Vernost' Number 26

The Editorial Board is glad to inform our Readers that this issue of “FIDELITY” has articles in English and Russian Languages.

С удовлетворением сообщаем, что в этом номере журнала “ВЕРНОСТЬ” помещены статьи на английском и русском языках.

1. "КАК ВЫЙТИ ИЗ ТУПИКА...?" ЕПИСКОП ДИОНИСИЙ, НОВГОРОДСКО-ТВЕРСКОЙ.

4. "ПЕРЕНЕСЕНИЕ МОЩЕЙ МИТРОПОЛИТА ФИЛАРЕТА ТРЕТЬЕГО ПЕРВОИЕРАРХА РПЦЗ"

5. "НАШ ВОЛНУЮЩИЙСЯ ЦЕРКОВНЫЙ АРХИПЕЛАГ". П. БОНДАРЕНКО

6. "ПОКАЯНИЕ ЗАКОНЧЕНО, ЗАБУДЬТЕ". СВЯЩ. В. ХРИСТОВЫЙ.

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КАК ВЫЙТИ ИЗ ТУПИКА КУДА ЗАВЕЛИ ЗАРУБЕЖНУЮ ЦЕРКОВЬ КАНЦЕЛЯРИИ ЛАВРОВЦЕВ И МАНСОНВИЛЬЦЕВ?

С самого начала, после нашего присоединения к РПЦЗ в 1993 г.. мы, члены Катакомбной Церкви, последовательно защищали Зарубежную Церковь, ее идейное наследие, ее Отцов и Первоиерарха Митрополита Виталия от нападок, как патриархийных апологетов, так и экстремистов-раскольников.

После Собора 2000 года, мы в частности поддерживали духовенство Западно-Европейской епархии, выступавшее против «нового курса» и епископа Амвросия. Отцы Вениамин Жуков и Николай Семенов звонили тогда нам и искали нашей поддержки. На 1-ом Воронежском совещании российского духовенства РПЦЗ в сентябре 2001 г. мы настояли на включение в обращении пункта о поддержке «французского» духовенства нашей Церкви. В ноябре того же 2001 г. я был в Париже у о. В. Жукова на совещании их духовенства. Все было хорошо. Несогласие касалось только объединения Вл. Варнавы с Владыками Лазарем и Вениамином — на чем настаивали мы и что отвергалось о. В. Жуковым. Но сразу же после моего отъезда из Парижа в интернете началась травля нас с братом, о. Тимофеем Алферовым, приближенными о. В. Жукова.

Можно понять, что он — ныне «секретарь Синода» РПЦЗ(В) — считал себя более способным руководить церковной жизнью, чем Вл. Лазарь или кто-то еще. Но зачем устраивать публичную травлю неугодных лиц и скандал в интернете? Например, покойный Епископ Григорий (Граббе) тоже имел большую власть и возможно кого-то «отодвигал». Но он никогда не устраивал скандалов, «чисток», не разрушал той Церкви, в которой пребывал, заботился об ее авторитете.

К сожалению, прот. В. Жуков поступил прямо наоборот. Сначала устроил травлю Владык Лазаря и Вениамина, а также нас, затем прот. В. Мелехова, затем «отсек» и самого Владыку Варнаву, именем которого действовал в начале. При этом он опирался на скандальных лиц из 4-й волны эмиграции или подобных им в России.

Достаточно характерной фигурой здесь является его главный пропагандист В. Черкасов (узел «Меч и трость»), бывший редактор советского милицейского журнала «Воспитание и правопорядок», затем в перестройку ставший автором десятка дешевых бульварных романов со множеством грязных, в том числе порнографических, сцен. Этого, выдающего себя за «белогвардейца» борзописца, остроумно назвали на одном из интернетовских узлов «порногвардейцем». Его хамство и грязь однозначно выдают его, как советского пропагандиста и бульварного писателя.

Среди активистов пропагандной кампании против нас, используемых прот. В. Жуковым, видимо не случайно, оказались и бывший совхозный парторг и бывшая журналистка одной из центральных советских газет — «Комсомольской Правды», и выпускник советской «мореходки», где строго смотрели за теми, кого выпускали в заграничное плавание. Эти люди умело, профессионально, собирали компромат на «лазаревский раскол», не гнушались использовать чужие письма и частные доверительные разговоры, «подшивали к делу» случайные слова, и потом с подлинно советским пафосом, с раскатами «благородного негодования» клеймили и громили «врагов истинной Церкви», требуя от имени «трудяшихся» новых чисток. Так поступили они и с Вл. Варнавой и с о. Германом Ивановым-Тринадцатым — коренными «зарубежниками».

