EPISTLE OF THE
HIERARCHICAL SYNOD OF THE RUSSIAN (ROSSIJSKOJ) ORTHODOX CHURCH TO THE
HIERARCHICAL COUNCIL OF THE RUSSIAN (RUSSKOJ) ORTHODOX CHURCH ABROAD
21 August / September 3,
2000. No. 70.
Your Eminence, honourable
Archpastors – members of the Hierarchical Council, and also clergy and children
and of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad!
The Hierarchical Council of
the Church Abroad opens at a time when, on the one hand, the whole world is
being shaken by events, each more terrible than the one before – catastrophes,
elemental disasters, wars… On the other hand, the whole world is seized by a
certain fever for unification: this is observable not only in the political
life of the world, but also in its religious life. On the one hand, endless disputes,
on the other – a haste to unify everyone and everything: states with states,
churches with churches, religions with religions…
The fever for unification
that embraces the earthly globe manifests itself in various external forms –
sometimes political, sometimes economic, and sometimes also in an
ecclesiastical-ecumenical form – but its profound essence remains unchangingly
the same…. And in this the zealots of unification place definite hopes on the
hierarchs of the ROCA.
But can the Orthodox Church
surrender to this spirit of the times – that Church which is unshakably “built
on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the
chief cornerstone” (Ephesians 2.20)?
“Moreover, brethren, I
declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and
in which you stand, by which also you are saved”, says the holy Apostle Paul in
his Epistle to the Corinthians (I Corinthians 15.1-2). In another
epistle, to the Galatians, he says: “But even if we, or an angel from heaven,
preach any other gospel that what we have preached to you, let him be accursed”
(Galatians 1.8). But to those who have preserved the holy gospel there
is the promise of being comforted… “by the mutual faith both of you and of me”
(Romans 1.12).
If we open the Acts of the
Holy Ecumenical Councils, we see that the holy builders of the Church struggled
for nothing more than for the preservation and support in its unchanging form
of the faith of the fathers. “We pray you that you keep the faith of the
fathers unchanged”. “We beseech you to investigate the novelty that has been
introduced against the former faith” – this is how the zealots of the Orthodox
Faith addressed the Holy Councils. And, having investigated the novelty, and
rejected the innovations, and confirmed the Dogmas of Orthodoxy unshaken, the
Holy Fathers exclaimed: “Yes, this is the faith of the fathers! This is how we
all believe!”
If we open the works of the
Russian teachers of the faith that are closer to us, we see the same care first
of all for keeping the patristic teaching unchanged. “Human teachings all
strive for that which is new, they grow, they develop… Thus is has become a
law: forward, forward! But in regard to our faith it was said from on high: stand…
remain unmoved. All that remains for us to do is to be confirmed and to
confirm others,” appealed the noted holy hierarch of the Vladimir lands
Theophan, the Vishensky recluse. “… We have to look over all that has passed in
order to see whether the order of teachings that was outlined for us has in any
way been disturbed.” (“On Orthodoxy with warnings against sins against it,” Sermons
of Bishop Theophan, Moscow, 1991. From his sermons to the flocks of Tambov
and Vladimir).
In 1918 “he who restrains”
was taken away – and this had fateful consequences not only for Russia, but
also for the whole world. Already within two years of the murder of the holy
Martyr Tsar Nicholas II, in 1920, the Constantinopolitan Patriarchate in the
person of the Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne, Metropolitan
Dorotheus of Prussa, issued an encyclical which encroached on the very
foundations of Orthodoxy. Heretical communities that have been separated by the
Orthodox Church from Her communion were declared to be “churches” having equal
rights with her, and Orthodoxy was given the aim of the speediest possible
unification with all the apostates.
In contrast to this
treacherous document, which marked the beginning of the global apostasy of
“World Orthodoxy”, in the same year of 1920 the holy Patriarch Tikhon together
with the Holy Synod and the Higher Church Council – that is, undoubtedly with
the whole fullness of the Central Ecclesiastical authorities of the Russian
Church – made a most important resolution, Ukaz no. 362 of 7/20 November, 1920, on the
self-definition of dioceses in conditions of possible persecution. The other
name for this Ukaz – the Ukaz on decentralization – underlines the fact
that the aim of the resolution of the Russian Ecclesiastical Authorities was contradictory
to the aim of the encyclical of the Ecumenical throne, which called for the
centralization of all confessions of faith.
