Первая страница "Открытого письма" г-на Сокольского к Высокопреосвященнейшему Владыке Филарету

Копия письма о. Митрофану

Копия письма Старосте и Церковно-приходскому Совету

Копия письма Г-ну В. Сокольскому от о. Адриана 

Копия письма Г-ну В. Сокольскому от  Г. Солдатова 

Копия письма Преосвященному Архиепископу Серафиму от  Г. Солдатова 

* * * 

A HISTORY OF THE FALL OF ROCOR,

2000-2007

Vladimir Moss

If you see lying and hypocrisy, expose them in front of all, even if they are clothed in

purple and fine linen.

Metropolitan Anastasy (Gribanovsky) of New York (1906)

Hold fast that which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.

Revelation 3.11; the last words of St. Philaret of New York (1985)

The Holy Flesh hath passed from thee.

Jeremiah 11.15

© Copyright Vladimir Moss 2011. All Rights Reserved.

2

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION: THE 1990s ..............................................................................3

I. “THE SECOND OCTOBER REVOLUTION”..................................................    21

II. THE FALL OF THE NEW YORK SYNOD ...................................................    26

III. THE CREATION OF THE MANSONVILLE SYNOD...............................    36

IV. THE RUSSIAN TRUE ORTHODOX CHURCH.........................................     46

V. THE PLOTTERS FALL INTO THEIR OWN PIT.........................................  55

VI. HERESY AND CORRUPTION IN SUZDAL..............................................     61

VII. THE END-GAME ..........................................................................................  74

CONCLUSION: THE HOLY REMNANT.........................................................     81

3

INTRODUCTION: THE 1990s

Who hath remained among you that has seen this House in its former glory, and

how do you see it now? Is it not in your eyes as it were nothing? But take heart now...

                                                                                                                        Haggai 2.3-4.

The return of the Russian Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) to Russia in

1990 after almost seventy years’ exile was undoubtedly one of the most

significant events in Church history, comparable to the return of the Jews to

Jerusalem after the seventy-year exile in Babylon. And yet this momentous

step was taken almost casually, without sufficient forethought or a clearly

defined strategy. Hence difficult problems arose, problems that had their

roots deep in ROCOR’s past history. These problems can be divided into three

categories: (A) ROCOR in relation to her own flock at home and abroad, (B)

ROCOR in relation to the Catacomb Church, and (C) ROCOR in relation to

the MP and the post-Soviet Russian State.

 

A. ROCOR in relation to herself. The problem here is easily stated: how

could the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad continue to call herself the

Church Abroad if she now had parishes inside Russia? After all, her Founding

Statute or Polozhenie stated that ROCOR was an autonomous part of the

Autocephalous Russian Church, that part which existed (i) outside the bounds

of Russia on the basis of Ukaz № 362 of November 7/20, 1920 of Patriarch

Tikhon and the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, and (ii)

temporarily until the fall of communism in Russia. 1 With the fall of

communism and the creation of ROCOR parishes inside Russia in 1990-91, it

would seem that these limitations in space and time no longer applied, and

that ROCOR had ceased to exist as a temporary Church body existing outside

Russia in accordance with her own definition of herself in the Polozhenie.

The solution to this problem would appear to have been obvious: change

the Polozhenie! And this was in fact the solution put forward by ROCOR’s

leading canonist, Bishop Gregory (Grabbe). However, the ROCOR episcopate

declined that suggestion, and the Polozhenie remained unchanged.

Why? Although we have no direct evidence on which to base an answer to

this question, the following would appear to be a reasonable conclusion from

the events as they unfolded in the early 1990s. A change in the Polozhenie

that removed the spatial and temporal limitations of ROCOR’s self-definition

would have had the consequence of forcing ROCOR to define herself as the

1 ROCOR’s Hierarchical Council of 1956 declared that “the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad is

an unsevered part of the Local Russian Orthodox Church, being temporarily self-governing

on synodal bases, until the abolition of atheist rule in Russia, in accordance with the

resolution of the Holy Patriarch, the Holy Synod and the Higher Russian Church Council of

November 7/20, 1920, № 362”.

4

one true Russian Orthodox Church, and therefore to remove the centre of her

Church administration from America to Russia and enter into a life-and-death

struggle with the Moscow Patriarchate (MP) for the minds and hearts of the

Russian people.

However, the ROCOR bishops were not prepared to accept these

consequences. After all, they were well-established abroad, increasingly

dependent economically on contributions from foreign converts to Orthodoxy,

and with few exceptions were not prepared to exchange the comforts and

relative security of life in the West for the uncertainty and privations of life in

Russia, where, although communism was crumbling, the communist élites

were still in place in both Church and State. Of course, the whole raison d’ętre

of ROCOR was to return to her homeland in Russia (she was previously

called the Russian Church in Exile, and exiles by definition want to return to

their homeland); and it was in anticipation of such a return that she had

steadfastly refused to endanger her Russian identity by merging with other

Local Orthodox Churches or by forming local jurisdictions identified with

specific western countries (like the formerly Russian schism from ROCOR

calling itself the Orthodox Church of America). But generations had passed

since the first emigration, the descendants of that first emigration had settled

in western countries, learned their languages, adopted their ways, put down

roots in foreign soil, married non-Russians (and often, alas, non-Orthodox).

The exiles were no longer exiles from, but strangers to, their native land…

 

B. ROCOR in relation to the Catacomb Church. Since 1927, when ROCOR

had broken communion simultaneously with the Catacomb Church from

Metropolitan Sergius’ MP, she had looked upon the Catacomb Church as the

True Church inside Russia with which she remained in mystical communion

of prayer and sacraments, even if such communion could not be realized in

face-to-face meeting and concelebration. Indeed, after the death of

Metropolitan Peter of Krutitsa, the last universally recognised leader of the

Russian Church, in 1937, ROCOR commemorated “the episcopate of the

persecuted Russian Church”, by which was undoubtedly meant the

episcopate of the Catacomb Church. After the war, however, a change began

to creep in. On the one hand, news of Catacomb bishops and communities

became more and more scarce, and some even began to doubt that the

Catacomb Church existed any longer (Archbishop Mark of Berlin declared in

the 1990s, when catacombniks were pouring into ROCOR, that the Catacomb

Church had died out in the 1950s!). On the other hand, some Catacomb

priests inside Russia, having lost contact with, and knowledge of, any

canonical bishops there might still be inside Russia, began commemorating

Metropolitan Anastasy, first-hierarch of ROCOR.

These tendencies gave rise to the not unnatural perception that the

leadership of True Russian Orthodoxy had now passed from inside Russia to

outside Russia, to ROCOR. Moreover, the significance of the Catacomb

5

Church began to be lost, as the struggle was increasingly seen to be between

the “red church” inside Russia (the MP) and the “white church” outside

Russia (ROCOR). Of course, the idea of the Catacomb Church remained

sacred. But the heroes of the past – the great hieromartyrs of the 1920s and 30s

- looked more glorious than their present-day followers. And some even

began to look on the “catacombniks”, not as the True Church of Russia

clothed in the purple robes of hundreds of thousands of martyrs, but as a

spent force – or as uneducated sectarians in need of rescue. They looked on

the humble catacombniks, serving, not in the splendid cathedrals of the

emigration, but in poor, dingy flats, if not as contemptible, at any rate as

unimportant. How could the Russian Church, so splendid in its prerevolutionary

glory, be resurrected on the basis of such poverty?

Now it must be admitted that the Catacomb Church was desperately in

need of help. After several decades of constant persecution, her population

was aging and scattered, with fewer and fewer priests and almost no bishops,

while the infiltration of KGB “plants” tended to make different groups

suspicious of each other. ROCOR – the one church authority that all

catacombniks agreed was true - could indeed provide an inestimable service

to them by restoring their apostolic succession, educating a new generation of

priests and helping them to adapt to and take advantage of the new

conditions of post-Soviet Russia.

But much depended on how tactfully this was done. When the first

consecration of a bishop for the Catacomb Church was performed by ROCOR

on Archimandrite Lazarus (Zhurbenko), it was said that this was done “in

order to regulate the church life of the Catacomb Church”. 2 But what

precisely did this “regulation” mean? If the ROCOR bishops saw their role as

providing help for the catacombniks in the same way as they had helped the

Greek Old Calendarists in 1969-71 – that is, by re-establishing them as an

independent “sister-church”, to use the phrase of Metropolitan Philaret of

New York, - then there was hope for a truly profitable cooperation. After all,

it was not only the catacombniks who needed help: since the death of the holy

Metropolitan Philaret in 1985, ROCOR was beginning to waver in her own

faith and piety. Her members needed, in the words of the Lord in Revelation

(3.18) to “buy gold tried in the fire” of persecution – and the catacombniks

who had passed through the fire of the Soviet persecution had much to offer

and instruct them. However, already at a very early stage the impression was

created that ROCOR had come into Russia, not in order to unite with the

Catacomb Church and work with her for the triumph of True Orthodoxy in

Russia, but in order to replace her, or at best to gather the remnants of the

catacombs under her sole authority…3

2 “Zaiavlenie Arkhierejskago Sinoda Russkoj Pravoslvnoj Tserkvi Zagranitsej”, Pravoslavnaia

Rus’, № 18 (1423), 15/28 September, 1990, p. 6.

3 Bishop Lazarus complained about this in a conversation with the present writer in Moscow

on July 5, 1990.

6

Moreover, in the years to come the ROCOR Synod sometimes described

itself as the central authority of the True Russian Church – in spite of the fact

that this “central” authority was based, not in Russia, but thousands of miles

away in New York!

C. ROCOR in relation to the MP. The Catacomb Church might have

forgiven such arrogance if ROCOR had shown herself capable of fighting

resolutely against the MP. But here certain compromising tendencies

developed abroad bore bitter fruit that was to lead to schism and the collapse

of ROCOR’s mission inside Russia. For the ROCOR bishops proved

themselves incapable of making up their minds whether it was necessary to

fight the MP or help her, whether she was their friend or their enemy, their

beloved mother or their hated step-mother!4

The root causes of this indecisiveness go back to the post-war period, when

large numbers of Christians fleeing to the West from Soviet Russia were

joined to ROCOR. In receiving these Christians, little difference was made

between those who had belonged to the Catacomb Church, and those who

had belonged to the MP. Some, even including bishops, turned out to be KGB

agents, and either returned to the MP or remained as “moles” to undermine

ROCOR. 5 Others, while sincerely anti-Soviet, were not sufficiently

“enchurched” to see the fundamental ecclesiological significance of the

schism in the Russian Church. Thus a certain “dilution” in the quality of those

joining ROCOR in the second emigration by comparison with the first – and

the problem was to get worse with the third and fourth emigrations of the 70s,

80s and 90s – began to affect the confessing stance of the Church as a whole.

Even members of the first emigration had proved proving susceptible to

deception, as when all the ROCOR dioceses in China (except that of Shanghai,

led by St. John Maximovich) were lured back into the arms of the Soviet

“Fatherland” and its Soviet “Church”. It is not surprising, therefore, that later

generations, who had only known “Soviet reality”, should be still more

susceptible to deception.

Another reason for this diminution in zeal proceeded from the fact that

ROCOR did not break communion with the Local Orthodox Churches of

“World Orthodoxy” even after all of these (except Jerusalem) sent

representatives to the local Councils of the MP in 1945 and 1948. The reasons

for this depended on the Church in question. Thus communion continued

with the Serbian Church because of the debt of gratitude owed to the

hospitality shown by the Serbian Church to ROCOR in the inter-war years.

Communion continued with the Jerusalem Patriarchate because all churches

4 Fr. Timothy Alferov, “O polozhenii rossijskikh prikhodov RPTsZ v svete itogov

patriarkhijnogo sobora”, Uspensij Listok, № 34, 2000.

5 This forced the ROCOR Synod to take special measures to “ferret out” potential spies. See

Bishop Gregory (Grabbe), Pis’ma, Moscow, 1999.

7

in the Holy Land, including the ROCOR monasteries, were required, under

threat of closure, to commemorate the Patriarch of Jerusalem. Communion

also continued in some places with the Greek new calendarists, who were not

only in communion with the MP but members of the ecumenist World

Council of Churches, because the Ecumenical Patriarchate was powerful in

the United States, the country to which ROCOR had moved its headquarters.

This ambiguous relationship towards “World Orthodoxy” in general

inevitably began to affect ROCOR’s zeal in relation to the MP in particular.

For if the MP was recognised by Serbia and Jerusalem, and Serbia and

Jerusalem were recognised by ROCOR, the conclusion was drawn that the

MP, while bad, was still a Church. And this attitude in turn affected ROCOR’s

attitude towards the Catacomb Church, which was no longer seen by many,

including several of the bishops, as the one True Church of Russia.

As ROCOR began to lose confidence in herself and the Catacomb Church

as the only bearers of true Russian Orthodoxy, the accent began to shift

towards the preservation, not of Orthodoxy as such, but of Russianness. This

was bound to fail as a weapon against the MP. For for a foreign Church,

however Russian in spirit, to claim to be more Russian than the Russians

inside Russia was bound to be perceived as arrogant and humiliating by the

latter (especially in the mouth of an ethnic German such as Archbishop Mark

of Berlin!). And so the MP was able to mount a successful counter-attack,

claiming for itself the mantle of “Russianness” as against the “American”

church of ROCOR.

As a result of all this, at the very moment that ROCOR was called by God

to enter into an open war with the MP for the souls of the Russian people on

Russian soil, she found herself tactically unprepared, hesitant, unsure of her

ability to fight this great enemy, unsure even whether this enemy was in fact

an enemy. And this attitude guaranteed the collapse of the mission. For “if the

trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who will rise up and prepare for battle?”

(1 Corinthians 14.8). Looking more at her enemies than at the Lord, she began,

like the Apostle Peter, to sink beneath the waves. Many even began to think

that it was time to “forgive and forget” and join the MP; for “if you can’t beat

them – join them!” And the MP which, at the beginning of the 90s had been

seriously rattled, recovered her confidence and her position in public opinion.

The problems began on May 3/16, 1990, when the ROCOR Synod under

the presidency of Metropolitan Vitaly (Ustinov) issued a statement that was in

general strongly anti-MP, but which contained the qualification that there

might be true priests dispensing valid sacraments in the patriarchate

nevertheless. The idea that there can be true priests in a heretical church is

canonical nonsense (Apostolic Canon 46), and Bishop Gregory (Grabbe)

immediately obtained the removal of the offending phrase. But the damage

had been done.

8

Then serious problems began to develop between ROCOR bishops living

inside Russia and those visiting from abroad. In 1993 the first schism took

place. This was patched up, but in 1995 there was a second.

In addition three events took place that accentuated the crisis: (i) the

adoption of a new ecclesiology, (ii) the return of the KGB to power, and (iii)

the MP’s “Jubilee” Sobor of the year 2000.

Let us look at each of these in turn.

 

1. The Adoption of a New Ecclesiology. In 1994 ROCOR entered into

communion with the “Cyprianite” Greek Old Calendarists, so called because

of their leader, Metropolitan Cyprian (Kotsumbas) of Fili and Orope, who had

been defrocked by the True Orthodox Church of Greece under Archbishop

Chrysostomos (Kiousis) of Athens in 1986. The significance of the Cyprianites

lay in their espousal of an heretical ecclesiology, according to which heretics

remain inside the Church until they have been expelled by an Ecumenical

Council. This enabled them to claim that the ecumenist heretics of “World

Orthodoxy”, who belonged to the World Council of Churches (WCC), were

still inside the True Church in spite of the fact that they were heretics. When

ROCOR entered into communion with the Cyprianites, it officially accepted

this heretical ecclesiology. This enabled its leaders to affirm that the Moscow

Patriarchate, although heretical because of its submission to, and control by,

the communist atheists (sergianism) and its membership of the WCC

(ecumenism), was still a True Church with the grace of sacraments.

The 1994 decision was far from unanimously approved. At the 1993

Council, when the subject was first discussed, Archbishop Anthony of Los

Angeles, Bishop Gregory (Grabbe) and Bishop Cyril of Seattle spoke against

the union, which would contradict ROCOR’s decision of 1975 not to enter into

union with any of the Greek Old Calendarist Synods until they had attained

unity amongst themselves. However, Archbishops Laurus and Mark said that

it was awkward to refuse communion with Cyprian when they were already

in communion with the Romanian Old Calendarists, with whom Cyprian was

in communion.

At the 1993 Council a commission was set up consisting of Archbishop

Laurus, Bishop Metrophanes and Bishop Daniel which prepared the way for

the eventual decision to unite with Cyprian at the 1994 Council. However, at

the 1994 Council Bishop Daniel continued to express doubts, and Bishop

Benjamin of the Kuban, now the second hierarch of the Russian True

Orthodox Church, refused to sign the union together with Bishop Ambrose of

Vevey. And there were rumours that Metropolitan Vitaly and Archbishop

Anthony of Los Angeles had signed only under pressure.

9

The leaders of ROCOR tried to prove that this “Cyprianite” ecclesiology

had always been the ecclesiology of ROCOR and of her sister Church in the

Soviet Union, the Catacomb Church. But among the many facts that

contradicted their claim was a recent major decision of the ROCOR Sobor of

Bishops in 1983 under the leadership of the last Metropolitan, Philaret of New

York (+1985) – its anathema against ecumenism. No impartial reading of this

anathema could fail to come to the conclusion that it anathematized all the

ecumenists of World Orthodoxy, including the Moscow Patriarchate.

Therefore the decision of 1994, with its acceptance of the Moscow Patriarchate,

contradicted the decision of 1983, with its rejection of the Moscow

Patriarchate. The future of ROCOR depended on which of these “two

traditions” in ecclesiology triumphed, the tradition of Metropolitan Philaret,

whose relics were found to be incorrupt in 19986, or the tradition of the new

leaders of ROCOR…

After the decision Bishop Gregory (Grabbe) wrote that the Cyprianites

“confess their own and by no means Orthodox teaching on the possibility of

the grace-filled action of the Holy Spirit in churches that have clearly become

heretical”. Moreover he declared: “In passing this Resolution on communion

with the group of Metropolitan Cyprian, our Council has unfortunately also

forgotten about the text of the Resolution accepted earlier under the

presidency of Metropolitan Philaret, which anathematized the ecumenical

heresy… In fact, by not looking into the matter seriously and forgetting about

the anathematizing of the new calendarist ecumenists that was confirmed

earlier (and perhaps not having decided to rescind this resolution), our

Council, however terrible it may be to admit it, has fallen under its own

anathema… Do we have to think that our Hierarchical Council has entered on

the path of betraying the patristic traditions, or only that out of a

misunderstanding it has allowed a mistake which it is not yet too late to

correct at the November session in France?”7

However, the mistake was not corrected at the second session of the

Hierarchical Council in Lesna in November, 1994. Instead, the decision was

made to initiate negotiations with the MP. Archbishop Anthony of Los

Angeles commented on this to the present writer: “ROCOR is going to hell…”

6 All those present were greatly upset and grieved by the fact that during the pannikhida, as

during the All-Night Vigil and the Liturgy, the coffin with the relics of St. Philaret remained

sealed. In spite of the numerous requests of clergy and laity, who had specially come to

Jordanville so as to kiss the relics of the holy hierarch, Archbishop Laurus refused to open the

coffin. He also very strictly forbade making photocopies from the shots that had already been

taken of the incorrupt relics of the saint or even to show them to anyone.

7 Grabbe, “The Dubious Ecclesiology of Metropolitan Cyprian’s Group”, Church News, no. 5,

September-October, 1994, pp. 2-4; “Arkhierejskij Sobor RPTsZ 1994 goda: Istoria Prinyatia

Russkoj Zarubezhnoj Tserkoviu Yereticheskoj Ekkleziologii Mitropolita Kipriana”, Sviataia

Rus’, 2003; Vernost, 98, December, 2007.

10

2. The Return of the KGB. The former KGB Colonel Konstantin

Preobrazhensky, who converted to the faith and joined ROCOR in America,

writes: “After the democratic reforms of the 1990s the KGB officers managed

to get everything back. All the Directorates of the Soviet KGB are reunited

now in today’s FSB, except two of them: the First, which managed intelligence,

and the Ninth, which guarded the highest Communist bureaucrats. Both are

formally independent, but keep close connections with the FSB… The former

First Chief Directorate of the KGB is now called the Foreign Intelligence

Service. It is successfully managing the operation ’ROCOR’”8 – that is, the

absorption of ROCOR into the MP.9

The intelligence experts Christopher Andrew and Vasily Mitrokhin

confirm this assessment: “Ridiculed and reviled at the end of the Soviet era,

the Russian intelligence community has since been remarkably successful at

reinventing itself and recovering its political influence. The last three prime

ministers of the Russian Federation during Boris Yeltsin’s presidency –

Yevgeni Primakov, Sergei Stepashin and Vladimir Putin – were all former

intelligence chiefs. Putin, who succeeded Yeltsin as President in 2000, is the

only FCD [First Chief Directorate] officer ever to become Russian leader.

According to the head of the SVR [Foreign Intelligence Service], Sergei

Nikolayevich Lebedev, ‘The president’s understanding of intelligence activity

and the opportunity to speak the same language to him makes our work

considerably easier.’ No previous head of state in Russia, or perhaps

anywhere else in the world, has ever surrounded himself with so many

former intelligence officers. Putin also has more direct control of intelligence

that any Russian leader since Stalin. According to Kirpichenko, ‘We are under

the control of the President and his administration, because intelligence is

directly subordinated to the President and only the President.’ But whereas

Stalin’s intelligence chiefs usually told him simply what he wanted to hear,

Kirpichenko claims that, ‘Now, we tell it like it is’.

“The mission statement of today’s FSB and SVR is markedly different from

that of the KGB. At the beginning of the 1980s Andropov proudly declared

that the KGB was playing its part in the onward march of world revolution.