По этим методам борьбы, по тем людям, на которых он опирался — и по тем результатам, к которым он пришел, можно увидеть, что дело прот. В. Жукова было неправым делом, развалом Зарубежной Церкви, дискредитацией противников «нового курса» на унию с МП, копрометацией самого Митрополита Виталия, именем которого все прикрывалось.

Более того, это было разрушением соборности, подменой очного, гласного и честного рабирательства спорных вопросов — закулисными интригами и шельмованием в интернете своих соперников, часто мнимых. Интернет-трибуналы бывших советских пропагандистов заменили и церковный суд, и архиерейский собор, превратили в ничто авторитет архиерейского сана. Атмосфера братского единства была заменена атмосферой подозрительности и ненависти темных советских времен.

Хотя бы, как трезвый политик, о. В. Жуков должен был бы понимать, что тот, кто опирается исключительно на маргинальные элементы, имеет очень узкую базу поддержки. Всякий цезарь, опиравшийся на одних преторианцев, бывал в свою очередь свергнут ими. Люди, бесстыдно поносившие «лазаревцев» и «варнавинцев», потеряли совесть и способны на все. К ним точно приложимы слова проф. И. А. Ильина («Аксиомы религиозного опыта», гл. 14):

«Такова религиозно-разрушительная природа болезненной подозрительности и безпредметного злоязычия, Здесь пошлость возникает из потребности видеть зло в людях и принимать его за существенное. Его человеконенавистничество вырастает из слепоты к Божественному или из особого «мраковидения». Он смотрит из зла и видет зло; и приучается не видеть кроме зла — ничего. Развивается страсть все совлекать, принижать и компрометировать, — иногда только в теории, но иногда и на практике, человек успокаивается только тогда, когда ему удастся извлечь низость из чужой души, или развернуть свою собственную низость с доказательной силой. Это становится для него неутолимой потребностью, победой, наслаждением. Уязвленный своей низостью, он жаждет унизить и других. И мстит — и себе, и другим — за свое собственное мраковидение и человеконенавистничество; радуется бытию ничтожного и предается его детальному созерцанию; и ожесточается в этом разложении человека на атомы низости, злобы и обиды («подполье» Достоевского!). В основе этого — акт религиозно неверной направленности, отвернувшейся от священного и сосредоточившейся на ничтожном — из нее возникает ошибочное стремление не возвысить свою низину, очистив ее Божьими лучами, а унизить весь мир до собственной низины. Подпольный человек обижен собственной малостью, роется в ней и мстит за нее — другим и себе… Здесь подпольный человек идет по путям демонизма. Он не выносит идею ранга… Он одержим чувством своего ничтожества и не прощает его ни себе, ни другим людям. Он одержим завистью ко всем, кто выше его, и не прощает этого никому. Вот почему «подполье» есть одно из самых законченных и трудно-целимых явлений пошлости — источник злопыхательства, бесчисленных преступлений, отчаянных кощунств и профессиональной революционности».

Заметим, что «подпольное» состояние души является одним из наиболее тяжелых и распространенных последствий советчины, без учета которого многие явления в постсоветской России непонятны.

К сожалению, в рядах «мансонвильцев», особенно среди их пропагандистов, скопилось немало людей этого типа. Они превращают Церковь, противостоящую унии с МП, в маргинальную секту, отталкивают здравомысляших, порядочных людей и привлекают себе подобных. Этим они оказывают лучшую помощь только униатам, которым без подобной «альтернативы» трудно подобрать доводы за подчинение МП.

Интересно, что отвергая соборность, активисты «мансонвильцы» сходятся с «лавровцами». И те, и другие предпочитают власть канцелярии — авторитету собора, открытое честное обсуждение вопроса заменяют закулисными переговорами и синодальными указами. Очевидно, что и ньюиоркская и мансонвильская канцелярии завели Зарубежную Церковь в тупик. Поэтому главная идея, выдвигаемая Обществом Ревнителей Памяти Митрополита Антония — созыв собора, с целью отвержения унии и объединения всех верных наследию РПЦЗ, — это правильная идея. Многое должно решиться и уясниться на самом соборе. Сейчас важнее создать доброжелательную атмосферу взаимного доверия и терпимости между отвергающими унию с МП, чем заранее заготавливать какие-нибудь решения.

After the announcement of alleged changes in the government of the USSR, “patriarch” Aleksey II expressed his opinion that Metropolitan Sergey (Stragorodskiy) broke some canonical rules in his “Declaration”. This news, especially to Rus’ Abroad, gave us hope. Living abroad, we nurtured the hope that Holy Rus’ would rise in her former glory and that in thousands of churches there would once again be sung praises to our Lord. We hoped that, just as in the past when Rus’shook off the Tatar yoke and foreign invaders, so our great Motherland would now also rid herself of the invasion of the godless communist order. We had hoped that all that was foreign to the centuries-old life and spirit of Orthodox Russia would be shaken off, like a nightmare.

