of ecumenism and called it the “heresy of heresies.” The result of such meetings of the Patriarch of Constantinople with the Roman Pope was a great schism in the Greek Church, when many Greek Old-Calendarists began opening their parishes under the omophorion of the Russian Church Abroad. In Toronto there were two such Greek Old Calendarist parishes, and, visiting these churches, we saw on their bulletin boards many photographs of similar meetings. Every parishioner of the Church Abroad knew the word “ecumenism” and what it means. Thus we were brought up.

The Synod of the Church Abroad already in the 1960s of the twentieth century vigilantly followed the rapidly developing ecumenism. In 1967, Vladyka Vitaly (Ustinov) wrote a report to the Council of Bishops, in which he described the entire history of ecumenism from the very beginning of its existence. The report of Archbishop Vitaly is now forgotten by many, and precisely now it must be disseminated everywhere in order to understand where ecumenism leads and how the ecumenists achieve their goal. As Vladyka Vitaly correctly taught: “When the holy Fathers impart their teaching to us, they do this from the fullness of their life, permeated with prayer. All their sayings were obtained by them, if one may so say, in prayer and in contemplation, and not from the intellectual syllogisms of the analytical mind. In the purely speculative study of dogma, practiced in all our seminaries and academies, there is concealed a subtle pride, interwoven with a subtle trickle of blasphemy.”

Metropolitan Vitaly wrote little in his life, but he was spiritually strong by his prayer, asceticism, and fidelity to the holy Russian Orthodox Church. To this day we recall his fiery sermons and what he called us to.

The third First Hierarch of the Church Abroad, Metropolitan Philaret (Voznesensky), understood his responsibility for preserving the Church Abroad and the whole Church as a whole from anti-Orthodox actions of the Ecumenical Patriarch. Metropolitan Philaret is the author of three sorrowful epistles to the Most Holy and Most Blessed Heads of the Orthodox Churches in 1969, 1972, and 1975, in which he thoroughly exposes the treacherous path of many Orthodox hierarchs and clerics.

In the first sorrowful epistle the Metropolitan taught: “If a temptation appears only in one of the Orthodox Churches, then correction may be found within the same bounds. But when a certain evil penetrates almost all our Churches, then it becomes a matter concerning every bishop. Can any one of us remain inactive if he sees how at the same time many of his brethren are going along a path leading them and their flock into a destructive abyss through an unnoticed loss of Orthodoxy?”

In the second sorrowful epistle Metropolitan Philaret wrote: “The Roman Catholic Church, with which Patriarch Athenagoras wishes to have liturgical communion and with which, through Metropolitan Nikodim of Leningrad and others, the Moscow Patriarchate has entered into communion — is no longer even the one with which St. Mark of Ephesus rejected union and, after him, the entire Orthodox Church. It is even further from Orthodoxy than it was in those days, since it has introduced still new dogmas and now more and more assimilates the principles of the Reformation, ecumenism, and modernism. A whole series of determinations of the Orthodox Church have recognized the Latins as heretics. If at times they were received into communion by the same rite as the Arians, then for a number of centuries and even to our days the Greek Churches received them through baptism. If in the first centuries after 1054 the Latins in both the Greek and the Russian Church were received differently, sometimes through baptism, sometimes through chrismation, then this was because all regarded them as heretics, but did not have a universally established practice for their reception into the Orthodox Church. Thus, for example, at the very beginning of the fourteenth century the Serbian prince, the father of Stefan Nemanja, was compelled to baptize his son with Latin baptism, but later rebaptized him according to the Orthodox rite when he returned to Ras. Professor E. Golubinsky, in his fundamental work “History of the Russian Church,” making a survey of the attitude of the Russians toward Latinism, cites many facts indicating that with the different methods of receiving the Latins into the bosom of the Orthodox Church at different times, that is, by performing either their baptism or their chrismation, both the Greek and the Russian Churches proceeded from recognizing them as heretics. Therefore, the assertion that during these centuries ‘unity in communion of the sacraments and in particular of the Eucharist undoubtedly remained’ between the Orthodox Church and Rome — does not at all correspond to reality. The separation between us and Rome was and exists, and moreover a real one, not an illusory one.”