By contrast, the current ‘National Security Concept’ of the Russian Federation,

adopted at the beginning of the new millennium, puts the emphasis instead

on the defence of traditional Russian values: ‘Guaranteeing the Russian

Federation’s national security also includes defence of the cultural and

spiritual-moral inheritance, historical traditions and norms of social life,

preservation of the cultural property of all the peoples of Russia, formation of

state policy in the sphere of the spiritual and moral education of the

population…’ One of the distinguishing characteristics of the Soviet

intelligence system from Cheka to KGB was its militant atheism. In March

2002, however, the FSB at last found God. A restored Russian Orthodox

8 Preobrazhensky, “Ecumenism and Intelligence”.

9 Preobrazhensky, “Hostile Absorption of ROCOR”.

11

church in central Moscow was consecrated by Patriarch Aleksi II as the FSB’s

parish church in order to minister to the previously neglected spiritual needs

of its staff. The FSB Director, Nikolai Patrushev, and the Patriarch celebrated

the mystical marriage of the Orthodox Church and the state security

apparatus by a solemn exchange of gifts. Patrushev presented a symbolic

golden key of the church and an icon of St. Aleksei, Moscow Metropolitan, to

the Patriarch, who responded by giving the FSB Director the Mother God

‘Umilenie’ icon and an icon representing Patrushev’s own patron saint, St.

Nikolai – the possession of which would formerly have been a sufficiently

grave offence to cost any KGB officer his job. Though the FSB has not, of

course, become the world’s first intelligence agency staffed only or mainly by

Christian true believers, there have been a number of conversions to the

Orthodox Church by Russian intelligence officers past and present – among

them Nikolai Leonov, who half a century ago was the first to alert the Centre

to the revolutionary potential of Fidel Castro. ‘Spirituality’ has become a

common theme in FSB public relations materials. While head of FSB public

relations in 1999-2001, Vasili Stavitsky published several volumes of poetry

with a strong ‘spiritual’ content, among them Secrets of the Soul (1999); a book

of ‘spiritual-patriotic’ poems for children entitled Light a Candle, Mamma

(1999); and Constellation of Love: Selected Verse (2000). Many of Stavitsky’s

poems have been set to music and recorded on CDs, which are reported to be

popular at FSB functions.

“Despite their unprecedented emphasis on ‘spiritual security’, however,

the FSB and SVR are politicized intelligence agencies which keep track of

President Putin’s critics and opponents among the growing Russian diaspora

abroad, as well as in Russia itself. During his first term in office, while

affirming his commitment to democracy and human rights, Putin gradually

succeeded in marginalizing most opposition and winning control over

television channels and the main news media. The vigorous public debate of

policy issues during the Yeltsin years has largely disappeared. What has

gradually emerged is a new system of social control in which those who step

too far out of line face intimidation by the FSB and the courts. The 2003 State

Department annual report on human rights warned that a series of alleged

espionage cases involving scientists, journalists and environmentalists

‘caused continuing concerns regarding the lack of due process and the

influence of the FSB in court cases’. According to Lyudmilla Alekseyeva, the

current head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, which has been campaigning for

human rights in Russia since 1976, ‘The only thing these scientists, journalists

and environmentalists are guilty of is talking to foreigners, which in the

Soviet Union was an unpardonable offence.’ Though all this remains a far cry

from the KGB’s obsession with even the most trivial forms of ideological

subversion, the FSB has once again defined a role for itself as an instrument of

social control…”10

10 Andrew and Mitrokhin, The KGB and the World. The Mitrokhin Archive II, London: Penguin,

2006, pp 490-492.

12

The central figure in this “spiritualization” but at the same time “resovietization”

of Russia was Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. Coming to power

on January 1, 2000, he presented himself as “all things to all men”: a chekist to

the chekists, a democrat to the democrats, a nationalist to the nationalists, and

an Orthodox to the Orthodox. Putin’s propagandist Yegor Kholmogorov has

written: “Putin’s power was, from the very beginning, non-electoral in origin,

it was not a matter of being ‘appointed by Yeltsin’, but of what the Chinese

call ‘the mandate of heaven’, an unquestioned right to power... ”11 Putin was

indeed resembling a Chinese emperor more than a democratic politician, not

only in his political style, but also in his fabulous personal wealth, calculated

at Ł40 billion… 12

Putin is no believer. On September 8, 2000, when asked by the American

television journalist Larry King whether he believed in God, he replied: “I

believe in people…” Moreover, as George Spruksts writes,

“1) he lights menorahs when he worships at his local synagogue;

“2) he has worshipped the mortal remains of Kin Il Sung in North Korea;

“3) he has worshipped the mortal remains of Mahatma Gandhi;

“4) he ‘believes not in God, but in Man’ (as he himself has stated);

“5) he was initiated into an especially occult form of ‘knighthood’ (read:

freemasonry) in Germany;

“6) he has restored the communist anthem;

“7) he has restored the bloody red rag as the RF’s military banner;

“8) he has not removed the satanic pentagram from public buildings

(including cathedrals);

“9) he has plans of restoring the monument to ‘Butcher’ Dzerzhinsky [now

fulfilled];

“10) he has not removed the satanic mausoleum in Red Square nor its

filthy contents.”13

11 Kholmogorov, “Kremlevskij Mechtatel’” (Kremlin Dreamer), Spetnaz Rossii (Russia’s Special

Forces), 2000/2.

12 See Luke Harding, “Putin, the Kremlin power struggle and the $40bn fortune”, The

Guardian, December 21, 2007, pp. 1-2.

13 Sprukts, “Re: [paradosis] A Russian Conversation in English”, orthodoxtradition@

yahoogroups.com, 24 June, 2004.

13

It should also be remembered, as Preobrazhensky points out, that Putin

“began his career not in the intelligence ranks but in the ‘Fifth Branch’ of the

Leningrad Regional KGB, which also fought religion and the Church. Putin

carefully hides this fact from foreign church leaders, and you will not find it

in any of his official biographies… The myth of Putin’s religiosity is important

for proponents of ‘the union’. It allows Putin to be characterized as some

Orthodox Emperor Constantine, accepting the perishing Church Abroad

under his regal wing. For his kindness we should be stretching out our arms

to him with tears of gratitude…”14

“For those who claim,” writes Professor Olga Ackerly, “that the ‘CIS is

different from the USSR’ and Putin is a ‘practising Orthodox Christian’, here

are some sobering facts. The first days and months Putin’s presidency were

highlighted by the reestablishment of a memorial plaque on Kutuzovsky

Prospect where Andropov used to live. The plaque was a symbol of

communist despotism missing since the 1991 putsch, bearing Andropov’s

name – a former head of the KGB, especially known for his viciousness in the

use of force and psychiatric clinics for dissidents. On May 9, 2000, Putin

proposed a toast to the ‘genius commander’ Iosif Stalin and promoted many

former KGB officers to the highest state positions…

“Important to note is that the Eurasian movement, with ties to occultism,

ecumenism, etc. was recently revived by Putin, and a Congress entitled ‘The

All-Russian Political Social Movement’, held in Moscow in April of 2001, was

‘created on the basis of the Eurasist ideology and inter-confessional [sic!]

harmony in support of the reforms of President Vladimir Putin.’ The

movement is led by Alexander Dugin, a sexual mystic, National Bolshevik

Party member, son of a Cheka cadre, personally familiar with the so-called

‘Black International’, advisor to the State Duma, and participant in Putin’s

‘Unity’ movement.”15

From 2003 Putin moved to reverse the main gains of the liberal 1990s –

religious freedom, and a more open and honest attitude to the Soviet past.

Churches were seized from True Orthodox Christians and their websites

hacked; elections were rigged, independent journalists were killed, and

independent businessmen imprisoned on trumped-up charges; and new

history books justifying Stalinism were introduced into the classrooms. The

red flag and hammer and sickle were restored to the armed services, as well

as the melody (if not the words) of the Soviet national anthem. Youth

organizations similar to the Hitler Youth were created. 16 And in general

Putin’s Russia began to resemble Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

14 Preobrazhensky, KGB/FSB’s New Trojan Horse, op. cit., p. 97; KGB v russkoj emigratsii (The

KGB in the Russian Emigration), New York: Liberty Publishing House, 2006, p. 102.

15 Ackerly, “High Treason in ROCOR: The Rapprochement with Moscow”, pp. 21, 25.

16 Edward Lucas, The New Cold War, London: Bloomsbury, 2008, p. 102.

14

Banking on the high price of Russian oil, Putin began to rebuild Russia’s

economic and military might – but the corruption and imbalances within the

Russian economy have hindered the diversification of the economy that he

needs. State- and privately-organized crime has flourished under his

patronage. The MP has shown complete loyalty to Putinism, and takes an

enthusiastic part in the criminal economy, as is illustrated by the activities of

the recently elected patriarch, Cyril Gundiaev, who imports tobacco and

alcohol duty-free and is now one of the richest men in Russia.17

This is this man who personally promoted and brokered the union of the

MP and ROCOR, ideas which were first mooted by Archbishop Mark in 1997

and by Archbishop Laurus on July 17, 1999…18

3. The MP’s “Jubilee” Council. Following the instructions of the KGB, in

August, 2000 the MP held a “Jubilee” Hierarchical Council whose main

purpose was to remove the obstacles towards ROCOR’s unification with it.

These obstacles, as formulated by ROCOR during the decade 1990-2000 were:

(a) Ecumenism, (b) Sergianism, and (c) the Glorification of the New Martyrs,

especially the Royal New Martyrs.

(a) Ecumenism. In the document on relations with the heterodox, it was

declared that “the Orthodox Church is the true Church of Christ, created by

our Lord and Saviour Himself…”; “The Church of Christ is one and

unique…”; “The so-called ‘branch theory’, which affirms the normality and

even the providentiality of the existence of Christianity in the form of separate

‘branches’… is completely unacceptable.” However, wrote Protopriest

Michael Ardov, “the ‘patriarchal liberals’ will also not be upset, insofar as the

heretics in the cited document are called ‘heterodox’, while the Monophysite

communities are called the ‘Eastern Orthodox Churches’. And the ‘dialogues

with the heterodox’ will be continued, and it is suggested that the World

Council of Churches be not abandoned, but reformed…”19

17 “After the fall of the Soviet Union, the church received official privileges including the right

to import duty-free alcohol and tobacco. In 1995, the Nikolo-Ugreshky Monastery, which is

directly subordinated to the patriarchate, earned $350 million from the sale of alcohol. The

patriarchate’s department of foreign church relations, which Kirill ran, earned $75 million

from the sale of tobacco. But the patriarchate reported an annual budget in 1995-1996 of only

$2 million. Kirill’s personal wealth was estimated in Moscow News in 2006 to be $4 billion.”

(http://news-nftu.blogspot.com, February, 2009).

18 Fr. Benjamin Zhukov, “Appeal to the West European Clergy”, December 15, 2000; Church

News, vol. 12, № 9 (91), p. 4. There were strong suspicions that both Laurus and Mark were

KGB agents. For more on Putin and his relations with ROCOR, seePeter Budzilovich,

“Vstrecha so ‘Stalinym’”, http://www.listok.com/heresy28.htm, and Konstantin

Preobrazhensky, KGB/FSB’s New Trojan Horse: Americans of Russian Descent, North Billerica,

Ma.: Gerard Group Publishing, 2008, chapter 2.

19 Ardov, “The ‘Jubilee Council’ has confirmed it: the Moscow Patriarchate has finally fallen

away from Orthodoxy” (Report read at the 8th Congress of the clergy, monastics and laity of

the Suzdal diocese of the Russian Orthodox [Autonomous] Church, November, 2000).

15

The MP’s Fr. (now Metropolitan) Hilarion (Alfeyev) explained the origins

of the document on ecumenism: “The subject of inter-Christian relations has

been used by various groups (within the Church) as a bogey in partisan wars.

In particular, it has been used to criticise Church leaders who, as is well

known, have taken part in ecumenical activities over many years.” In

Alfeyev’s opinion, “ecumenism has also been used by breakaway groups,

such as the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and the Old Calendarists, to

undermine people’s trust in the Church.” Therefore there was a need “for a

clear document outlining the theological basis of the Russian Orthodox

Church’s attitude towards heterodoxy, i.e. the question of why we need and

whether we need dialogue with the non-Orthodox confessions, and if so

which form this dialogue should take.” Fr. Hilarion refused to answer the

question whether the Council would discuss the matter of the participation of

the MP in the WCC, but said that the patriarchate felt obliged to continue

negotiations with Protestant and Catholic representatives in the WCC and to

be a part of the ecumenical committee.20

After the Council, there was no let-up in the MP’s ecumenical activities.

Thus on August 18, “Patriarch” Alexis prayed together with the Armenian

“Patriarch”. And on April 21, 2005, he congratulated the new Pope Benedict

XVI on his accession, and expressed the hope that he would strive to develop

relations between the two churches. When asked how he evaluated Pope John

Paul II’s ministry, he replied: “His Holiness’ teachings have not only

strengthened Catholics throughout the world in their faith, but also borne

witness to Christianity in the complex world of today.”21 After ROCOR joined

the MP in 2007, the MP noticeably increased its ecumenical activities and its

relationship with the Vatican continued to improve…

(b) Sergianism. The MP approved a “social document” which, among other

things, recognised that “the Church must refuse to obey the State” “if the

authorities force the Orthodox believers to renounce Christ and His Church”.

As we shall see, enormous significance was attached to this phrase by

ROCOR. However, on the very same page we find: “But even the persecuted

Church is called to bear the persecutions patiently, not refusing loyalty to the

State that persecutes it”.22 We may infer from this that the MP still considers

that its loyalty to the Soviet State was right and the resistance to it shown by

the Catacomb Church was wrong. So, contrary to first appearances, the MP

remained mired in sergianism.

20 Church News, vol. 12, № 6 (88), July-August, 2000, p. 8. Alfeyev had already shown his

ecumenist colours in his book, The Mystery of Faith (first published in Moscow in Russian in

1996, in English by Darton, Longman and Todd in 2002), which was strongly criticised from

within the MP by Fr. Valentine Asmus.

21 Associated Press, April 21, 2005; Corriere della Sera, April 24, 2005.

22 Iubilejnij Arkhierejskij Sobor Russkoj pravoslavnoj tserkvi. Moskva 13-16 avgusta 2000 goda (The

Jubilee Hierarchical Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, Moscow, 13-16 August, 2000),

St. Petersburg, 2000, p. 159.

16

Indeed, sergianism as such was not mentioned in the document, much less

repented of. This is consistent with the fact that the MP has never in its entire

history since 1943 shown anything other than a determination to serve

whatever appears to be the strongest forces in the contemporary world. Until

the fall of communism, that meant the communists. With the fall of

communism, the MP was not at first sure whom she had to obey, but

gradually assumed the character of a “populist” church, trying to satisfy the

various factions within it (including nominally Orthodox political leaders)

while preserving an appearance of unity.

Since Putin came to power in January, 2000, the MP has appeared to be

reverting to its submissive role in relation to an ever more Soviet-looking

government, not protesting against the restoration of the red flag to the armed

forces and approving the retention of the music of the Soviet national anthem.

There has even been an official justification of Sergianism. Thus on July 18,

2002, the Moscow Synod ratified a document entitled “The relationships

between the Russian Orthodox Church and the authorities in the 20s and 30s”,

which declared: “The aim of normalising the relationship with the authorities

cannot be interpreted as a betrayal of Church interests. It was adopted by the

holy Patriarch Tikhon, and was also expressed in the so-called ‘Epistle of the

Solovki Bishops’ in 1926, that is, one year before the publication of ‘The

Epistle of the deputy patriarchal locum tenens and temporary patriarchal

Synod’. The essence of the changes in the position of the hierarchy consisted

in the fact that the Church, having refused to recognise the legitimacy of the

new power established after the October revolution in 1917, as the power

became stronger later, had to recognise it as a state power and establish

bilateral relations with it. This position is not blameworthy; historically, the

Church has more than once found herself in a situation in which it has had to

cooperate with non-orthodox rulers (for instance, in the period of the Golden

Horde or the Muslim Ottoman Empire).”23

However, Soviet power was very different from the Tatars or Ottomans,

and “bilateral relations” with it, unlike with those powers, involved the

betrayal of the Orthodox Faith and falling under the anathema of the Church.

Moreover, if the Church at first refused to recognise Soviet power, but then

(in 1927) began to recognise it, the question arises: which position was the

correct one? There can be no question but that the position endorsed by the

Moscow Council of 1917-18, when Bolshevik power was anathematized, was

the correct one, and that the sergianist Moscow Patriarchate, by renouncing

that position, betrayed the truth – and continues to betray it to the present day

through its symbiotic relationship with a government that openly declares

itself to be the heir of the Soviet State.

23 Moskovskij Tserkovnij Vestnik (Moscow Church Herald), №№ 14-15, pp. 243-244; quoted by

Fr. Michael Ardov, http://portal-credo.ru/site/?act=english&id=13.

17

(c) The New Martyrs. With regard to the New Martyrs, the major problems

from the patriarchate's point of view were the questions of the Royal Martyrs,

on the one hand, and of the martyrs of the Catacomb Church who rejected

Metropolitan Sergius, on the other. Non-royal martyrs killed before the

schism with the Catacomb Church could be "safely" canonized. Thus in 1989,

the MP canonized Patriarch Tikhon, and in 1992 it canonized three more

martyrs and set up a commission to inquire into the martyrdom of the Royal

Family, about which an MP publication wrote in 1998: “No less if not more

dangerous as an ecclesiastical falsification is the MP’s Canonization

Commission, headed by Metropolitan Juvenal (Poiarkov), which has

suggested a compromise glorification of Tsar Nicholas Alexandrovich: ‘Yes,

he was guilty of the tragedy on Khodynka field, he hobnobbed with Rasputin,

he offended the workers, the country became backward. In general as a ruler

of a state he was completely useless. Most important, he brought the country

to revolution. But he suffered for Christ…’ Such a falsification will only

continue that dirty stream of slander which the Christ-fighters began to pour

out already long before 1917…”24

After nearly a decade of temporising, the MP finally, under pressure from

its flock, glorified the Royal New Martyrs and many other martyrs of the

Soviet yoke at the Jubilee Council. The glorification of the Royal New Martyrs

was a compromise decision, reflecting the very different attitudes towards

them in the patriarchate. The Royal Martyrs were called “passion-bearers”

rather than “martyrs”, and it was made clear that they were being glorified,

not for the way in which they lived their lives, but for the meekness with

which they faced their deaths. This allowed the anti-monarchists to feel that

Nicholas was still the “bloody Nicholas” of Soviet mythology, and that it was

“Citizen Romanov” rather than “Tsar Nicholas” who had been glorified - the

man rather than the monarchical principle for which he stood.

As regards the other martyrs, Sergius Kanaev writes: “In the report of the

President of the Synodal Commission for the canonisation of the saints,

Metropolitan Juvenal (Poiarkov), the criterion of holiness adopted… for

Orthodox Christians who had suffered during the savage persecutions was

clearly and unambiguously declared to be submission ‘to the lawful

leadership of the Church’, which was Metropolitan Sergius and his hierarchy.

With such an approach, the holiness of the ‘sergianist martyrs’ was

incontestable. The others were glorified or not glorified depending on the

degree to which they ‘were in separation from the lawful leadership of the

Church’. Concerning those who were not in agreement with the politics of

Metropolitan Sergius, the following was said in the report: ‘In the actions of

the “right” oppositionists, who are often called the “non-commemorators”,

one cannot find evil-intentioned, exclusively personal motives. Their actions

were conditioned by their understanding of what was for the good of the

Church’. In my view, this is nothing other than blasphemy against the New

24 Pravoslavie ili Smert’ (Orthodoxy or Death), № 8, 1998.

18

Martyrs and a straight apology for sergianism. With such an approach the

consciously sergianist Metropolitan Seraphim (Chichagov), for example,

becomes a ‘saint’, while his ideological opponent Metropolitan Joseph of

Petrograd, who was canonized by our Church, is not glorified… Metropolitan

Seraphim was appointed by Sergius (Stragorodsky) in the place of

Metropolitan Joseph, who had been ‘banned’ by him.”25

Other Catacomb martyrs were “glorified” by the MP because their holiness

was impossible to hide. Thus the relics of Archbishop Victor of Vyatka were

found to be incorrupt and now lie in a patriarchal cathedral – although he

was the very first bishop officially to break with Sergius and called him and

his church organization graceless! Again, the reputation of Metropolitan Cyril

of Kazan was too great to be ignored, in spite of the fact that by the end of his

life his position differed in no way from that of St. Victor or St. Joseph.

Some, seeing the glorification of the Catacomb martyrs by their opponents,

remembered the Lord’s words: “Ye build the tombs of the prophets and adorn

the sepulchres of the righteous, and say, ‘If we had been in the days of our

fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the

prophets’. Therefore ye bear witness against yourselves that ye are sons of

those who murdered the prophets. Fill up the measure of your fathers!”

(Matthew 23.29-32).

This blasphemous canonisation of both the true and the false martyrs,

thereby downgrading the exploit of the true martyrs, had been predicted by

the ROCOR priest Fr. Oleg Oreshkin: "I think that some of those glorified will

be from the sergianists so as to deceive the believers. 'Look,' they will say, 'he

is a saint, a martyr, in the Heavenly Kingdom, and he recognized the

declaration of Metropolitan Sergius, so you must be reconciled with it and its

fruits.' This will be done not in order to glorify martyrdom for Christ's sake,

but in order to confirm the sergianist politics."26

The main thing from the MP’s point of view was that their founder,

Metropolitan Sergius, should be given equal status with the catacomb martyrs

whom he persecuted. Thus in 1997 the patriarch said: “Through the host of

martyrs the Church of Russia bore witness to her faith and sowed the seed of

her future rebirth. Among the confessors of Christ we can in full measure

name… his Holiness Patriarch Sergius.”27

25 Kanaev, “Obraschenie k pervoierarkhu RPTsZ” (Address to the First Hierarch of the

ROCOR), in Zhukov, Otkliki na deiania Arkhierejskogo Sobor RPTsZ 2000 goda i na prochie

posleduischie za nim sobytia (Reactions to the Acts of the Hierarchical Council of the ROCOR in

2000 and to other events that followed it), part 2, Paris, 2001, pp. 3-4 ; Iubilejnij Arkhierejskij

Sobor, op. cit., pp. 43, 44.

26 "Ierei o. Oleg otvechaet na voprosy redaktsiii" (The Priest Fr. Oleg Replies to the Questions

of the Editors), Pravoslavnaia Rus' (Orthodox Russia), № 23 (1452), December 1/14, 1991, p. 7.

