Encyclical Letter of the 1983 Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia

 

May God’s grace and peace be with and increase among all the clergy and faithful of our Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia.

In the name of the Council of Bishops we address all our pious flock scattered all over the world. We greet our beloved children and bless them for their further labors in Christian Orthodox living in a world departing ever more and more from all the principles which our Lord Jesus Christ, His apostles, and the holy fathers commanded us to observe.

In our unfortunate homeland, formerly called Holy Russia, there has been established a worldwide center of all-encompassing evil which hopes at the present time to eradicate all traces of former sanctity and piety. For all these decades we have observed the sufferings of our brothers with sorrow, and we have noetically kissed their wounds and glorified as holy martyrs all those millions of faithful who, led by Patriarch Tikhon and the Tsar-Martyr Nicholas II, have testified to their faithfulness to God even unto death. The Seer prophetically saw them standing “before the Throne and before the Lamb in white robes” (Apoc. 7:9). He was told about them: “These are they who came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple: and He Who sits on the throne shall dwell among them” (Apoc. 7:14).

Having assembled together in this Council to consider questions of our church life, we have felt our spiritual unity with them and with those of our brethren who are following their path, being still “in great tribulation.”

Dwelling in freedom, we only spiritually experience with them this “great tribulation,” but we have our own tribulation which is united with theirs and is called forth by the unbelief and apostasy from the true faith even of many who bear the name of Orthodox Christians, and which is spreading more and more in the world. In the world which surrounds us we often feel that the words of the Saviour, “in the world you shall have tribulation” (John 16:33), are coming true for us...

If the Apostle Paul saw that while living in this world it was impossible not to have contact “with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolators” (I Cor. 5:10), then what can we say about our times? Now we are not only obliged to have contact with them, but, more than that, the way of life surrounding us is built on recognition not just of the permissibility, but of the legality of the lowest and crudest forms of sin.

We are especially concerned for our children, our youth, who are growing up in this environment. It is very difficult for them to grow up as “sons of God,” when they are surrounded by a way of life founded on unbelief and a denial of all the basic principles of the Christian faith and of the family. We have therefore indicated to our pastors that they should devote special attention to instructing their flocks in family living. For children to be able to grow up as sons of God’s Kingdom, the parents’ educational efforts must begin from the time their children are still in the mother’s womb. Even unbelieving doctors now recognize that this period is very significant for the child’s future development. Parents should nourish their children from their earliest years with good and holy impressions, themselves providing an example of prayer and virtue, so that sin and immorality will be something foreign to them and will not attract them, but, on the contrary, will repel them. They should remember that their children, when they reach adulthood, will bring them joy and comfort only to the measure of that good which was instilled in their hearts by their family. For this reason pastors should constantly instruct both parents and children, and in conjunction with that be concerned with the establishment of church schools and the attraction of young parishioners from childhood on to active participation in church life.

It is good to attract to oneself young souls, if they are not poisoned by evil exemplified as something permissible and even positive. Let pastors and parents see to it that their children see and know examples of good in the saints and in the efforts of great men. It is especially necessary persistently to teach them to love truth and to turn away from all kinds of falsehood.

Falsehood has now acquired special strength, having deeply penetrated into people’s consciousness. Alas, those who disseminate it are not just political activists, who consider everything permissible to obtain power, but also representatives of various religions. A clear manifestation of this was the Sixth Assembly of the World Council of Churches, which met in Vancouver at almost the same time as the sessions of our Council.

In its decision of 28 July/10 August our Council explained that the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia does not participate in the World Council of Churches since the latter attempts to represent those assembled in it, representatives of confessions differing in their opinions, as though they had some sort of unity in their faith. In reality, though, this position is a lie, inasmuch as they, members of various confessions and sects, have not given up their points of disagreement with each other, much less with the Orthodox Church, in dogmas and in fundamental attitudes. In the name of unifying formulas these differences of opinion are not removed, but are just set aside. Instead of the unshakable truths of the faith, they try to see only opinions, not obligatory for anyone. In reply to the confession of the one Orthodox Faith they say together with Pilate: “What is truth?” And the nominally Orthodox members of the Ecumenical Movement more and more deserve the reproach to the Angel of the Church of Laodicea: “I know your works.... you are neither hot nor cold; O, if only you were hot or cold” (Apoc. 3:15).

