St. Herman of Alaska Monastery in Platina: Apologia for Abandoning their Strict Anti-Ecumenist and Anti-Sergianist Past

 

Patience, Vigilance & Healing in the Church:

Reflections on Events in the Life of the Orthodox Church During the Last Decade of the Second Millennium

By Hieromonk Damascene [Christensen]

Source: The Orthodox Word, Vol. 36, No. 5 (214), September-October 2000, pp. 217-241. Footnotes reformatted.

 

I. The Definition and Purpose of the Church

The Church of Christ, the Orthodox Church, has been defined in Orthodox dogmatic theology as a theandric (God-human) organism. Being the Body of Christ the God-man, the Church unites in itself the two natures, divine and human, with their inherent actions and wills. The Church has come into being both through the redemptive feat accomplished by the Son Who was sent by the Father, and through the sanctifying action of the Holy Spirit Who descended on the day of Pentecost. [1]

Christ is the Head of the Church, the Holy Spirit gives life to the Church, and the believers—both those still on earth in the “Church militant” and those already in Heaven in the “Church triumphant”—are included in the Church’s Body. As the Apostle Paul writes, “[The Father] hath put all things under His [Christ’s] feet, and gave Him to be the Head over all things to the Church, which is His Body, the fullness of Him that filleth all” (Eph. 1:22–23). Just as all the members of our body comprise a complete living organism which depends on its head, so also the Church of Christ is a spiritual organism in which there is no place that the powers of Christ do not act. [2] In the words of St. Theophan the Recluse, the Church is “full of Christ.”

St. Justin Popovich of Serbia (†1979) writes that “the Church is … a God-human organism and not a human organization.” [3] Likewise, Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky of Jordanville, New York (†1987), says: “The life of the Church in its essence is mystical; the course of its life cannot be entirely included in any ‘history.’ The Church is completely distinct from any kind of organized society on earth.” [4]

Before going to His final passion, Christ told His disciples—who would comprise His Church—that they were to “abide” or live in Him (John 15:4–7). When we live in Christ’s Church, we are literally living in Him, as part of His Body. Each one of us who is in the Orthodox Church is a member of Christ’s mystical Body; each one of us is as it were a cell in the theandric organism.

St. Justin Popovich explains: “The organism of the Church is the most complex organism of which the human spirit knows. Why? This is because it is the unique, God-human organism in which all the mysteries of God and man, all the divine and human powers, constitute one Body. Only the all-wise, omnipotent God-man, the Lord Jesus, was able to connect and join all these things in one Body, His Body, of which He Himself is the Head, the eternal Head. He directs the whole life in this marvelous and wonderworking Body.... Every member of it lives for the whole Body, but also the whole Body lives within each one of its members. All live in each one and for each one. But, also, each one lives in all and for all. Each member grows with the common growth of the Body, but also the whole Body grows with the growth of each member. All these numerous members of the Body, all of these organs, the organs of the senses, the cells, connect in one eternally living God-human Body, the God-man, Christ Himself, adopting the energies of each member to the catholic life of the Body.... The evangelical activity of each member of the Church, even if it is entirely special and personal, is always and from every perspective catholic and general. The task of each member of the Church is always personal yet collective, personal yet catholic. Even if it appears that one member of the Church acts only for himself (for example, the ascesis of a hermit), in reality he acts for its entirety. Such is the organization of the God-human organism of the Church, which Christ Himself directs and leads (cf. Eph. 4:16).” [5]

The purpose of the Church is to bring all of its members into eternal union with its divine Head. “The mission of the Church,” continues St. Justin, “is to make every one of her faithful, organically and in person, one with the Person of Christ; to turn their sense of self into a sense of Christ, and their self-knowledge (self-awareness) into Christ-knowledge (Christ-awareness); for their life to become the life in Christ and for Christ; their personality to become personality in Christ and for Christ; that within them might live not they themselves but Christ in them (Gal. 2:20)....

“The Church is God-human, eternity incarnated within the boundaries of time and space. She is here in this world but she is not of this world (John 18:36). She is in the world in order to raise it on high where she herself has her origin.” [6]

The purpose of the Church is the purpose for which the entire visible universe was created. As Vladimir Lossky writes: “The Church is the center of the universe, the sphere in which its destinies are determined. All are called to enter into the Church, for if man is a microcosm, the Church is a macro-anthropos, as St. Maximus the Confessor says. It increases and is compounded in history, bringing the elect into its bosom and uniting them to God. The world grows old and falls into decay, while the Church is constantly rejuvenated and renewed by the Holy Spirit, Who is the source of its life. At a given moment, when the Church has attained to the fullness of growth determined by the will of God, the external world, having used up its vital resources, will perish. As for the Church, it will appear in its eternal glory as the Kingdom of God. It will then stand revealed as the true foundation of the creatures raised up in incorruptibility to be united to God, Who will be all in all.” [7]

II. The Wheat and the Tares

With such a lofty spiritual view of the Church before us, we may well ask how, when we look back into history and around us today, we see such evident signs of sin, pettiness, compromise and corruption in the Church. The answer to this is simple and not difficult to grasp—though it may be hard to accept. Christ, as the Head of His Church, takes into His Body human beings who are still fallen and sinful, subject to corruption both spiritual and physical. As the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church has recently explained: “The Church, being the Body of the God-man Christ, is divine-human. However, even if Christ is the perfect God-man, the Church is not yet perfect in her divine humanity, for on earth she has to struggle with sin, and her humanity, though inherently united with the Godhead, is far from expressing Him and matching Him in everything.” [8]

If the fallen human beings who enter the Church will truly believe in Christ, if they will take up their crosses and follow Him, being true to Him in His Church, then they will be purified of sin and corruption, healed of spiritual sickness, recreated into a new being in the likeness of Christ Himself, and one day resurrected unto eternal life. It is Christ Who heals and purifies His Body. In the words of Vladimir Lossky, “We are included in one Body in which the blood of Christ circulates, purifying us from all sin and from every stain.” [9] Just as a physical body naturally drives out disease and heals wounds, so is the Body of the Church healed through the power of Christ being present and working in it.