From now on the broad path
and all conditions for unification were created only for the unfaithful: but
for those faithful to Christ a violent disunion lay in store: the two parts of
the Russian Church were disunited: the one found itself exiled from its native
land, while the other was driven into the catacombs by persecutions
unprecedented in their ferocity. But in these terrible years the Church of
Russia did not cease to constitute one spiritual whole.
The force enabling both
parts of the Russian Church to hold out and preserve Their unity in all
temptations, especially in the approaching most terrible period – the epoch of
the sergianist schism – was their unanimous confession of the faith of the
fathers.
“Schism is not
antiquity, but novelty”, pointed out Theophan the Recluse. This remarkable
definition has a universal character and allows always accurately to establish
the one who is truly guilty of schism.
By his treacherous
Declaration of 1927 Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) opened wide the gates
of the Church for renovationism. It consisted in the undermining of the very
meaning of the existence of the Church on earth – not as the pillar and ground
of the truth and of eternal Authority, but as the weapon of earthly power.
Both parts of the Russian Church
– the part in Russia, and the part Abroad – were completely unanimous in their
attitude to the Declaration of 1927. The Hierarchical Synod of the Church
Abroad, headed by his Beatitude Metropolitan Anthony, broke communion with the
schismatic metropolitan and his synod. The bishops in the homeland that were
faithful to the Russian Church did the same. The essence of the sergianist
schism was very accurately expressed by New Martyr Bishop Victor (Ostrovidov),
when he called Sergius an anti-ecclesiastical heretic. The faithful
children of the Russian Church did not visit the sergianist churches, they
justly made no distinction between sergianists and renovationists. “We
shall not go to renovationism,” said the Orthodox. Communications were lost
with Metropolitan Peter (Polyansky), the lawful head of the Russian Church, who
was in prison, and the treachery of his Deputy forced the Church, both in the
Homeland and abroad, to be ruled in its canonical existence by Ukaz no. 362 of
the holy Patriarch Tikhon concerning the self-definition of dioceses. With the
death of Metropolitan Peter (Polyansky), the Central or Supreme Authority of
the Russian Church ceased even its nominal existence. Such an eventuality was
foreseen by Ukaz no. 362, which contained detailed recommendations for the
ordering of the Church which would avoid schism in this event. But through the
efforts of Metropolitan Sergius, a dual authority was introduced, and then a
false patriarchate (a common phenomenon, alas, in Church history during the
periods when heresy was dominant).
From now on the Russian
Church trod its path in the conditions of the absence of Central (Supreme)
Ecclesiastical Authority. When the last Orthodox churches were closed in Russia
in the 1930s, the Russian Church finally departed into the catacombs,
preserving communion in prayer with Her half that was abroad and commemorating
Her First Hierarchs Metropolitans Anthony, Anastasy and Philaret. Following the
spirit and aim of the Ukaz no. 362 of the holy Patriarch Tikhon of 7/20
November, 1920 kept the Orthodox Church reliably free of false strivings for
unification.
This was not the case with
the sergianist church – it grew strongly into what is now commonly called
“official world orthodoxy”. The latter was also ruled by a document of 1920,
but the document of an opposite tendency – the ecumenical encyclical of the Locum
Tenens of the Ecumenical Throne Dorotheus. “World Orthodoxy” became an
inalienable part of the ecumenical movement and dragged the sergianist church
after it into the abyss. Into the gates opened by Metropolitan Sergius there
now poured without the slightest resistance the false teachings by which the
enemy of human salvation has, in the course of the whole of his struggle with
the Church, and especially in the 20th century, undermined the
teaching of Christ.
The sergianist church
accepted all the most destructive innovations of the 20th century –
both communism, and ecumenism, by which it clearly marked its complete
attachment to the most terrible schism that has ever tormented the Universal
Church.