A clear manifestation of such false union was the serving of the so-called Lima liturgy, i.e. a supposed eucharistic service, performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and various Protestant pastors. This liturgy, composed at a conference in Lima, is supposed to return its participants to the beginnings of the ancient Orthodox liturgy, but without the chief thing: unconditional faith in the transformation of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ and the necessity of its being performed only by a celebrant having the apostolic succession.

In describing this liturgy, the magazine Newsweek for August 22, 1983 wrote: “Facing the altar was a multi-racial congregation of 3,500 Christians from every corner of the earth, including Roman Catholic priests and bearded Orthodox bishops, who not long ago would have shunned such a service.” According to a report of the Ecumenical Press Service on August 4, during the Archbishop of Canterbury’s celebration of the Lima liturgy, the Orthodox and the Catholics did not receive communion, but did participate in common prayer. Archbishop Kirill (of the Moscow Patriarchate) pronounced a prayer that “we might soon attain visible unity in the Body of Christ by blessing the bread and cup on this same altar.”

The Greek Archbishop Iakovos served a separate liturgy on the day of the Transfiguration (N.S.) at which, according to reports we have received, Communion was given out without sufficient discrimination not only to the Orthodox, but also to others who approached the chalice.

Thus we see with grief that the process of the increase in practice of the heresy of Ecumenism among Orthodox Christians, of which we warned our brethren in our Sorrowful Epistles, has not stopped, but is even growing. The development of an interdenominational understanding of Baptism, the Eucharist, and the Priesthood in recent years has been manifested in various so-called ecumenical services and was especially clearly expressed in the Lima Accord and now in Vancouver. Our Council has decisively condemned this manifestation and has ordered that an anathema of the heresy of Ecumenism be added to the Rite of Orthodoxy.

In addition, any sort of participation by Orthodox in prayer with non-Orthodox, and in particular participation in common prayer at the so-called ecumenical Lima liturgy, is strictly forbidden for Orthodox according to the 45th and 46th canons of the Holy Apostles, and subjects them to excommunication from the Church. The 32nd and 33rd canons of the Council of Laodicea particularly forbid the reception of bread and wine blessed by non-Orthodox clerics and joint prayer with them. The famous Russian canonist, Bishop John of Smolensk, writes in his commentary on the 46th canon of the Holy Apostles, “In general the Apostolic Canons indicate one basis for rejecting heretical religious rites: the fact that in a heresy there cannot be the true priesthood, but only a pseudo-priesthood. This is so because with the separation of the heterodox from the Church, the apostolic succession of their holy orders ceases, for one thing, and along with this the succession of the gifts of grace from the Holy Spirit in the mystery of orders is also cut off; and consequently the ministers of a heresy, as ones not having grace in themselves, cannot convey it to others, and as they have not received a lawful right to perform the mysteries, so they cannot make true and salvific the rites performed by them.”

In all the activities of the Vancouver Assembly a lively part was played by a very large delegation of the Moscow Patriarchate, which extensively uses the World Council of Churches for Soviet propaganda. The latter directs its efforts toward spreading lies about a supposed freedom of the Church in the USSR and, under the guise of defending peace, to hindering the arming of those countries which might be able to prevent the spread of Communism in the West. Moscow church delegates speak out on a large scale in defense of pro-Communist movements, but in no way permit anyone to accuse the Soviets of persecuting religion.

Thus, as a consequence of the opposition of the Moscow delegation, the petition from Deacon Vladimir Rusak, who has written a book about the difficult position of the persecuted Church in the USSR, was not allowed to be read to the Assembly. For his book he was dismissed from church service and called to account by the KGB. In vain did he hope to call the attention of the Assembly to the persecution of the Church in his homeland. While speaking long and loud about the defense of the interests of various leftist political groups, these Assemblies from year to year have remained deaf to the cries of the real and most numerous victims of atheism.

