LETTER OF BISHOP GREGORY GRABBE TO METROPOLITAN VITALY
Most Reverend Vladyko!
For a very long time now –
in fact, since the first days of your leadership of our Church Abroad – I have
with great anxiety and turmoil of heart been tracing how quickly she has begun
to slide into the abyss of administrative disorder and canonical chaos.
All this time I have
suppressed within myself the desire to express openly to you my anxiety for the
destinies of our Church Abroad, mainly out of worry that every utterance of
mine will be taken by you as an expression of personal offence.
Believe me, Vladyko,
although I could not fail to have the feeling of a certain chagrin in relation
to member of the Council and you personally, by the mercy of God I have nourished
no unfriendly feelings towards anyone. As you yourself know, I have by all
means tried, and I am still trying, in the first place to be ruled by the
interests of our Church, both abroad and in Russia.
I very much beseech you patiently
to listen to my observations concerning the years when I ceased to be secretary
of the Synod. Although I no longer bear any formal responsibility for the later
destinies of our Church, I cannot look with indifference at what is now
happening before my eyes.
Our woes began with the
first Hierarchical Council to take place after the death of Metropolitan
Philaret….
In order to illustrate the
relationship of the members of the Council of that time to myself, please
recall the speech made at the banquet on the occasion of your election. Then
Protopriest Ioann Legky, as he then was, in greeting you, said that he was glad
that in my person you would have such an experienced and faithful assistant as
had had your three predecessors.
To my extreme surprise, in
looking through the protocols at the end of the Council, I saw that his speech
had been received as ‘an insult to the whole Hierarchical Council’. This
amazing resolution remained in the protocol as ‘an instruction to posterity’.
At this time you suggested that I keep the parishes in my
jurisdiction and add to them some more from Pennsylvania. In accordance with
your direction, I then composed a list of the parishes which should enter my diocese.
But when I arrived at the session, you detained my report on this matter and
sharply attacked me for my ‘bankruptcy’ as an administrator and in effect gave
me an ultimatum: either I myself had to put in an application for retirement,
or I would be judged by the Council, although it was not known what for. Seeing
that both you and the majority of the members of the Council were seeking an
opportunity to drive me out of your midst, I made a declaration about my
retirement for the sake of ecclesiastical peace, although I felt absolutely no
guilt that would have merited a trial or dismissal. It was said that the reason
for the Council members’ dissatisfaction was my unskilful administration of
affairs in Rome, although at that time I had completely supported the opinion
of the person sent there as investigator, Archbishop Anthony of Los Angeles.
Only the reposed Archbishop
Seraphim of Chicago, in spite of being ill with the illness that led to his
death, wrote you a decisive protest against my illegal dismissal from the see
of Washington and Florida.
At the same Council there
was an unexpected declaration that Archbishop Laurus had been appointed as
Secretary of the Synod, and Bishop Hilarion – as his Deputy. This change in
Secretary did not figure on the Council’s agenda. I myself had to point out to
the Council that in appointing whoever it may be to a post, one must first make
that post free from the other person occupying it. I immediately announced my
retirement. However, I could not fail to be worried by the fact – which the members
of the Council did not want to take into consideration – that the new Secretary
of the Synod would be living 200 kilometres from the Chancellery, while his
deputy was a man completely inexperienced in chancellery procedures.
This my very hasty removal
from the post of Secretary of the Synod (although it was called different
things at different times) after 55 years of service to the Church Abroad must
have demonstrated to our enemies that a revolution had taken place among us,
which would undoubtedly be badly reflected on the prestige of the Synod. I
myself had to point this out to you in my concern for preserving the dignity of
the Synod at the given time. Apparently you yourself felt a certain awkwardness
at that time, and you expressed your gratitude to me in a laconical way. It is
also worthy of note that I was treated like a guilty chamber-maid precisely in
the year in which the Council resolved triumphantly to celebrate the 50th
anniversary of the death of Metropolitan Anthony [Khrapovitsky]. The Council
completely ignored the fact that I was not only appointed to work in the Synod
by the personal desire of the Metropolitan, but also that I was one of his
closest and most trusted co-workers.
In view of this, my
daughter [Matushka Anastasia Georgievna Shatilova] refused the responsibilities
of Record-Keeper of the Chancellery. For the last four decades she had been my
unofficial secretary and closest co-worker. She already had enormous experience
of work in ecclesiastical administration. In unconditionally accepting her
resignation, you thereby deprived the Synodal Chancellery of its main worker.
With my and her departure,
the Department of External Relations of the Synod was immediately closed. This
Department had been acquiring a greater and greater significance in the eyes of
the other Orthodox Churches. Reprints from the “Newsheet” that it published had
already begun to appear in the official organs of some local Churches. This was
a fresh blow at the prestige of the Synod.