If Metropolitan Sergius, as
the holy new martyrs pointed out, had “distorted the dogmatic face of the
Church”, then under his successors we must speak no longer of distortion, but
of a complete overthrow of the Holy Dogmas, and first of all – of the Dogma of
the Church as being one and only one. In consequence of this trampling on the
Holy Dogmas there appeared crying violations of the Holy Canons – for example,
the categorical ban on joint prayers with the heterodox under threat of being
deprived of one’s rank and expelled from the Church.
Is it necessary to cite
examples of the excesses of the ecumenists, which are the more blasphemous in
that they have been committed in the name of Christ? In 1983 those abroad had
the opportunity of seeing on television the raising of a pagan idol by
delegates of the Fourth Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Vancouver,
among whom were representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate, while in Russia the
“Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate” in its account of this ecumenical Assembly
was not ashamed to mention this hideous act in the most positive terms.
After the ecumenical
Assembly in Vancouver the Russian Church Abroad, headed by the holy Hierarch
Philaret, in its Council in Mansonville in 1983 delivered ecumenism to
anathema.
With the fall of the “iron
curtain”, there finally appeared the opportunity for the forcibly divided parts
of the Russian Orthodox Church to unite. But it turned out that in the years
that had passed since the death of the holy Hierarch Philaret (1985), too much
had changed in the Church Abroad – and a significant part of Her was now under
threat of falling under their own anathema.
The concelebrations of
clergy and even bishops of the Church Abroad with the clergy and episcopate of
the ecumenist Orthodox Churches – which was to have ceased after the
Mansonville council of 1983 – again became a commonplace phenomenon. The
concelebrations of the majority of the hierarchs of the Church Abroad, not to
speak of the other clergy, with the clergy of the ecumenical Serbian
patriarchate became a real scourge. And these concelebrations took place in
spite of the fact that this patriarchate almost exceeded the Soviet sergianists
in ecumenical enthusiasm, while her relationships with her local communists was
just as submissive as was that of her Soviet “sister”. These concelebrations
have not ceased even now, after the recent epistle of the Serbian patriarch to
his Muscovite brother, in which he affirms that his patriarchate no longer has
communion in prayer with the ROCA.
It was also with a heavy
feeling of perplexity that we observed the hasty proclamation, in the
Hierarchical Council of the ROCA that took place in 1994, that the ecclesiology
of Metropolitan Cyprian of Fili and Orope was identical to the ecclesiology of
the Church Abroad. We cannot accept as Orthodox the basic position of this
ecclesiology – that the saving grace of the sacraments can supposedly be guaranteed
to abide in heretical communities, albeit only up to their conciliar
condemnation. One of the Greek metropolitans with his followers calls the
hierarchs of “World Orthodoxy” the “sick” members of one and the same Body of
Christ – His True Church. One branch is healthy, the other sick. We understand
that the ecclesiological resolution of the Council of 1994 is a natural step
further downwards after the Nativity Epistle of 1986, which was distributed
under the signature of Metropolitan Vitaly, in which the meaning of the
anathema against ecumenism accepted in 1983 was restricted, against all logic,
to “members of our Church (that is, the Church Abroad)” – as if an anathema
applies, not to a heretic, but to a jurisdiction! But we also saw, and we see to
the present day, that there are enough people in the Church Abroad who
understand the whole destructiveness of the resolutions, and that these people
are trying to correct the mistake of the Hierarchical Council in 1994.
But of course that which we
perceive with the greatest heaviness is the ever-increasing tendency of the
Church Abroad towards union with the Moscow Patriarchate. It is worthy of note
that the very possibility of negotiations with her was sanctioned in principle
by the same Council of the ROCA in 1994 which recognized the crypto-ecumenist
ecclesiology of Metropolitan Cyprian.
At a time when the Moscow
Patriarchate was preoccupied with unity with the Catholics (the Balamand unia
of 1993 – this document has not been disavowed: on the contrary, certain of its
positions have been widely realized in life) and with the Monophysites (the
Chambesy union of 1990; within the bounds of the programme outlined in it the
Moscow Patriarchate is now getting very close to the Armenian monophysite
church), certain hierarchs of the Church Abroad have been insistently seeking
to get closer to the Moscow Patriarchate – even in spite of the fact that the
patriarchate takes less and less account of the very existence of the Church
Abroad, exappropriating her property now not only in Russia, but also abroad.