There is no doubt that this occurs in large measure as a result of the fact that they do not want to hear any voice from Russia but that of the Moscow Patriarchate, which, however, says only what it is told to say by the enemies of all religion through the organs of the KGB. A special resolution of the Council of Bishops was also issued on this subject, referring to a scandalous incident: the directions of the Moscow Synod to serve pannychidas for the atheist and persecutor of the Church, Brezhnev, who died last year, and whose actions Patriarch Pimen blasphemously called “pleasing to God.” In the prescription for serving pannykhidas for him it was indicated that he should not be called “servant of God,” which he most certainly was not. However, everyone must have felt uncomfortable in offering any sort of prayers for the repose in the Kingdom of Heaven of a person who denied the very existence of that Kingdom. Thus, violation of church canons to please the atheists unavoidably leads to hypocrisy. This Council observed that whatever Brezhnev might be called, pannykhidas for him contain an internal contradiction, hypocrisy, and falsehood. They are an unforgivable blasphemy.

It would seem that the whole world, especially the Orthodox world, should have trembled with indignation in view of such blasphemy, but, alas, everyone is silent, while an unconditional statement of protest has come only from our Council.

In view of such indifference to the truth and of increasing modernism, a significant number of Orthodox pastors and faithful have turned to our hierarchs in order to preserve genuine Orthodoxy and the course of Church life, sanctified by age-old tradition, in accordance with the Orthodox calendar established by the First Ecumenical Council.

Thus our Church has been enriched by new children and continues to be enriched not only by Greeks devoted to the faith, but also by parishes torn away from the Russian Church in recent decades into the unlawful American autocephaly and now returning to its bosom. For many of them this decision was not easily made and has been associated with great sacrifices. We rejoice in their love for the truth and how we wish that all the children of our Church would conduct their religious life with as much zeal as these new ones who quite recently have come to know the truth and have attached themselves to it.

While those of different nationality and previous culture who have joined our Church may sometimes pose one pastoral problem or another, we view this calmly, remembering that before the face of God there is neither Greek nor Jew, Russian, American, or any other sort of distinction according to origin. All are felt to be our beloved children who have a common goal: to preserve unharmed the faith of the holy fathers and to save their souls, whatever might be the external conditions surrounding us.

We live in the same world, and for all of us there are the same dangers and temptations from the apostasy that has engulfed the whole world, i.e. turning away from God and the Church, about which the Apostle Paul warned the faithful in his Second Epistle to the Thessalonians.

Many now note signs of the approaching end of the world. Some scientists already are viewing this as a likely possibility for the worn-out and so-to-say “aging” world, guessing when it might happen. Others are studying the prophecies of the Sacred Scriptures and, applying them to the course of current political life, foresee the imminent occurrence of worldwide crises and of the last days. However, the times and seasons are not yet revealed to us. The Lord only warned us about certain manifestations in the world which would precede its end, telling us, “Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in My name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many” (Matt. 24:4-5).

Now to various obvious false messiahs there are added reports of the birth and preparation of a more serious claimant to the position of Universal King and False Messiah. We still cannot affirm anything positively except that the signs have appeared according to which one can anticipate the appearance of the “Son of Perdition” in a period of history that is very near or even in the next few years, after the unification of the whole world under one world government.

But it is not without cause that in the ways of His Providence the Lord does not reveal them fully to us. For us it is enough to know that we have already entered a period of history when the relatively imminent appearance of the Antichrist is very probable. And this means that we must be spiritually prepared for it.

What does such readiness mean? It means working to strengthen one’s spiritual powers so as to develop the capability of resisting the Antichrist’s temptations. Many of these temptations — in the sense of a weakening of faith, divinization of mankind, betrayal of faith in the one, true Church for the sake of a humanistic religious unity in a pseudo-church — are already before us, preparing even Orthodox Christians for a readiness to follow the ways of the Antichrist.

But what can we do besides just observing the signs of the times? We must develop in ourselves, in our flocks, in all Orthodox families a firm faith in the fact that the Lord has given us the good fortune to belong to the one, true Church, which, as at the very beginning of its existence, is not defined by being a minority of the believers on earth, but which, although a minority, is made up only of people who are faithful and devoted to this true Church. This is not an easy task, and it demands firm faith, spiritual strength, and devotion to the Truth in the midst of a surrounding world which is alien to Christ.

In the face of the temptations which already exist and confront us, we must direct all our spiritual and mental powers to being ready for any trials. We are helped in this preparation by the expectation of the imminent (in five years) celebration of the thousandth anniversary of the Baptism of Russia. By renewing in our minds and hearts those principles of piety which Prince St. Vladimir planted in Russia, we will try to restore them in our daily lives, with the hope that the Lord will permit us to take them back to our homeland so that we can be reunited with that portion of Holy Russia which, despite all deceit and persecution, has continued to exist there in however small a number.