When it was announced that the communist government is no more and that the “Church” is now free, we, the inhabitants of Russia Abroad, waited for the Moscow Patriarchate to condemn the "Declaration" and to categorically distance itself from any association with it. However, to our great regret, the opposite occurred: the ties with and the dependence of the Moscow Patriarchate on the government of the RF, unchangingly remain close. The Moscow Patriarchate examined its relationship with the government apparatus. As a result, not only “patriarch” Aleksey, but also the other Bishops of the MP - protégés of the Communist regime – began to exalt Metropolitan Sergey as the savior of the “Church” and even proposed him as a candidate for sainthood.

We, citizens of Russian extraction living in the free countries of the world, do not share the view that “Christ’s Church” was somehow saved by Metropolitan Sergey, nor that Metropolitan Sergey in any way deserves of the least bit of veneration.

During the most frightful and systematic persecution of the Church and its faithful by the theomachist government, many millions of new martyrs and confessors of the Russian Church ascended to the Russian Golgotha. In jails, in exile, and in labor camps strewn all across our great and holy Motherland, millions of our compatriots, clergy or laity, famous or unknown, accepted martyrdom for Christ, for His Church, for the Holy Faith of our forefathers.

Only now, when the opportunity to study the documents of the MP has presented itself, when some of the correspondence of Metropolitan and “Patriarch” Sergey have been published, have church historians become aware of many details of the biography and activities of this Soviet hierarch, including his ecumenical and anticlerical beliefs, resembling those of Protestantism. In light of this, it becomes clear why the representatives of the MP Commission For Dialog With The ROCOR insisted on excluding the personality of “Patriarch” Sergey, his “Declaration”, and his activities from any discussions.

The conclusion, in 1918, of the Commission Enforcing The Decree Of Separation Of The Church From The Government does not need any further commentary. According to the Commission, “enforcement by the OGPU (United State Political Administration) of the policy of destroying the churchgoers who followed Tikhon should be acknowledged to be correct and advisable. To continue the policy for schism between Metropolitan Sergey (appointed by Peter as his temporary replacement with the title ‘Deputy to the locum tenens’) and Metropolitan Agathangel. . . strengthening simultaneously the third Tikhon hierarchy. . . headed by Archbishop Gregory as an independent entity. . .” Thus, as the documents show, the government plan for the destruction of the Church was through division, and Metropolitan Sergey played a pivotal role.

The head of the government was J. Stalin, and the head of the Church - Metropolitan Sergey. In their work, both were equally unprincipled, ready to take any steps against real or imagined competition or a rival in order to attain their own goals. Neither one had any strong beliefs. This type of behavior can be expected from a former terrorist and revolutionary who became the dictator of the land, but it is totally unacceptable for a clergyman, even unthinkable for a Bishop. Personally neither Stalin, (however there are rumors that he shot his wife himself) nor Metropolitan Sergey shot or exiled any people, they left that to others. However, they are both guilty of creating innumerable victims.

Metropolitan Sergey knew perfectly well that defrocking “noncompliant” clergy, and publishing the names of the faithful laity who refused to accept the “Declaration” brought on the most severe repression on the part of the theomachist government. Church services, as well as religious discussions, outside of the sergeynistic church were looked upon by the government as illegal and anti-governmental activity, punishable by law. And, knowing the consequences, Metropolitan Sergey continued to present to the government agencies clergy who were in disagreement with his “Declaration” for their merciless reprisals. In addition, Metropolitan Sergey, breaking church canons, would announce decisions regarding Bishops without the necessary investigation and without a church court with a quorum of Bishops. The punishing agencies arrested, together with the clergy, those faithful who were spiritually guided by them. Not an example to Saint Patriarch Tikhon, and those following him, Patriarchal locum tenens Metropolitan Sergey, without the involvement of the Synod, often alone, would make important resolutions. As a result of such actions by Metropolitan Sergey, the church lost its Sobornost (participation of clergy and laity - “conciliar”); this was also lacking in the “election” of the Soviet “Patriarchs”.