“The sanctity of the Church,” writes Fr. Michael Pomazansky, “is not darkened by the intrusion of the world into the Church, or by the sinfulness of men. Everything sinful and worldly which intrudes into the Church’s sphere remains foreign to it and is destined to be sifted out and destroyed, like weed seeds at sowing time. The opinion that the Church consists only of righteous and holy people without sin does not agree with the direct teaching of Christ and His Apostles. The Savior compares His Church with a field in which the wheat grows together with the tares, and again, with a net which draws out of the water both good fish and bad ones (Matt. 18:23–35), wise virgins and foolish (Matt. 25:1–13).” [10]

III. Patience

Therefore, when we see things in the Church that are less than perfect, and even when we see tremendous, seemingly insurmountable problems in the Church, we should not despair. Christ promised us that “the gates of hell shall not prevail” against His Church (Matt. 16:18). If, due to the sinfulness of fallen humanity, there is a disease or impurity in the theandric organism, we must call upon Him to cleanse it; if there is a wound, we must ask Him to heal it, according to His divine will and in His own time.

It is not ours to judge the ways of divine Providence. If we grow impatient because the impurities take time to be worked out of the Body and the wounds take time to heal, this is a sign of our own failing, our own lack of faith in Christ’s Church. If we wish to bring forth fruit in this life and receive the salvation of our souls in the next, we must pray for patience, for as our Lord has told us, “... Bring forth fruit with patience” (Luke 8:15), and “In your patience ye will gain your souls” (Luke 21:19). By growing impatient over the length of the healing process—or worse, despairing over it—we will do nothing to speed it up. “Which of you, by taking thought, can add one cubit to his stature?” (Matt. 6:27).

Having faith in the Church does not mean placing ultimate trust in those who are its leading representatives. The Scriptures warn us: “Put not your trust in princes and in the sons of men, in whom there is no salvation” (Psalm 145:2). Archbishop Averky of Jordanville echoed this warning when he said, “The ‘gates of hell’ will not prevail against the Church, but they have prevailed and certainly can prevail against many who consider themselves pillars of the Church, as is shown by Church history.” [11]

Individuals in the Church may fall. If they do, it is by means of their own wrong choices. And if they remain fallen, it is by their own stubborn, prideful insistence on remaining in that state—or, in other words, their refusal to repent. Eventually such ones may separate themselves from the Body and thus wall themselves off from the healing that Christ offers in His Church. Once they open themselves to repentance, however, they again open the way to be healed through the rejuvenating power of Christ.

God allows people to fall and even to remain fallen, for to interfere would be to interfere with man’s free will, the engagement of which is necessary for man’s salvation. But in spite of human falls and weaknesses, even by “those who consider themselves pillars of the Church,” the Church of Christ, the Orthodox Church, will never vanish from the earth. To the end of time, the Orthodox Church will remain the sole preserver of the fullness of revelation and the sole repository of the fullness of Truth—for Christ, its Head, has said, “I am the Truth” (cf. John 14:6).

Christ has told us, “Believe in Me” (John 14:1). Since the Church is His Body, it follows that in believing in Him we must believe also in the Church. To believe in the Church does not mean to believe in the sons of men. Rather, it means to believe in Christ Who redeems and heals man, and in the Holy Spirit Who guides man into all Truth.

Often when schism occurs in the Church, with a group separating itself from unity with the Body, this is due to lack of faith in the Church and in Christ’s power to heal its members. It is easy to see problems in the Church, to see errors made by its pastors and archpastors. But we must look above and beyond these problems and errors, and understand that the Church is more than an organization made up of fallen human beings: it is a God-human organism into which Christ welcomes sinful human beings and offers to save them from sin. This understanding and realization will help us to be more patient when we notice human error in the Church. We will be more accepting of God’s Providence, which, as He Himself has told us, allows tares to grow alongside the wheat until the Last Judgment. If, on the other hand, we refuse to understand and accept this, we will be apt to separate ourselves from the Body and create our own “ecclesiology of resistance” justifying our separation. We will be led to try to create our own “tare-free” Orthodox Church; and as a result we will one day find that, quite the contrary, we created a “church” that is in fact totally full of tares, that is, of those who are outside the Church.

As Metropolitan Amphilohije, the current hierarch of Montenegro, has pointed out, “An ‘ecclesiology of resistance’ through separation from the Church organism is unknown to the Holy Fathers, for whom the very Church was the resistance against every evil and resistance in the Church herself, without separation from her, the only blessed and salvific opposition.” [12]

A prime example from Church history is St. Basil the Great, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia (†379), who did not separate from the Church organism just because part of it was sick with the disease of Arianism and other heresies, but rather remained fully united with it and labored to drive out the disease from within.

