“The Question of the Presence of Grace in Sergianism”

Epistle of Hieromartyr Damaskin (Tsedrik), Bishop of Starodub (+1937) to Hieromartyr Seraphim (Samoylovich), Archbishop of Uglich (+1937)

Dated April 15, 1934

 

 

I cannot, dear Vladyka, express my gratitude to the Lord, who instills the same thoughts, and even the same forms of expression, in His servants who are separated in body but united in spirit. Many times have I been convinced of this. Your letter confirms it. Perhaps we differ in the details, but in the essentials we are of one mind. I have expressed my thoughts to you on this question.

Metropolitan Sergius’s path is a path of unquestionable apostasy. Hence his loss of grace is also unquestionable. Equally unquestionable is the departure from grace of anyone who consciously puts the plan of the “wisest one” into practice.

Here the question arises: to what extent are those masses of the faithful and ordinary clergy guilty of this sin (there can be no justification whatsoever for the bishops) who are unable to discern the subtle deceit of Sergius’s “course,” who, submitting to the authority of the majority of the episcopate, fear “schism,” and who, moreover, have not heard the most authoritative judgment on this question—that of the primate of the Church, the Patriarchal Locum Tenens?

Another question also arises: does anyone have the right to call the Mysteries celebrated in Sergianist churches graceless before the Church, by a conciliar decision, cuts off those who have sinned, having first called them to repentance and amendment?

Metropolitan Sergius, X, Y, and Z have forfeited grace, but so long as they have not been [synodally] cut off, does not the principle professed by the Church still hold within her, that “in place of unworthy ministers of the altar, the Lord invisibly sends His angels to celebrate the blessed Mystery”? If such a principle exists (and I believe that it does), would it not be more prudent to exercise forbearance, without accusing of the lawlessness of conscious Sergianism the masses of those who suffer inwardly from the injustice wrought by the lawless, who do not share their views in the least, but who, unable to understand the essence of our differences, fear making a mistake in choosing their own path, and who, finding their only solace and consolation amid the surrounding darkness and sorrow in church services, attend Sergianist churches?

I consider such a state tolerable in the case of those weak and unenlightened people to whom, on account of their childlike ignorance and simplicity, the sin of Sergianism cannot be imputed.

Those among them who understand all the falsehood of Sergianism and the evil arising from it, yet remain in its ranks out of inertia or faintheartedness, are sinning.

Still more grievously do those pastors sin who understand the situation but, out of cowardice or, worse still, for material advantage, remain in the ranks of the Sergianists, increasing their numbers and influence. Unfortunately, there are quite a few such pastors.

As for those servants of God who have been granted the ability to understand the situation, to recognize the falsehood and evil of Sergianism, and to understand that the path of Sergianism is a path of apostasy [1]—they are obliged not only to protest against the deeds of Metropolitan Sergius and his followers, not only to follow the course prescribed by Scripture and the Church’s canons for admonishing and rebuking those who cause others to stumble, but also to demonstrate by their own example their resistance to the injustice and scandal being perpetrated, breaking liturgical communion with the Sergianists, refraining from attending their churches, and doing everything possible to hasten the time of a conciliar trial of the lawless.

Personally, I have followed this entire course, breaking liturgical communion with Metropolitan Sergius upon my return from exile on January 1, 1929, and addressing admonitions to him both orally and in writing.

The Russian Church is now undergoing judgment, and each person chooses his own path of his own free will. People of a legalistic cast of mind conceive of the Church’s existence in terms of external forms of relationships, subordination, distinctions between ecclesiastical institutions, solemn church services, and so forth. Through the observance of external forms and external discipline, through omissions, conventions, and phraseology, a troubled conscience is sometimes soothed; everything appears to them harmonious and orderly, but behind all this, according to the Lord’s words (John 3:18–19 [2]), judgment is taking place: “People loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”

Unfortunately, not everyone is granted the ability to recognize that poverty and weakness are the necessary conditions in which the superabundant power of God is made perfect. Truly, only in the darkness of gracelessness could one have resolved to sacrifice the Church’s freedom for the sake of preserving the “wealth” of conditionally permitted church services and the dubious “power” of synodal administration. It was precisely these achievements of his that Metropolitan Sergius had in mind when he proudly declared that he was “saving the Church.” [3]

We hold the opposite view: for the sake of preserving the Church’s inner freedom, we are prepared (for a time) to forgo both solemn divine services and the institutions that give the Church her organizational structure, preferring to the latter the creation and strengthening of spiritual bonds of grace between pastors and their flocks. As for the Church’s subsequent outward organization, we entrust it to God’s mercy toward us who repent of our former sins against the Church, to His divine providence and power, firmly trusting in the promises He has given the Church. “He who believes is not judged, but he who does not believe is already condemned.” One of the Optina Fathers said: “Orthodoxy lives amid every kind of disorder and poverty precisely so that it may be evident that it is sustained not by human strength and arrangements, but by the might of God.”