In this same second sorrowful epistle Metropolitan Philaret reports something that was a revelation for me: “Even preceding Patriarch Athenagoras, the representative of the Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan Nikodim, on December 14, 1970, gave communion to Catholic clerics in Rome itself, in the Cathedral of the Apostle Peter. There, during the celebration by him of the liturgy, the choir of students of the Pontifical College sang, and Roman Catholic clerics received communion from the hands of Metropolitan Nikodim. But behind such a practical realization of the so-called ecumenism there are seen broader aims as well, directed toward the complete abolition of the Orthodox Church.”

In these three sorrowful epistles of Metropolitan Philaret, the third First Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad, one may find a detailed and complete description of the entire history of ecumenism, how it developed in the Orthodox Church and in the Russian Church in particular, and this valuable information will enable each person to understand what is now taking place in our Church.

The meeting of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill with the Roman Pope caused in me and in many of our parishioners great indignation, and the first questions addressed to me were: “How did His Holiness the Vladyka conduct such a meeting with the head of the Roman Church without the knowledge of his 300 hierarchs? How did His Holiness Patriarch Kirill sign some document, which was drafted by the Vatican and one hierarch, without the knowledge of his own hierarchs? If the document was drafted and signed in such a manner, is the signature of His Holiness the Patriarch valid on behalf of the entire fullness of the Russian Church?” To my great joy and consolation, I felt in my parish almost complete solidarity with my reflections. This means that we still think and live in an Orthodox manner. To my great joy and consolation, I read and listen on the internet to many truly Orthodox people in Russia, Ukraine, Greece, Moldova, Bulgaria, and on Athos, who asked similar questions to those I asked myself, and who act each in his own way in order to clarify and explain these questions for themselves personally and for all our believing people. I am very grateful to Father Deacon Vladimir Vasilik, a cleric from Saint Petersburg, for his detailed interpretation of the document that was signed in Cuba, calling this document purely ecumenical, in which every theological point is ambiguous. For me, an archpriest of the Church Abroad with a simple seminary education in our Holy Trinity Seminary in Jordanville, it was important to receive a correct answer from a theologian, historian, and philologist in the person of Father Vladimir Vasilik to the question: “What is to be done?” In this situation we must fervently pray for His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, remain in the Russian Orthodox Church, but at the same time firmly and clearly inform our church authority that we do not agree with these texts.

Often His Holiness the Patriarch in his addresses says that the people of God also have a voice in the resolution of church questions, and let this small letter be my modest voice of the people of God. The excellent article of Fr. Vladimir Vasilik we immediately printed in Russian and English for all our parishioners and distributed in our parish. It also gladdens us that in both Moscow and Saint Petersburg theological conferences were held on the themes of the meeting in Cuba and of the Pan-Orthodox Council, the holding of which is planned for Pentecost, and that the people in Russia are concerned and care about the fate of the Church.

It was sad to listen to the speeches of prominent capital clerics who expressed their complete delight at the meeting in Cuba and said that in their parishes no one is troubled by this meeting. I personally heard how a well-known Moscow cleric invited his Catholic friend to speak before the parish after the service from the ambo, so that the parishioners might see a good Catholic man. If I were to do something similar in Toronto, my parishioners would expel me for such a scandal. This delight of the capital clerics is probably explained by the fact that they have a completely different perception of ecumenism than in the Church Abroad. We do not accept it at all and will not accept it, whereas in Russia, in the Russian Church, beginning in 1961, ecumenism developed and continues to develop with great speed. Unfortunately, in the Russian Church of the Moscow Patriarchate ecumenical thinking and upbringing long ago entered into the church organism. And how are we to be? We are one Church and have a completely different perception of the theme and activity of ecumenism. Lord, grant us patience, love, and faith to endure all this!

I strongly recommend finding on the internet the report of Metropolitan Vitaly (Ustinov) “Ecumenism. Report to the Council of Bishops of the ROCOR,” as well as the “Sorrowful Epistles” of Metropolitan Philaret (Voznesensky). It is necessary for everyone to read these reports, then you will understand us, your brethren and sisters abroad.

 

Russian source: https://web.archive.org/web/20210511210740/https://blagogon.ru/news/429/