As part of the organism of the Church, when we see another part of the Body that is sick, we should not immediately try to sever ourselves from the Body but rather pray for the healing of that part, while remaining ourselves united to the Body. For if we cut ourselves off from the Body and from the Head, we will be cut off from the life-giving and healing properties of the Body and from the guidance and direction of the Head, and we will eventually become spiritually gangrenous, wither and die, like an amputated limb.

In all that we do, unity with the Church must be held up as our primary concern, for thereby we are united with Christ. Christ wants us to be one. In His prayer before His passion, He asked the Father to make us, His disciples, one with each other and one with Him in His Church. When we place our own little “truths” above the One Truth Who is Christ, then we cut ourselves off from this oneness. We can never divide the Church, for the Church always remains One; we can only separate ourselves from it.

If we see something unhealthy in the Church, we will try in vain to correct it if first of all we do not set about to correct ourselves, or rather give up our will to Christ so that He can correct us. If each of us is a cell in the Body of Christ, we must be concerned that that cell is a spiritually healthy one. When we correct ourselves by allowing Christ to heal us and drive out all impurity, we are correcting one part of the Church.

IV. Vigilance

When we look back at Christian history, we can see innumerable cases in which the Church was healed of terrible spiritual sicknesses through the rejuvenating, cleansing power of Christ and through the action of the Holy Spirit which preserves against all error. The most striking examples that come to mind are the Church’s victories over heresies. There were times when Emperors, Bishops and even Patriarchs adhered to heretical teachings, and yet the Truth ultimately prevailed: the poison of heresy was expelled from the Church, and the Orthodox faith was upheld by the holy hierarchs who acted under the guidance of the Holy Spirit at the Ecumenical Councils.

At the same time, we must remember that this healing did not occur without the synergy of the human will with the divine will: the human nature of the Church with the divine nature. As we have said, Christ heals His Church, but a man must accept and receive that healing; otherwise he will ultimately be separated from the Body. At the Ecumenical Councils, the Truth prevailed not only because the Holy Spirit was present, but also because the people of God and their shepherds, the Holy Fathers, accepted His guidance in humility and a spirit of repentance. Their humility expressed itself in their vigilance to preserve, intact and unchanged, the Holy Tradition which itself had been given to the Church through the action of the Holy Spirit. As the Orthodox Patriarchs wrote in their Letter of 1848 to Pope Pius IX: “Among us, neither Patriarchs nor Councils could ever introduce new teaching, for the guardian of religion is the very Body of the Church, that is, the people (laos) itself.”

Orthodox Christians of today are called upon to exercise the same vigilance in guarding the integrity of the Faith. At their recent Jubilee Council, the assembled Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church affirmed this need for vigilance:

“Orthodoxy is not a national or cultural attribute of the Eastern Church. Orthodoxy is an inner quality of the Church. It is the preservation of the doctrinal truth, the liturgical and hierarchical order and the principles of spiritual life which, unchangingly and uninterruptedly, have been present in the Church since apostolic times. One should not yield to the temptation to idealize the past or to ignore the tragic shortcomings and failures which marked the history of the Church. Above all, the great Fathers of the Church themselves provide an example of spiritual self-criticism. The history of the Church in the fourth to the seventh centuries knew of not a few cases when a significant proportion of believers fell into heresy. But history also reveals that the Church struggled on principled terms with the heresies that were infecting her children, and that there were cases where those who had gone astray were healed of heresy, experienced repentance and returned to the bosom of the Church. This tragic experience of misunderstanding emerging from within the Church herself and of the struggle with it during the period of the Ecumenical Councils has taught the children of the Orthodox Church to be vigilant. The Orthodox Church, while humbly bearing witness to her preservation of the Truth, at the same time remembers all the temptations which arose during her history.” [13]

V. Signs of Healing during the Last Decade

We do not have to look far back into history to find examples of how Christ heals and the Holy Spirit guides the Church, working through members who submit their human wills to the divine will and who wait on their Lord with both patience and vigilance.

When The Orthodox Word first began to be published in 1965, there were several problems in the Church which were a source of great concern to many. Now, thirty-five years later, we have seen some of these problems overcome, and others in the process of being overcome, through the healing power of Christ in His Church. In most cases this healing has occurred in ways which we would never have expected. Here we will name four examples of healing change within the Church, all of which have occurred just in the last ten years—the last decade of the twentieth century:

1. The collapse of the Communist regime in Russia and the end of its domination of the Church hierarchy; and the canonization of the Russian New Martyrs by the Church in Russia.

In 1927, Metropolitan Sergius Staragorodsky issued his infamous Declaration which stated that the joys and failures of the Soviet Union were those of the Russian Orthodox Church. At this very time the Soviet government had been staging an assault on the Church unprecedented even in pagan Roman times. Succumbing to pressure and the fear of imprisonment, Metropolitan Sergius (who later became Patriarch) openly denied that people were being persecuted for religious reasons; and when his fellow hierarchs refused to go along with his program they were labeled “political criminals” and sent to Soviet death-camps. “Sergianism” became the term for this policy of capitulation to the atheist regime, which many saw as a kind of betrayal. In subsequent decades, after all opposition had been removed, the Church in Russia—the Moscow Patriarchate—followed this policy under compulsion. It became a cause of division in the Russian Church, with some hierarchs in Russia going underground, and some hierarchs outside Russia forming the Synod of the Russian Church Abroad.