Finding himself temporarily as the administrator of the Church, until the return of a legal Patriarchal locum tenens, (Metropolitan Sergey himself pointed out in his “notice accepting the duties of Deputy to the locum tenens, that the position was only ‘temporary’ ”), Metropolitan Sergey used any tool at his disposal to make sure that the legitimate Patriarchal locum tenens would not return to their duties. To the directive issued by Metropolitan Peter, that he “considers it imperative to remain the Patriarchal locum tenens, even though he is imprisoned” (Letter of Metropolitan Sergey to Metropolitan Agathangel of April 17/30 1926) Metropolitan Sergey pointed out that “but we will delay complying with his directives coming from prison, until such time that he himself returns to power, and will be able to answer for his own deeds, and it shall be decided whether these directives need to be obeyed or not.” (Letter to Metropolitan Agathangel of May 31, 1926) When Metropolitan Peter ordered that Metropolitan Agathangel should take over the reins of the administration and the duties of locum tenens, Metropolitan Sergey wrote to Metropolitan Agathangel: “Peter, who had handed over to me the reins of leadership, although temporarily but fully, himself deprived of the opportunity to be fully apprised of church affairs, can no longer either bear the responsibility for them, or, more importantly, involve himself in directing them. On the other hand, I (or whoever will be after me), accepting both the position of locum tenens as well as full responsibility for the proper flow of church affairs, cannot accept directives from Metropolitan Peter emanating from prison, in a manner other than as directives, or more correctly suggestions, coming from an irresponsible individual. . .” (Letter to Metropolitan Agathangel of May 31, 1926). Regarding his authority Metropolitan Sergey said: “The Patriarch’s locum tenens is a legal, canonical, indisputable bearer of Patriarchal power in all its fullness.”

Metropolitan Sergey did not dash the hopes of the Soviet government in its destruction of the Church by beginning a campaign of estranging Metropolitans Agathangel, Peter and others from the Church leadership. And after the announcement of the “Declaration”, the Russian Church “split” into two parts. The one part is entrenched in Sergianism, accommodating, penetrated with the spirit of anti-Christ’s falsehood, wholeheartedly cooperating with the “Party and government”,and held on a leash by the theomachist regime. The other part was that of Holy Tikhon which continued to follow uncompromisingly in the footsteps of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Sergey, the first Soviet “Patriarch”, was a renovator who took a new course, betraying the Church, the Holy Patriarch Tikhon, and the faithful. His “comrade in arms” – the second Soviet “Patriarch”, Aleksey (Simanskiy), betrayed Metropolitan Veniamin to the godless Soviet government. Together they both led their “church” – the Moscow Patriarchate—in the footsteps of the father of falsehood. Besides everything else, with the aid of the warring atheistic government, they allowed into their clergy morally unworthy people, thus encouraging the all-encompassing destruction of the church. The madmen proclaimed terror against the true Church of God. However, the Holy Church, as we know, survived. But attrition occurred. The chaff, as well as those less strong in their faith, sifted to one side, and the others voluntarily followed the path to martyrdom. Those who inherited positions from those first Soviet “patriarchs” continued the politics of servility toward the godless government, consciously trying to “destroy” the Church, forcing the truly faithful to join the Catacomb Church (today it is called the True Orthodox Church)

The many millions of martyrs for the Orthodox faith and Confessors of the Russian Church – victims of the Soviet Regime and the Soviet Metropolitan/Patriarch, who suffered for the Truth, have been added to the list of All-Russian Saints. Their memory is venerated, both in the Motherland, and Outside of Russia. They stand at the throne of the Most-High Lord, and fervently pray for all of us sinners, for the much suffering Russian people, and for the entire world. Orthodox faithful in the entire world, both Russian and not, appeal with prayers to them, to the multitude of New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, for their protection. On the other hand, it is no wonder that the Russian faithful have given Metropolitan Sergey the nickname Okaianniy - “the Cursed”!

Can it be possible that ROCOR, which until now has kept her faith to Christ and total independence from lay governments, now will unite with the MP and will also embark on the path of falsehood, betrayal to Christ, service to a non-Christian government, leaving its main responsibility – the salvation of the souls of the faithful? Can it be that the Church leadership of ROCOR does not understand that neither the Church nor Russia can be saved with lies?

We firmly believe that, with the intercession of the great assembly of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, Orthodox Russia will still be resurrected and because of them, the spiritual unity of the Russian Orthodox Church was never broken. We firmly believe that a time will come, when in this Church, which always remained free of lies and falsehood, betrayals and the service to anti-Christ’s government, once again the majestic hymn will be heard in the Kremlin Cathedrals: “God is with us, understand all you nations and submit yourself, thou is with us”. We firmly believe that the Holy Orthodox Russian Church will be able to continue her holy mission in the spheres of moral/religious education of the people. We firmly believe that no political, social, legal or economic system is capable of educating a wholesome human society: only Christ’s Church offers the unique “system” for the good of each individual and society as a whole—the love of God and one’s neighbor.

