In times of rampant heresy, should decentralization be the norm?

“On the canonical foundations of the existence of communities of True Orthodox Christians in times of the dominion of apostasy”

On the canonical legitimacy of applying Ukaz No. 362 of St. Patriarch Tikhon in our apostasy-filled time.

From the Appeal of the clergy and monastics of the RTOC and ROAC, June 2014.

 

 

In the present apostasy-filled times, the True Orthodox Russian Church is entering a new phase of its existence, when, for the confession of the uncorrupted purity of Holy Orthodoxy, persecutions and harassment may once again descend upon Christians, and the True Orthodox Church herself will have to return once more to a fully catacomb position.

The ascetic struggler of the Russian Church Abroad, Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose), wrote as early as 1978: “We feel that the signs of the times point more and more to an approaching ‘catacomb’ existence, whatever form it may take. The faster we can prepare for this, the better... We regard every monastery or community as part of a future catacomb ‘network’ of fighters for true Orthodoxy, and probably, in these times... the question of jurisdictions will recede into the background.” [1] According to Father Seraphim’s thought, the True Church of the last times will be not centralized official jurisdictions headed by an ecclesiastical-administrative apparatus, but a “network” of self-governing catacomb communities and dioceses of True Orthodox Christians, united not by external forms of administrations and institutions, but by spiritual unity in the faith, through Eucharistic communion and the common confession of the true faith. He considered that “devotion to Christ is impossible in organizations, plans, projects—it is in the soul of each person,” [2] and therefore he was “a preacher of an ‘unorganized’ movement of simple believers, which he called ‘catacomb cells.’” [3]

These convictions of Father Seraphim were formed in ROCOR under the influence of his spiritual mentors—Hierarch John (Maximovitch) of San Francisco and Shanghai, Archbishop Averky (Taushev) of Syracuse and Holy Trinity, and like-minded hierarchs of the Russian Church Abroad, such as Archbishop Leonty (Filippovich) of Chile, Bishop Nektary (Kontzevitch) of Seattle, Bishop Savva (Saračević) of Edmonton, and others.

According to the teaching of Holy Scripture, Holy Tradition, and the Fathers of the Church, the Church is the Mystical Body of Christ. Noting the mystical nature of the Church, the well-known ROCOR theologian Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky writes in his work Dogmatic Theology: “According to the literal meaning of the word, the Church is an ‘assembly,’ in Greek ekklisia, from ekkaleo, I gather. In this sense it was also used in the Old Testament… Depicting the Church in parables, the Savior speaks of one flock, of one sheepfold, one grapevine, one chief cornerstone of the Church… The truth of the one Church is determined by the Orthodoxy of her members, and not by their number at any given moment.” [4]

According to the interpretations of the Holy Fathers, the Head of the Church is Christ, the Eyes of the Church are the bishops, the Hands of the Church are the priests, and the Body of the Church is the people of God. The Western spirit of narrow clan-like corporatism is foreign to Patristic Orthodoxy, wherein, in the person of the “infallible” papacy and hierarchy, the whole “ecclesiastical fullness” is concentrated. Unlike Catholicism, Orthodoxy is, above all, conciliarity. “Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matt. 18:20), Christ teaches.

In Orthodoxy, all the members of the Church together constitute the common Council of the people of God, which is the “defense of the faith and tradition.” As noted in the Encyclical Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs of 1848, “The guardian of the faith among us is the very body of the Church, that is, the very people of God.” [5] It is not by chance, therefore, that according to the canons the Eucharist may not be celebrated by the bishop or priest alone, but the whole community of the faithful must participate in it, and the Liturgy must not be celebrated without parishioners, who in the Orthodox tradition are considered the “royal priesthood” (1 Pet. 2:9). At the Liturgy there must necessarily be present at least one layman as a representative of the people of God; otherwise, the Liturgy is not celebrated.

The central part of the mystical life of the Church as the Body of Christ is the Eucharist. “The Church makes the Eucharist, and the Eucharist makes the Church,” Orthodox theology teaches. The Eucharist is our personal communion and unity with the Head of the Church—Christ. Therefore, the assertion is just that the Church is where the Eucharist is celebrated, where the Bloodless Sacrifice of Jesus Christ is offered, and not where there are external juridical forms of organization.