Finally, in 1988, the thousandth anniversary of the Baptism of Rus, the fervent prayers of believers both in Russia and abroad were answered by our merciful God, and the situation in Russia began to change. In 1991, within months after the relics of St. Seraphim of Sarov were revealed and carried in procession from Moscow to Diveyevo Monastery, the totalitarian atheist regime fell, and with it the situation that produced the spiritual disease of Sergianism. In the decade that followed, through the heavenly intercessions of St. Seraphim and the host of Russian Saints, Russia has experienced what has been called the largest religious revival in history.

In the book Russia’s Catacomb Saints, published in 1982, Fr. Seraphim Rose predicted that when the godless regime in Russia falls, “the Sergianist church organization and its whole philosophy of being will crumble to dust.” [14] This is indeed happening at the present time in Russian history. For those who look only at the outward side, in terms of external organization, it would seem that “the Sergianist church organization”—the Moscow Patriarchate—is alive and well, and is not at all about to collapse. But for those who view the Church as an invincible theandric organism, as Fr. Seraphim did, it is clear that Sergianism as an organization and a “whole philosophy of being” is indeed being replaced by something else, as the Church organism is healed and corrected by Christ with the cooperation of its members. Clear proof of this is found in the fact that, on August 7/20 of the year 2000, the Sobor (Council) of Bishops of the Moscow Patriarchate, responding to the fervent desire of the people who comprise the Body of Christ, canonized 1,200 Russian New Martyrs and Confessors. Among the newly glorified Saints were the Russian Royal Family and numerous Bishop-martyrs who protested against Metropolitan Sergius’ bowing down to the anti-Christian authorities. During his lifetime, Metropolitan Sergius’ policy of capitulation appeared victorious, but in the end it was not him but the suffering, outcast Bishops in the Soviet death-camps who were glorified as Saints by the Orthodox Church. The Church in Russia could not have expressed its repentance more effectively than by this act of canonization.

This consideration provides a valuable lesson in what the Orthodox Church of Christ actually is, and how “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” The Truth will ultimately win out in the Church, even if, for a time, some church leaders succumb to temptation and pressure from the world.

With this change in Russia, culminating this year in the canonization of the New Martyrs and Confessors in Moscow, the path is now open for the restoration of the Russian Church Abroad to communion with the main body of the Russian Orthodox Church. Writing in the 1970s and early ’80s, Fr. Seraphim Rose expressed the hope that this reunification would occur. He emphasized that the division of the Russian Churches was only temporary, and should end when Communism collapses and the Church in Russia is free again, as it is today. Writing as a member of the Russian Church Abroad about a courageous confessor who belonged to the Moscow Patriarchate in Russia, Fr. Dimitry Dudko, Fr. Seraphim wrote: “Our Church has no communion with Moscow. But our Church recognizes this as a temporary situation, which will end when the Communist regime comes to an end.... Our lack of communion with the Moscow Patriarchate is only a temporary thing, because the Orthodoxy of someone like Fr. Dimitry is one with our own.” [15] And again: “The problem of his bishops, intercommunion, etc. [between the Synod and the Patriarchal Church in Russia], still remain—but all the time it becomes more and more obvious that these questions, in the Russian Church at least, are temporary and superficial and do not hinder the deeper unity between us and true sons of the Russian Church like Fr. Dimitry... [16] Once the political situation in Russia that produced ‘Sergianism’ will have changed, a full unity in the faith will be possible with such courageous strugglers as Fr. Dimitry.” [17]

Today there are many clergymen in the Church Abroad who desire liturgical communion with the now-free Moscow Patriarchate. Recently a positive response has issued from the Synod of Bishops of the Church Abroad, both individually and collectively, to the canonization of the Royal Family and the New Martyrs, and also to the recent affirmation by the Sobor of Bishops of the Moscow Patriarchate that the Church cannot and will not submit to any decrees of the government that violate Christian moral principles. [18] A recent conciliar Epistle from the Synod of the Church Abroad (dated October 13/26, 2000) states: “We are given hope by the adoption of a new social concept by that Sobor [of the Moscow Patriarchate], which in essence cancels out the 1927 ‘Declaration’ of Metropolitan Sergius.” [19] For many, this is a sign of hope for the restoration of communion between the Church Abroad and the Moscow Patriarchate. If this reunification occurs, the Russian Church Abroad will be following the example already set by the two Serbian Orthodox Churches which united again after decades of separation during the Communist era.

2. The canonization of St. John (Maximovitch) of Shanghai and San Francisco.

During his lifetime and for at least two decades following it, the great ascetic and miracle-worker Archbishop John Maximovitch (†1966) was regarded as a controversial figure. Although thousands of Orthodox believers all over the world thought he was a living saint, there were many who were disturbed by his appearance (he was frequently seen barefoot and with disheveled hair), his sometimes inexplicable behavior, his strictness, and his lack of political partisanship.