Undoubtedly, a strict ecclesiastical judgment awaits Metropolitan Sergius and his followers. Strictly speaking, judgment, as an expression of the Church’s consciousness on this question, has already taken place in its ideal substance. The Church has expressed her complete condemnation of Metropolitan Sergius and his lawless deeds, and together with him, of all his accomplices and fellow laborers on his blessed [sic] path. She has expressed this through dozens of protests addressed to Metropolitan Sergius by Orthodox hierarchs, and a multitude of similar protests from faithful presbyters and laypeople. She has expressed it through the mass departure of the faithful from the Sergianists, as they have ceased attending their churches and having communion with them. This judgment also makes itself felt in the consciences of the Sergianists themselves, most of whom recognize the falsehood of Sergianism and are tormented by this contradiction, since only faintheartedness and fearfulness keep them in the Sergianist ranks, while they themselves have a foreboding of the fate awaiting such “fearfulness” (Revelation 21:8). [4]

Nevertheless, it is not without reason that a visible tribunal has also been established in the Church to bring those who are perishing to their senses and to warn those being led astray, and each of us must do everything in his power to hasten that moment for the common good of the Church.

I have often heard perplexity expressed, even by the Sergianists themselves, at the silence of the Patriarchal Locum Tenens at such a critical moment of confusion in the Church. They say: “Why does Metropolitan Peter not express his authoritative judgment on the devastation taking place in the Church, even at the risk of suffering still more for it? Surely the interests of the Church should be dearer to him than life.”

But what if Metropolitan Peter has already spoken, yet his steward, having arrogated to himself greater rights than the master himself possessed, refuses to obey him? What if it is clearly demonstrated that Metropolitan Peter twice sent Metropolitan Sergius an instruction (even if without an outgoing reference number) to cease his usurpation of authority, to “correct the error committed ... and rescind the other measures that exceeded his powers”? [5] How will all the “fainthearted,” all the insincere Sergianists, and the whole mass of deceived faithful respond to this?

Here, dear Vladyka, I have come directly to a question whose resolution will require some patience on your part. For now, I shall say only this: evidently, what Metropolitan Kirill foresaw long ago has come to pass, when in 1929 he wrote to me that our individual protests would have no effect on Metropolitan Sergius, for “he has overstepped the bounds so far that he will no longer heed even a sterner rebuke.” [6]

I shall end here for the time being.

 

NOTES

1. That is, apostasy from the faith.

2. “He who believes in Him is not judged, but he who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the Only-begotten Son of God. And this is the judgment: that light has come into the world, but people loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (John 3:18–19).

3. Metropolitan Sergius’s well-known words in a conversation with his opponents in Leningrad on December 12, 1927. See: Acts… p. 538.

4. “But the fearful, the unbelieving, the defiled, murderers, fornicators, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their portion in the lake” (Revelation 21:8).

5. These are quotations from Metropolitan Peter of Krutitsy’s letter to Metropolitan Sergius Stragorodsky (December 1929) (see: Acts, p. 621). This letter of Bishop Damaskin attests that Metropolitan Peter’s letters to Metropolitan Sergius had become known to a number of hierarchs.

6. See the letter of June 19, 1929 in E. L., Bishop-Confessors, p. 34. The published text reads: “There has been no lack of brotherly admonitions addressed to him over these two years. But Metropolitan Sergius is deaf to them. Nor will he heed another, albeit sterner, rebuke.”

 

Source: Central Archive of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation. File 31265. Folio 75. An uncertified typescript copy of the epistle discovered during a search of Metropolitan Kirill’s premises. The heading (“The Question of the Presence of Grace in Sergianism”) is Bishop Damaskin’s own.

Published source: Богословский сборник, Issue X (Moscow: St. Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Institute, 2002).