As we witness the sad decline of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia under Metropolitan Lavr (ROCOR) into the embraces of the Moscow Patriarchate (MP), it may be worth reviewing some of the arguments that members of the MP (and now even many members of the ROCOR) produce when challenged by members of the True Russian Church. These arguments have varied considerably with time, and even the MP would no doubt be ashamed of some of the arguments used in Soviet times, when respect for both the Church and the State of the Soviet Union was much higher than it is now. We shall not review these “old” arguments that even the MP is now ashamed of, but shall turn to the “new” ones that have appeared since the fall of communism – although sometimes they are simply the “old” ones souped up in a more contemporary, subtler form.

One argument employed by contemporary advocates of the MP, and even by the MP Patriarch Alexis himself is that since the ROCOR was formed as a temporarily autonomous organization until the fall of communism, it must now dissolve itself insofar as communism fell nearly twelve years ago.

Two questions are immediately elicited by this argument. First, has communism really fallen? And secondly, even if it has fallen, why should the ROCOR dissolve itself by joining the MP?

I think we cannot deny that in 1991 communism fell in the particular statist form that we know as the Soviet Union, or Soviet power. I think it is equally undeniable that, at least since New Year’s Day, 2000, when KGB Colonel Putin came to power, it has been in the process of being reconstructed.

The evidence is manifold. KGB men – and let us recall Putin’s remark that “there is no such thing as an ex-KGB man” - now occupy about 50% of the top governmental posts in the Soviet – sorry, Russian - federation.[1] The Soviet anthem has been re-established as the country’s national anthem; the red flag has been restored to the armed forces. Putin has toasted Stalin, and recently a new monument to Stalin was unveiled before a huge and enthusiastic crowd in Ishim, Siberia (the see of ROCOR Bishop Evtikhy). It goes without saying that Lenin’s mummy remains in its pagan mausoleum in Red Square. The Chechen war continues to be waged in a hideously cruel, typically Soviet manner. The media are once again coming under tight state control (witness the way in which the independent NTV station was simply taken over). Even the fledgling capitalist economy is under threat, and its stock market is plunging, as a result of the recent imprisonment of Khodorkovsky and the State’s seizure of a large part of his company’s shares. So if there was a time for the ROCOR to dissolve itself, it was in 1991, but not now.

In any case, what is the ROCOR to do after its self-dissolution? The Fathers of the ROCOR always spoke of an All-Russian Council assembling after the fall of communism, which would sort out the problems of the Russian Church, elect a canonical patriarch, etc. Obviously by such an All-Russian Council they did not mean a Council just of the MP, but a Council in which the ROCOR and the Catacomb Church would be included. In fact, probably a Council from which the MP would be excluded, but to which individual hierarchs of the MP would come to offer their repentance, on the model of the iconoclasts at the Seventh Ecumenical Council. It is strange how little talk about such a Council there has been since the supposed fall of communism…

Since no one seems to want to talk about an all-Russian Council, let us consider some other alternatives. One is for the ROCOR to proclaim itself the one and only Russian Orthodox Church. This was actually suggested by Protopriest Lev Lebedev in the early 1990s, and appears to have been adopted to some extent by the ROCOR at that time. However, this was never done with much conviction (except when dealing with “dissidents” inside Russia), and by the late 1990s the talk was rather of a “reunification” of the different parts of the Russian Church – by which was meant the reunification only of the ROCOR and the MP.

But on what basis? On an equal basis, as if the ROCOR and the MP were both equally legitimate parts of the Russian Church, two “sisters” of the same mother who had just had a quarrel and were now prepared to forgive and forget? But this “ecumenist” solution was not really acceptable to either side, since the MP resolutely calls itself (and is believed by many even in the ROCOR to be) the sole “Mother Church”, to which the ROCOR must “return” like a naughty child to her parents, while the ROCOR believes that the MP must repent of certain dogmatic and canonical errors – sergianism, ecumenism - before it can be forgiven.

However, it is becoming more and more obvious – if it was ever really in doubt – that the MP, at least in its upper reaches, will not and cannot repent. At most it will bend a little to pressure coming, not from the ROCOR, but from its own people, as in the case of its half-hearted and qualified canonization of the Tsar-Martyr. The MP had a golden opportunity to repent in 1991, when the chains imposed by its Soviet masters fell away, and there was a danger of a large-scale exodus from the patriarchate. But it did not repent. And now, when it is in a much stronger position than in 1991, and the ROCOR is much weaker, it is less likely than ever to repent.

Not only is it not repenting: like the dog of the proverb, it is returning to its own vomit. Thus ecumenism continues unabated since the fall of communism. The patriarch’s incredible speech to the Jewish rabbis in November, 1991 has not been repented of, membership of the WCC continues as before, and while there are complaints about Catholic proselytism it looks as if the Pope is going to visit Russia with the MP’s agreement.