The opposition to Archbishop John reached its peak in 1964, when the new parish council of the Holy Virgin Cathedral in San Francisco was tried in a civil court for embezzling funds, and Archbishop John was charged as the chief defendant for allegedly covering up the embezzlement. Orthodox faithful, clergy and hierarchs stood on both sides of this heated emotional dispute, with some fervently supporting and defending their holy Archbishop, and others working and testifying against him. Archbishop John and the parish council were acquitted of all charges, and at his funeral two years later many of his opponents wept at his coffin, asking his forgiveness. Nevertheless, the emotions caused by the past controversy took time to die down. Church leaders tried to limit the posthumous veneration of Archbishop John as a heavenly intercessor and wonderworker so as not to irritate those in the Church who were still dubious about his sanity let alone his sanctity. In 1972, this caused Fr. Seraphim to write in his Chronicle: “Why such efforts to limit veneration of an obvious wonderworker and saint for our times?... It’s precisely the Orthodox ‘heroism’ of someone like Vladika John that can inflame the youth with fervor for Orthodoxy.” [20] Two years later, after attending the annual Liturgy in Archbishop John’s Sepulchre, Fr. Seraphim noted, “Fr. Mitrophan gave a fiery sermon—even in his old age and toothlessness—about the shame it is to Russians not to value their own wonderworker, Archbishop John, while other people, such as the Greeks, already print icons of him and venerate him openly as a Saint. (Such words have not been spoken in public before!)” [21]

The war waged against Archbishop John at the end of his life, together with the residual effects after his repose, was another example of the “diseases” that afflict the Church as a result of petty human passions. There was a time, considering all the controversy that had been generated around him, when one wondered if he would ever be properly glorified by the Orthodox Church. But these doubts arose out of our limited human perception. Christ, the Head of His Church, sees all, and through Him the Truth would once again prove victorious, overriding human passions and fears. In 1993 Archbishop Anthony Medvedev—Archbishop John’s successor on the San Francisco cathedra—saw that the time had come to canonize Archbishop John. Inspired by the open veneration of Archbishop John by Patriarch Pavle of Serbia (when the latter came to the Saint’s Sepulcher in San Francisco), Archbishop Anthony advocated for the canonization, which took place on the twenty-eighth anniversary of the Saint’s repose day, June 19/July 2, 1994. Many thousands of worshippers came to the canonization ceremony in San Francisco. Today Archbishop John is venerated as a Saint by the Orthodox Church all over the world, inspiring the faithful by his life of Christ-like compassion and pastoral self-sacrifice, and performing miracles all the time through his heavenly intercessions. Truly, he continues to inflame young and old alike with the fervor of faith, showing that, in our spiritually impoverished times, God can raise up a Saint equal to the great miracle-workers of old.

3. The waning of Orthodox participation in the “ecumenical movement.”

In the mid-1960s, the “ecumenical movement” appeared to pose a major problem for the Orthodox world. During that time of social unrest and radical change on all fronts, it seemed as though the purity of the Orthodox faith was about to be hopelessly mixed with heretical teachings, and that the Orthodox Church itself was about to be united with the heretical body of Rome. In 1967 the Patriarch of Constantinople, Athenagoras I, made a concerted attempt to unite the Orthodox and Roman Churches, without first requiring that the latter renounce its false doctrines. As one of his followers in his Patriarchate later wrote: “The Schism of A.D. 1054 which has divided the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches is no longer valid. It has been erased from history by the mutual agreement and signatures of the Patriarch of Constantinople, Athenagoras I, and the Patriarch of the West, Pope Paul VI.” [22] In December of 1968, Patriarch Athenagoras announced that he had inserted Pope Paul VI’s name into the diptychs, therefore signifying that the Pope was in communion with the Orthodox Church.

Of course, since the Orthodox Church has no single “infallible” head like Roman Catholicism claims to have, the Patriarch could not really accomplish this without the common consent of other Local Orthodox Churches. There were some who hailed Patriarch Athenagoras as a “prophet” of a new age, but most of the faithful did not go along with him. As in former eras when hierarchs betrayed the Orthodox Faith, those who truly loved that Faith remained vigilant and thereby guarded it against theological and dogmatic taint. The catholic consciousness of the Orthodox Church, informed by the Only-begotten Son and upheld by the Holy Spirit Who proceeds from the Father, prevented the disease of heresy from taking over the Body of Christ.

Still, the threat of the Orthodox Church uniting with Rome—and ultimately with other heretical bodies—seemed to hover on the horizon. In the last ten years or so, however, a movement of resistance against this has been growing from within the Church of Christ itself. As non-Orthodox churches (particularly the more liberal ones, which take part in the ecumenical movement) stray further and further away from basic Christianity, Orthodox leaders have begun to see the dead end of the last three decades of ecumenical activities. In the early 1990s, American Orthodox participants in the ecumenical “National Council of Churches” raised a protest against its modernist policies; at its Sobor in May of 1997 the Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church made the decision to withdraw from the leading organization of world ecumenism, the World Council of Churches; [23] and in 1997 and 1998 the Orthodox Churches of Georgia and Bulgaria withdrew completely from the WCC. On April 29-May 2, 1998, leaders of Orthodox Churches throughout the world gathered in Thessalonica, Greece, where they expressed their dissatisfaction with the WCC and questioned the nature of further Orthodox participation in it. More recently, at their Jubilee Council in Moscow on August 13–16, 2000, the Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church issued a document which, while stating that the Russian Church would continue its participation in inter-Christian organizations, carefully defined the criteria for this participation and categorically rejected the underlying philosophy and goals of the “ecumenical movement.” Specifically, the Russian Bishops rejected the idea that the Orthodox Church could unite with heterodox denominations without the latter first renouncing their heresies and embracing the Orthodox Faith. “The Orthodox Church,” the Bishops stated, “cannot recognize ‘the equality of the denominations.’ Those who have fallen away from the Church cannot unite with her in their present state. The existing dogmatic differences should be overcome, not simply bypassed, and this means that the way to unity lies through repentance, conversion and renewal.” [24]

All of the above developments reflect a general, though not universal, trend throughout the world, as Local Orthodox Churches are reassessing their stance toward ecumenism and their participation in inter-Christian organizations, and are bearing witness to the world that the Orthodox Church is indeed the true Body of Christ.