On the disorganisation of
our Chancellery I can judge from a series of signs. Thus I was sent from Russia
copies of your letters to Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Valentine. First, I
very soon managed to find out that these documents were unknown to both Secretaries
of the Synod, to whom I handed over these copies. Moreover, the very subject of
these letters, by the delicacy of their content, demanded their presentation by
you for discussion in the Hierarchical Synod. But it turned out that the
letters were not only dispatched without the knowledge of the Secretaries, but
also had a whole series of other defects which quite clearly demonstrated the
bankruptcy of your personal Chancellery. Although Russian notepaper was
available, the letters to Russia were sent on English notepaper; they not only
had no numbers, but even no dates. In the letter to Archbishop Lazarus there
was no indication of whom it was being sent to, while Bishop Valentine’s title
was incomplete. Finally, the very text of the letters was by no means brilliant
grammatically and stylistically. Moreover, it also emerged (which is especially
terrible) that at the bottom of both letters was not your signature in your own
hand, but a facsimile!…
The Synodal House ceased to
exist as the centre of our administration. The sessions of the Synods and
Councils were usually arranged in any place, only not in the Synodal House.
Besides, you are rarely in New York, Vladyka Hilarion is often away, and the
Chancellery in his absence does not function – in our former centre there is
often not a single responsible person capable of giving correct information, or
of understanding what to do with information received from outside. Often the
‘responsible’ person turns out to be the telephonist on duty at the time.
There have been many
complaints against your secretary on the part of clergy visiting the Synod,
mainly because of her crudeness and unwelcomingness. I know of cases when she
refused to connect you by telephone even with Bishops. I personally have more
than once been in such a situation. However, in refusing to connect me with
you, she was polite to me. But her often provocative behaviour has drawn
censure also on you personally, for much is said and done by her in your name.
The Synodal cathedral,
which was always famous for its well-ordered and very majestic cathedral
services, has for a long time now not had even one permanent priest. Vladyka
Hilarion tries to fulfil the role of such a priest as well as he can. But
people who turn to the Synod for the carrying out of needs in his absence are
often refused in a less than polite manner.
The constantly changing
priests in the cathedral read Church Slavonic with evident difficulty, making
mistakes even in often-repeated Saturday Gospels.
Things are no better in the
Eastern American diocese. I have often had to hear the complaints of our
priests about the fact that since the time you became the head of this diocese
there has not been a single diocesan Congress, in spite of the fact that at
pastoral congresses you have been asked insistently about this by the father
rectors. Many priests feel that you have abandoned this diocese when they learn
that there have been diocesan congresses in Canada.
Some have begun to be
concerned at the danger of losing the guarantee of keeping their parish
property. Thus the property of the Eastern American diocese and of the parish
at Glen Cove attached to it has suddenly been declared to be the property of
the Hierarchical Synod. For a long time now the Synod has been aiming to close
down this parish, and to sell the diocese’s property for its own profit.
As regards our affairs in
Russia, you yourself know how many reports I have made on this issue. Not once
have I received any kind of reaction, neither from you personally, nor from the
Synod Chancellery.
I was particularly
distressed by the ban you imposed on me in March preventing me from personally
presenting my report to the Synod and from taking part in the deliberations on
its contents. This is a completely unprecedented case in the history of the
Church Abroad. I do not know of a single case in which a Bishop was refused the
right of publishing his report to the Synod.
The actuality of my report
has been confirmed by the events that took place one after the other in Russia.
A correctly ordered administration should anticipate events, and not simply
react to them hastily, which is quite obviously what is happening now. As a
result we have brought the matter of the possible regeneration of the Church in
Russia to the most undesirable of ends.
Spurred on by envy and
spite, certain of our Bishops have influenced the whole course of our Church
politics in Russia. As a consequence of this, our Synod has not understood the
meaning of the existence of our mission abroad.
As I warned the Synod in my
last report, we have done absolutely everything possible to force the Russian
Bishops to separate from us administratively.
They have had to proceed
from Resolution No. 362 of Patriarch Tikhon of November 7/20, 1920, so as to
prevent the final destruction of the just-beginning regeneration of the Russian
Church in our Fatherland. But our Synod, having nothing before its eyes except
punitive tactics, has proceeded only from the positions of normalised
ecclesiastical life. But the Patriarch’s Resolution had in mind the
preservation of ecclesiastical construction in completely unprecedented
historical and ecclesiastical circumstances.
The ukaz was
composed for various cases, including the means of restoring the Church
Administration in conditions when it had even ceased to be (cf. article 9) and
“the extreme disorganisation of Church life”. This is the task placed before
any surviving hierarch, provided only that he truly Orthodox.
The Russian Hierarchs felt
themselves to be in this position when, for almost two years in a row, their
enquiries and requests to receive support against the oppression of the Moscow
Patriarchate were met with complete silence on the part of our Synod.
Seeing the canonical chaos
caused in their dioceses by Bishop Barnabas, and the silent connivance towards
him of the Synod, the Russian Hierarchs came to the conclusion that they had no
other way of preventing the destruction of the whole enterprise than by being
ruled by the patriarchal Resolution No. 362.
Our Synod unlawfully pushed
Bishop Valentine into retirement for accepting the huge parish in Noginsk,
which Bishop Barnabas hoped to receive for himself, but did not react in any
way when the same Bishop Barnabas treacherously shamed the Synod by petitioning
to be received into communion with a Ukrainian self-consecrator in the name of
the Synod!