The MP today, amazing to tell, is no less enthusiastically pro-Soviet than the civil government. Priests regularly praise Stalin - and now these panegyrics cannot be excused on the grounds that they are made under duress. The idea that the MP has repented of sergianism is laughable. Consider the patriarch’s latest statement on Metropolitan Sergius’ notorious declaration, on November 9, 2001: “This was a clever step by which Metropolitan Sergius tried to save the church and clergy.”[2]

The ROCOR leadership knows all this perfectly well. But it also knows that it is weak, and has therefore come to the conclusion: “If you can’t beat them, join them.” The leopard, they try and persuade us, has changed its spots; the tree with an evil root is now bringing forth good fruits. But as we know from the Holy Scriptures, a leopard cannot change its spots, and “a corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them…” (Matthew 7.17-19).

In order to make sure of this point, let us briefly look at fruits of the six most powerful metropolitans of the MP, one of whom is likely to be the next patriarch:-

(1) Metropolitan Yuvenaly of Kolomna and Krutitsa was described in 1994 by the OCA Bishop Basil (Rodzianko) of Washington as “not only a scoundrel, but, perhaps, something much worse than that” (testimony of Michael Rodzianko). Sergei Bychkov wrote in 1999 that he “has never served a day in a parish. He knows the problems and needs of the clergy only by hearsay. Although he came up through all the ranks, he spent the most difficult years for the Russian church abroad. He served in Berlin, Jerusalem, Prague, and even in Japan. He headed OVTsS [the Department of External Church Relations] for almost ten years. He thought that he would be elected patriarch in 1990 after the death of Patriarch Pimen. But he did not make it even to the second round. This so upset him that he suffered a heart attack. But after recovering, he reconciled himself to the situation and began to support the rise of Master [Cyril] Gundiaev. Metropolitan Yuvenaly is notorious in church circles for his nontraditional sexual orientation. A number of monasteries in the area around Moscow have already been turned into annexes of Sodom.”

(2) Metropolitan Cyril of Smolensk, the friend of Metropolitan Yuvenaly and head of the Department of External Church Relations, is an extreme ecumenist and an importer of tobacco and spirits duty-free. Bychkov writes of him that “until recently he was absolutely certain that after the death of Patriarch Alexis II he would undoubtedly become primate of the Russian church. True, events of this year have shaken Master Gundiaev's assurance…. Metropolitan Kirill's tobacco and alcohol scandals have undermined his authority on the international level. Nevertheless he has held onto his positions in the synod. He knows very well the weaknesses of members of the synod and he skillfully manipulates them. This is the great talent of the metropolitan. His impudence and frankness befuddle weak minds. Synod members who know about his ties with high places are not about to withstand his unbearable pressure. His close friendship with Berezovsky also has brought its fruits; the metropolitan has compromising information not only about all of the episcopacy but even about the patriarch and he occasionally leaks it to the press.” According to the witness of an MP priest, Metropolitan Cyril once came into his church and saw an icon of Tsar-Martyr Nicholas on the analoy. “Get the Tsar out of here!” he said severely!

(3) Metropolitan Vladimir of St. Petersburg, another extreme ecumenist who is in favour of introducing the new calendar into the Russian Church was, writes Bychkov, “a representative of the Moscow patriarchate at the World Council of Churches in Geneva. At the end of the 1960s he was patriarchal exarch of western Europe and served in Berlin. He is notorious for his aristocratic manners (if he wears cuff links then they must be jeweled). Emulating Catherine II's favorite Grigory Potemkin, he enjoys fresh oysters which are brought to him from Paris and London. But his guests are most affected by his wine cellars. Metropolitan Vladimir Sabodan, who replaced him in Rostov on Don, nearly lost consciousness when he caught sight of and tasted the wines from the metropolitan's cellars. In the 1970-1980s his career rise halted and he was shuttled from one episcopal see to another. Patriarch Pimen was not well disposed toward him. Only after his death did Vladimir come into favor again. From 1995 he has ruled the St. Petersburg diocese, thereby becoming a permanent member of the Holy Synod. In Petersburg he began restoring order with an "iron hand," primarily in financial matters, overturning traditions that had arisen over decades (oysters are expensive nowadays). Metropolitan Vladimir's ministry has been constantly accompanied by scandals. Their causes are his inability and lack of desire to get along with clergy. His administrative style is authoritarian.”

(4) Metropolitan Methodius of Voronezh was until recently one of the strongest candidates to succeed the present patriarch. But in 1992 he was described by his colleague, Archbishop Chrysostom of Vilna, as “a KGB officer, an atheist, a liar, who is constantly advised by the KGB”. An atheist for patriarch? All things are possible in the MP!