4. The spiritual rejuvenation of the Greek Archdiocese of America through the influence of traditional Orthodox monasticism.

Another disease that was discernible in the 1960s, especially in America, was that of modernism and nominalism in Orthodox churches. In 1964 Fr. Seraphim (then Eugene) Rose commented about this in his Chronicle of the St. Herman Brotherhood. Writing about two Orthodox priests who came into the Brotherhood’s bookstore in San Francisco, he said he noticed in them a “modernist, flippant tone and (at least in the case of one of them) an appalling ignorance of and indifference to books on the spiritual life. One of them had apparently not even heard of the Philokalia, and the other had had it recommended to him as a ‘good book.’ If these are today’s pastors, what hope can there be for the flock?”

This, too, has turned around drastically in the years since Fr. Seraphim wrote those lines. Particularly in the Greek Archdiocese of America, the change has occurred in unexpected and miraculous ways during the last decade, through the vision of a renowned monastic leader from Mount Athos, Elder Ephraim of Philotheou. Having seen that Greek Orthodox Christians in America were in desperate need of being reconnected with the sources of authentic Orthodox spiritual life—interior prayer, traditional worship, ascetic discipline, confession and guidance from spiritual fathers and mothers, pilgrimages to monasteries, etc.—Elder Ephraim felt called to raise the spiritual level of the Greek American flock. With this in mind, in 1992 he began to establish Greek Orthodox monasteries in the United States and Canada, having received a blessing to do so from the hierarchs of the Greek Archdiocese of North and South America. That his calling was truly from God is testified to by the incredible effect that his monasteries—now numbering eighteen—have had during the last several years, not only on Greek Americans but also on Orthodox Christians from all different backgrounds. It would be no exaggeration to say that the monasteries have revitalized the Greek Church in America with the grace-bearing fruits of traditional Athonite monasticism. And it is worth noting that they have done this not by separating themselves from the canonical Greek Archdiocese in protest of its modernism, but rather by laboring within it patiently through prayer and fasting, to serve as leaven within the Church of Christ itself.

VI. More Causes for Rejoicing during the Year 2000

As a testimony of His great love and care for His Church, our Lord Jesus Christ has brought many blessings to Orthodox Christians throughout the world during the year that marked the two-thousandth anniversary of His Birth. The canonization of Tsar Nicholas II and 1,200 New Martyrs in Russia is perhaps the most significant event that occurred this year; but there were other events of great importance:

1. On December 25, 1999/January 7, 2000, the Feast of the Nativity of Christ, Orthodox Patriarchs and heads of autocephalous Orthodox Churches gathered together in Bethlehem to celebrate two millennia since Christ’s Birth. Thus, this celebration of Christ’s Nativity was marked by an affirmation of the unity of Christ’s Church. Many heads of state from countries with large populations of Orthodox Christians also attended.

2. The Patriarchate of Georgia marked the celebration of the two-thousandth anniversary of Christ’s Nativity with a series of events lasting throughout the year 2000. One of these was the consecration of a holy place high in the Caucasus, traditionally known as the Bethlehem Cave (see the last issue of The Orthodox Word). This consecration took place at the same time as the gathering of Orthodox Patriarchs and Bishops in Bethlehem.

Additionally, processions covering several miles took place throughout the Georgian capital of Tbilisi on the Feast of Nativity. Then, from May through November, two processions of the faithful traveled simultaneously throughout the country, commemorating two millennia of the Christian Faith. Unprecedented outdoor celebrations were arranged for each of the major Feasts in the state and provincial capitals.

3. On May 9/21, 2000 the Serbian Orthodox Church canonized nine Serbian Martyrs and Confessors who suffered during World War II under the Croatian Fascists known as the Ustashi (sometimes with the help of Roman Catholic clerics) and under the Communists. The canonization ceremony with the Divine Liturgy was served in Belgrade by His Holiness Patriarch Pavle of Serbia, accompanied by all the hierarchs of the Serbian Orthodox Church, twenty-four priests and twelve deacons. The newly glorified Saints include the following:

1) Hieromartyr Petar (Zimonjic), Metropolitan of Dabro-Bosnia. Confessor of Orthodoxy before the German Gestapo, martyred in 1941, commemorated September 4/14.

2) Hieromartyr Joanikije (Lipovac), Metropolitan of Montenegro and the Littoral. Martyred by the Communists, commemorated June 4/17.

3) Confessor Dositej (Vasic), Metropolitan of Zagreb. Tortured by Roman Catholic nuns in a hospital at the beginning of World War II, commemorated December 31/January 13.

4) Hieromartyr Sava (Trlajic), Bishop of Gorji Karlovac. Martyred by the Ustashi, commemorated June 4/14.