In this respect, the experience and legacy of the Russian Catacomb Church of the twentieth century, to which Fr. Seraphim (Rose) refers, is very important for us. As is known, in the T.O.C. the Eucharist did not cease to be celebrated throughout all the years of persecution against Orthodoxy in the USSR; the true Bloodless Sacrifice of Jesus Christ did not cease to be offered; neither the priesthood nor the people of God who participated in the Mystery of the Eucharist definitively ceased to exist. And this means that precisely here, and not among the Uniates, Renovationists, or Sergianists, with whom the external institution of the episcopate and administrative church governance were preserved, was the True Church, which is founded upon the blood of the Martyrs, and whose guardian is “the very body of the Church, that is, the very people of God.”

Not having an external ecclesiastical-administrative structure or centralized governance, the True Orthodox Church of Christ in the God-fighting USSR continued to carry out her confessional ministry under conditions of conspiracy and underground existence, for which reason another name arose for her—the Catacomb Church. As in the first centuries of Christianity, the T.O.C. consisted of catacomb communities of the faithful, scattered over the vast territory of the USSR, united not administratively, not institutionally, but confessionally, spiritually, and eucharistically; for this reason, she acquired so responsible a name—the True Orthodox Church.

The Catacomb Church, as the Mystical Body, was preserved in the person of the “little flock” of faithful Confessors and Martyrs, and She was the true Church—not “figuratively” as they now try to prove in the MP, but really and effectively. In the person of the people of God, the Holy Martyrs and Confessors, this was the true Church in the full sense of the word, without Western admixtures of a juridically materialized division into earthly “institutions” and “jurisdictions.”

Speaking of the T.O.C., it is important to note that from the very beginning its ideologists and holy founding fathers rejected the idea of creating an alternative administration and centralization of ecclesiastical authority, opposing to it decentralization and local self-governance, in accordance with the Resolution of His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, the Holy Synod, and the Supreme Church Council of the Orthodox Russian Church of November 7/20, 1920, No. 362. [6]

Thus, on the January Act of the withdrawal of the clergy of the Voronezh Diocese from Sergius Stragorodsky in 1928, St. Metropolitan Joseph (Petrovykh) wrote the resolution: “Govern yourselves, independently—otherwise you will destroy both me and yourselves.” [7] St. Metropolitan Joseph sent analogous replies to other hierarchs who sympathized with him, thereby showing that he did not desire the centralization of the T.O.C. [8]. And when in March 1928 St. Bishop Varlaam (Lazarenko) of Maikop, who was tending Orthodox parishes in the Kuban and the North Caucasus, arrived in Petrograd to St. Archbishop Demetrius (Lyubimov), who administered the “Josephite” parishes, as a result of the consultation “it was agreed that he would act in accordance with the local situation and to a significant degree independently.” [9]

Similarly, St. Archbishop Seraphim (Samoilovich), who had been Deputy of the Patriarchal Locum Tenens, wrote on January 20, 1929, from exile, in his epistle “To the Archpastors, Pastors, and Flock of the Orthodox Russian Church, Beloved in the Lord”:

“…In the administrative sphere, concerning the governance of church affairs, we would recommend to all the faithful in the Lord that they take as their guide the appeal of the reposed Most Reverend Agathangel, Metropolitan of Yaroslavl, from May 1922, and our circular of December 16/29, 1926, turning in cases of extreme necessity to His Eminence Metropolitan Joseph of Leningrad, from whom we received, on December 16/29, 1926, the rights of Deputy of the Patriarchal Locum Tenens, and with whom we are in the same condition of exile.” [10]

And here is what another of the leaders of the anti-Sergianist opposition, St. Archbishop Andrew of Ufa, Prince Ukhtomsky, wrote in 1928 concerning church governance:

“The Church is such a mode of being as has no need of any external administrative props. The Church is the Pillar of Truth! She needs only the inner purification of her life; and this purification is accomplished in no other way than in the process of inner life, and is never accomplished by order of the authorities.” [11]

But the necessity of decentralizing ecclesiastical authority was set forth most fully and clearly by one of the founding fathers of the Catacomb Church, St. Cyril (Smirnov), Metropolitan of Kazan, who wrote in February 1934:

“Like everything akin to Renovationism, we cannot recognize the church administration renewed by Metropolitan Sergius as our Orthodox administration, proceeding in succession from His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon; and therefore, while remaining in canonical unity with the Patriarchal Locum Tenens, Metropolitan Peter, and in view of the present impossibility of communication with him, we recognize as the only lawful arrangement of church governance one based on the Patriarchal Ukaz of November 7/20, 1920.” [12]

In accordance with the instructions of the exiled hierarchs, the Catacomb Church operated underground throughout the whole country. In this connection, the testimony of one eyewitness is of interest: at the end of the 1930s he was serving a sentence in Stalinist concentration camps for belonging to the T.O.C., and during the war he emigrated abroad. According to him, in 1937, in a transit camp near Irkutsk, six exiled hierarchs of the Catacomb Church held a secret consultation, at which they confirmed the condemnation of the Sergianist schism and forbade their followers to receive the Mysteries “from clergy legalized by the anti-Christian government.” In addition, they decided to preserve the self-governance of the branches of the Catacomb Church while maintaining unity in prayer: “All the branches of the Church growing from the ecclesiastical tree—... and the tree is our pre-revolutionary Church—are living branches of the Church of Christ. Let prayerful and liturgical communion abide among the clergy of all these branches.” [13]

The testimonies of Prof. Ivan Andreyev, who wrote in 1947, are also indicative:

“There was no administrative center or governance of the catacomb churches. Metropolitan Cyril and Metropolitan Joseph were regarded as spiritual leaders. The legitimate Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne, Metropolitan Peter of Krutitsy, was recognized as the Head of the Church.” [14]

The testimony of Prof. Ivan Andreyev most accurately reflects the situation of the T.O.C. in Soviet times. Let us emphasize once again that the catacomb communities of the T.O.C., unlike the Renovationists and the Sergianists, were consciously united not administratively, but confessionally, spiritually, and eucharistically.

Under conditions of the dominion of God-fighting and heresies, having a centralized structure for the T.O.C. was objectively impossible and dangerous. Therefore, in their activity, the catacomb bishops and priests of the T.O.C. relied on the Resolution of St. Patriarch Tikhon No. 362 “On Self-Governance,” thus adhering, in connection with the extraordinary situation—the persecutions—to the practice of a “temporary decentralization” of church life, which in itself excluded the necessity of creating both a single central supreme organ of church governance, or administration, and the very centralization of secret church life.

Explaining the essence and meaning of Resolution No. 362, one of the founding fathers of the T.O.C., St. Metropolitan Joseph (Petrovykh), wrote thus concerning ecclesiastical authority and self-governance in the dioceses of the T.O.C.:

“Without denying my sympathy for anti-Sergianism, I must state the fact that it needs neither my nor anyone else’s special leadership, since each anti-Sergianist hierarch has received the authority to govern himself with his flock entirely independently, and has no need of another central authority, since such authority is, in essence, absent and unable to function properly. Such an exceptional situation was foreseen already under Patriarch Tikhon and confirmed by Metropolitan Peter, Metropolitan Agathangel, and other higher hierarchs, in whose hands in recent times there remained the possibility of establishing higher church governance, which now in fact does not exist… By virtue of the conciliar resolution, in the absence of a central spiritual authority clothed with trust, or when it is impossible to communicate with it, the hierarchs in their local places are invested with the fullness of rights and govern themselves completely independently.” [15]

These explanations of St. Joseph of Petrograd are a valuable indication for the application of the Resolution of His Holiness the Patriarch, the Holy Synod, and the Supreme Church Council of the Orthodox Russian Church of November 7/20, 1920, No. 362.

It was precisely on the basis of this prophetic Resolution of St. Patriarch Tikhon that both ROCOR and the T.O.C. arose. However, this Resolution has absolutely no bearing on the creation of central organs of the Higher Church Authority in the Russian Church, but provides only for temporary organs of church governance “for several dioceses situated in identical conditions” (see point 2).