I do not know whether you
have read the full text of the Resolution of November 7/20 at a session of the
Synod. I myself earlier paid little attention to it, but now, on reading it
through, I see that the Russian Bishops have every right to refer to it, and
this fact will be revealed in the polemic that will now inevitably develop. I
fear that the Synod has already opened the way to this undesirable polemic by
its decisions, and it will betoken a schism not only in Russia, but also with
us here…
There are things which
cannot be stopped, and it is also impossible to walk away from an accomplished
fact. If our Synod does not now correctly evaluate the passing historical
moment, then its already infinitely undermined prestige (especially in Russia)
will be finally and ingloriously destroyed.
For all the years of the
existence of the Church Abroad we have enjoyed respect and glory for nothing
else than for our uncompromising faithfulness to the canons. They hated us, but
they did not dare not to respect us. But now we have shown the whole Orthodox
world that the canons are for us just an empty sound and we have become a
laughing-stock in the eyes of all those who have any kind of relationship to
Church questions.
Look: you yourself, at the
Council in Lesna, permitted yourself to say that for us, the participants in
it, this was not now the time to examine canons, but we had to act quickly.
You, holding the tiller of the ecclesiastical ship, triumphantly, in front of the
whole Council, declared to us that now we had to hasten to sail without a
rudder and without sails. At that time your words appalled me, but I, knowing
of your irritation towards me because I insist that we have to live in
accordance with the canons, still hoped that all was not lost and that our
Bishops would somehow shake off the whole nightmare of these last years.
Think, Vladyko, of the tens
of thousands of Orthodox people we have deceived both abroad and in Russia.
Don’t calm yourself with the thought that if there is some guilt somewhere,
then it lies equally on all our hierarchs. The main guilt will lie on you, as
the leader of our Council. I have had to hear from some Bishops that sometimes
the Synod decrees one thing, and then you, taking no account of previous
resolutions, on your own initiative either change them or simply rescind them.
And look now, as has
already become quite well known, after the stormy March session of the Synod,
it dispersed without making a single resolution. During it the question was
discussed of banning the Russian Hierarchs from serving. Nevertheless, you
demanded that the Secretariat that it send of an ukaz banning bishops
who were not even under investigation. Both from the point of view of the 34th
Apostolic canon, and from an ecclesiastical-administrative point of view, this
is unprecedented lawlessness.
Remember, Vladyko, your
reproachful speech against Metropolitan Philaret, when in 1985 you for ten
minutes non-stop fulminated against him for transgressing the 34th
Apostolic canon. The crimes of Metropolitan Philaret seem to me to be miniscule
by comparison with what is happening now. He only occasionally gave awards to
clergy of other dioceses at the request of his cell-attendant, but never interfered
in the affairs of the dioceses of his brothers. But that is what both you
personally and certain of our Bishops have begun to do. Fr. Nikita was not able
to get the reposed Metropolitan Philaret to commit those uncanonical acts in
which the activity of Bishop Barnabas and certain other bishops abound – with
the silent agreement of you as the First Hierarch, who must know all these
circumstances well.
Forgive me, Vladyko, if my
letter grieves you. My aim is not, and never has been, to wound or offend you.
In going through the results of your rule in recent years in chronological
order… my aim was by no means to complain about my own fate. You of course must
know that I have not once expressed any offence or complaint of a personal
character. I write this letter only in order to show you clearly how we have
come off the canonical rails since 1985, we have more and more begun to depart
from the basic ecclesiastical canons and rulers of our Local Church and now we
have reduced all our affairs in Russia and abroad to the saddest condition.
I was a witness of, and
participant in, the glorious period in the life of the Church Abroad, and now
with pain I look on what I consider to be what is already its inglorious end.
The growth of our parishes
abroad has ceased since the death of Metropolitan Philaret. We have no
candidates to fill the hierarchical sees, which witnesses to the fact that we
are gradually becoming smaller. And now at this portentous moment we are simply
renouncing the link with Russia that was established with such labour.
Our Synod must understand
that we by our actions have elicited the speedy administrative departure from
us of the Russian Hierarchs. It had to happen one way or another on the basis
of the Resolution of Patriarch Tikhon of November 7/20, 1920 and of our own
“Statute concerning the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad”. If we do not now
understand this, then we only demonstrate before the whole world our bankruptcy
and our failure to understand the whole historic mission laid upon us by the
Providence of God.
In their resolution of
March 22 the Russian Hierarchs declared that they remained in communion of
prayer with us and commemorated you in the Divine services, but we, instead of
understanding the unprecedented state of ecclesiastical affairs in Russia, and
not thinking about building up the Church or of the tens of thousands of people
deceived by us – reply to everything only with canons which were meant to be
used in normal conditions.
It is absolutely necessary
for you sharply and decisively to turn the rudder of our administration in the
direction of keeping the canons, before it is too late.
Vladyko, do not allow your
name in the history of the Russian Church to be linked, not with the peaceful
construction of Church life, but with its abrupt and shameful destruction both
in Russia and abroad.
March 24 / April
6, 1994