5) Bishop Platon (Jovanovic), Bishop of Banja Luka. Martyred by the Ustashi, commemorated April 22/May 5.

6) Hieromartyr Rafailo (Momcilovic), Abbot of the Sisatovac Monastery. Martyred by the Ustashi, commemorated August 21/September 3.

7) Hieromartyr Branko Dobrosavljevic, Archpriest. Martyred by the Ustashi, commemorated April 24/May 7.

8) Hieromartyr Georgije-Djordje Bogic, Archpriest of Nasice. Martyred by the Ustashi, commemorated July 4/14.

9) Martyr Vukasin from the Village of Klepci. Martyred by the Ustashi, commemorated May 16/29.

Later, in October of 2000, the Serbian Orthodox Church rejoiced when Dr. Vojislav Kostunica was elected President of Yugoslavia, thus effectively ending a half-century of Communist domination of Serbia. President Kostunica is a faithful Orthodox Christian who regularly attends the Orthodox services and receives the Sacraments. After being elected President, he has repeatedly sought the counsel of the much-revered Patriarch Pavle of Serbia on important matters. While still the President-elect, Mr. Kostunica wrote to Patriarch Pavle: “First of all, you can be sure that every step I take will be peaceful and, as much as it is within my small power, dignified. I hope you believe me when I say that I care for peace, for our afflicted country and our troubled people, as much as for freedom. I also hope you believe me when I say that I will strive to behave most responsibly, always having in mind the words of the New Testament. I believe Your Holiness would not mind if I feel free and maybe, in a couple of days, again ask help with conceiving further measures to defend the electoral will of the citizens. The responsibility is really too huge a burden for an ordinary mortal, and therefore your paternal advice would be really precious to me.” [25]

On December 3, 2000, President Kostunica made a pilgrimage to Mount Athos in the company of Metropolitan Amphilohije of Montenegro, for the sake of his own spiritual strengthening and uplifting as he begins the great task of governing his country. Upon his arrival on Mount Athos, he was met by representatives of all the Athonite monasteries. He attended the All-night Vigil and Divine Liturgy for the Slava (Feast Day) of the Serbian Monastery of Hilandar, received confession and Holy Communion, read aloud with great feeling the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer during the service, and afterwards gave an evangelical sermon to the assembled monks in the refectory. Later the Greek monks commented to the Serbian pilgrims who were there: “We don’t have such a President.” [26]

The Serbian Orthodox people believe that it is a mercy of God—an answer to prayer—that they now have such a President as Dr. Kostunica, just as they believe that it is through God’s great mercy that they have had such a saintly Patriarch as His Holiness Pavle during this troubled and crucial time in their history.

4. On May 28–29 (n.s.), 2000, the Orthodox Church in America canonized another Saint of the American land: Bishop Raphael (Hawaweeny) (†1915). The canonization ceremony took place at St. Tikhon’s Seminary, South Canaan, Pennsylvania. St. Raphael was the first Bishop to be consecrated in North America. He was a noted missionary, traveling extensively and seeking out Orthodox Christians in the United States, Canada, and Mexico who were without spiritual communities. He established thirty parishes and ordained priests for them, and was among the first to encourage the use of English in church services. Prior to his canonization this year, his veneration had been growing among the faithful, especially the Arab Orthodox Christians in North America. In canonizing him, the Church has appointed February 14/27, the anniversary of his blessed repose, as the date of his commemoration.

5. On December 9/22, 2000, the Feast of the Conception of the Theotokos, three new Saints were canonized at St. Seraphim’s Diveyevo Monastery in Russia. They were the three holy foundresses of Diveyevo: Abbess Alexandra, Schemanun Martha and Nun Elena Manturova.

The canonization ceremony was served by Metropolitan Nicholas of Nizhny Novgorod, with many thousands of faithful in attendance. Previously the relics of the new Saints had been uncovered and placed in the Church of the Nativity of the Lord in Diveyevo. This is only one of many examples of St. Seraphim’s prophecies being fulfilled. St. Seraphim had always instructed the sisters to pray at the grave of Abbess Alexandra, and intimated the sainthood of the other two foundresses, Schemanun Martha and Nun Elena. But this is not all—he foretold that four relics would one day be revealed and placed in the Church of the Nativity of the Lord, and after that he himself (i.e., his relics) would lie down amidst them, and this would be the beginning of the end of everything. Whose relics shall be the fourth is yet unknown.

On Wednesday evening, the day before the canonization, an extraordinary event occurred which testifies to the Grace that God is pouring out upon His Church in these latter times. As the Diveyevo sisters were performing their daily procession and prayer rule along the canal, they all beheld a glorious sign. Suddenly, over the monastery, above the Holy Trinity Cathedral where the canonization service was to take place, three rays of shimmering, sparkling light poured in downward arches, forming a bright cupola, covering and protecting the holy community. Thus began the heavenly celebration of another landmark in the spiritual history of Diveyevo—which St. Seraphim called the fourth portion of the Mother of God upon the earth—and indeed in the history of the entire Orthodox Church.