Precisely for this reason, ROCOR could not lay claim to the entire fullness of the Higher Church Authority, and the claims made in the 1990s by certain representatives of the ROCOR Synod, which was created and functioned on the basis of Resolution No. 362, to the fullness of church authority not only in the Diaspora, but also in Russia, were clearly uncanonical in character, contradicting both the letter and the spirit of Resolution No. 362. Bishop Gregory (Grabbe) of Washington, the longtime secretary of the ROCOR Synod, repeatedly pointed this out. In exactly the same way, none of the present temporary Synods, or “small councils,” among the branches or parts of ROCOR, which also rely upon Resolution No. 362, has canonical rights and authority to speak in the name of the fullness of the Local Russian Church. One of two things must be true: either these “fragments” need to reduce their claims to the fullness of the higher church authority, limiting themselves only to temporary powers “for several dioceses situated in identical conditions, whether in the form of a Temporary Higher Church Administration, or a metropolitan district, or otherwise” (point 2), as Resolution No. 362 itself prescribes; or they must declare that Resolution No. 362 has lost its canonical force, declare it invalid, and only after this announce their claims to the higher church authority in the Local Russian Church, taking care to convene an All-Russian Local Council and to elect a single Patriarch for the whole fullness of the Russian Church. Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) followed the latter scenario in 1943. Other parts of the Russian Church, ROCOR and the T.O.C., always considered such a path uncanonical; therefore, for the T.O.C., this option is unequivocally unacceptable.

Thus, any Synod of any branch of the T.O.C. or ROCOR may lay claim only to limited rights and powers as a temporary organ of ecclesiastical authority “for several dioceses situated in identical conditions,” and moreover united on strictly voluntary grounds. From this situation there also follow the limited and temporary rights of such Synods, or “small councils,” with regard to judging other “fragments,” declaring their Mysteries “graceless,” and the like.

Today we are again experiencing those times of which Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose) wrote in 1978, that “the signs of the times point more and more to an approaching ‘catacomb’ existence,” when “we regard every monastery or community as part of a future catacomb ‘network’ of fighters for true Orthodoxy, and probably, in these times... the question of jurisdictions will recede into the background.”

In such conditions, formal jurisdictional disagreements, claims, and disputes over authority among the parts of the once united True Russian Church, the T.O.C. and ROCOR, are already receding into the background. And once again, as in the 1920s, the necessity of returning to exact adherence to and fulfillment of the foundational Resolution of St. Patriarch Tikhon No. 362 acquires special urgency. And, relying upon it, every effort must be made toward the gradual attainment of the unity of the True Russian Church, recognizing as possible the existence of several parallel ecclesiastical-administrative structures, or “self-governing metropolitan districts,” on one canonical territory, as is also provided for by Patriarchal Resolution No. 362 (point 2) in the event of an extraordinary situation and the absence of legitimate higher church authority in the person of a lawful Patriarch, Council, and Synod of the whole fullness of the Local Russian Church.

Resolution No. 362 provides for the possibility of temporary self-governance of “metropolitan church districts.” This is precisely how it was in the 1920s, when the self-governing Supreme Church Administration of Southern Russia, the Supreme Church Administration of Siberia, the autonomous synod in Ukraine, the Moscow Synod of Patriarch Tikhon, and even the opposition “Danilov Synod” of Archbishop Theodore (Pozdeevsky), as well as the ROCOR Synod, were all operating simultaneously. Despite several different temporary church administrations, all this was one spiritually united Russian Church. In essence, the situation is exactly the same now. This was the case for a time even within ROCOR, where in the 1920s several metropolitan church districts were created, with centers in Belgrade under Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky), the United States under Metropolitan Theophilus (Pashkovsky), and Paris under Metropolitan Evlogy (Georgievsky), united by a common Council. Under present conditions, this would be the ideal canonical principle for restoring the unity of the branches or parts of the once united Russian Church, in full accordance with Patriarchal Resolution No. 362.

Resolution No. 362 ends with the following words: “All measures adopted locally, in accordance with the present directives, must subsequently, in the event of the restoration of central church authority, be submitted for approval to the latter.” The Resolution does not say that one “group” must submit its actions for approval to another “group,” but that “in the event of the restoration of central church authority, they must be submitted for approval to the latter,” that is, to the higher church authority in the person of a lawful Patriarch, Council, and Synod of the whole fullness of the Russian Church.

Since after 1927 there has been no canonical higher church authority in Russia in the person of a lawful Patriarch, Council, and Synod of the whole fullness of the Local Russian Church, Resolution No. 362 remains the canonical foundation upon which not only the existence of all contemporary branches or parts of the Russian Church is based, but also upon which alone their union is possible. Moreover, it unambiguously prescribes that self-governing church districts have Eucharistic communion with one another without creating a single administrative structure and without the subordination of one “small council,” or synod, to another. This applies to the RTOC, the ROAC, ROCOR(A), and ROCOR(V).