(5) , (6). Metropolitans Philaret of Minsk and Vladimir of Kiev are both, according to Bychkov, homosexuals who “share one thing in common: under their administrations the largest monasteries--the Kiev caves lavra and the Zhirovitsy monastery--have become examples of Sodom and Gomorra. ‘Gay families’ coexist peacefully in them, concealed by monastic garments.”

Well, on July 19, 1999, according to Bychkov, the Synod “devoted much time to the scandals involving the homosexual conduct of two bishops, Nikon Mironov of Ekaterinburg and Gury Shalimov of Korsun. The press devoted so much attention to poor Bishop Nikon that he is notorious throughout Russia. The behaviour of Bishop Gury was just as scandalous. The Holy Synod sent both into retirement, that is, it dismissed them, confirming thereby the justice of the journalistic accusations. But it dismissed them in conditions of strictest secrecy!”[3]

Ah, but then there are the wonderfully holy village priests and old women that the supporters of the MP like to talk about! Personally, I have not met any holy priests in the MP. And as for the old women, I know of people who were put off Orthodoxy for years by the appallingly boorish behaviour of the old women in MP churches.

Of course, I may be missing something. But even if I am, what does that prove? What does the presence of good, sincere people in the MP (and I have no doubt that there are many) prove about the MP? No more than the presence of good and sincere people among the Roman Catholics or Protestants about their churches. That is to say: nothing. For is the truth and grace of a Church defined by the quality of some of its junior members, or by the confession of faith of its leaders? The latter, of course…

But the supporters of the MP are very fond of this “bottom-up” ecclesiology of theirs. They love to assert that even if the older generation of bishops are all KGB agents (not even the patriarch denies that he is, and has been for a long time!), the next generation are going to be wonderful.

But why? Why should those appointed by KGB agents, ecumenists and homosexuals be anti-sergianists, anti-ecumenists and irreproachable chaste? Is it not much more likely that they will be at least partially tainted by the vices of their teachers, whom they chose to follow knowing their vices? “Know ye not,” says the Apostle Paul, speaking about precisely such vices, “that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? (I Corinthians 5.6).

According to his brother Michael, the OCA Bishop Basil of Washington said, after a trip to Moscow: “Now I agree with you: amongst the young folks there, there are many wonderful Orthodox people,” and, briefly remaining silent, he added, “but it will require yet another entire generation, or perhaps even longer, before everything gets back to normal”. So, if we accept the testimony even of this pro-Moscow witness, the ROCOR bishops should wait at least another generation before thinking of joining the MP.

And yet even this pessimistic estimate seems to me to be unreasonably optimistic. It depends on several assumptions, viz.: (1) that these “wonderful Orthodox people” will remain in the corrupt MP, and will not feel compelled by their conscience to leave it, (2) that the present leaders of the MP will choose to promote precisely these “wonderful Orthodox people” and not corrupt time-servers like themselves, and (3) that even if, by some extraordinary coincidence, some of these “wonderful Orthodox people” are promoted to positions of power in the church, they will still be wonderful and Orthodox by that time, and will not have been corrupted by the terrible environment they find themselves in.

The fact remains that, while a certain degree of regeneration can take place in a Church from below, that regeneration cannot go far, and will in time peter out, until and unless it is supported and strengthened by regeneration from above. For it is a basic principle of Orthodox ecclesiology that the faith of a Church is defined by the faith of its hierarchs. And if those hierarchs are heretical, then all those in obedience to them share, to a greater or lesser degree, in their heresy. You cannot be an Orthodox Christian while remaining knowingly under the omophorion of a heretical bishop.

“But no,” said one pious MP layman to me recently. “This is the ecclesiological equivalent of the Filioque heresy! Grace does not come from God and the hierarchs. It comes from God alone! It can bypass the heretical hierarchs and go straight to the people!”

Then there is hope for the Roman Catholics, who don’t have to worry about the heresy of their Pope! And hope for the Protestants, who said all along that the hierarchy and the priesthood were unnecessary! And hope for all those “Orthodox” individualists (and there are very many of them) who construct their spiritual lives independently of the church organization to which they belong, justifying themselves on the grounds that they have a direct line to God that does not pass through the hierarch’s office!