27 Quoted by Fr. Peter Perekrestov, “The Schism in the Heart of Russia (Concerning

Sergianism)”, Canadian Orthodox Herald, 1999, № 4.

19

By the time of the council of 2000, the MP still did not feel able to canonize

Sergius – probably because it feared that it would prevent a union with

ROCOR. But neither did it canonize the leader of the Catacomb Church,

Metropolitan Joseph of Petrograd. This suggested that a canonization of the

two leaders was in the offing, but depended on the success of the negotiations

between the MP and ROCOR.

The patriarch's lack of ecclesiastical principle and ecclesiological

consistency in this question was pointed out by Fr. Peter Perekrestov: "In the

introduction to one article ("In the Catacombs", Sovershenno Sekretno, № 7,

1991) Patriarch Alexis wrote the following: 'I believe that our martyrs and

righteous ones, regardless of whether they followed Metropolitan Sergius or

did not agree with his position, pray together for us.' At the same time, in the

weekly, Nedelya, № 2, 1/92, the same Patriarch Alexis states that the Russian

Church Abroad is a schismatic church, and adds: 'Equally uncanonical is the

so-called "Catacomb" Church.' In other words, he recognizes the martyrs of

the Catacomb Church, many of whom were betrayed to the godless

authorities by Metropolitan Sergius's church organization…, and at the same

time declares that these martyrs are schismatic and uncanonical!"28

For in the last resort, as Fr. Peter pointed out, for the MP this whole matter

was not one of truth or falsehood, but of power: "It is not important to them

whether a priest is involved in shady business dealings or purely church

activities; whether he is a democrat or a monarchist; whether an ecumenist or

a zealot; whether he wants to serve Vigil for six hours or one; whether the

priest serves a panikhida for the victims who defended the White House or a

moleben for those who sided with Yeltsin; whether the priest wants to baptize

by immersion or by sprinkling; whether he serves in the catacombs or openly;

whether he venerates the Royal Martyrs or not; whether he serves according

to the New or Orthodox Calendar - it really doesn't matter. The main thing is to

commemorate Patriarch Alexis. Let the Church Abroad have its autonomy, let

it even speak out, express itself as in the past, but only under one condition:

commemorate Patriarch Alexis. This is a form of Papism - let the priests be

married, let them serve according to the Eastern rite - it makes no difference,

what is important is that they commemorate the Pope of Rome."29

It is open to question whether the patriarchate's canonisation of even the

true martyrs is pleasing to God. Thus when 50 patriarchal bishops uncovered

the relics of Patriarch Tikhon in the Donskoj cemetery on April 5, 1992,

witnesses reported that "it was even possible to recognise the face of the

Patriarch from his incorrupt visage, and his mantia and mitre were also

preserved in complete incorruption. Witnesses also speak about a beautiful

28 Perekrestov, "Why Now?" Orthodox Life, vol. 44, № 6, November-December, 1994, p. 44.

29 Perekrestov, “Why Now?” op. cit., p. 43. Unfortunately Perekrestov, contradicting his own

witness about the MP, joined it in 2007.

20

fragrance and an unusual feeling of reverential peace at that moment. But

then, as some patriarchal clerics confirm, on contact with the air the relics

crumbled, or - as the Catacomb Christians remark - the relics were not given

into the hands of the Moscow Patriarchate. Then they buried them in plaster -

a blasphemous act from an Orthodox point of view..."30

The ROCOR clergy of Kursk wrote about the MP council as follows:

“Everywhere there is the same well-known style: pleasing the ‘right’ and the

‘left’, the Orthodox and the ecumenists, ‘yours’ and ‘ours’, without the

slightest attempt at definiteness, but with, on the other hand, a careful

preservation of the whole weight of the sins of the past and present”.31

The “Jubilee Sobor” was final proof, if proof were needed, that the MP had

not repented and could not repent unless its higher echelons were removed

and the whole church apparatus was thoroughly purged.

The question now was: how was ROCOR going to react?

30 Eugene Polyakov, personal communication, April 5, 1992.

31 “Obraschenie kurskogo dukhovenstva k mitropolitu Vitaliu” (Address of the Kursk Clergy

to Metropolitan Vitaly), Otkliki, op. cit., part 3, p. 80.

21

I. “THE SECOND OCTOBER REVOLUTION”

In October, 2000, a Hierarchical Council of ROCOR took place in New York

under the presidency of Metropolitan Vitaly. In almost all its acts it

represented a reaction to, and to a very large extent an approval of, the acts of

the Moscow council. The most important were three conciliar epistles

addressed: the first to the Serbian Patriarch Paul, the second “To the Beloved

Children of the Church in the Homeland and in the Diaspora” and the third

“To the Supporters of the Old Rites”.

The first of these epistles, dated October 26, declared that ROCOR and the

Serbs were “brothers by blood and by faith” and that “we have always valued

the eucharistic communion between our sister-Churches and the desire to

preserve the consolation of this communion to the end of time”. And towards

the end of the Epistle we read: “We beseech your Holiness not to estrange us

from liturgical communion with you”.

It should be remembered that this was written only two years after

ROCOR had officially reissued its anathema on ecumenism, and only a few

months after the Serbian Patriarch himself had said that there was no

communion between his Church and ROCOR, calling ROCOR a “church”

only in inverted commas! Moreover, as recently as September, 2000, the

official publication of the Serbian Church, Pravoslav’e, had reported that, at the

invitation of the patriarchate there had arrived in Belgrade a Catholic

delegation, which had made a joint declaration witnessing to the fact that

Serbian hierarchs had been praying together with the Catholics for the last

three weeks! So, having justly anathematised the Serbs as heretics, and having

witnessed the continuation of their heretical activity, ROCOR was now

begging to be brought back into communion with the heretics!

Why? The reason became clear later in the Epistle: “A miracle has taken

place, the prayers of the host of Russian New Martyrs have been heard: the

atheist power that threatened the whole world has unexpectedly, before our

eyes, fallen! Now we observe with joy and hope how the process of spiritual

regeneration foretold by our saints has begun, and in parallel with it the

gradual return to health of the Church administration in Russia. This process is

difficult and is not being carried forward without opposition. Nevertheless, a

radiant indicator of it is the recent glorification of the New Martyrs of Russia

headed by the slaughtered Royal Family and the condemnation of the politics

of cooperation with the godless authorities which took place at the last

Council of the Russian Church in Moscow.

“There still remain other serious wounds in the leadership of the Russian

Church which hinder our spiritual rapprochement. Nevertheless, we pray

God that He may heal them, too, by the all-powerful grace of the Holy Spirit.

Then there must take place the longed-for rapprochement and, God willing,

22

the spiritual union between the two torn-apart parts of the Russian Church –

that which is in the Homeland, and that which has gone abroad. We pray your

Holiness to grant your assistance in this.”

So the ROCOR bishops – this letter was signed by all of them without

exception - were asking a heretic anathematised for ecumenism to help them

to enter into communion with other anathematised ecumenists – their old

enemies in Moscow, whom they now characterised in glowing and

completely false terms as if they had already returned to Orthodoxy! Why,

then, should the ROCOR bishops continue to speak of ecumenism as an

obstacle to union with the MP? As the Kursk clergy pointed out: “It is not

clear how long, in view of the declared unity with the Serbian patriarchate,

this last obstacle [ecumenism] to union with the MP will be seen as vital”.32

The second of the epistles, dated October 27, made several very surprising

statements. First, it again spoke of “the beginning of a real spiritual

awakening” in Russia. Considering that less than 1% of the Russian

population goes to the MP, then, even if the spiritual state of the MP were

brilliant, this would hardly constitute “awakening” on any significant scale.

However, as Demetrius Kapustin pointed out, the signs of this awakening

– the greater reading of spiritual books, the greater discussion of canonical

and historical questions in the MP – are not good indicators of real spiritual

progress: “It is evident that the reading of Church books can bring a person

great benefit. However, a necessary condition for this is love for the truth. The

Jews also saw Christ, and spoke with Him, but they did not want humbly to

receive the true teaching, and not only were they not saved, but also took part

in the persecutions and destroyed their own souls. It is the same with many

parishioners of the MP. On reading books on the contemporary Church

situation, many of them come to the conclusion that sergianism and

ecumenism are soul-destroying. However, these doubts of theirs are often

drowned out by the affirmations of their false teachers, who dare to place

themselves above the patristic tradition. Satisfying themselves with a false

understanding of love (substituting adultery with heretics and law-breakers

for love for God, which requires chastity and keeping the truth) and

obedience (substituting following the teaching of false elders for obedience to

God and the humble acceptance of the patristic teaching, and not recognizing

their personal responsibility for their own Church state), they often take part

in the persecutions and slander against the True Orthodox. In a word, even

such good works as the veneration of the Royal Martyrs are often expressed

in a distorted form (by, for example, mixing it with Stalinism, as with the

‘fighter from within’ Dushenov)”. Kapustin then makes the important point

that “an enormous number of people… have not come to Orthodoxy precisely

because they have not seen true Christianity in the MP (alas, in the

32 “Obraschenie kurskogo dukhovenstva k mitropolitu Vitaliu” (Address of the Kursk Clergy

to Metropolitan Vitaly), Otkliki, op. cit., part 3, p. 79.

23

consciousness of many people in Russia the Orthodox Church is associated

with the MP). In my opinion, the MP rather hinders than assists the spiritual

awakening of the Russian people (if we can talk at all about any awakening in

the present exceptionally wretched spiritual condition of Russia).”33

Secondly, ROCOR’s epistle welcomed the MP’s glorification of the New

Martyrs, since “the turning of the whole Russian people in prayer to all the

holy New Martyrs of Russia and especially the Royal new martyrs… had

become possible now thanks to the recognition of their holiness by the

Hierarchical Council of the Moscow Patriarchate”. As if the Russian people

had not already been praying to the Holy New Martyrs in front of icons made

in ROCOR for the past twenty years!

Moreover, as Protopriests Constantine Fyodorov and Benjamin Zhukov

wrote, “the possibility of turning in prayer to the Russian New Martyrs was

opened to the people not by the Moscow Patriarchate (as is written in our

Hierarchical Council’s Epistle), but by the martyric exploit of these saints themselves,

who were glorified by our Church in 1981. The prayer of the Russian people to

these saints never ceased from the very first day of their martyric exploit, but

was strengthened and spread precisely by the canonization of the Church Abroad.”34

Thirdly: “We are encouraged by the acceptance of the new social

conception by this council, which in essence blots out the ‘Declaration’ of

Metropolitan Sergius in 1927”.35 And yet in the MP’s “social conception”

Sergius’ declaration was not even mentioned, let alone repented of. In any

case, how could one vague phrase about the necessity of the Church

disobeying the State in certain exceptional cases (which was contradicted on

the same page, as we have seen) blot out a Declaration that caused the greatest

schism in Orthodox Church history since 1054 and incalculable sufferings and

death?! Two years later, as we have seen, in July, 2002, the Synod of the MP,

far from “blotting out” the declaration, said that Sergius’ relationship to the

Soviet authorities was “not blameworthy”, so not only has the MP not

repented for sergianism, but it has continued to justify it, contradicting the

position of the Catacomb new martyrs whom it has just glorified and who

gave their lives because of their opposition to sergianism.

33 Kapustin, “Raz’iasnenia Episkopa usilili somnenia” (The Explanations of the Bishop have

increased Doubts), Otkliki, op. cit., part 3, p. 66. Kapustin was actually commenting on Bishop

Eutyches’ report to the Council. However, since the Council in its epistle accepted Eutyches’

report almost in toto, and repeated many of his points, the remarks on the bishop’s report

apply equally to the conciliar epistle.

34 Fyodorov, Zhukov, “Ispovedanie iskonnoj pozitsii RPTsZ” (The Confession of the Age-Old

Position of the ROCOR), Otkliki, op. cit., part 3, p. 46.

35 Again, it was Bishop Eutyches’ report that played the vital role here: “We simply no longer

notice it, one phrase from the Social Doctrine is sufficient for us” (A. Soldatov, “Sergij

premudrij nam put’ ozaril” (Sergius the Wise has Illumined our Path), Vertograd, № 461, 21

May, 2004, p. 4).

24

The epistle, which was signed by all the bishops except Barnabas, obliquely

recognised this fact when it later declared: “We have not seen a just

evaluation by the Moscow Patriarchate of the anti-ecclesiastical actions of

Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) and his Synod and their successors”. If

so, then how can we talk about Sergius’ Declaration being blotted out?!

The third epistle, addressed to the Old Ritualists without distinguishing

between the Popovtsi and Bespopovtsi, was similarly ecumenist in tone,

beginning with the words: “To the Believing children of the Russian

Orthodox Church in the Homeland and in the diaspora, who hold to the old

rite, the Council of bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad sends

greetings! Beloved brothers and sisters in our holy Orthodox faith: may the

grace and peace of the Man-loving Saviour be with you to the ages!”

It was one thing to remove the bans on the old rites, as ROCOR had done

in its Council in 1974: it was quite another to recognise the schismatics as

Orthodox. And in such terms! For later in the epistle ROCOR compares the

persecutions of the Old Ritualists to the persecutions of St. John Chrysostom,

and begs forgiveness of the Old Ritualists as the Emperor Theodosius the

Younger had begged it of the holy hierarch! But, as Bishop Gregory Grabbe

pointed out after the 1974 Council, the sins of the Russian State in persecuting

the Old Ritualists in the 17th century should not all be laid on the Church of

the time, which primarily condemned the Old Ritualists not for their

adherence to the old rites (which even Patriarch Nicon recognised to be

salvific), but for their disobedience to the Church. To lay all the blame for the

schism, not on the Old Ritualists but on the Orthodox, even after the Old

Ritualists had proudly refused to take advantage of the many major

concessions made by the Orthodox (for example, the edinoverie) while

stubbornly continuing to call the Orthodox themselves schismatics, was to

invert the truth and logically led to the conclusion that the Orthodox Church

was not the True Church!

As clergy of the Kursk diocese pointed out: “The conciliar epistle to the

Old Ritualists, in our opinion, is not only an extremely humiliating document

for the Orthodox Church, but also contains signs of a heterodox ecclesiology.

Effectively equating the Old Ritualists with the confessors of Orthodoxy, the

Hierarchical Council, first, leaves them with their convictions, thereby

blocking the path to repentance, and secondly, either teaches that outside the

Orthodox Church there can exist true confession, or considers that the Church

can be divided into parts which for centuries have not had any eucharistic

communion between themselves. Both in form and in spirit the epistle in

question represents a complete break with the patristic tradition of the

Orthodox Church…. It seems that all that remains to be added is the request:

25

‘We humbly beseech you to receive us into your communion and be united to

the Holy Church.”36

The feelings of the protestors was summed up by Fr. Stefan Krasovitsky

and Roman Vershillo, who said that a “revolution” had taken place, and that

“if we are to express the meaning of the coup shortly, then there took place,

first, a moral disarmament, and secondly, the self-abolition of ROCOR as a

separate part of the Russian Local Church… Alas, [it] is composed in such a

way that it is not actually clear who has really fallen into schism from the

Church: we or our errant Old Ritualist brothers!”37

For ROCOR the writing was now on the wall. The October, 2000 Council

constituted a clear break with the traditional attitude towards the MP and

World Orthodoxy adopted by Metropolitans Anthony, Anastasy and Philaret.

Only a clear renunciation of that clear break could keep the children of

ROCOR within the Church and Faith of their fathers…

The October, 2000 Council was dubbed “the second October revolution” by

its critics. And soon, in imitation of the MP’s own behaviour, suspensions and

bans were being placed on the dissidents without any pretence of correct

canonical procedure. Bishop Gabriel of Manhattan banned Hieromonk Paisius

of Richmond Hill, New York; Bishop Michael of Toronto banned Hieromonk

Vladimir of Mansonville, Canada; Bishop Agathangelus of the Crimea banned

Priest Nicholas Furtatenko of Kiev; and Bishop Eutyches of Siberia banned

three priests from St. Petersburg and two from Omsk. It was clear that

opposition to the false council of 2000 was increasing both inside and outside

Russia. The question was: would this opposition finally break with ROCOR

and, together with those who had already broken with ROCOR or been

unlawfully expelled from it, form a coherent and united force capable of

regenerating the Russian Church?

36 “Obraschenie kurskogo dukhovenstva k mitropolitu Vitaliu” (Address of the Kursk Clergy

to Metropolitan Vitaly), Otkliki, op. cit., part 3. pp. 81-82, 76.

37 Krasovitsky, Vershillo, “Esche raz o sergianstve” (Once More about Sergianism), Otkliki, op.

cit., part 2, p. 52.

26

II. THE FALL OF THE NEW YORK SYNOD

“On November 21 / December 4, 2000,” writes Vitaly Shumilo,

Metropolitan Vitaly, in reply to the numerous appeals, published his ‘Epistle

to the Clergy and Flock’ in which he gave his evaluation of the Moscow

Patriarchate and its Sobor of 2000, in particular with regard to the

canonization in the MP of the New Martyrs and the Royal Family. ‘The

Moscow Patriarchate has decided to carry out a political capitulation and to

perform its glorification with one aim only: to pacify the voice of its believers

and thereby gain some continued existence for itself.’ In his Epistle Vladyka

Metropolitan also gives a critical evaluation of the decree accepted by the

ROCOR Sobor concerning the creation of a Reconciliatory commission for

unity with the MP and recalled how and with what aim Stalin created the

contemporary ‘Moscow Patriarchate’. And here he speaks about the

Catacomb Church, which did not enter upon the path of serving the Godfighting

authorities, and about the Soviet church, which submitted to the

authorities: ‘The silent response to this on the part of the believers in Russia

was that they began to pray in their homes, and in every such flat a house

church with an iconostasis was created… This kind of church exists to this

day.’ In his Epistle the First-Hierarch affirmed that ‘our Church, which

already now for 80 years has gone along the straight path of Christ, will not

deviate into any dubious holes’, and ‘the fact that I have signed this Epistle

[the conciliar decision of 2000 –author’s comment] by no means signifies that I

agree with every point in it, and I know that there are other hierarchs who

thought the same as I’. At the end of the Epistle Metropolitan Vitaly once

more declared: ‘And so know, faithful children of the Russian Orthodox

Church Abroad, that our Church has not changed its path, and we also, if we

wish to be saved, must go along this path’, and he called on them to remain

‘faithful to the Lord and His Church’.”38

The most organized resistance outside Russia came from the West

European diocese. The clergy there were unhappy with the appointment of

the pro-MP Bishop Ambrose (Cantacuzčne) as head of the diocese to replace

the anti-MP Archbishop Seraphim, who was retiring. Moreover, on October

17 a letter to the Council of Bishops signed by Bishop Barnabas, 7 archpriests,

7 priests, the Abbess of the Lesna convent and other lower clergy protested

against the plans, announced in a letter by two Geneva priests, to transfer the

Geneva parish of the Elevation of the Cross to the MP in exchange for

“stavropegial” status and administrative and financial independence.

The role of Bishop Ambrose of Geneva in this affair was not immediately

obvious.39 Although he had been conducting negotiations with the MP for the

38 Shumilo, “Apostasia v Russkoj Zarubezhnoj Tserkvi” (Apostasy in the Russian Church

Abroad), http://catacomb.org.ua/modules.php?name=Pages&go=page&pid=1032.

39 Several years before, Archbishop Anthony of Los Angeles had written to Metropolitan

Vitaly when the consecration of Bishop Ambrose was first mooted: “I am worried by the

27

last five years, he appeared at first to distance himself from the two priests.

However, on October 27 he was elevated to the rank of diocesan bishop of the

Western Europe diocese, and immediately, at a parish meeting, said that he

was very happy with the parish council’s decision to join the MP…40

There were stirrings in Russia also. On January 21 / February 2, 2001,

Bishop Benjamin (Rusalenko) of the Kuban and Black Sea made the first open

declaration by a bishop withdrawing his signature from the unorthodox

decisions of the Council of the year 2000. In June he was followed by

Archbishop Lazarus. Now all the Russian bishops except Bishop Eutyches of

Ishim and Siberia41 were on the side of the protesters.

On February 6-8 there took place a meeting of the Hierarchical Synod in

New York under the presidency of Metropolitan Vitaly that confirmed all the

decisions of the Council. “We are very upset,” said the Synod, “by the

disturbances that have taken hold of some parts of our church organism. In

connection with this we affirm that we – all the members of the Hierarchical

Synod, headed by the president, his Eminence Metropolitan Vitaly, -

unanimously stand by the decisions and declarations accepted at the

words of Vl. Anthony [of Geneva]: ‘Both candidates are my faithful friends, they have the

same opinions as I.’ We all remember the words of Vl. Anthony on Russia, we know his

attitude towards the ecumenists of the Serbian church and to the Paris archiepiscopate. God

forbid that his candidates, especially the younger one, should be of the same opinion as him

in this. I would like to meet them personally, so as to be able to take part in a discussion of

their consecration. Since there is no time for this, and the consecration is already decided, let

my reply remain as a reminder concerning those irreparable consequences which have

already taken place more than once in our Church as the result of hasty and uncanonical

consecrations.

“… Concerning Fr. Peter Cantacuzčne, whom I don’t know at all, I have negative

information from the clergy in France, to the effect that he is not firm in all things.

“In conclusion I very fervently and ardently ask you not to hurry with the ordination of Fr.

P. Cantacuzčne. There is a great risk of our receiving an unwanted hierarchical voice, and we

are obliged to foresee this.” (undated letter, original in the archive of Archbishop Anthony

(Orlov) of San Francisco).

40 Church News, November, 2000, vol. 12, № 8 (90), pp. 8-10.

41 Moreover, just to keep him on side, Metropolitan Cyril (Gundiaev) called him in March,

2004 and gave him an ultimatum: either become a vicar of Patriarch Alexis II, or leave

Russia…” (Konstantin Preobrazhensky, “Ecumenism and Intelligence”). In the same year,

according to Roman Lunkin, Bishop Eutyches became a member of the commission for the

unification of ROCOR and the MP, declaring that he had already for a long time been striving

for unity with the MP. In a press interview he asserted that 70% of the clergy of ROCOR were

ready to unite with the patriarchate even now, and that the very unification of the churches

could become an event signifying the changes that had taken place in the MP and the

shedding of its ‘sovietism’. In the summer of 2004, after a meeting between Bishop Eutyches

and Archbishop Demetrius (Kapalin) of Tobolsk and Tyumen arranged by the vice-governor

of the Tyumen district, Sergius Smetaniuk, Archbishop Demetrius declared that there were

no contradictions between the two branches of the Russian Orthodox Church (“Rossijskie

zarubezhniki mezhdu dvukh ognej” (The Russians of the Church Abroad between two fires),

http://www.starlightsite.co.uk/keston/russia/articles/nov2005/01Kurochkin.html).