As is known, the first three “branches” are united not only by a common inheritance and history, but also by a common episcopal succession from one hierarch—Archbishop Lazarus. It was precisely Archbishop Lazarus who, in his time, consecrated both the bishops of the RTOC, and the bishops of the ROAC, and Bishop Agathangel. The fact that one hierarch stood at the source of the succession of all these branches was not accidental, but providential. And in this, we believe, lies the pledge of their future unity.

According to the word of the blessed-memory elder-Metropolitan Vitaly (Ustinov), the last lawful First Hierarch of the united ROCOR, “Let us be… of one mind and one soul under different church administrations. Church life itself almost dictates this to us” [Testament-Directive of February 26/March 11, 2002].

And let us remember that the secret Council of hierarchs of the Catacomb Church in the transit camp near Irkutsk in 1937 decreed and bequeathed the following concerning the self-governance of the branches of the T.O.C. and their preservation of prayerful unity among themselves: “All the branches of the Church growing from the ecclesiastical tree—... and the tree is our pre-revolutionary Church—are living branches of the Church of Christ. Let prayerful and liturgical communion abide among the clergy of all these branches.” [16]

June 2014.

Hieromonk Euthymius (Trofimov) (Lesna Monastery, RTOC)
Nun Euphrosynia (Molchanova) (Lesna Monastery, RTOC)
Priest Artemy Varlamyan (Lesna Monastery, RTOC)
Priest Sergius Myasoedov (Kharkov, RTOC)
Hieromonk Savva (Precarpathia, RTOC)
Archpriest Alexey Lebedev (St. Petersburg, ROAC)
Archpriest Roman Novakovsky (Zheleznovodsk, Stavropol Krai, ROAC)
Archpriest Valery (ROAC)
Reader Vitaly (RTOC)

 

SOURCES

1. Not of This World: The Life and Teaching of Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose) of Platina. Moscow: Russky Palomnik, 1995, pp. 915, 1000.

2. Ibid., p. 916.

3. Ibid., p. 978.

4. Pomazansky, M., Protopresbyter. Orthodox Dogmatic Theology. Moscow: Dar, 2005.

5. The Encyclical Epistle of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church to All Orthodox Christians, May 6, 1848 / Epistles and Decrees of the Orthodox Church Concerning Heresies and Sects. Moscow: Luch, 2010.

6. Gregory Grabbe, Bishop. The Testament of the Holy Patriarch. Moscow, 1996, pp. 311–319.

7. Shkarovsky, M. V. Josephitism: A Movement in the Russian Orthodox Church. St. Petersburg: Memorial, 1999, p. 29.

8. Shkarovsky, M. V. Ibid., p. 29; Osipova, I. I. O Most Merciful One, Be Thou with Us Unceasingly… Reminiscences of Believers of the True Orthodox Catacomb Church. Late 1920s–Early 1970s. Moscow: Bratonezh, 2008, p. 19.

9. Osipova, I. I. Ibid., p. 19.

10. Shkarovsky, M. V. Op. cit., pp. 32–33.

11. Osipova, I. I. Through the Fire of Torments and the Waters of Tears… Persecutions against the True Orthodox Church. Moscow, 1998, p. 248.

12. Regelson, L. L. The Tragedy of the Russian Church, 1917–1945. Paris, 1977, p. 183.

13. B. Zachariah. “An Important Resolution of the Catacomb Church” // Orthodox Russia. 1949, No. 18; Russian Thought, September 7, 1949; Orthodox Review. 1980, No. 51.

14. Andreyev, I., Prof. “Notes on the Catacomb Church in the USSR” // Orthodox Russia, 1947; Herald of the T.O.C. 1999, July–September, No. 3.

15. “I Follow Only Christ…” Protocols of the Interrogations of Metropolitan Joseph (Petrovykh), 1929–1930 // Theological Collection, No. 9 (2002), pp. 376–424.

16. B. Zachariah. “An Important Resolution of the Catacomb Church” // Orthodox Russia. 1949, No. 18; Russian Thought, September 7, 1949; Orthodox Review. 1980, No. 51.

 

 

Russian source:

https://orthodoxrusk.livejournal.com/20548.html