The Lord has granted us so far to live in freedom, in no way externally constrained and in no way restricted in our spiritual life, except by our lack of faith and our laziness. To avoid being contaminated by the swamp of sin and vice which surrounds us, we must spiritually rouse ourselves.

In an inspired and ardent report to the Council on the necessity of a spiritual rebirth, the Most Reverend Archbishop Vitaly wrote: “Our whole flock is already in communion with the grace of the Holy Spirit through all the Mysteries; we need only stir that fire into flame by all the means available for pastoral work, and do everything we possibly can to be, in the words of the Apostle Paul, all things to all men, so that some might be saved. As concrete measures we must persuade the faithful to abandon the old practice of communing of the Holy Mysteries only once a year, if any are still holding to that less-than-praiseworthy custom. We must convince all our pastors themselves to pray before performing the Mystery of Holy Confession that the Lord might grant them the gift of love, wisdom, compassion, and mercy. We must show all our flock the necessity of praying, too, before coming to confession that the Lord would grant them the gift of the Holy Spirit, true repentance, the gift of emotion and contrition for their sins, the gift of tears which wash our souls with the water of a second Baptism, which is what confession should be, and not a passing recitation of one’s sins.”

Along with this, we ask all our spiritual children to refrain from being easily attracted into the sin of judging each other, and especially their pastors. The latter action is often provoked by the many enemies of our Church, who long ago chose the center of our church administration — the Synod of Bishops selected by the whole Council of Bishops — as the object of their especially bitter attacks. In doing this they do not quibble at any sort of falsehood and slander, hoping thereby to undermine the authority and importance of our center which they hate. Do not believe false rumors, remembering that they are often circulated, sometimes even under the appearance of a defense of the truth, by enemies of the Orthodox Church, behind whom stand Soviet agents and secret supporters of the Moscow Patriarchate.

In encouraging us and reminding us of His love and care for us, the Lord has recently sent us a miraculous manifestation: the myrrh-streaming Iveron icon of the Mother of God, before which we also prayed during the Council, observing the miraculous manifestation of an abundant flow of fragrant myrrh from it. Thus the All-pure Theotokos again manifests her care for us, which we have seen in the course of all these years through our marvelous Odigitria as well — her wonder-working Kursk-Root icon.

We recognize that the world stands before an historically unprecedented danger of unbelievable upheavals and misfortunes, and shall draw strength and encouragement for ourselves from this marvelous manifestation and, along with this, prepare ourselves by means of the penitent labor of piety for the joys or trials which it may please God to send us.

Above all, though, let us labor not to let ourselves be swallowed by the evil which is growing in the world around us. The question now is ever more frequently and sharply posed before each person: To whom does he wish to belong: to Christ or to the devil? According to which principles will he live: Christian or anti-Christian?

We ask you, our spiritual children, without wavering or fearing anything, to give within yourselves an Orthodox answer to these questions and to choose the bright way of a virtuous life; and having chosen it, bravely to follow it, so that we might all freely attain the Kingdom of God.

May God’s grace and the prayers and examples of the valiant Russian New Martyrs help us all in this!

Chairman of the Council of Bishops
+Metropolitan Philaret

Members of the Council:

Seraphim, Archbishop of Chicago-Detroit and Middle America
Athanasius, Archbishop of Buenos-Aires and Argentina-Paraguay
Vitaly, Archbishop of Montreal and Canada
Anthony, Archbishop of Los Angeles and Southern California
Anthony, Archbishop of Geneva and Western Europe
Anthony, Archbishop of San Francisco and Western America
Seraphim, Archbishop of Caracas and Venezuela
Paul, Archbishop of Sydney and Australia-New Zealand
Laurus, Archbishop of Syracuse and Holy Trinity Monastery
Constantine, Bishop of Richmond and Britain
Gregory, Bishop of Washington and Florida
Mark, Bishop of Berlin and Germany
Alypy, Bishop of Cleveland

 

Source: Orthodox Life, Vol. 33, No. 6, November-December 1983, pp. 11-18.