28

Hierarchical Council and we cannot agree with the attempt to introduce a

spirit of doubt and disagreement into our midst.”

In response to this, on February 24 / March 9 Bishop Benjamin and the

clergy of the Kuban and Black Sea diocese wrote to Metropolitan Vitaly and

the Synod, saying: “We insistently ask you to convene a new Council with the

participation of clergy, monastics and laity. Because by your decisions you

have introduced strong dismay and disturbance into the whole of our Church.

We are expecting a positive response to our Address from the next meeting of

the Hierarchical Synod. But if our voice is not heeded by the Archpastors,

then we shall be forced, in accordance with the holy canons that forbid joint

prayer with heretics, to step on the path of decisive actions (‘depart from evil

and do good’)… We have not lost hope that our Hierarchical Synod will

review these decisions and by the conciliar mind of the Russian Church

Abroad will correct the errors that have been made.”

Meanwhile, the clergy of the West European diocese were continuing to

refuse to accept Bishop Ambrose’s authority. Fr. Nicholas Semeonov of

Brussels and Fr. Constantine Fyodorov of the Lesna convent in France were

suspended. On February 28, 2001, Bishop Barnabas withdrew his signature

from the October Council’s letter to the Serbian patriarch. The next day

Bishop Ambrose “released the clergy and the flock of the French vicariate [of

Cannes] from submission to Bishop Barnabas”.42 Then, on April 24 the

ROCOR Synod, on the basis of a report by the Protopriests George Larin and

Stefan Pavlenko, suspended the French clergy for their refusal to

commemorate Bishop Ambrose, and told them to meet Archbishop Laurus in

Munich on May 2. This suspension was signed by Metropolitan Vitaly and

Archbishop Laurus, secretary of the Synod. The French clergy, meeting with

Bishop Barnabas, unanimously rejected the suspensions as uncanonical, and

did not go to the meeting in Munich. But on April 25, Bishop Barnabas was

also placed under ban. These acts were signed by Metropolitan Vitaly and the

secretary of the Synod, Archbishop Laurus.43

None of the banned clergy was able to arrive at such short notice for the

meeting on May 2. In their absence a broadened Hierarchical Synod

confirmed the April decisions to ban Bishop Barnabas and his clergy.44 On

May 5 Bishop Barnabas and his clergy signed an Address in which they

evaluated the activity of the Synod and Bishop Ambrose in the last few

42 Church News, March-April, 2001, vol. 13, № 2 (94), pp. 5-6.

43 Tserkovnie Novosti, May-June, 2001, № 3 (94), pp. 1-3.

44 Fr. Luca (Michellin) argues that Bishop Barnabas was partly responsible for this tragedy in

that, at the Council of 2000, when the appointment of a bishop to replace the retired

Archbishop Seraphim of Brussels had been discussed, his own name had been put forward

by Bishop Gabriel, but he had refused, saying that he had been ordained in 1982 solely in

order to carry out a secret episcopal consecration for the Catacomb Church. As a result,

Bishop Ambrose was appointed, while Bishop Barnabas remained in the rank of a vicarbishop.

Bishop Barnabas did not oppose Bishop Ambrose’s appointment at that time.

29

months. They pointed out that they had made several appeals to the Synod to

review the ecumenist and pro-MP activity of Bishop Ambrose and to remove

him from administering the diocese. In reply, instead of investigating the

complaints and initiating an ecclesiastical trial, the Synod had banned the

appealers “until repentance”. Referring to Bishop Benjamin’s Declaration

(“the voice of Bishop Benjamin of the Black Sea and Kuban has sounded out

in a confessing manner”, they said), the West European clergy appealed to the

like-minded clergy and flock in Russia and abroad to unite “and form a

powerful opposition to the new course in our Church”.

On May 6/19 another Address of the West European clergy appeared on

the internet, in which their position was explained and bewilderment

expressed with regard to the bans placed on them by the Synod. “The essence

of the question is not in some crude and enigmatic disobedience to the

hierarchy, but in the acceptance or non-acceptance of the Moscow

Patriarchate. The question was clearly put at the Council of the year 2000,

which established a Commission for the Unity of the Russian Church and

turned to the Serbian ‘Patriarch’ with a request that he intercede on the path

to this unity. The hierarchs deliberately ignore this question and cover it with

a supposed violation of church discipline. The appointment of Bishop

Ambrose as the ruling bishop, although he is a supporter of rapprochement

with Moscow and in spite of all the warnings, has brought the diocese into

complete disorder… In recognizing the Moscow Patriarchate as the genuine

Russian Church, the hierarchs have condemned themselves as schismatics,

falling under the Moscow Patriarchate’s condemnation of the Church

Abroad.’ At the end of the Address the banned clergy declared that this kind

of action on the part of the members of the Synod “has not real ecclesiastical

significance, and all their decisions bear only a party character”. The crisis in

the West European diocese has reached the point where formal synodical

decrees and bans are no longer able to resolve it.

The tragedy consisted in that Metropolitan Vitaly had signed these bans,

and they could be reversed, according to article 38 of the Statute of the

Russian Church Abroad, only by a canonical Hierarchical Sobor.

On May 22 / June 4 Archbishop Lazarus withdrew his signature from the

decisions of the Council of 2000. In his Address (which he had begun in

January, 2001, but had been prevented from completing because of illness) he,

following Bishop Benjamin, called for an extraordinary Council of ROCOR to

review several points in that Council’s documents. And he went on: “In no

way am I thinking, and never have thought, of leaving ROCOR and causing a

schism, but, on the contrary, by this step of mine I guard myself and the flock

entrusted to me by the Holy Church from deviating from the only true path of

confession along which ROCOR and RTOC (as two parts of one Russian

Church) have unwaveringly gone since the very moment of their origin.”

30

Archbishop Lazarus also warned against premature breaking with the

Synod. He was probably thinking of the action of the Paris Protopriest

Benjamin Zhukov, who in the previous month of May, had attempted to have

Archimandrite Sergius (Kindyakov) consecrated and had unsuccessfully tried

to draw Lazarus into his plot.45 But he did succeed in enrolling Bishop

Barnabas, who travelled with the aim of consecrating Sergius to Mansonville

in Canada, but was deterred from carrying out the consecration by

Metropolitan Vitaly. However, Bishop Barnabas and Fr. Benjamin did succeed

in registering a new church group under the name of “The Russian Orthodox

Church in Exile” in the Paris prefecture as a public, non-commercial

corporation.” And it is clear that already these two were plotting a church

coup, with the replacement of Vitaly by Barnabas as metropolitan and with

Zhukov as the real controller behind the scenes…

At this point, Metropolitan Vitaly, seeing the chaos being created in the

Church, began to step back from the course he had undertaken together with

the other hierarchs. In an epistle dated June 7/20, he rescinded the bans on

Bishop Barnabas and the French clergy. He had the right to do this as a

temporary measure, in accordance with article 38 of the ROCOR Statute,

pending the convening of a new Sobor that alone could make a final decision.

Then, in an encyclical dated June 9/22, which he ordered to be read from the

ambon of all the churches, the metropolitan subjected many positions

adopted in the recent Sobor to just criticism, and called for the convocation of

a new Sobor. Although the metropolitan did not personally repent of his part

in the creation of this chaos (as recently as the Synodal session on February 8

he had upheld the decisions of the October 2000 Council46), his willingness to

review the disastrous decisions of the October Sober was very welcome. On

June 25 / July 8 Archbishop Lazarus expressed his “support and profound

gratitude” for the encyclical,

However, the encyclical “was forbidden to be read – more specifically,

suppressed - on the orders of Bishop Gabriel”47 of Manhattan, the deputy

secretary of the Synod, who declared that the metropolitan had probably not

composed the encyclical but had been pressured into signing it by unknown

persons (the first of several such accusations in the months to come). Bishop

Gabriel’s claim was supported in letters by Archbishop Mark and Bishop

Ambrose. But then Bishop Barnabas weighed in on the side of the

metropolitan, pointing out that the encyclical had been thrashed out in the

course of three days of talks in Mansonville and expressed the freely

expressed opinions of the metropolitan himself.48

45 V. Zhukov,Mysli o Rossii, October, 2005.

46 “Zaiavlenie Arkhierejskogo Sinoda Russkoj Pravoslavnoj Tserkvi za Granitsej”,

http://www.russia-talk.com/otkliki/ot-45.htm.

47 Dr. Olga Ackerly, “High Treason in ROCOR: The Rapprochement with Moscow”,

http://stnicholascandles.com/High_Treason.htm.

48 Tserkovnie Novosti, June- July, 2001, № 4 (95), pp. 1-4.

31

On July 10, a critical session of the Hierarchical Synod was held. The event

turned into a very crude and rude attempt to force the metropolitan to retire –

only two or three days before the fiftieth anniversary of his service as a

bishop. The metropolitan said that he could retire only as the result of the

decision of a Sobor; but the other bishops said that that was not necessary.

The metropolitan then closed the session, declaring that he had nothing in

common with the other bishops, and that he would see them at the Sobor.

However, two documents dated the same day and signed, as it would

seem, by Metropolitan Vitaly as well as by the other ten bishops, declared that

the metropolitan had submitted a petition that he be allowed to retire “in

view of age and illness” (he was 92), that his petition had been accepted with

understanding, that Archbishop Laurus was appointed deputy of the first

hierarch “with all proxy powers” (protocol № 9) until a Sobor could be

convened, and that a Sobor to elect a new metropolitan would be convened in

October!49 The decision was taken that “any official documents coming from

the Synod without the signature of the deputy of the First-Hierarch,

Archbishop Laurus, are invalid (article three of the Act). And it was also

decreed that a Hierarchical Sobor should be convened in October to elect a

new First-Hierarch (article 4). Archbishop Laurus was appointed Deputy of

the First-Hierarch, and his name was to be commemorated in all the parishes

after the name of the First-Hierarch…

Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin did not submit to these decrees,

and continued to commemorate Metropolitan Vitaly without commemorating

Archbishop Laurus.

On July 12 a triumphant liturgy and moleben was celebrated in honour of

Metropolitan Vitaly’s jubilee, after which a number of hypocritical speeches

praising the metropolitan were uttered by hierarchs who had been treating

him with such disrespect only two days before.50

On July 13 the Synod declared, in an attempt to assuage the fears of

Metropolitan Vitaly’s supporters: “None of the hierarchs of ROCOR is

pushing towards a unification with the MP. There is no pro-MP faction

amongst us.” The falseness of these words was already evident, but would be

demonstrated even more clearly in the coming years…

“Shortly after the forced removal of Metropolitan Vitaly,” writes Professor

Olga Ackerly, “… the MP began to voice its endorsement: ‘We welcome the

fact that the more healthy forces in the Church Abroad have predominated

and are now for all practical purposes in charge of it.’”51

49 Tserkovnie Novosti, June- July, 2001, № 4 (95), p. 6.

50 “Trusost’, izmena i obman”, http://www.russia-talk.com/otkliki/ot-113.htm.

51 Ackerly, op. cit.

32

On September 4-5, a Conference of the Hierarchs, Clergy and Laity of the

Russian Parishes of ROCOR took place in Voronezh under the presidency of

Archbishop Laurus, and with the participation of Bishops Benjamin,

Agathangelus and Eutyches. At this meeting the Kursk and Belgorod clergy

declared their break of communion with the New York Synod and addressed

their bishops – Lazarus, Benjamin and Agathangelus – with a suggestion that

they appeal to Metropolitan Vitaly and Bishop Barnabas that they unite with

them on the basis of the pre-2000 dogmatical and canonical position of

ROCOR. Bishop Agathangelus reacted by demanding that the Kursk clergy

renounce their break of communion with the New York Synod. Otherwise, he

would not sign any proposed documents. And he showed the clergy the

door… Archbishop Lazarus did not support his colleague’s hardline attitude

to the Kursk clergy, but agreed with him about not breaking with the Lavrites.

Bishop Benjamin adopted a neutral position. Although the majority of the

Conference agreed with the Kursk clergy, they now tried to persuade them,

for the sake of “the good of the Church” to withdraw their words about a

break of communion with the New York Synod. Fr. Valery Rozhnov said that

the Synod had fallen under their own anathema. Archbishop Lazarus retorted

that nobody had anathematized them. When the Kursk clergy refused to back

down, Bishop Agathangelus said that he was not in communion with them.

And so they left the meeting… Finally, the Conference accepted an Address to

the forthcoming Sobor in which support was expressed for Metropolitan

Vitaly’s encyclical and for the banned Bishop Barnabas and the West

European clergy, while the practice of this kind of ban was condemned. Then,

addressing Metropolitan Vitaly personally, the Conference besought him not

to abandon his post of First-Hierarch.

On reading this Address in New York, Metropolitan Vitaly raised his right

hand and said: “There is the True Church. Here everything is finished…”52

And on September 8/21 Bishop Barnabas and the West European clergy

(including Fr. Benjamin Zhukov) expressed their gratitude to the Russian

hierarchs and their complete support for their position.

Bishop Agathangelus signed all the decrees and addresses of the Voronezh

Conference, and was entrusted with representing its views to the Sobor in

New York. He assured the participants that he would not vote for the new

course of rapprochement with the MP, and that if Metropolitan Vitaly refused

to take part in the Sobor and left the hall, he would follow him. However,

having arrived in New York, he changed course and joined the uniates. And

then, on returning to Russia, he raised a persecution against Archbishop

Lazarus and his colleagues. He denounced them to the civil authorities, tried

to have their registration rescinded and their churches taken from them. He

even tried to seize the church of St. John of Kronstadt that belonged to

Archbishop Lazarus…

52 Witness of Hieromonk Anthony (Rudej).

33

At the first session of the Sobor in New York, on October 10/23,

Archbishop Laurus was elected metropolitan – a decision welcomed by

“Patriarch” Alexis of Moscow. Metropolitan Vitaly was present at this session,

but only in order to hand in the following declaration, dated October 5/18,

after which he left the hall:

“Recognizing the depth of the sinful fall of certain members of the

Hierarchical Council of our Church in their intensive, but not yet expressed

desire to unite with the Moscow Patriarchate, I, with full responsibility before

God, the Russian people and my conscience, consider it my archpastoral duty

to declare that the coming Hierarchical Sobor, which is due to open on

October 23, 2001 cannot be called anything other than a collection of

irresponsibles.

“This Sobor undoubtedly intends to discuss questions relating to a possible

union with the false-church of the Moscow Patriarchate. The other day I

received a ‘Fraternal Epistle’ from Patriarch Alexis II, which, to my profound

sorrow, elicited a joyful reaction from many clerics of our Church. They even

sent a triumphant address to the Sobor, asking the Sobor to react positively to

this epistle of the patriarch. Their address was signed by 18-odd clerics of our

Church. But how many more are there who do not dare to express themselves

openly? Seeing no other way out of the situation that has been created, and

not wishing to bear responsibility for the final destruction of the Russian

Orthodox Church Abroad that has been entrusted to my care, I declare:

“I consider myself the lawful heir of all the preceding metropolitans of our

Holy Church Abroad: first Metropolitan Anthony, then Metropolitan

Anastasius, and finally Metropolitan Philaret. I am the fourth Metropolitan of

our Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and until the most recent time, I have

continued, with the help of God, to lead this ship on the straight path amidst

the threatening waves of the sea of this world, avoiding underwater rocks,

sudden storms and deep pits that suck ships to the bottom of the sea.

Unfortunately, a fateful time has come, when I have understood and

appreciated the sad fact that between me and the other hierarchs of our Synod

there is no longer oneness of mind and soul. I said this at the last Synod, when

after the first session I, distressed and fully conscious of my isolation among

the other hierarchs, left the gathering. On this basis and only on this basis, I

agreed to retire and will be considered the Metropolitan of the Russian

Orthodox Church Abroad in retirement. In this Church I was born, was

baptized and will die when the time comes.

“I wish to declare for all to hear that as First Hierarch of the Russian

Orthodox Church Abroad, I completely reject and condemn any

rapprochement whatsoever and union in the future with the false-church, the

Moscow Patriarchate.

34

“I also wish to declare that I remove my signature from the following

documents signed by me:

“1. My signature on the address to the Serbian Patriarch Paul.

“2. My signature on the agreement to form a commission for the

establishment of negotiations with the Moscow Patriarchate…”

On the same day Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin again

addressed the Sobor and to Metropolitan Vitaly personally. They called on the

Sobor to review the unacceptable documents accepted in the previous Sobor,

and to the metropolitan not to retire, saying that they recognized only him as

First-Hierarch. They said that they were not able, for objective reasons, to be

in New York, but were ready to take part in the work of the Sobor by

telephone – on condition, however, that all the bishops withdrew their

signatures from the documents of the Council of 2000.

On October 11/24, Bishop Barnabas also wrote to Metropolitan Vitaly

expressing their support. Before that he and Protodeacon Herman Ivanov-

Trinadtsaty had phoned him, appealing to him not to retire. On the same day

Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin once again wrote to the

metropolitan, asking him to review his decision to retire. Archbishop Lazarus

even repeated the request in a phone call to Mansonville. “No,” replied the

metropolitan firmly , “I am a metropolitan in retirement.” “How then is it to

be with us now in Russia?” asked the archbishop. “Place your hope on God.

God will bless”, replied the metropolitan…

On receiving this reply, Archbishop Lazarus decreed that for the time

being only the name of the ruling bishop should be commemorated in his

cathedral church of St. John of Kronstadt in Odessa. With the retirement of the

metropolitan, the ruling organ of the Russian Church now became the

Hierarchical Conference of Russian Bishops, first created with the blessing of

the ROCOR Hierarchical Council in 1994 with Archbishop Lazarus at its head.

On October 11/24, having discussed the declarations of the Russian

bishops, the Sobor in New York elected Archbishop Laurus as metropolitan

by a majority of votes and confirmed its adherence to the decisions of the

robber council of 2000.

On October 12/25, Metropolitan Vitaly came into the hall, congratulated

“the new First-Hierarch Metropolitan Laurus” and said “that he was going

into retirement and is handing over the reins of the Church’s administration”.

From what is written in the Protocol, the conversation was friendly. The

metropolitan congratulated Archbishop Laurus and wished him “to guide the

ship of the Church in the same way that it had always been guided, on the

35

straight path of True Orthodoxy”. On his part, Archbishop Laurus “in the

name of the Sobor thanked Metropolitan Vitaly for his labours for the good of

the Church”, and “asked him for his help in bringing order to Church life”.

The metropolitan once again emphasized that “by reason of his health and in

view of his advanced age he could not longer administer the Church. He had

never been ambitious. He truly needed rest.” The session continued without

the metropolitan, and they discussed the participation of Vladyka Vitaly at

the enthronement of Archbishop Laurus and the provision of a pension for

him in his retirement.

The Sobor wanted Metropolitan Vitaly to hand over all his property in

Canada to the Synod. To this end, fearing the interference of his secretary,

Liudmilla Rosnianskaia, it was decreed, already on October 11/24, to remove

her immediately from the Synodal house, “bringing to an end her position as

a servant of the Hierarchical Synod”. Then, on the evening of the same or the

following day (that is, on October 11/24 or 12/25), she was unceremoniously

thrown out of the Synodal building, and the contents of her handbag,

containing the metropolitan’s Canadian passport, medication and $20,000

were stolen. The next day, the metropolitan himself fled, first to the house of

Fr. Vladimir Shishkov (where Metropolitan Valentine of Suzdal happened to

be staying), and then to Canada. The ROCOR hierarchs gave an order to

detain him at the border, but he successfully arrived at his Transfiguration

Skete in Mansonville. The next day ROCOR sued Fr. Vladimir for assisting in

the supposed kidnapping of the metropolitan, and Rosnianskaia was accused

of kidnapping him, of giving him drugs to destroy his memory, and of

exploiting his senility to her advantage.

As a result of these events, through the greed of the Synodal hierarchs,

Metropolitan Vitaly was prevented from taking part in the enthronement of

Archbishop Laurus and of praying together with the uniate hierarchs. On the

day after his departure for Canada there was an earthquake in New York…

And on the very night that Metropolitan Laurus arrived in the Holy Trinity

monastery in Jordanville, a fire broke out in the monastery…53 The fire was

stopped at the seminary building in which was house the cell icon of the

Iveron Mother of God that had belonged to Metropolitan Philaret.54

On November 13, President Putin met Bishop Gabriel, secretary of the

ROCOR (L) Synod, and invited him and Metropolitan Laurus to visit Moscow.

He must have agreed this invitation with Patriarch Alexis. So with the

blessing of the KGB leaders of both Church and State, the real negotiations on

union, a process that was called “structuring”55 by its supporters, could begin.

53 Pravoslavnaia Rus’, No 1692. December 1/14, 2001.

54 Shumilo, op. cit.

55 See the prayer appointed in all churches of ROCOR during the Divine Liturgy: “O All-

Good Master, watch over Thy flock and all the children of the Russian Church Abroad, that

we may bring about the structuring of our Church in a manner well-pleasing to Thee.”

36

III. THE CREATION OF THE MANSONVILLE SYNOD

Meanwhile, in Mansonville Hieromonk Vladimir (Tselischev), an ally of Fr.

Benjamin Zhukov, finally convinced Metropolitan Vitaly to come out of

retirement. According to the witness of Fr. Vladimir, the argument that

prevailed with him was the support of the Russian bishops and the question:

“Vladyka, to whom are you leaving the Russian bishops and flock?”

This represented a striking volte face on the part of Hieromonk Vladimir.