This has delivered a huge blow to the dignity of the Church Abroad and Her
hierarchy even in the eyes of “outsiders”. But still sadder is the fact that
this witnesses to the apostasy of part of the hierarchs of the ROCA from the
path bequeathed to Her by the first-hierarchs Metropolitans Anthony, Anastasy
and Philaret – that is, to their apostasy from Orthodoxy.
If the other, healthy part
of the ROCA does not find within itself the strength to halt the strivings of
the apostates, then the final degeneration of the ROCA into a false
ecclesiastical organization and Her subsequent dissolution in the ecumenical
“great and spacious sea” (Psalm 103.27) of “World Orthodoxy” will become
a burning question in the nearest future.
In Russia the stand-off
between the Church Abroad and “World Orthodoxy” in the person of the MP has
taken a particularly acute form, and therefore the Russian parishes of the ROCA
did not have the possibility of waiting many years until the hierarchs abroad
re-established Church discipline and were again established on the path of the
holy Hierarch Philaret. This was the cause of the break in eucharistic
communion between the Russian [Rossijskoj] Orthodox Church and the
Hierarchical Synod of the ROCA which took place in 1995. Unfortunately, our
actions at that time did not meet with understanding on the part of the
clerical leadership of the ROCA, which, contrary to the spirit and the letter
of Ukaz no. 362 and its own evident inability to restrain the tendencies
towards apostasy from the faith in the dioceses abroad, began to insist on his
own full right to realize supreme ecclesiastical authority in Russia.
The five years that have passed
since then have shown whether or not we were right in our fears.
Our position remains:
faithfulness to the dogmas and holy canons of the Orthodox Church and,
moreover, the preservation of the Orthodox Faith without contamination from the
ecumenical filth of “World Orthodoxy” and its organic part – the Moscow
Patriarchate. It was on this path that Her ever-memorable first-hierarch, the
holy Philaret, left the Russian Church Abroad for us, his successors, and this
position of ours is similar to that of the majority of Old Calendarist Greek
hierarchs and their flock. We have no “separate” claims in relation to the
Moscow Patriarchate: it is no more than a part of the global and now already
ecumenical sergianism, which with the same zeal that Metropolitan Sergius once
served Stalin now serves the New World Order and the coming unification of
everyone and everything. It is in no way worse or better than some Serbian or
Constantinopolitan patriarchate. With all these ecumenical jurisdictions the
Russian Orthodox Church broke canonical communion under the holy Hierarch
Philaret.
If you, your Graces,
honourable Archbishops, clergy and laymen, choose to return to the faith of the
fathers – the holy fathers of Universal Orthodoxy and the fathers of our Church
Abroad – then we shall be together again. Unity of canonical communion will be
quickly restored between us, as soon as unity of faith is restored.
But if it is not – if
within the Church Abroad there is not found the strength to stop Her slide into
the quagmire of “World Orthodoxy”, then the end is inevitable: the Moscow
Patriarchate will suck up into itself her remains scattered around the world,
and the muddy waters of ecumenism will close above Her head forever.
May this not be!
The means of salvation are the same for all times: to hear and
to carry out, amidst the wavering, unstable elements of the world, the
everlasting voice of the true Mother Church uttered from on high: As you have believed
– “in that stand and be saved” (I Corinthians 15.1).
+ Valentine, Archbishop of
Suzdal and Vladimir,
President of the
Hierarchical Synod of the Russian [Rossijskoj] Orthodox Church
+ Theodore, Bishop
Borisovskoye and Sanino
+ Seraphim, Bishop of
Sukhumi and Abkhazia
+ Victor, Bishop of Daugavpilis
and Latvia
+ Hilarion, Bishop of
Sukhodolsk
+ Anthony, Bishop of Yaransk
Protopriest Andrew Osetrov,
Secretary of the Hierarchical Synod
