Saint Seraphim Rose Confronts “Super-Orthodoxy”

Greek source: https://metemorfothis.blogspot.com/2026/08/blog-post_31.html

 

 

Fr. Seraphim applied the term “super-Orthodoxy” to this kind of narrowness, sometimes also calling it the “disease of correctness.” He saw that it could exert a powerful influence on young people, both converts and native-born Western Orthodox Christians. The new “super-Orthodox” authorities, he observed, “offer them some ‘simple’ answers to complex questions, and this is very appealing to those who are somewhat uncertain or wavering in their faith. We know many converts who clutch at ‘correctness’ like a baby clutches its bottle, and I think they could save their souls better if they were a little ‘incorrect,’ but humble.”

(Fr. Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works [Greek edition], Vol. 2, p. 254)

Upon going to Greece, the “super-Orthodox” faction attempted to establish political ties between the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia and the most extreme of all the Old Calendarist (Zealot) groups: the “Matthewites,” who believed that not only were all the New Calendarist Churches without grace, but that any Church having relations with them was likewise deprived of grace. This plan later failed because the Matthewites learned that, contrary to what they had been led to believe, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia was far too “liberal” for them.

In 1976, the English-speaking Orthodox mission suffered a blow when people—mostly insecure converts—who had been baptized in other canonical Orthodox Churches were led by the “super-Orthodox” community to be rebaptized in the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. “Recently,” Fr. Seraphim wrote, “some have wished to see such a ‘rebaptism’ performed in our Western American Diocese. Our Archbishop Anthony wisely refused to permit it, and we fully supported him—for this would indeed have been tantamount to an open declaration that the Greek Archdiocese was without grace.”

Bishop Nektary was greatly troubled when he heard about this unprecedented practice. “Perhaps the second baptism,” he observed, “removes the grace of the first baptism.”

At the height of the “correctness” craze in 1976, Fr. Seraphim explained to a convert why his own course could not accord with such “fanaticism.” “Their strictness,” he wrote, “compels them to become so entangled in Church politics that spiritual questions take second place. I know from my own experience that if I sit down and try to determine for myself exactly which shade of the ‘Zealots’ is correct today, I will lose all peace of mind and be continually preoccupied with questions of breaking communion, how this will appear to others, what the Greeks will think (which Greeks?), and ‘what will the Metropolitan think?’ And I will have neither the time nor the inclination to draw inspiration from the desert, the Holy Fathers, and the wondrous Saints of ancient and modern times who lived in a higher world. Especially in our time, it is impossible to remain entirely aloof from these questions, but let us put first things first.”

In another letter, he wrote: “We who wish to remain in the true tradition of Orthodoxy must be zealous and steadfast in our Orthodoxy without being fanatical or wishing to teach our bishops what they ought to do. Above all, we must strive to preserve the true fragrance of Orthodoxy, which is at least somewhat ‘not of this world,’ detached from all the cares and politics even of this Church, nourishing ourselves with the otherworldly food that our Church gives us in such abundance.”

(Fr. Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works [Greek edition], Vol. 2, pp. 257–258)