Only a few months before he had dismissed the metropolitan, saying: “there

is no more metropolitan” (letter of November, 2000). He said that the

metropolitan was no longer able to administer the Church because he was

“deprived of orientation and memory” and remained in “an unhealthy state

of mind and reasoning (letter of May, 2001). He “completely depended” on

his secretary, L.D. Rosnianskaia, who had control of his signature, his writing

paper and his seal. “One should have no illusions about this,” he wrote (letter

of July, 2001). Such inconsistency raised suspicions about Fr. Vladimir’s real

motivation – suspicions that were to be confirmed quite soon…

Indeed, if the main body of the bishops led by Archbishops Laurus and

Mark were preparing a “revolution on the left” against the authority of the

metropolitan, there is strong evidence that a “revolution on the right” was

also being prepared. The real leader of these rightist revolutionaries was the

Paris Protopriest Benjamin Zhukov. In May, 2001, he asked the metropolitan

to bless Bishop Barnabas of Cannes (his creature at the time) to consecrate

Archimandrite Sergius (Kindiakov) to the episcopate. The metropolitan

refused, and Zhukov, annoyed, then tried to persuade Archbishop Lazarus of

Tambov and Odessa to carry out the consecration in secret, suggesting that he

would become “metropolitan” and “first-hierarch”. Lazarus refused, thereby

earning the hatred of Zhukov – with dire consequences for the Church.56

Persuaded by “rightist revolutionaries” such as Tselischev and Zhikov, on

October 14/27, the metropolitan issued an “Extraordinary Declaration” on the

internet: “In view of the unwillingness on the part of the majority of the

bishop to reconcile and pacify the unheard-of disturbance among our clergy

and flock, and also taking into account the requests of some of the bishops

and many of the children of the Church Abroad, I with all responsibility

declare that, in accordance with paragraph 34 of the Statute on the ROCOR, I

remove my signature concerning my voluntary retirement and handing over

of my powers to Archbishop Laurus. My name must be commemorated as

before at services in all the churches of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad.

In case of unforeseen circumstances, Bishop Barnabas of Cannes is entrusted

with temporarily bearing the powers of Deputy of the First-Hierarch of

56 “Ocherednie chistki i raskol v ‘mansonvill’skom sinode vikariev’ (Yet more purges and a

schism in the ‘Mansonville Synod of Vicars’),

http://catacomb.org.ua/modules.php?name=Pages&go=print_page&pid=930.

37

ROCOR until the election of a new First-Hierarch of the Church Abroad by

hierarchs who have remained faithful to the Orthodox faith.” 57

This news was greeted with joy, but also with some perplexity, by the

opponents of union with the MP. After all, only three days before the

metropolitan had refused to revoke his decision to retire even after several

earnest entreaties from hierarchs, clergy and laity both within and outside

Russia. Moreover, there was considerable concern whether the metropolitan

had the right to come out of retirement and resume the leadership of the

Church without the decision of a Sobor of bishops. 58 Paragraph 34 of the

Stature on ROCOR did not provide him with that authority.

The only justification that the metropolitan could give for his action was

the fact that he had been coerced to retire in July. As he himself said: “I

hereby declare that, at that time [July 2001] I was coerced by violence to put

my signature on documents prepared and written by the Synod... I have been

the object of outrages and of high and repeated psychological pressures from

the bishops. These tortures have exhausted me.” That Metropolitan Vitaly

had indeed been coerced was witnessed by two participants in the July

meeting, Archimandrite Sergius (Kindiakov) and Priest Anthony (Orlov).59 As

57 Tserkovnie Novosti, October, 2001, № 7 (99), pp. 2-4.

58 As A. Shatilova wrote: “The Epistle of the Third Ecumenical Council on the matter of

Metropolitan Eustathius of Pamphylia is amazingly analogous to Metropolitan Vitaly’s

retirement, which was truly elicited by violence in July. However, his giving a second

declaration to the Sobor in October this year was, according to all the signs, voluntary. In the

Epistle on the matter of Metropolitan Eustathius it says that he ‘was troubled by certain

persons and found himself faced with unforeseen circumstances. Then, later on, because of

too much inertia, he refused to face the troubles which assailed him, even when he was able

to turn aside the slanders of those who were fighting against him. He thus submitted his

written resignation – we do not know how.’ The Council goes on to declare that ‘since he

showed himself, in this case, negligent rather by inertia than by laziness or indolence,’ it

considered that it would be possible ‘to forgive the old man’, - but, nevertheless, the Epistle of

the Third Ecumenical Council orders that the enthronement of Bishop Theodore instead of

the retired Metropolitan Eustathius should be recognized as lawful. The Council clearly and

precisely explained the new position of the retired bishop: ‘…Without any questioning, he

should have the name, honor and communion of the episcopate without, however,

performing any ordinations or taking over a church and officiating in it at his own will. Let

him celebrate only if a brother and bishop invites him or allows him according to his

disposition and love in Christ.’…

“In his extraordinary declaration of October 14/27, 2001, Metropolitan Vitaly removed his

‘signature to my voluntary retirement and transfer of my rights to Archbishop Laurus’. How

easy it has now become to ‘remove (one’s) signature’ after a day or even a year! Until now,

people who renounce their word, and still more their signatures, have lost all respect among

those around them. However, in our age it is possible (without offering repentance for one’s

blunder or lack of civil courage) not only with impunity to renounce one’s words and even

signature, but even to become for some ‘the heroes of the day’!” (Tserkovnie Novosti,

November, 2001, № 8 (100), pp. 2-3).

59 Their testimony, dated July 23, 2001, is cited in English by John Chaplain, “[paradosis]

When Did Metropolitan Vitaly Retire? – (Lie not against the truth – James 3.14)”, orthodoxtradition@

yahoogroups.com, May 16, 2005.

38

against this, however, is the fact that by October the metropolitan appears to

have been completely reconciled with his retirement, refused to withdraw it

when asked to on many occasions, and voluntarily congratulated Archbishop

Laurus on his election as the new metropolitan, reaffirming that he was

retiring because of his health and old age and because he “truly needed rest”.

“Here it is appropriate to note a similar precedent,” writes Shumilo: “it

was for precisely this reason that the pre-revolutionary Russian Church did

not recognize the canonicity of the so-called Belokrinitskaya Old Ritualist

hierarchy, which traced its origins to Metropolitan Ambrose of Bosnia and

Sarajevo, who was in retirement. The Old Ritualists’ references to the fact that

Metropolitan Ambrose had been sent into retirement not in accordance with

his will, but on the demand and under the pressure of the Turkish

government, and that the metropolitan did not recognize the decision of the

Constantinopolitan Patriarchate – were not accepted by the Holy Synod.

“The fact that Vladyka Vitaly was in the situation of a bishop in retirement

is confirmed by consideration of what rights he actually enjoyed in the

‘Mansonville Synod of Vicar-Bishops’. With the seizure of power in

Mansonville by Protopriest B. Zhukov, Hieromonk V. Tselischev and Priest N.

Orlov, Metropolitan Vitaly was de facto retired for the second time (the first

time was by the plotters from New York headed by Archbishop Laurus and

Archbishop Mark): all the parishes in Canada were removed from the direct

administration of Vladyka Vitaly as the ruling Bishop of Montreal and

Canada and transferred to the administration of the vicars, who proclaimed

themselves to be ‘ruling’. From this time and until his blessed death,

Metropolitan Vitaly had not one single parish under his administration in

Canada. From a canonical point of view, this was a possible situation for a

hierarch only if he was in retirement. The remarks that the Metropolitan was

weak and unable to administer the parishes are not honest. If the

Metropolitan was not able to administer his parishes, was he able to

administer the Church? It is clear that the people who kept the Metropolitan

in captivity were inconsistent – not to say, cunning.”60

There was a similar canonical problem with regard to the metropolitan’s

appointment of Bishop Barnabas as his deputy. Barnabas was under a ban

signed by the metropolitan himself. That ban could removed only by a Sobor

of bishops. Therefore the Metropolitan’s decision to appoint him as his

deputy without the authority of a Sobor, and later to allow him to ordain

bishops and be raised to the rank of archbishop, was uncanonical.

The only way in which what we shall now call ROCOR (V) could correct

these canonical deficiencies was to turn to the Russian hierarchs Archbishop

Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin in order to convene a canonical Sobor. For they

were in fact the only ruling bishops opposed to the New York synod who did

60 Shumilo, op. cit.

39

not need a Council of bishops to reinstate them as fully functioning bishops.

These bishops were very eager to help in this way. On October 27, the very

day of his “Extraordinary Declaration”, they had declared their loyalty to

Metropolitan Vitaly.61 And on October 28th, 29th or 30th they “made their

declaration of loyalty to Metropolitan Vitaly by telephone. This phone call

was received by Bishop (then Hieromonk) Vladimir in Mansonville in the

presence of Protopriest Spyridon Schneider and Priest Andrew Kencis. When

Bishop Vladimir finished his phone call with Archbishop Lazarus he

enthusiastically proclaimed: ‘Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin are

with us, they are commemorating Metropolitan Vitaly.’”

The Mansonville group were happy to welcome the Russian bishops in

October, when they were desperately in need of support against the uniate

Synod under Metropolitan Laurus (ROCOR (L)). However, the tragedy was

that within a few days they no longer felt any need for them and in effect

broke communion with them. For Zhukov wanted to rule the Synod on his

own: he cared nothing for the canonical scruples of the Russian bishops, who

wanted the convening of a canonical Sobor in order to correct the canonical

deficiencies of the Mansonville Synod, but wanted with the aid of Bishop

Barnabas alone to promote his protégé priests…

“On November 1, 2001,” writes Shumilo, “an event took place greatly

perplexed many Orthodox Christians. On the initiative of the New York

Synod, Metropolitan Vitaly, accompanied by police, was forcibly sent to a

psychiatric hospital for testing. This was a great indignity for the person of

the Metropolitan, a mockery of his rank and age, but Vladyka Vitaly humbly

and with dignity bore it all…

“[On November 3], immediately on the return of Vladyka Metropolitan

from hospital, taking advantage of his distraction and under the excuse of

‘saving’ the Church, on the initiative and under the direct pressure of

Protopriest V. Zhukov (who shouted down the phone to Bishop Barnabas:

‘Consecrate a bishop immediately, even if it’s with a rope around his neck’ –

this is witnessed by clergy from France and Russia who were present at the

conversation), the Vicar-Bishop Barnabas carried out the consecration of

Archimandrite Sergius (Kindiakov). The decision to carry out this

consecration was taken hastily, it was not discussed in council, and none of

the acting hierarchs was informed about it (not to speak of the necessity that

they should give their written consent to the carrying out of a hierarchical

consecration, as is demanded by the church canons and the Statute of ROCOR,

see paragraph 11, and the note to this paragraph, also Canon 4 of the First

Ecumenical Council: ‘… and those who are absent must compose an

agreement by means of letters: and then the consecration can take place’, etc.).

Only one consent was obtained to this consecration, together with the

Metropolitan’s oral blessing – but not immediately, but after some pressure

61 Fr. Spyridon Schneider, internet communication to Theophan Costello, January 2, 2008.

40

on him (the decisive argument was: ‘You can be arrested and the Church will

remain without bishops’)…

“As many sources witness, the ninety-year-old Metropolitan, by reason of

his health had not been able to serve a liturgy since 1999, was very weak and

unable to take full part in the consecration of Archimandrite Sergius. He was

present at it clad only in a mantia (this is witnessed by photographs: on them

Bishop Barnabas and Bishop Sergius are in full hierarchical vestments, but

Metropolitan Vitaly is in a mantia), whereas neither a liturgy nor a

hierarchical consecration can be carried out in a mantia. The consecration of

Archimandrite Sergius was carried out by Vicar-Bishop Barnabas on his own…

“This consecration laid the foundations for the creation of a new church

organization – the ROC in Exile (ROCiE, it was under that name that it was

registered in France, Canada and the USA)…

“If, taking into account the exceptional circumstances, for the sake of love

and peace and with the aim of averting a schism in the Church, it would have

been possible, in a conciliar fashion, with the application of the broadest economy, to

accept the consecration of Archimandrite Sergius at a Hierarchical Sobor with

a consequent laying of hands [cheirothesia] on him, then all the later

‘Mansonville consecrations’ [of Bishops Vladimir, Bartholomew, Anthony and

Victor] carried out by Bishop Barnabas and Archimandrite Sergius in secret

even from Metropolitan Vitaly (without the participation and contrary to the

will of the metropolitan) were openly unlawful, and it is impossible to accept

them.”62

On November 5, the Mansonville Synod published an ukaz stating that the

metropolitan was now to be commemorated as “First-Hierarch of the Russian

Orthodox Church in Exile”. It was decided that the Church should be

incorporated under this name (we recall that Zhukov had already done this in

France), and Fr. Joseph Sunderland was appointed as legal advisor to carry

this out. However, since a change in name usually signifies a change in

Church, the ukaz disturbed many believers and was rejected by the Russian

bishops. Archbishop Lazarus even orally forbade the commemoration of the

metropolitan for a few weeks. But then, on November 20, the Mansonvillians

recognized their mistake and reversed their previous decision, restoring the

name “Russian Orthodox Church Abroad”. As emerged only later,

Metropolitan Vitaly had always been against the change of name. With the

original name restored, on November 24 Archbishop Lazarus ordered that the

metropolitan’s name be commemorated again. Bishop Benjamin issued a

similar ukaz. 63

62 Shumilo, op. cit.

63 Shumilo, op. cit.; Fr. Spyridon Schneider, letter of November 5, 2007,

http://rocorrefugeesreadmore.blogspot.com/2009/07/rocie-was-started-by-agents.html

41

Also on November 5, the new “Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church in

Exile” raised Bishop Barnabas to the rank of archbishop with the title “of

Cannes and Europe”. Strangely, Archbishop Barnabas’ signature was not on

this document. However, he was all too willing to accept the power it gave

him. Thus already on or about November 7, he declared that he would not

accept Archbishop Lazarus as senior to himself.64 And later he claimed that,

as deputy to the metropolitan and “Archbishop of Europe”, he should have

control over the whole of European Russia, thereby excluding Lazarus and

Benjamin from the administration of their sees!

Later, the Mansonvillians would describe the meeting at which these

decisions were made as “the first Hierarchical Sobor of the regenerated

ROCA”. And yet much later, on May 20, 2003, they decreed the

“establishment of the Hierarchical Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church

Abroad”! The absurdity of establishing the Synod already eighteen months

after “the first Hierarchical Sobor of the regenerated ROCA” appears to have

escaped the notice of these “innovators on the right”.

After this “first Hierarchical Sobor”, Metropolitan Vitaly left Montreal with

his secretary, L. Rosnianskaia, who reported him as having been against the

consecration of any more bishops after Archimandrite Sergius, “so that they

don’t say that we bake bishops like pies”. He arrived in Mansonville on the

evening of November 6. We can imagine his astonishment, therefore, when,

that same evening, he saw Hieromonk Vladimir (Tselischev) coming to him

with a hierarchical panagia on his breast. For Archbishop Barnabas and

Bishop Sergius had ordained him as Vicar-Bishop of Sacramento that day,

claiming falsely in the ordination certificate that this had been done with the

metropolitan’s blessing. The metropolitan refused to recognize this

“consecration”.

However, as in the case with Archimandrite Sergius, they persuaded him

to recognize it “for the sake of the good of the Church”. So as to hide the

illegality and give the “consecration” an appearance of lawfulness, the

signature of the metropolitan was added to the ordination certificate under

the printed resolution: “I confirm”.65

That this consecration was performed against the will of the metropolitan

was confirmed on July 12/25, 2004 by Archbishop Barnabas, when he wrote:

“I repent of taking part in the consecration of Bishop Vladimir without your

permission”. He had good reason to repent, for the consecration violated the

Sixth Canon of the First Ecumenical Council, which says: “If anyone is made a

bishop without the permission of the metropolitan, this Great Council has

defined that he must not be a bishop”.

64 Schneider, op. cit.

65 Shumilo, op. cit.

42

This administrative chaos was compounded by yet another uncanonical

episcopal consecration. On November 11, Bishops Sergius and Vladimir,

without the agreement or blessing, not only of Metropolitan Vitaly, but also,

this time, of Archbishop Barnabas also, consecrated Archimandrite

Bartholomew (Vorobiev) as Bishop of Grenada.

Later, on July 12/25 Archbishop Barnabas wrote in his penitential letter to

Metropolitan Vitaly: “I repent that I did not express my protest in connection

with the consecration of Bishop Bartholomew, which was carried out by

Bishop Sergius and Bishop Vladimir in spite of your and my decision”. And a

lie was added to the lack of canonicity: in Bishop Bartholomew’s ordination

certificate it was asserted that the consecration had been carried out by

Metropolitan Vitaly.

So all three consecrations – of Sergius, Vladimir and Bartholomwe - were

carried out contrary to the canons, without the convening of a canonical

Hierarchical Sobor, by vicar bishops without the participation of the only two

ruling bishops of the Russian Church that were not under ban or in retirement

(Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin), in two cases against the will of

their metropolitan, and in one case secretly from him. We therefore come to

the conclusion that if ROCOR (L), at its October Sobor, fell away from the

confessing path of the true Russian Church Abroad by its declared intention

to unite with the MP and World Orthodoxy, only a few days later ROCOR (V)

fell in the opposite direction through its violation of the conciliar norms of the

Holy Church as enshrined in the holy canons. Taking advantage of the

infirmity of Metropolitan Vitaly and his personal ascendancy over the

“Mansonville Synod of Vicars”, Protopriest Benjamin Zhukov accomplished a

coup d’église that left Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin as the only

canonical survivors of the pre-2001 Bishops of ROCOR.

On November 22 a second attempt to kidnap Metropolitan Vitaly and take

him to New York was made by Bishop Michael (Donskov) of Canada, as a

result of which the metropolitan anathematized him. 66 When the attempt

failed (Canadian judges refused to allow the kidnapping), the Synod of

ROCOR (L) made a statement condemning the action and claiming that it had

always wanted to persuade the metropolitan to return by peaceful means.

Bishop Michael was freed from governing the Canadian diocese and sent to

Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville.67

66 Metropolitan Vitaly’s own certified account of this incident can be found at

http://www.monasterypress.com/metaccount.html, and in English at “[paradosis] Met

Vitaly’s certified account”, orthodox-tradition@yahoogroups.com, June 8, 2002. See also

Sergius Agu, “Krestnij Put’ Mitropolita Vitalia”,

http://catacomb.org.ua/modules.php?name=Pages&go=print_page&pid=2.

67 Tserkovnie Novosti, November, 2001, № 8 (100), p. 5.

43

On December 7, Metropolitan Vitaly wrote to all the clergy and flock of the

Church Abroad: “The supporters and followers of the so-called self-styled

Metropolitan Laurus, who tried to seize ecclesiastical power in our Church

Abroad, have departed into complete spiritual tracklessness.

“Seeing the disturbances in our Church, I have returned to myself the

rights of head of the Church. In reply to this, the Synod, with the participation

of Bishops Michael and Hilarion, raised a real persecution against me. I was

subject to arrest at the hands of the civil authorities without the slightest

indication of any reason for my guilt. Exclusively in order to cleanse the

Church from such apostates, with my blessing and participation the

ordinations of new bishops have been carried out: Bishop Vladimir of

Sacramento and Bishop Bartholomew of Grenada…

“The apostates headed by Archbishop Laurus cannot be considered to be

within the bounds of the Church…”68

Evidently Patriarch Alexis was speaking the truth when he later said in the

media that Metropolitan Vitaly’s removal had been a necessary condition of

the rapprochement of the MP and ROCOR…69

Let us return to the beginning of November. At that time a group of priests

led by Protopriest Victor (Melehov), exarch of the flock of the “Holy Orthodox

Church of North America” (HOCNA) in Russia, left HOCNA and was

received in their existing rank by Metropolitan Vitaly into ROCOR (V). Fr.

Victor was then nominated by Fr. Anatoly Trepatchko, and unanimously

elected by all the clergy and bishops, as Secretary of the newly incorporated

“Russian Orthodox Church in Exile”, while Fr. Michael Marcinovsky was

voted Treasurer.

Later, Fr. Benjamin Zhukov, seeing in Melehov a potential enemy to his

plans to take over the Synod, inserted the words “in North America (USA and

Canada)” after the word “Secretary” on the ROCiE official website, and also

fraudulently claimed that he himself had been made secretary of the Synod

on November 5.70

Having been appointed secretary, Fr. Victor immediately made his

presence felt. As Fr. Spyridon Schneider writes: “Within a few days [on

November 8] Fr. Victor came to Mansonville,… and asked them to: 1.

renounce the MP and Sergianism; 2. renounce any relationship with the

Serbian Church, 3. reaffirm the 1983 anathema against ecumenism, and 4.

68 Tserkovnie Novosti, December, 2001, № 9 (101), p. 8. See “Plody lukavstva”,

http://www.listok.com/article40htm.

69 Shumilo, “Kratkaia Istoria Istinno-Pravoslavnoj Tserkvi Rossii, 1927-2007”,

http://www.catacomb.org.ua/modules.php?name=Pages&go=page&pid=1366.

70 Schneider, op. cit.

44

renounce Cyprian of Fili and his heretical ecclesiology which had been

accepted in 1994 by the Synod of Bishops. These issues were discussed for

about two and one half hours and when the Metropolitan, the Bishops and Fr.

Victor were finished with these discussions they were all very happy that

complete agreement had been reached. Soon after the meeting a statement

was written by Vladika Vladimir that addressed these four points and faxed

to Fr. Victor with all of the Bishops’ signatures including Archbishop

Barnabas.”71

This “Declaration of the Hierarchical Synod of ROCiE” appeared on the

internet, and declared that (i) that ROCiE had no canonical or Eucharistic

communion with the Moscow Patriarchate, and (ii) that there would be a

cessation of “the badly thought out establishment in 1994 of Eucharistic

communion with the Synod of the Resisters under the Presidencey of

Metropolitan Cyprian of Orope and Fili”. The latter resolution was signed by

“Metropolitan Vitaly, Bishop Sergius for Archbishop Barnabas with his

agreement, Bishop Sergius, Bishop Vladimir”. Later Archbishop Barnabas,

who had left Canada for France the previous day, declared that he had not

given his agreement to the placing of his signature under this resolution.

However, to the distress of the American clergy, some French clergy began

to criticise the condemnation of Cyprian. And on November 7/20 the decree

on cessation of communion with the Cyprianites was halted.