As our Lord has told us, and as has been reaffirmed by His holy prophets such as St. Seraphim, the end of the world will be preceded by yet greater trials and tribulations for His Church, such as never were since the world began (cf. Matt. 24:12). Nevertheless, the theandric organism of the Orthodox Church, founded on an immovable rock (Matt. 16:18), will not be defeated. As New Martyr Patriarch Tikhon (†1925) has said: “At times the enemies of Christ’s Church are ready to celebrate a complete victory over her; it seems to them that they have put an end to her. But what do they discover? Just as swelling waves beat against a ship only to fall back into the sea to merge and become indistinguishable from other waves, so, too, the enemies of Christ, having launched an attack against the Church, again return to that nothingness from which they emerged, while the ship of the Church continues as before to advance in its victorious voyage. Every year that passes serves to affirm the certainty that the Truth of the Lord abideth forever, and that even the gates of hell will not prevail against Christ’s Church.” [27]

With all the blessings that our Lord has given the Church at the start of the new millennium, we are given yet more indications that He is guiding and preserving His Body amidst the stormy seas of the passions of this world. Perhaps these blessings are meant to strengthen the Church for the greater, purifying sufferings to come. There can be no doubt that it is now “a time to build” (Eccles. 3:3), a time to count our blessings rather than squander them, and to use these blessings for the glory of God, the further strengthening of His Church, and the salvation of our souls and the souls of others. Such is the optimism with which Patriarch Pavle of Serbia has greeted the new millennium in His Christmas address to the Orthodox people of his recently ravaged country: “We firmly wish to believe that the ‘time to weep, the time to tear down, the time to hate’ has ended for us, and that with the beginning of the new century and the new millennium there will also begin for our people and for their Church a ‘time to build up, a time to rejoice and a time to love’ (Eccles. 3:3–8). If we are now filled with optimism and hope that people may once again live here in freedom and dignity, we are fully aware that we can never make a heaven on earth—but we can prevent making a hell on earth. Therefore we must all take this ‘time to build’ seriously, because we are building our common home.”

As the Church celebrates the Feasts of the Lord, His Most Pure Mother and His Saints for the two-thousandth time, may we be filled with the same optimism: an optimism based not on any hope in this world or in fallen human beings, but rather in the Creator of the universe and in His God-human organism, the Church.

 

FOOTNOTES

1. See “Bases of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church,” Section I.1–2, Document of the Jubilee Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, August 13–16, 2000, Moscow. See also Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (1957, reprinted by St. Vladimir’s Seminary), pp. 186–87.

2. Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, p. 226.

3. St. Justin Popovich, Orthodox Faith and Life in Christ (Belmont, Mass.: Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 1994), p. 24.

4. Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky, p. 224.

5. St. Justin Popovich, pp. 214–15.

6. Ibid., pp. 23–24.

7. Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, p. 178.

8. “Bases of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church.” Document of the Jubilee Bishop’s Council of the Russian Orthodox Church. August 13–16, 2000, Moscow. [http://www.russian-orthodox-church.org.ru/sd00e.htm]

9. Ibid., p. 179.

10. Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky, p. 238.

11. Archbishop Averky, Stand Fast in the Truth, comp. Fr. Demetrios Serfes (Mt. Holly Springs, Pennsylvania), p. 2.

12. “Blessed and Salvific Martyrdom: A Conversation with Metropolitan Amphilohije of Montenegro.” Divine Ascent, vol. 1, no. 2 (1997), pp. 65.

13. “Basic Principles of the Attitude of the Russian Orthodox Church toward Other Christian Confessions.” Document of the Jubilee Bishop’s Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, August 13–16, 2000, Moscow. [http://www.russian-orthodox-church.org.ru/s2000e13.htm]

14. I. M. Andreyev, Russia’s Catacomb Saints (Platina: Calif.: St. Herman Brotherhood, 1982), p. 21.

15. Letter of Fr. Seraphim to J. H., September 3/16, 1980.

16. Letter of Fr. Seraphim to A. B., November 8/21, 1979.

17. Fr. Seraphim Rose, “In Defense of Fr. Dimitry Dudko.” The Orthodox Word no. 92 (1980), p. 127.

18. This affirmation is found in Section III.5 of the document: “Bases of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church.” [http://www.russian-orthodox-church.org.ru/sd00e.htm]

19. See Pravoslavnaya Rus (in Russian), no. 21, 2000, pp. 1–2. English translation in Orthodox America no. 165 (2000), p. 3.

20. Letter of Fr. Seraphim Rose to F. N., June 12/25, 1972.

21. Fr. Seraphim’s Chronicle of the St. Herman Brotherhood, June 19/July 2, 1974; letter of Fr. Seraphim to N. S., June 24/July 7, 1974.

22. Archbishop Athenagoras Kokkinakis, The Thyateira Confession (Leighton Buzzard, Great Britain: The Faith Press, 1975), p. 68.

23. See “Blessed and Salvific Martyrdom: A Conversation with Metropolitan Amphilohije of Montenegro.” Divine Ascent, vol. 1, no. 2 (1997), pp. 62–63.

24. “Basic Principles of the Attitude of the Russian Orthodox Church toward Other Christian Confessions.” Document of the Jubilee Bishop’s Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, August 13–16, 2000, Moscow. [http://www.russian-orthodox-church.org.ru/s2000e13.htm]

25. The Diocesan Observer, November 1, 2000 (no. 1120), p. 4.

26. Ibid., January 15, 2001 (no. 1125), pp. 1–3.

27. New Martyr Patriarch Tikhon, “Thoughts Concerning the Church.” Orthodox America no. 165 (2000), p. 2.