1935 Letter from Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky) on Non-Concelebration with Sergianist Clergy

 

In 1935, Hieromonk Dimitry (Belfour), a priest under the jurisdiction of Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky), who had arrived on Mount Athos, approached Hieroschemamonk Ioannikios, the deputy abbot of the Russian Monastery of Saint Panteleimon. An Englishman by nationality and formerly a Catholic priest, he had previously converted to Orthodoxy and placed himself under Metropolitan Eleutherius (Bogoyavlensky), a supporter of Metropolitan Sergius. In connection with this, Hieroschemamonk Ioannikios asked the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia whether it was permissible to concelebrate with such a hieromonk. Metropolitan Anthony replied as follows in a letter dated November 21, 1935:

You ask whether it is possible to serve with the English “hieromonk” who was received into communion by Metropolitan Eleutherius. But since Metropolitan Eleutherius, as well as Bishop Benjamin [Fedchenkov], recognized the Moscow Metropolitan Sergius, while the latter recognized the godless Bolshevik authority and rejoices in its joys and weeps together with it, and since this gentleman... is one of Archbishop Benjamin’s chief collaborators in America and struggles there against our conciliar hierarchy, we have no communion with him. We advise you to act likewise. But should this same Mr. Belfour insist upon serving at all costs, he must be received into communion by the third rite, that is, through repentance, as Catholics are received. In conclusion, I wish you to beware of every counterfeit of Orthodoxy, of the various emissaries in sheep’s clothing from Metropolitan Eleutherius, Benjamin and Co., who speak loudly of the Moscow Patriarchal Church but have nothing in common with it and are, in fact, in the clutches of the Bolsheviks.

Russian source: A. A. Kostryukov, The Russian Church Abroad in 1925–1938, p. 406 / State Archive of the Russian Federation, Fonds 6343, Inventory 1, File 286, fol. 32.

Russian source online:

http://internetsobor.org/index.php/novosti/rptsz/pismo-mitropolita-antoniya-1935-g-o-nesosluzhenii-s-sergianskim-dukhovenstvom