But on December 16/29, at a Pastoral Convention of the North American

clergy, under the signatures of all the bishops except Archbishop Barnabas,

who was not present, the Cyprianite ecclesiology was formally condemned.72

Barnabas did not protest the decision to break with Cyprian, although he

introduced one qualification. However, rumblings of discontent continued

71 Fr. Spyridon Schneider, “[ROCElaity] Statement concerning Fr. Victor Melehov”, 24

January, 2003.

72 The decree read: “Metropolitan Cyprian and his Synod, while recognizing world

Orthodoxy to be heretical, nevertheless considers it to be a part of the Church of Christ, thus

contradicting the teaching and tradition of the Church, which clearly bears witness in

conciliar decrees and the writings of the Holy Fathers to the effect that heretics are fallen

away from the Church… Calling for a walling-off from these ailing members, Metropolitan

Cyprian nonetheless considers them to be within the Church. However, to permit

membership in the Church outside an Orthodox confession of faith is by no means possible;

hence, ‘those ailing in faith’ cannot be members of the Church, which is also confirmed by the

teachings of the Holy Fathers. ‘Without a doubt,’ says the venerable John Cassian the Roman,

‘he who does not confess the faith of the Church is outside the Church’. The same is

confirmed also by Patriarch Jeremias II of Constantinople: ‘Members of the Church of Christ

are wholly devoted to the truth, and those not wholly devoted to the truth are not members

of the Church of Christ.’… Metropolitan Cyprian declares in his thesis that ‘the Orthodox

Church has become divided into two parts: those who are ailing in the faith and those who

are healthy…’ (ch. 3, p. 4). But then he immediately goes on to speak of ‘restoring to

Orthodoxy’ those ailing in the faith (ch. 3, p. 5), whereby he clearly falls into a doctrinal

contradiction. For how is it possible ‘to receive into Orthodoxy’ those who already are

Orthodox?!”

45

from some of the lower French clergy, especially Protodeacon Germanus

Ivanov-Trinadtsaty,73 and two priests with links to the Cyprianites, Michael

and Quentin Castelbajac, who joined ROCOR (L). On the other hand, there

was support for the decision from others in Western Europe and elsewhere.74

The decision to renounce Cyprianism was important, for it signalled a

return to the ecclesiology of Metropolitan Philaret, which had been jettisoned

when ROCOR joined the Cyprianites in 1994. Formally speaking, it could be

argued that this decision was incorrect, since only a canonical Hierarchical

Council could overturn the decision of another Hierarchical Council – and, as

we shall see, several of the hierarchs at this Council were not canonical, nor

were the canonical bishops in Russia allowed to participate.75 However, it

expressed the truth – and that was the main thing.

The opposition of the French had its roots in the fact that they had lived for

many years under the omophorion of Archbishop Anthony of Geneva, the

most ecumenist hierarch of ROCOR for at least 20 years until his death in 1993,

whom even now they called their “great Abba” and “he who restrained [the

coming of the Antichrist]”. And Archbishop Barnabas himself had had a very

chequered career. Therefore a root-and-branch examination of the past, with

repentance for all mistakes, - conducted, moreover, on the initiative of

American clergy, some of whom had broken with ROCOR in 1986 precisely

because of their opposition to ROCOR’s ecumenist tendencies under

Metropolitan Vitaly and Archbishop Anthony of Geneva - was deeply

threatening to them.

This led Fr. Victor and the group of North American clergy to call for: (i)

the introduction of order into the administrative chaos of ROCOR (V), which

required the convening of a Sobor; and (ii) the introduction of a clear

ecclesiology which would help to avoid the mistakes in ecclesiology made by

ROCOR in the past and provide a firm foundation for her development in the

future.

73 Ivanov-Trinadtsaty, “Po povodu Rezoliutsii Kanadskogo Pastyrskogo Soveschania”,

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/stranitchka/Sobor.ru_2000/Resolution_Russe.html.

74 V. Kirillov, “Zametki ob uchenii Mitropolita Kipriana o Tserkvi, v sviazi s Zaiavleniem

Arkhierejskogo Sinoda RPTsI ot 26 oktiabria / noiabria 2001 goda”,

http://www.listok.com/article43com; “Kommentarii na stat’iu protodiakona Germana

Ivanov-Trinadtsagogo ‘Po povodu Rezoliutsii Kanadskogo Pastyrskogo Soveschania’”,

http://www.listok.com/sobor168.htm.

75 Shumilo, op. cit.

46

IV. THE RUSSIAN TRUE ORTHODOX CHURCH

Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin, while rejecting the decisions of

the Mansonville Sobor of November, 2001 as uncanonical, remained in

communion with Metropolitan Vitaly and continued to call for a canonical

Sobor in which they would take part. Knowing that this would expose his

own nefarious activity, Zhukov tried hard to discredit them and the whole

idea of a Sobor. Thus on December 2/15, 2002 he wrote in an “Explanation”:

“In the conditions that arose at the beginning of 2002, when Archbishop

Lazarus was actively trying to acquire the whole of the Russian flock faithful

to Metropolitan Vitaly (and consequently the removal of ROCOR from all

missionary work in Russia – which was equivalent to its end), the convening

of a Sobor became for Her a dangerous undertaking. Only when order would

reign in the Church and all her members would know their place, would the

participants in the Sobor come with a constructive intention. Then they would

be able to say that truly “the Grace of the Holy Spirit has brought us together

today” and would think, not of themselves, but about the Preservation of the

Church of Christ. A hasty convening of a Council would have led to a

catastrophe, and for that reason Vladyka Barnabas addressed the

Metropolitan with a request that he defer this initiative.”

While putting off the convening of a Sobor, Zhukov incited Archbishop

Barnabas to seize as much of Archbishop Lazarus’ flock as possible. Thus on

December 16, 2001 he accepted under his omophorion the Kursk, Belgorod

and some of the Voronezh clergy who belonged to Archbishop Lazarus’

diocese. Lazarus reacted fiercely. In a telephone conversation with the warden

and treasurer of one of the Voronezh parishes, he declared that Archbishop

Barnabas was “defrocked”, that the new Synod under Metropolitan Vitaly

consisted of people unknown to him, who had simply solicited the Episcopal

rank, for which reason he did not recognize it, and that in general they should

from now on commemorate only him, Archbishop Lazarus. 76 Lazarus’ anger

was fully justified. 77

Nevertheless, a full breakdown in relations between the Russian bishops

and the Mansonville Synod was averted after a phone call by Bishop

Benjamin to Bishop Vladimir on December 20. However, this partial

reconciliation was accepted only grudgingly by Archbishop Barnabas. Thus in

January he wrote to Bishop Vladimir: “It is necessary to stop the organization

76 A. Lebedev, “Proekt Obraschenia kurskogo dukhovenstva (2002 g.) k Arkh. Soboru RPTsZ

(V)”,  http://www.listok.com/raznoe19.htm;  Tserkovnie Novosti,  June - July, 2001, № 4 (95), p.

10.

77 And his anger continued. On February 5, 2002, while declaring to Metropolitan Vitaly that

he remained with him “in prayerful, canonical and eucharistic communion”, he likened the

Kursk, Belgorod and Voronezh clergy “to Core, Dathan and Abiram”. The next day he went

on to call on the clergy “to cease their anticanonical activity”, called Protopriest Oleg Mironov

“a wolf in sheep’s clothing” and the sacraments performed by him – “graceless”. (Lebedev,

op. cit.)

47

with Vladyka Lazarus and Benjamin. Now action is being taken to destroy

our Church in which these bishops involuntarily participate. Therefore it is

necessary to keep them in the most limited rights. I, on the other hand, as the

deputy of Metropolitan Vitaly, must be given the broadest care for Russia.”78

While remaining in communion with Metropolitan Vitaly, the Russian

bishops never accepted the canonicity of the consecrations of the Mansonville

vicars. Later Zhukov himself recognized this fact. He said that the Russian

hierarchs “did not enter our Church, but attached themselves only to

Metropolitan Vitaly”.79 This was quite true. For the “Mansonville Synod of

Vicars” was an uncanonical organization of uncanonically consecrated

bishops. At the same time Zhukov accused the Russian bishops of trying “to

obtain a Sobor”. A strange accusation! According to Orthodox tradition, all

Church conflicts and major Church questions can only be resolved at Councils

of Bishops. So trying “to obtain a Sobor” was quite natural and praiseworthy.

It was Zhukov’s (successful) attempt to put off the Sobor that required

explanation and justification…

On December 15/28 or 16/29 Metropolitan Vitaly declared at the Pastoral

Convention of North American Clergy in Mansonville: “After many long,

hard years of trying to manage the Church in Russia from New York, I have

learned that it is impossible to manage the Church in Russia from Abroad. We

do not know and understand their problems and we do not know their

people and possible candidates for the clergy. Without a knowledge of their

people and their problems the best that we can do is give them Apostolic

Succession and Grace and allow them to organize while maintaining

communion with them and praying that they will be able to do something for

themselves… There must be a separate administration in Russia, another

administration in Europe and a third administration in North America…”

Shortly after this, on December 25 / January 7, 2001/2002, Metropolitan

Vitaly issued his “Nativity Epistle and Spiritual Testament” in which he

hinted that he was in captivity, and that people should be very careful in

trusting everything that was published in his name: “We live in such a time

when they can steal men away and in my name begin to try and convince you.

Know that from captivity I will not convince you of anything. Believe only my

living word…”

On January 8/21, 2002 (№835/65) Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop

Benjamin wrote an “Epistle on the Contemporary Situation of the Orthodox

Church” to Metropolitan Vitaly. In it they gave a short characterization of the

78 Shumilo, op. cit. Again, in another letter to Vladimir dated March 17 he wrote: “After your

insistent request that Bishop Lazarus and Benjamin be received into the bosom of our Church,

early in January, 2002 I agreed to their reception on condition that they be given definitely

limited authority in the new ecclesiastical organization”.

79 Zhukov, Mysli o Rossii, October, 2005.

48

situation of the Church in the contemporary apostate world, beginning from

the time of the God-fighting revolution and until ROCOR’s October, 2000

Council. At this Council non-Orthodox decisions were taken on union with

the MP and Eucharistic communion with the ecumenist Serbian patriarchate;

the council of 2001 did not repeal these decisions, therefore the hierarchs of

ROCOR had fallen “under their own anathema” and the 45th Apostolic Canon,

which “categorically forbids communion in prayer with heretics: ‘Let a bishop

[…] who has only prayed with heretics be excommunicated /.../ from the

Church’ – the Epistle said. Also, reasons were given why the falling of the

hierarchs of ROCOR into apostasy had become possible: ‘sergianism and

ecumenism have poisoned the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad’. The

Epistle went on to say: ‘The Holy Patriarch Tikhon, applying all his strength

to preserve the Orthodox Church from the blows of the God-fighters, in his

God-inspired Ukaz №362 of November 7/20, 1920 foresaw the form that

Church administration would take if the activity of the organs of the Higher

Church Authority should cease. The essence of this ukaz can be reduced to

this: if the activity of the Higher Church Administration ceases […] the

diocesan bishops takes upon himself the whole fullness of power in his

diocese until the formation of a free ecclesiastical administration.

“The Russian Orthodox Church existed on the foundation of this Ukaz. In

Russia, after the issuing in 1927 […] of the declaration of Metropolitan Sergius,

the Catacomb Church began to be created […] With the blessing of Patrairch

Tikhon and the Locum Tenens Metropolitan Chril, and also on the foundation

of Metropolitan Agathangel’s Epistle of June 5/18, 1922, communities of the

True Orthodox Church (TOC) were formed under the leadership of the most

eminent hierarchs. These communities preserved original Orthodoxy. They

suffered especially terrible persecutions. The Bolsheviks ferreted out the

“catacombniks” wherever they could, often with the help of priests of the

“patriarchate”, who denounced the true bishops and priests to the “organs”.

Those who fell into the camps for belonging to the TOC generally did not

come out again.

“The whole episcopate of the Russian True Orthodox Church was

destroyed. In spite of this, by 1982 quite a few communities of the True

Orthodox Christians remained scattered over the whole territory of the Soviet

Union, creating an extensive widowed diocese. Archimandrite Lazarus (now

Archbishop) was secretly ordained to the Episcopal rank by a ROCOR bishop

who came specially from abroad, to rule this diocese.

“After the fall of the Bolshevik regime, the Russian True Orthodox Church

acquired a legal status and was officially registered in the Ukraine

(registration №356 of June 19, 1993).

“Until October, 2000 no insoluble problems in administration arose. But

after the publication of the documents of the October 2000 council of ROCOR

a wave of contradictory ukazy, bans and the most varied kinds of false

49

information was poured out upon the Orthodox living on the territory of the

former Soviet Union, and chaos, unclarity and confusion was created in

administration.

“We, the Russian bishops, on the foundation of ukaz №362 of November

20, 1920 of Patriarch Tikhon, in connection with the complicated situation in

ROCOR, on the basis of multiple addresses of the First-Hierarch of ROCOR

Metropolitan Vitaly to the Council of Bishops, in 1998 and 2000, on the

provision of independence to the Russian Bishops (of which we are witnesses),

and also in connection with all that has been said above, ask the at present

lawfully acting Metropolitan Vitaly to provide us with temporary

administrative-canonical independence.. We do not refuse to be in spiritual,

prayer and Eucharistic communion with those who have not fallen into

sergianism, ecumenism or any other heresy, and we also call to repentance all

those whom the Lord has not deprived of this great gift.

“We turn to you, beloved in the Lord Vladyko Metropolitan Vitaly. We

turn to you as to the eldest First-Hierarch of ROCOR, chosen by lot, who has

preserved the purity of Orthodoxy. We raise your all-honourable name in

services and ask your blessing on our beginning.”

Since the Russian bishops were never allowed to speak personally to

Metropolitan Vitaly, Archbishop Lazarus entrusted this letter to Protopriest

Vladimir, now Bishop Irenaeus, to deliver personally to the metropolitan in

Mansonville. Bishop Vladimir refused to allow Fr. Vladimir to see the

metropolitan (“you have arrived without warning”), but Vladyka Vitaly,

hearing that a priest from Archbishop Lazarus in Russia had come to see him

personally, immediately accepted him and gave him hospitality for several

days. In these days Fr. Vladimir managed to convince the metropolitan that

Archbishop Lazarus was unanimous with him on all important questions of

Church life, so that the metropolitan was able to write a small letter for the

archbishop in which he said: “With all my heart I wish you spiritual and

archpastoral success in our great common archpastoral stand in the Truth”.

Then, three days later, on February 26 / March 11, on the official notepaper of

the First-Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad, Metropolitan Vitaly wrote

to Archbishop Lazarus in his own handwriting: “May God bless you to carry

out the consecration of new bishops. You must create your own Hierarchical

Synod which would be in concord with our Hierarchical Synod. At the next

Hierarchical Sobor I will inform all our hierarchs about this situation. Let us

be with Russia of one mind and of one soul, while having separate

administrations. Church life itself virtually dictates this to us.”

This was good and important news. And so on April 4/17 – 5/18, at the

Second All-Russian Conference of hierarchs, clergy and laity of RTOC in

Voronezh under the presidency of the head of the Hierarchical Conference

Archbishop Lazarus and his deputy Bishop Benjamin,. “the decision was

taken, on the basis of the Holy Canons, the Decree of the Holy Patriarch

50

Tikhon no. 362 and the Directive-Testament of Metropolitan Vitaly of

February 26 / March 11, 2002, to carry out hierarchical ordinations for RTOC

and to transform the Hierarchical Conference of Russian Bishops of RTOC

that had been created with the blessing of the Hierarchical Council of ROCOR

in 1994 into the Hierarchical Synod of RTOC.”80 Maintaining their continued

devotion to Metropolitan Vitaly, the Conference reproached Bishop Barnabas

for the various anticanonical actions conducted against them in the past, but

nevertheless called for peace and cooperation between them.81

On April 19, Archbishop Barnabas replied angrily, calling the Conference’s

address to him “shame” and “deception”, and saying that the “Lazarite

schism foreseen by us is trying to wipe her [ROCOR (V)] finally off the face of

the earth”.82 On April 20, Metropolitan Vitaly met Bishops Sergius and

Vladimir and four North American priests, including Fr. Victor Melehov, in

Mansonville. They decreed that “in spite of the fact that his Eminence

Metropolitan Vitaly gave his personal agreement, the decision on the creation

of an ecclesiastical administration in Russia is in the competence of the whole

of the Hierarchical Council. Before and without a conciliar decision, in spite of

the 34th Canon of the Holy Apostles [which decrees that nothing should be

done by the hierarchs without the agreement of the first-hierarch, and viceversa],

that is, in view of its uncanonicity, no separate administration in

Russia can be formed. Consequently, hierarchical consecrations can take place

in Russia only after a decision of the Hierarchical Council of ROCOR.”

The irony of this statement consisted in the fact that “the Lazarites” had

been calling for a Hierarchical Council consistently since the very foundation

of ROCOR (V), but Zhukov, followed by his puppet Bishop Barnabas83, had

always argued against it!

Bishop Benjamin then asked Metropolitan Vitaly: “Should we carry out

hierarchical consecrations, or should we refrain from this until a final

conciliar decision on the basis of the 34th Apostolic Canon?” He also informed

him that Archbishop Lazarus had three candidates for hierarchical

consecration and that the consecrations were appointed for Bright Week.

Metropolitan Vitaly replied that this question was “exceptionally important

and needed a conciliar decision”.84

80 Shumilo, op. cit.

81 “Obraschenie rasshirennogo Eparkhial’nogo sobrania Odessko-Tambovskoj i

Chernomorsko-Kubanskoj eparkhij k Ego Preosviaschenstvu Preosviannejshemu Varnave

Arkhiepiskopu Kannskomu i Evropejskomu”, http://russia-talk.com.otkliki/ot-213.htm. See

also A. Ter-Grigorian, “Rasshirennoe Eparkhial’noe Sobranie Odessko-Tambovskoj i

Chernomorsko-Kubanskom Eparkhii RPTsZ (V) v Voronezhe vyrazhaet nedoverie RPATs”,

http://www.romanitas.ru/Actual/Voronezh.htm.

82 Vertograd, № 241, 20 April, 2002; Tserkovnie Novosti, № 4 (105), May, 2002, p. 4.

83 As Zhukov said to the present writer in Paris in November, 2002, “Bishop Barnabas is the

heart of this diocese, but I am the head”!

84 Tserkovnie Novosti, № 4 (105), May, 2002, p. 5.

51

In May Archbishop Lazarus and his Diocesan Council asked again for the

summoning of a Council, but with the following “necessary preconditions”: (i)

the cessation of all hostile actions and propaganda against the Russian

Bishops, and an apology for the latest public insults; (ii) the cessation of

attempts to usurp ecclesiastical power by exploiting the difficult position of

the first hierarch; (iii) respect for the rights of the Russian Bishops, including

those that were given them by the decree of Metropolitan Vitaly in March; (iv)

a clear declaration by the non-Russian bishops whether they were intending

to establish a Church in Russia, or join Suzdal or the Greek Old Calendarists.

It should be pointed out that the fact that the Russian bishops were ready

to join with ROCOR (V) in a common Council did not mean that they

accepted any of the consecrations carried out by ROCOR (V) since they were

contrary to the holy canons and the ROCOR’s Statute. And so Archbishop

Lazarus continued not to recognize the “Mansonville Synod of Vicars”. 85

Spring passed into summer, and still no Sobor was convened. Finally, in

August, despairing of the possibility of the convening of a Sobor that would

discuss all these questions as well as the consecration of bishops for Russia,

the Russian bishops consecrated four new bishops: Tikhon of Omsk and

Siberia, Hermogen of Chernigov and Gomel, Irenaeus of Verney and

Semirechiye and Dionysius of Novgorod and Tver. 86 They felt that they had

the right to do this, on the basis not only of Metropolitan Vitaly’s blessing, but

also Patriarch Tikhon’s ukaz no. 362 of November 20, 1920.

On August 21, however, Metropolitan Vitaly and four ROCOR (V)

hierarchs condemned the consecrations as “uncanonical” and the initiators of

it as being “outside the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad”.87 Archbishop

Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin were then condemned without a trial or

summoning to a trial. For, as Zhukov argued, “to summon Bishops Lazarus

and Benjamin to a Sobor would be a crime against our Church. Since any

variant of their presence at the Sobor, whether to recognize or not to

85 Only in his declaration “with regard to the Resolution of the Conference of the North

American Bishops of ROCOR on April 7/20, 2002”, did he declare himself ready to accept it

as “a temporary ecclesiastical administration, carrying out chancellery duties attached to the

Metropolitan”.(Lebedev, op. cit.)

86 Eugene Sokolov writes: “In an interview for radio given to me by Vladyka Tikhon during

his recent visit to the USA, the president of the Russian True Orthodox Church told me that

Vladyka Lazarus at first demanded the convening of a Council at which it would be possible

to discuss all questions, including the ordinations, but certain forces slowed down [the

convening of] this Council. In the words of Vladyka Tikhon, the new ordinations were carried

out only after it became evident that the promised Council would not take place” (“S Bol’noj

Golovy na Zdorovuiu”, Nasha Strana (Argentina), N 2821, June 2, 2007, p. 4).

87 http://www.russia-talk.com/otkliki/ot-238.htm; Tserkovnie Novosti, № 10 (111), October,

2002, pp. 3-5. On November 1/14 Metropolitan Vitaly and Archbishop Barnabas confirmed

the decree of August 8/21 expelling the Russian bishops from the Church (Church News,

December, 2002, vol. 13, № 12 (113), p. 5).

52

recognize the consecrations carried out by them, or for a trial on them

themselves, would lead to the annihilation of our Russian Orthodox Church

Abroad.”88

So, according to this logic, to expel the Russian bishops through a lawful

canonical trial would be more destructive of the Church than to expel them

uncanonically and without a trial!

Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin never received official

notification that they were banned from serving. 89 They continued to

recognize Metropolitan Vitaly as head of their Church, declaring that his

signatures were being forged and that he was “in captivity” to Protopriest

Benjamin Zhukov and L.D. Rosnianskaia “and in complete isolation from the

external world”.90 The present writer has personal experience of this. In

January, 2003, in Mansonville, Rosnianskaia blocked his and Hieromonk

Augustine Lim’s access to the metropolitan, although Bishop Sergius of

Mansonville had given his blessing…

Having finally succeeded in manipulating the expulsion of the Russian

bishops, Zhukov now proceeded to further purges within the church

organization that he controlled. The American priests led by Fr. Victor

Melehov had been shown alarming signs of a concern for canonical order. So

it was now their turn…

The movement to oust Melehov had begun some months before. In June,

2002 he was informed by Bishop Vladimir that he was the secretary only of

North America. In July, he was told by Bishop Vladimir that he recalled that

Fr. Benjamin Zhukov was in fact the secretary of ROCiE. In September, Fr.

Victor made preparations for Metropolitan Vitaly’s visit to Russia, but the

visit was stopped by Zhukov. In October, he began to receive anonymous

letters telling him that he would be suspended and defrocked.91

And so, writes Fr. Victor, “when, in October, 2002, there was published on

the official site of ROCOR (ROCiE) the preconciliar report of the secretary of

ROCOR (ROCiE), Protopresbyter Victor Melehov, on the situation of the

ROCOR, together with a projected confession of faith to be sent to the flock,

Protopresbyter Victor Melehov did not only not receive any response from

the hierarchs on the ecclesiological questions, but was subjected to reproaches

by Bishop Vladimir for publishing this report.

88 Zhukov, Open Letter to Fr. Stefan Krasovitsky, September 14/27, 2002.

89 Sokolov, op. cit.

90 “Zaiavlenie Kantseliarii Arkhierejskogo Sinoda RPTsZ (V-L) o nedavnikh pis’makh

mitropolita Vitalia”, Vertograd, № 376, 22 August, 2003. See also the declaration of June 24,

published in Vertograd, № 369, June 28, 2003; Church News, vol. 14, № 66 (120), pp. 3-5.

91 Nathanael Kapner, based on an interview with Fr. Victor.

53

“Some hope that the hierarchs would be able to come out with an

Orthodox confession of faith appeared after Bishops Bartholomew and

Sergius, at the beginning of November, 2002, in response to the worries of the

North American clerics, signed a letter-appeal demanding the immediate

convening of a Hierarchical Council, the removal of the commission that was

blocking its convening, the resolution of the problem with Archbishop

Lazarus and the necessity of the acceptance of a confession of faith by the

clergy of ROCOR (ROCiE). Bishops Bartholomew and Sergius also signed the

text of this confession of faith. However, after talking to Bishop Vladimir and

Archbishop Barnabas, they withdrew their signatures.

“Bishop Bartholomew decided to compose a new appeal to all the clergy

and faithful of ROCiE on the catastrophic situation of ROCiE and the

necessity of accepting a confession of faith. This letter of November 13/26,

2002, together with the former text of the confession of faith, was again signed

by Bishop Bartholomew. However, on the very day when the letter should

have been placed on the official site, Bishop Bartholomew again withdrew his

signature, fearing, in his words, ‘to bite the bullet’.

“This letter was nevertheless published on the official site of ROCiE signed

only by the secretary of ROCiE, Protopresbyter Victor Melehov, and the dean

of the Western American deanery, Protopriest Joseph Sunderland. The

confession of faith was signed by these clerics and by Priests Michael

Martsinovsky, Andrew Kencis and Mark Smith.

“The letter had not been on the official site of ROCiE for one day before it

was removed on the demand of the episcopate of ROCiE, and many learned

of its contents from other sources.

“On December 9, 2002, Bishop Bartholomew officially informed us that his

signature on the appeal of the North American clerics was invalid and was

being removed (and this in spite of the fact that the appeal had been

published without his signature)…”92

The final act in this shameful episode was the uncanonical expulsion of the

still-unyielding American clerics led by Fr. Victor Melehov. It was officially

announced on January 18, 2003 that he had never been secretary of the

ROCOR (V), that he had been admitted into the Church “by an oversight”

and that he was actually a defrocked ex-clergyman.93 In February, Fr. Victor

received a letter from Metropolitan Vitaly, Bishops Barnabas, Bartholomew

and others stating that “ROCiE does not know Fr. Victor Melehov”. This was

the height of anti-canonical arbitrariness: no trial, no summons to a trial, not

even a more or less plausible accusation, but only: “We do not know you”!

92 Melehov, “The French Ecclesiology and the Fall of ROCOR” (MS).

93 See the commentary on this by A. Ter-Grigorian, “Liubov’, smirenie, dobrota – i chuvstvo

iumora”, and “Zhivie i mertvy”, www.romanitas.ru/aktualnoe.

54

Fr. Victor summed up the situation well: “Factually speaking, the ship of

our Church is without direction and is being borne along in complete

darkness and obscurity… The main aim of the Synod of Laurus - to paralyze

the activity of the Metropolitan as First-Hierarch and not to allow the

restoration of our Synod – has been attained… Our brothers in France

apparently do not even realize that they are in the same camp as the Synod of

Laurus and the other opponents of our Church, who are abusing the

Metropolitan-elder in every way…”94

On June 22 / July 5, 2003, “the canonical organ of administration of the

parishes of RTOC – the Hierarchical Conference of Russian Bishops – was

transformed into the Hierarchical Synod of the Russian True Orthodox

Church as ‘a small constantly acting council of bishops’ (literally the word

‘synod’ in Greek means gathering, council). The oldest Russian hierarch,

Archbishop Lazarus of Odessa and Tambov, was elected as President of the

Hierarchical Synod of RTOC.”95

On June 24 / July 7, 2005, shortly after the death of Archbishop Lazarus,

Bishop Tikhon of Omsk and Siberia was elected first-hierarch of the Russian

True Orthodox Church.

94 “Ocherednie chistki”, op. cit.

95 Shumilo, “Apostasia”, op. cit.

55

V. THE PLOTTERS FALL INTO THEIR OWN PIT

Archbishop Barnabas was now at the height of his power. However, his

fall was to be precipitate. Anton Ter-Grigorian writes: “Soon after getting rid

of Fr. Victor [Melehov] and the priests and laity who supported him,

Archbishop Barnabas lost the need for the all-powerful cleric of his diocese,

Protopriest Benjamin Zhukov, who after the ‘general victory’ over ‘the

Melehov schism’ began to demonstrate too much independence… He was

soon distanced from closeness with Archbishop Barnabas, and the closest

advisor of the ‘deputy of the First Hierarch’ again became Protodeacon

Germanus Ivanov-Trinadtsaty.” 96

His power began to slip at the Sobor which Zhukov now graciously

allowed to convene from May 3/16 to 7/20, 2003. Three candidates were put

forward for the episcopacy: Archimandrite Anthony (Rudej), as vicar of the

European diocese with the title Bishop of Balt and Moldovia; Hieromonk

Anastasius (Surzhik), as ruling Bishop of the Far Eastern diocese with the title

Bishop of Vladivostok and the Far East; and Priest Victor Pivovarov, as a vicar

of the European diocese with the title Bishop of Slavyansk and South Russia.

These candidacies were confirmed, although Archbishop Barnabas was

opposed to that of Pivovarov. He asked instead that the candidacy of

Archimandrite Alexis (Makrinov) and Hieromonk Joseph (Philosophov) be

considered. He also asked that all priests and laymen coming from the

dioceses of Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin should be received by

repentance.97

On June 26, 2003 Archbishop Barnabas issued an ukaz criticizing Zhukov

for anti-canonical behaviour, and demanding that he return his diocesan seal

and facsimile signature, which Barnabas suspected he had been using

unlawfully. Zhukov rejected the ukaz and flatly refused to give back the seal

and signature. Instead, he stirred up such a vicious campaign against the

bishop that “six out of the eight ‘French’ parishes very soon began to demand

from the Synod ‘the replacement of the Bishop’ and even ‘the defrocking of

Archbishop Barnabas’.” Barnabas was forced to leave the parish. Taking

advantage of his master’s absence, Zhukov summoned Bishops Vladimir and

Sergius from Canada, who, on Archbishop Barnabas’ canonical territory, and

against his will, proceeded to consecrate Fr. Victor Ponovarov - who was not

only a KGB agent with the nickname “Ponomar” 98 , but had also been

96 Ter-Grigorian, “Kuriezy: Episkopy RPTsZ (v) pytaiutsa reshit’ svoi naibolee ser’ieznie

kanonicheskie problemy, odnovremenno prodolzhaia oblichat’ ‘melekhovskij raskol’”,

http://romanitas.ru/Actual/Sin.htm.

97 “Iz protokola Zasedanij Arkhierejskogo Sobora Russkoj Pravoslavnoj Tserkvi Zagranitsej”,

http://www.listok.com/sobor204.htm

98 In January, 2004 the secretary of ROCiE’s Diocesan Assembly, V. Cherkasov-Georgievsky,

quoted a KGB document describing a visit to a Christian Peace Conference in America by

Bishop Victor, then a cleric of the Moscow Patriarchate, and working for the KGB under the

code-name “Sacristan” (“Ponomar”) (Head of the fourth department of the Fifth

56

defrocked by his former bishop, Benjamin of the Black Sea, and was

considered to be a heretic by Bishop Sergius – and Fr. Anastasy (Surzhik) to

the episcopate. Several weeks after this scandalous event, Archbishop

Barnabas received his diocesan seal and facsimile signature in the post from

Zhukov – they were no longer needed by him!99

Zhukov then proceeded to convene a Synod meeting from November

14/27 to 16/29, at which three independent dioceses were formed. The

Russian part of Archbishop Barnabas’ diocese was removed from him and

divided between Bishop Anthony of Moldova, who took Ukraine, Belorussia,

Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, and Bishop of Victor of South Russia, who took

the North-West, the Centre, the Volga and the Southern regions of Russia

with Georgia, while “separating those parishes whose priests want to

continue commemorating Archbishop Barnabas”. As for Barnabas himself, he

was confined to Western Europe. Bishop Anastasy’s Far Eastern diocese was

enlarged to include the Japanese islands, Korea and China (where there were

no ROCOR parishes!), while the Siberian diocese (including the Urals district

and Kazakhstan) was also entrusted temporarily to Bishop Anastasy.

Then the bishops declared Archbishop Barnabas’ acceptance of some

Romanian new calendarist parishes into his diocese as uncanonical 100 ,

removed Barnabas’ title of “Deputy of the First Hierarch”, and defrocked one

of his clerics, Hieromonk Seraphim (Baranchikov), for immorality.101

On November 6/19, 2004 the Synod issued the following anathematization:

“To those who affirm the antichristian heresy of Sergianism; who teach that

the Church of Christ is supposedly saved by union with the enemies of Christ,

and reject the exploit of martyrdom and confession, and construct a false

church on the foundation of Judas, and for its sake permit the transgression

and distortion of Christian teaching, canons and moral laws; who command

Christians to bow down to the God-hating authorities as if they were given by

God, and to serve them not out of fear but for conscience’s sake, blessing all

their iniquities; who justify the persecutions against the True Church of Christ

at the hands of the God-haters, thinking thereby that they serve God, as was

done in fact by the continuers of the renovationist heresy, Metropolitan

Sergius and all his followers – Anathema!”

Administration of the KGB, Colonel V.I. Timoshevsky, f. 6, op. 12, N 110, d. III-175, t. 1;

quoted in http://cherksoft.narod.ru/mit13.htm)

99 Ter-Grigorian, op. cit.; “Ocherednie chistki…”, op. cit.

100 “In late 2003,” writes Fr. Spyridon Schneider, “it became apparent that Bishop Barnabas of

Cannes had nullified an ukaz by Metropolitan Vitaly which prohibited new calendar

churches from entering into communion with the Russian Church Abroad. When Bishop

Barnabas was confronted with the fact that he had new calendar Romanian parishes under

his omophorion in France, he denied the charges” (e-mail to Theophan Costello, January 2,

2008)

101 “Postanovlenia Arkhierejskogo Sinoda RPTsZ ot 14/27 po 16/29 noiabria 2003g.”,

http://www.listok.com/sobor219htm.

57

But right-believing anathemas could not conceal the inner corruption of the

Synod. For Archbishop Barnabas, the coup de grâce was not long in coming.

On December 7, 2003, striking out against his tormentors, Archbishop

Barnabas banned Protopriest Benjamin Zhukov from serving.102 However, on

January 19, 2004, brushing aside an explanatory letter from Archbishop

Barnabas103, Metropolitan Vitaly and the North American bishops declared

this act to be invalid, saying that Barnabas had “exceeded his rights”

(although Fr. Benjamin was a priest of Archbishop Barnabas’ diocese, and

directly subject to his authority), and placing him “in retirement”.104 On July 8

the Synod banned him from serving.105 On July 25 he wrote a penitential letter

to Metropolitan Vitaly, repenting of many of his acts in the last few years.106

But this repentance only enraged his enemies. At the November Hierarchical

Sobor he was defrocked - naturally, without a trial or summons to a trial…107

102 The reason, according to Vertograd (№ 420, January 23, 2004) was as follows: “Archbishop

Barnabas doubted the authenticity of the signature of the first hierarch Metropolitan Vitaly on

an ukaz of December 4/28 [sic], according to which a part of the West European diocese was

placed under the omophorion of Bishop Victor (Pivovarov) of Slaviansk and South Russia.

This served as a reason for the ban on Fr. Benjamin Zhukov, whom Archbishop Barnabas

accused of forging the document since he was secretary of the Synod. From the letters in

defence of Protopriest Benjamin Zhukov it appears that he could have been so bold as to sign

for Metropolitan Vitaly, although, as these declarations say in his justification, with the

knowledge of all the hierarchs of the Synod.

“The ukaz banning Fr. Benjamin was issued by Archbishop Barnabas at the beginning of

December, 2003, but Fr. Benjamin was acquainted with it only at the beginning of January,

moreover completely by accident.

“The true reason for the conflict between the hierarch and Protopriest Benjamin Zhukov

was the refusal of Archbishop Barnabas to take part in the consecration of a bishop for Russia

– that is, of Bishop Victor of Slaviansk and South Russia. In June, 2003 in the church of the

New Martyrs of Russia near Paris, where Fr. Benjamin serves, consecrations of bishops for

Russia took place. The consecrations were carried out to a large extent at the request of the

Russian members of ROCOR (V) to give bishops and create new independent dioceses on the

territory of Russia. Earlier they were in the European diocese under the omophorion of

Archbishop Barnabas. Archbishop Barnabas’ ecclesiology and certain dubious actions of his

from a canonical point of view had long elicited the anxiety of the Russian flock. Fearing to

lose parishes on the territory of Russia, Archbishop Barnabas refused to take part in the

consecration of Vladyka Victor.”

103 “Obraschenie Arkhiepiskopa Varnavy k Episkopam Sergiu, Vladimiru i Varfolomeiu po

povodu Istinnogo Polozhenia v RPTsZ (V)” (Vertograd, № 439, March 6, 2004).

104 See the article by Zhukov and his supporters, “Obzor Polozhenia v Zapadno-Evropejskoj

Eparkhii RPTsZ (V): Otkrytoe Pis’mo Klirikov”, http://cherksoft.narod.ru/mut96.htm;

Vertograd, № 473, June 15, 2004.

105 http://listok.com/sobor243.htm.

106 http://catacomb.org.ua/modules.php?name=Pages&go=page&pid=639

107 “A few clergy in France and Fr. Anatoly Trepatschko, his family and parish in the USA

joined Bishop Barnabas. Later, Bishop Barnabas, the founding hierarch of ROCiE finally

returned to ROCOR under the omophorion of Metropolitan Laurus… When Bishop Barnabas

returned to the Synod of Metropolitan Laurus, Fr. Anatoly, his family and his parish went

under the omophorion of Archbishop Tikhon of the Lazarus Synod.” (Schneider, e-mail to

Theophan Costello, January 2, 2008.)

58

On January 27 / February 9, 2005 Archbishop Barnabas issued a

“sorrowful epistle” in which he said that he did not recognize “the so called

‘Mansonville Synod’” as having any power or significance, since “it had

shown its complete incompetence and its deeply uncanonical conduct of its

affairs”. 108 Shortly after this, Barnabas joined the Synod of Metropolitan

Laurus, recognizing the original ban placed on him in April, 2001…109

The further disintegration of the Mansonville Synod was now unstoppable.

On June 3, 2006 the Synod’s official site published a declaration of Zhukov,

Bishop Vladimir and Bishop Bartholomew, announcing that power in their

Synod had been seized by Archbishop Anthony (Orlov), Bishop Victor

(Pivovarov) and a certain Irina Mitse-Goldberg. Anthony declared

Metropolitan Vitaly to be incompetent, made charges against Bishops

Vladimir and Bartholomew, and took over the Church with Bishop Victor.

Archbishop Anthony was a married man who, secretly from Metropolitan

Vitaly and his own wife, had been consecrated to the episcopate in 2002 in

Paris by Bishops Barnabas and Sergius. For two years, this consecration had

been a secret, and was only revealed in 2004 on the internet. For a long time

Metropolitan Vitaly did not recognize this consecration, but Zhukov finally

forced him to give in. Although all the bishops knew that Anthony, as Priest

Nicholas Orlov, had been living in a church marriage with his wife at the time

of his consecration, they still recognized it, and even, at Zhukov’s insistence,

raised him to the rank of “archbishop” and “deputy of the First-Hierarch” in

place of Barnabas. Anthony’s church divorce was formalized two years after

his consecration. His civil marriage remained in force…110

On June 22, 2006 Metropolitan Vitaly, under pressure from Archbishop

Anthony (Orlov), Bishop Victor (Pivovarov) and Archimandrites Damascene

(Balabanov) and Stefan (Babaev), were invited to the local police station so

that the metropolitan could officially, without outside influence, express his

will regarding the presence of Archbishop Anthony and others in his

residence in Mansonville. When the police officer asked: “Does Metr. Vitaly

wish that Orlov, Pivovarov, Balabanov, Babaev and Mitze leave the territory

of the Transfiguration Skete?” the metropolitan replied firmly: “Yes, I wish

it.” Archbishop Anthony tried to persuade the metropolitan to change his

mind, but the police officer told him: “Enough. The answer has been

received.” The Russian group were then asked by the police to leave

Mansonville before July 25. The next day, June 23, Archbishop Anthony

issued an ukaz saying that “he counts this his duty temporarily to take over

the administration of ROCOR” because of the poor health of the metropolitan,

“who is not able sometimes even to recognize his deputy and bishops”

because of the “inconsistence and false ukases cancelling the previous ukase

108 http://catacomb.org.ua/modules.php?name=Pages&go=page&pid=639

109 http://catacomb.org.ua/modules.php?name=Pages&go=page&pid=924.

110 “Ocherednie chiski…”, op. cit.

59

signed by the First Hierarch” and because of the “malicious isolation of the

First Hierarch”.111

The disintegration continued. In 2006 Archbishop Victor broke from

Bishop Anthony and formed his own Synod together with Bishop Damascene

(Balabanov). They later split again…. Archbishop Anthony, meanwhile, had

taken to calling himself “Metropolitan of Moscow, Los Angeles and all

Abroad”!

Fr. Spyridon Schneider writes: “The repose of Metropolitan Vitaly on

September 12/25, 2006 marked a turning point in the life of ROCiE. When

Metropolitan Vitaly reposed… there were four bishops remaining in the

Vitaly Synod. Bishop Vladimir of San Francisco and Western America, Bishop

Bartholomew of Edmonton and Western Canada (who is in the advanced

stages of Parkinson’s disease and has severe dementia), Bishop Anthony of

Moldova and Bishop Anastassy of Vladivostok. Bishop Vladimir became

temporary acting First Hierarch on the basis of the fact that he, at the age of

thirty nine, was the oldest bishop by ordination.

“… In the early winter of 2006 Protopriest Benjamin Zhukov and Bishop

Anthony of Moldova sent Protopriest Nicholas Semenov from Brussels to

Edmonton, Canada with a document for Bishop Bartholomew to sign.

Through intrigue and deceit Bishop Bartholomew, not knowing and

understanding what he was signing, applied his signature to this document.

The document was an ukaz retiring Bishop Anastassy of Vladivostok. This

action was taken in a totally uncanonical and unethical manner, without due

process, without a meeting of the Synod, without the presence of the Acting

First Hierarch and without following the Regulations which govern the

Russian Church Abroad.”112

On May 12, 2007, continues Fr. Spyridon, “at a meeting with Bishop

Vladimir which included Archpriest Constantine Fyodorov, Archpriest

Spyridon Schneider and Priest Andrew Kencis, Bishop Vladimir explained

that he intends to call a Sobor of Bishops with the full knowledge and

expectation that Bishop Anthony of Moldova and the Secretary of the Synod,

Archbishop Benjamin Zhukov, will not attend. Bishop Vladimir explained

that he will call the Sobor in Edmonton, Canada so that Bishop

Bartholomew… can participate in the first session of the Sobor. Bishop

Vladimir further explained that if Protopriest Zhukov and Bishop Anthony

do not come to the Sobor, as expected, then Bishop Vladimir, Bishop

Bartholomew and Bishop Anastasy will constitute a quorum. Therefore when

the meeting is convened the first item on the agenda will be to consider and

accept Bishop Bartholomew’s petition to retire from one year ago. This

decision will be made with the vote of Bishop Bartholomew. Once Bishop

111 Vertograd, N 53, June 25, 2006.

112 Schneider, e-mail to Theophan Costello, January 2, 2008.

60

Bartholomew is retired then he will no longer participate, nor will he be

counted as a member of the Synod. Consequently, Bishop Vladimir and

Bishop Anastasy will then have a two-third majority of the votes which

would allow them to go forward with their agenda for the future of the

Church. Bishop Vladimir further explained that Fr. Benjamin Zhukov,

although he is secretary of the Synod and has always voted in the Synod

meetings, will not have a vote because he is a priest and not a bishop…”113

Zhukov could never submit to such a demotion. On November 1/14, 2007,

at his inciting, Bishop Anthony (Rudej) of Moldova, secretly and on his own,

consecrated Archimandrite Seraphim (Skuratov) as Bishop of Birmingham,

and then with Bishop Seraphim ordained Fr. Roman Apostolescu as Bishop of

Brussels.114 Zhukov had now created his own “catacomb church” – in the free

West!

With the departure of Zhukov from the scene of the Synod he both created

and destroyed, we shall end our account of ROCOR (V). The disintegration

has continued in recent years, as was only to be expected. For, as the Greek

Old Calendarist Confessor Papa Nicholas Planas said, “Whatever has been

done uncanonically cannot stand – it will fall…”115

113 Schneider, e-mail to Theophan Costello, January 2, 2008.

114 http://kirillov-v-y.livejournal.com/2291.html#cutid1

115 Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Boston, Papa-Nicholas Planas.

61

VI. HERESYAND CORRUPTION IN SUZDAL

The second bishop to be consecrated for ROCOR inside Russia during the

1990s, after Archbishop Lazarus, was Bishop Valentine (Rusantsev) of Suzdal.

Having been unlawfully expelled by the ROCOR in 1996 together with three

other bishops consecrated by him and Archbishop Lazarus,116 and having

taken part neither in the dogmatic errors of the shameful October Sobor of

2000, nor in the canonical violations of both ROCOR (L) and ROCOR (V) in

2001, the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church (ROAC) under

Metropolitan Valentine was in a relatively strong canonical position at the

beginning of the new millennium. However, strong suspicions had often been

voiced about the personality and history of the first hierarch himself, who

while in the MP had received many medals from the God-fighting state and

had two charges of homosexuality against him dropped – through the

intervention of the KGB, as many thought. His relatively strong performance

in the 1990s had begun to dispel these suspicions; but now a new threat

appeared which exposed his real character, and the weakness of his Church

organization, in a glaringly unattractive light…

The threat appeared in the form of a group of intellectualist refugees from

ROCOR in St. Petersburg, led by the Byzantinist (although some Byzantinists

would deny him that title) Basil Lourié. From the beginning of their entrance

into ROAC in 1999, this group made no secret of their plans to “reform” it in

accordance with their perverted understanding of patristic tradition, which

involved: a heretical, Manichaean approach to marriage and sexuality; an

almost Nietzschean fascination with popular culture and rock music and its

cult of death and suicide 117 ; an extremely negative attitude to the prerevolutionary

Russian Church; a cool attitude towards the Catacomb Church

and her martyrs and confessors; a “positive” attitude towards Stalin; an

approval of the “name-worshipping” heresy of Fr. Anthony Bulatovich; and

several other deviations.

However, Metropolitan Valentine was only too eager to use this group to

raise the educational standard of his clergy and the general profile of ROAC

in Russian society. He blessed their often interesting, but also often highly

controversial publications, especially Vertograd-Inform (which began life in

ROCOR), which the Petersburg group published in collaboration with other

“near-Church” intellectuals, such as Alexander Soldatov (the chief editor),

Egor Kholmogorov and Michael Kiselev. And, overlooking Lourié’s

116 V. Moss, “Rossijskaia Pravoslavnaia Avtonomnaia Tserkov’ – kratkaia istoria (1992-1998)”,

Suzdal'skie Eparkhial'nie Vedomosti, N8, June-September, 1999, pp. 7-18; “The Russian

Orthodox Autonomous Church - A Short History (1982-1998)”, Vertograd, NN16-17,

February-March, 2000, pp. 12-37.

117 On this, perhaps the most alarming of all the various aspects of Lourie’s heresies, see

Hieromonk Nectarius (Yashunsky), “Ne ktomu zmej”,

http://www.romanitas.ru/Actual/Zmei.htm.

62

unscrupulous use of mafia connections118 and his uncanonical abandonment

of his wife and child, he ordained him to the priesthood.

Alarm-bells began to ring in 2000, when Lourié published a book entitled

The Calling of Abraham, which claimed that sexual relations in marriage were

sinful, and that the celibate and monastics possessed the grace of the New

Testament, while the married were merely “Old Testament Christians”.

Alarmed by criticisms of this work, the metropolitan, instead of investigating

the book himself and coming to a decision about it in the Synod, blessed the

publication of a critique of Lourié’s book by four authors (including the

present writer) entitled Marriage, the Law and Grace (Moscow, 2001).

In the winter of 2000-2001 further alarm was caused when a disciple of

Lourié, Hierodeacon Theophanes (Areskin), began a series of lectures to

clergy in Suzdal in which he praised the “name-worshipping” heresy of Fr.

Anthony Bulatovich, who was condemned by Patriarch Tikhon and the

Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church. 119 The leader of the attacks on Lourié

and Areskin was Protopriest Andrew Osetrov, the secretary of the Synod and

a close collaborator with Metropolitan Valentine. In March, the metropolitan

turned to the present writer, asking him to enter into a dialogue with Lourié

in order to ascertain his true views on name-worshipping and other matters,

assuring him (Moss) that if he found his (Lourié’s) views to be heretical, he

would bring him to trial before the Holy Synod.

The dialogue began, and would no doubt have continued peacefully if

Osetrov had not brought the issue to a head in a Synod meeting at the end of

April, during which, supported initially by the Catacomb Archbishop

Seraphim of Sukhumi, he demanded that the metropolitan condemn Lourié.

When the metropolitan refused in a particularly crude form, Osetrov left

ROAC. The next day, at the glorification of Metropolitan Philaret of New

York as a saint of the Russian Church, Archbishop Seraphim served with the

metropolitan, demonstrating his loyalty to him for the time being and his

separation from Osetrov – probably because Osetrov had not contented

himself with attacks on heresy within the Church, but had proceeded publicly

to accuse the metropolitan of paedophilia…

Osetrov told parishioners in Suzdal that he had a video film showing

interviews of adolescents admitting to intimate relations with the

metropolitan. This film turned out to be less incriminating than Osetrov

claimed, and would in any case have been inadmissible as evidence in a court

118 See Deacon Nikolai Savchenko, “Ob obstoiatel’stvakh vykhoda iz redsoveta zhurnala

Vertograd”, http://www.romanitas.ru/Actual/savchenko.htm.

119 For a detailed exposure of this heresy, see V.Moss, “The Name of God and the Nameworshipping

Heresy”,

http://www.orthodoxchristianbooks.com/downloads/69_ON_THE_NAME_OF_GOD.pdf,

http://www.orthodoxchristianbooks.com/downloads/287_THE_NAME_OF_GOD_Russian

_.pdf

63

of law. More serious was the accusation of the well-respected Hieromonk

Paisius (Gorbunov) that he personally had witnessed a homosexual act of

Metropolitan Valentine in 1995. Enormous pressure was brought to bear on Fr.

Paisius, who repented of his accusation, then reaffirmed it and fled into

hiding (with the help of his spiritual father, Archbishop Seraphim).

The metropolitan now demanded the defrocking of those clerics (about

five) who accused him of immorality, and eventually obtained the signatures

of the other bishops – although Archbishop Seraphim delayed signing for six

weeks. Between June and August the Vladimir newspaper Prizyv printed a

series of eight articles in support of Osetrov’s accusations. Fighting to stay out

of prison, the metropolitan claimed that Prizyv had received direct orders

from the Vladimir public prosecutor’s office and regional administration to

publish “compromising material on Valentine”.

In an interview with Keston College’s Geraldine Fagan on March 26, 2002,

Osetrov “maintained that, since Metropolitan Valentin had actively restored

churches whereas the Moscow Patriarchate had been quite incompetent in

that area, he had ‘enjoyed some kind of protection’ from the Suzdal

authorities. Fr Osetrov admitted that he himself had been instrumental in

maintaining this state of affairs throughout the ten years during which he had

worked as synodal secretary to Metropolitan Valentin, initially having been

ordained in ROCA. When any accusations against the Metropolitan of

homosexual practice - a criminal offence in Russia until 1993 - or sexual abuse

were made, he said, he ‘arranged everything so that they died away or got

lost in bureaucratic channels.’ Once he had been removed after protesting that

ROAC clergy who preached heresies were not being dealt with, said Fr

Osetrov, his protection of Metropolitan Valentin had ceased: ‘This time I

gathered evidence and sent it to reliable people in the Lubyanka [the

headquarters of the FSB] and the Vladimir public prosecutor's office.’ Had the

affair been left to the Suzdal public prosecutor, he maintained, ‘it would have

been completely covered up.’

“When Keston asked how Fr Osetrov had managed to serve in the ROAC

for ten years without suspecting Metropolitan Valentin, he replied that the

accusation of homosexuality (golubizna) was commonly used as an easy way

of discrediting a person in the Soviet period. While the rumours about

Metropolitan Valentin grew from year to year, he said, they were at first

vague and he was disinclined to believe them until some of his own children

began to relate details they had heard at school. Fr Osetrov said that he then

discovered that the Suzdal authorities' protection of Metropolitan Valentin

dated back to 1988 – ‘I was shocked, both the local police and administration

knew everything.’ In that year, said Fr Osetrov, local police investigated the

then criminal activities of 70 homosexuals in Vladimir region, including then

Archimandrite Valentin. An article in the May-September issue of Suzdal

Diocesan News, partially edited by Fr Osetrov, contains computer scans from

64

the original police files on Criminal Case No. 0543, including various witness

statements graphically describing homosexual activity involving

Archimandrite Valentin. According to Fr Osetrov, this was why the Moscow

Patriarchate attempted to transfer Archimandrite Valentin from the town of

Suzdal, in response to which he ultimately left the Moscow Patriarchate. In

his view, the only possible reason why Archimandrite Valentin was not

prosecuted by the authorities at that time was because ‘he was working for

the KGB,’ who, he said, most probably used his sexual orientation to

compromise him.

“When interviewed by Keston on 19 October, ROAC Archbishop Feodor

continued to maintain that the allegations against Metropolitan Valentin were

being fuelled by an alliance of the Vladimir authorities and the Moscow

Patriarchate. The parish priest of Suzdal's Kazan Church, Fr Dmitri Ledko,

and Archbishop Yevlogi (Smirnov) of Vladimir and Suzdal were the local

Moscow Patriarchate representatives present at the June 2001 meeting aiming

to ‘sort out Valentin’, thought the archbishop. While declining to confirm

whether such a meeting had indeed taken place, Fr Leonid did tell Keston

that there were anonymous persons in authority who wished to see

Metropolitan Valentin removed, ‘without them there would be no court case

or publications or anything.’”120

Valentine now accepted the help of a very dubious new member of his

Church, the “polittechnologist” and close associate of Putin, Gleb Pavlovsky,

who had been introduced to him, coincidentally, by – Lourié! Pavlovsky

stopped a programme on ORT television attacking Valentine in September,

and offered to pay all the expenses of several lawyers who were employed to

defend the metropolitan; they were to be supervised by Lourié and his closest

associate, Olga Mitrenina. Precisely why Pavlovsky should have chosen to

support the metropolitan at this time was not clear: perhaps, it was suggested,

he was trying to build up “Suzdal” as a counter-weight to the MP, in order to

frighten the latter and extract political concessions from it. In any case, what

was clear was that the metropolitan’s accepting the help of such a

compromised figure, deeply immersed in Kremlin politics and with a history

of betraying dissident enemies of the Soviet régime121, could only come at a

price. It soon became clear what that price was: the relaxation of pressure on

Pavlovsky’s “childhood friend”, Lourié, and the expulsion – by force, if

necessary - of those who persisted in raising the question of Lourié’s heresies.

A vicious whispering campaign had already been started against Lourié’s

(and Pavlovsky’s) main critic, the layman and editor of the internet server

Romanitas, Anton Ter-Grigorian. He was even punched outside the church by

one of Lourié’s cronies, the former parliamentarian Michael Kiselev.

120 Geraldine Fagan, “Russia - Special Report: State Persecution or Protection of Suzdal’s

Breakaway Orthodox?”, Keston News Service, 12 April, 2002.

121 Vladimir Bukovsky, personal communication to the present writer.

65

The present writer also experienced pressure in his efforts to clarify

Lourié’s heresies – a task that had been entrusted to him by the metropolitan

himself. In May, 2001, the metropolitan invited Egor Kholmogorov to mediate

between Moss and Lourié in drawing up an agreed theological statement on

the issue of “name-worshipping”. When Moss rejected the statement

proposed by Kholmogorov and accepted by Lourié as involving an

unacceptable compromise between Orthodoxy and heresy, the metropolitan

terminated the theological dialogue between Lourié and Moss.

Then, in July, he issued an ukaz appointing Moss head of a theological

commission to investigate the long list of Lourié’s blasphemous statements

that had caused commotion in the Church – but stacked the rest of the

commission with all of Lourié’s closest cronies, including Lourié himself, with

only one of the six members, Protopriest Michael Makeev, being of

undoubted Orthodoxy. Moss refused to accept headship of a commission that

would in effect allow those accused of heresy to be judges of their own case,

and reminded the metropolitan of his promise that if he (Moss), after the

concluding of the now-aborted theological dialogue with Lourié, were to

consider Lourié’s views heretical, then he (the metropolitan) would bring him

to trial before the Holy Synod. The metropolitan angrily rejected any idea of

bringing Lourié to account, saying that the issue of “name-worshipping”

interested only a few people and would “disappear of itself”.

On September 3 Lourié conducted a press-conference in the House of the

Journalist arranged by Pavlovsky, in which he fawned before the government,

denying the involvement of either the state or the MP in “Osetrovschina”

(though this was manifestly untrue), and spoke about “three branches” of

Orthodoxy in Russia – the MP, the ROAC and the Old Believers.122

On September 5, Metropolitan Valentine was formally accused of

“committing forcible acts of a sexual nature”, “compulsion to commit acts of a

sexual nature” and “enticing minors into antisocial activity” under Articles

132 (part 2), 133 and 151 (part 1) respectively of the Criminal Code. His trial

began on 7 February, 2002 in Suzdal District Court, but was adjourned on 13

February until August.

In October, 2001 the metropolitan made an attempt to be reconciled with

Moss and Ter-Grigorian and invited them to dinner in Suzdal. However, he

then proudly declared that he had been working for Christ’s Church for fifty

years! When Moss pointed out to him that by his own confession he had left

the Catacomb Church at the age of 19 to join the MP, and that it was ROAC’s

official confession that the MP was a false church, which he had left only in

1990, he became angry and insisted that he had been a true priest while in the

122 Ter-Grigorian, “Vpechatlenia ot press-konferentsii v zaschitu RPATs, proshedshej 3

sentibri 2001 g. v Moskve, v Dome Zhurnalista”,

http://www.romanitas.ru/Actual/vpechatlenia.htm.

66

MP.123 In a private conversation the next day, trying to cover up the bad

impression he had made the previous evening, he told Moss that Lourié was

“not ours”, strongly hinting that he was KGB and that for that reason he

could do nothing about him. After all, he said, Putin was replacing all the

mayors in Russia by communists, and the new mayor of Suzdal was one of

them…

The metropolitan then departed for America. But before leaving he

accepted from Moss an open letter to the bishops and a few senior priests of

ROAC listing all Lourié’s heresies and appealing for action to be taken against

them. Somehow this letter got into the hands of Lourié’s associates, who

created a special web-site where the open letter was “discovered” and

“announced” by a certain “Sergius Lourié”, as evidence of Moss’s desire to

discredit ROAC publicly - although it was precisely this website that made

the matter public! Then, on November 2, Tatiana Senina, another of Lourié’s

associates, created another website devoted exclusively to propaganda for the

heresy of “name-worshipping”. Shortly after, on November 7, the anniversary

of the revolution, Protopriest Michael Ardov published an open letter against

Moss’s open letter in Vertograd, which, in addition to defending Lourié and

“name-worshipping” publicly, made an astonishingly crude and completely

slanderous attack on Ter-Grigorian, forbidding him even to enter his church

in Moscow.

At this point, if the metropolitan were not to be accused of connivance with

the heresy of “name-worshipping”, he had to renounce Ardov’s statement and

close down Senina’s website. This he did not do. Indeed, since Ardov is a very

cautious man, it is very unlikely that he would ever have undertaken such a

step without “a nod from on high” – that is, either from the metropolitan

himself, or from those who spoke in his name and by this time had effective

control over him, especially Alexander Soldatov, the editor of Vertograd.

But now Protopriest Michael Makeev, the second priest of ROAC in

Moscow, wrote to the metropolitan saying that he was very unhappy with the

heresies in the Church and that he intended to send a letter to that effect to the

bishops. Immediately, the metropolitan summoned a meeting in Moscow for

the next day, November 15. Present were Archbishop Theodore,

Archimandrite Irinarch, Protopriests Michael Ardov and Michael Makeev,

Soldatov, Kholmogorov, Ter-Grigorian and others. The metropolitan told all

sides to stop quarrelling and to forgive each other. He placed most of the

blame for the situation on Moss, who was a “Judas” and “going along the

path of Osetrov”. No rebuke was given to Lourié, Senina or Ardov. It was

agreed that both Vertograd and Romanitas should remove all polemical articles

from their sites - Romanitas complied with this order: Vertograd did not.

123 A. Ter-Grigorian, “Iz Suzdalia s liuboviu”, http://www.romanitas.ru/Actual/ziloty.htm,

November 14/27, 2003.

67

At a session of the ROAC Synod in December, 2001, another attempt was

made to stop all discussion of the heresies.124 In May, 2002 the ROAC Synod

at last addressed the question of name-worshipping, only to “deliver

judgement of the teaching of Hieroschemamonk Anthony Bulatovich to the

competence of a Local Council of the Russian Church”. This gave the false

impression that Bulatovich and his teaching had not yet been judged by the

Russian Church…

On July 26, 2002, Ter-Grigorian was excommunicated “for violation of

Church discipline”. Later, he was excommunicated six more times and even

anathematized! On September 9, 2003, an “Official Communication of the

Editors of the Suzdal’skie Eparkhial’nie Vedomosti” declared that the reason for

his excommunications was his open preaching of Nestorianism, refusal to call

Christ God and the Virgin Mary – the Mother of God, a false teaching on the

presence of two Persons and two Hypostases in Christ and a false teaching on

the deification of Christians. Needless to say, all these accusations were

completely without basis in fact.125

And so the position of ROAC at the beginning of 2002 had changed

radically from a year earlier: her metropolitan was due for trial in the secular

courts on the most serious of moral charges; her senior priests in Moscow and

Petersburg were publicly proclaiming heresy and were not being rebuked for

it; a vicious campaign of slander and intimidation against her “dissidents”

was well under way; and her attitude to the Sergianism and the neo-Soviet

authorities had notably softened – at least on the part of her spokesmen.126

Metropolitan Valentine and his supporters saw his trial as persecution by

the MP, as part of a general trend of increasing persecution of the True

Orthodox by the official Orthodox Churches. There is no doubt that the MP

was interested in humiliating him, and that Osetrov’s campaign against him

was malicious. But there is also no doubt that he had a case to answer…

And it was in order to win much-needed friends in high places that in the

autumn of 2002, just two days before the first session of the trial of

Metropolitan Valentine, ROAC published an “Address to the state leadership

of the Russian Federation, the organs of the international community and the

rulers of the world” analogous to the “social doctrine” accepted by the MP at

124 “Itogi Zasedania Arkhierejskogo Sinod ot 1 i 3 dekabria 2001 g.”,

http://www.romanitas.ru/Actual/itogi.htm. See also “Uveschanie Arkhierejskogo Sinoda

RPATs”, http://www.romanitas.ru/Actual/uveshanie.htm.

125 Ter-Grigorian, “Slovo o ‘nestorianstve’ i ‘bludopoklonnoj eresi”,

http://www.romanitas.ru/Actual/bludonestorianstvo.htm.

126 See, for example Anton Ter-Grigorian, “Izvestnie publitsisty RPATs okryto priznaiut sebia

storonnikami Deklaratsii 1927 goda Sergia Stragorodskogo”,

http://www.romanitas.ur/Actual/Declaracia%20i%20RPAC.htm; Priests Michael Makeev

and Roman Pavlov, “The MP in the ROAC”,

http://www.romanitas.ru/eng/THE%20MP%20IN%20THE%20ROAC.htm.

68

its “Jubilee” Sobor, in which it was written that “as in the case of the

Christians of ancient Rome or the Soviet epoch, an increase in persecutions on

our Church will not lead to our civil disobedience, and still less to a rebellion

against the powers that be. We are ready humbly to bear any persecutions,

and, to the extent that we are able, to defend our lawful rights.”127 This

statement of loyalty to the neo-Soviet regime, upon whose goodwill the fate of

the metropolitan now depended, was supposedly signed by a long list of

clergy – but many knew nothing about the declaration, and protested the

inclusion of their names under such a sergianist document.

Since many clergy, and in particular the Catacomb hierarchs Archbishop

Seraphim of Sukhumi and Bishop Anthony of Yaransk, were continuing to be

disturbed by the teaching of Lourié and calling for his defrocking128, on

October 18, at a session of the ROAC Synod he presented a “report”

expressing “my deep regret regarding my public statements concerning

name-worshipping, which have become a reason for discord within our

Church. I hold to the teaching of the Holy Fathers and confess no heresy

about the name of God, which would have been condemned by previous

Fathers and Councils. I also hold to the resolutions of the All-Russian Local

Council of 1917-1918, which were confirmed by two resolutions of the Synod

of our Church, in accordance with which the decision on the essence of the

question of name-worshipping belongs exclusively within the competence of

a Local Council of the Church of Russia”.129 Lourié did not mention, or repent

of, any of his other heresies and blasphemies.

The craftiness of this statement is immediately evident from the fact that

the All-Russian Local Council of 1917-1918 did not in fact issue any

resolutions on name-worshipping – these came both earlier and later.

Further craftinesses were exposed by Protopriest Alexander Lebedev, who

wrote: “Very interesting phrasing here that has to be read carefully.

“First of all, Fr. Gregory does not deny that he holds to the teaching of

name-worshipping, nor does he state that he considers it to be a heresy. He

has always maintained that it was not a heresy and that it was the true

teaching of the Holy Fathers.

“The phrasing ‘Fathers and Sobors’ seems to neatly set aside the

condemnations of the name-worshipping heresy that were made not by

‘Sobors’ – but by the Holy ‘Synod’ of the Church of Russia (and

Constantinople) and by Patriarch Tikhon.

127 http://www.romanitas.ru/Actual/declaration.htm.

128 At a session of the ROAC Synod in November, 2003, it was admitted: “Yes, we know that

four hierarchs are ready to leave the ROAC if Fr. Gregory is not deposed”

(“Zhertvoprinoshenie skimna”, http://www.romanitas.ru/Actual/zhertvoprinoshenie.htm).

129 Vertograd, № 312, October 21, 2002.