Yes, we do have a direct line to God. And God can certainly give grace to a believer directly, independently of any hierarch or priest. But nobody can receive the grace of baptism, or of chrismation, or of the Body and Blood of Christ, without which salvation is impossible, except at the hands of a canonically appointed and rightly believing priest. That is the order God has ordained. And He has also ordained that this channel of sacramental grace does not pass through the hands of heretics or those who represent them…

Another, not dissimilar argument that is sometimes heard is that the rapid building of churches and monasteries in contemporary Russia shows that, whatever the defects of the leaders, the resurrection of Russia is taking place, and that, this being the case, instead of standing aside and carping, it is necessary to have a more positive attitude, to join in the renewal process. And that involves entering into communion. After all, they assert, perhaps we (the ROCOR hierarchs) can have a good influence on the hierarchy, perhaps we can put a brake on the negative aspects of patriarchal life, perhaps we can help to tame the leopard…

It is difficult to believe that anyone actually believes this argument. As Nicholas Kazantsev has recently pointed out, the ROCOR has acted as a brake on the MP only so long as it has existed outside the MP as a genuinely independent force.[4] Once the tiny ROCOR pond has been poured into the MP ocean, it will cease to have any influence at all.

As it is, such influence as it has had has been rapidly declining in recent years in exact proportion to its rapprochement with the patriarchate. Surveys show that the influence of the ROCOR was at its greatest immediately after the fall of communism, in the early 1990s, when the ROCOR actually fought against the MP and the MP was seriously rattled. But then came the 1994 conciliar decision to enter into negotiations with the MP, the expulsion of the Suzdal dissenters in 1995, and Archbishop Mark’s meeting with the patriarch in 1997, as a direct result of which the MP felt emboldened to seize Hebron and Jericho, and the Oak of Abraham at Hebron died after four thousand years of life…

No, the leopard has not been tamed, and it will not be tamed by the ROCOR, in whatever form it may continue to exist after the unia with the MP…

There are in fact strong grounds for believing in a future resurrection of the Russian Church. These strong grounds consist in the prophecies of the saints, which speak precisely about such a resurrection. But it is important to note that these prophecies do not state that the MP will gradually evolve into the True Church – that is, that good fruit will gradually begin to appear on the corrupt tree, transforming the tree from bad to good, from corrupt to life-giving. On the contrary, St. Seraphim of Sarov says that at that time “the Russian hierarchs will become so impious that they will not even believe in the most important dogma of the Faith of Christ – the resurrection of Christ and the general resurrection. That is why it will be pleasing to the Lord God to take me from this very temporary life for a time and then, for the establishment of the dogma of the resurrection, to raise me, and my resurrection will be like the resurrection of the seven youths in the cave of Okhlon…”

And then, continues the saint, he will begin the process of world-wide repentance; for the absolutely necessary condition of true resurrection is repentance.

The prophecies speak, not of an evolution of the MP from evil to good, nor of the repentance of the bishops, but of a more or less complete removal of the higher clergy of the Church. The initiative for this will not come from well-known bishops, but from people unknown to the world, according to Elder Porphyrius of Glinsk (+1868): "In due course, faith will collapse in Russia. The brilliance of earthly glory will blind the mind. The word of truth will be defiled, but with regard to the Faith, some from among the people, unknown to the world, will come forward and restore what was scorned."

And the instrument of this restoration will be a True Orthodox Tsar. Thus Archbishop Theophan of Poltava, passing on the tradition of the Valaam elders, wrote: “... The Lord will have mercy on Russia for the sake of the small remnant of true believers. In Russia, the elders said, in accordance with the will of the people, the Monarchy, Autocratic power, will be re-established. The Lord has forechosen the future Tsar. He will be a man of fiery faith, having the mind of a genius and a will of iron. First of all he will introduce order in the Orthodox Church, removing all the untrue, heretical and lukewarm hierarchs. And many, very many - with few exceptions, all - will be deposed, and new, true, unshakeable hierarchs will take their place. He will be of the family of the Romanovs according to the female line. Russia will be a powerful state, but only for 'a short time'... And then the Antichrist will come into the world, with all the horrors of the end as described in the Apocalypse."

As for the lower ranks, Catacomb Eldress Agatha of Belorussia, who was martyred by the Bolsheviks at the age of 119 (!), counselled them not to go to the MP: "This is not a true church. It has signed a contract to serve the Antichrist. Do not go to it. Do not receive any mysteries from its servants. Do not participate in prayer with them.” They were to wait for the triumph of Orthodoxy, when the people will show their true repentance by being baptised by True Orthodox clergy: There will come a time when churches will be opened in Russia, and the true Orthodox faith will triumph. Then people will become baptized, as at one time they were baptized under St. Vladimir.”

When Putin met the ROCOR hierarchs in New York, he used the argument that the ROCOR should join with the MP in “serving the homeland”, its culture and traditions. This is a powerful emotional argument for Russians and those who love Russia. After all, who would not want to serve his homeland? Who would want to appear unpatriotic? And especially now that the homeland is beginning to take on the appearance, externally at any rate, of an Orthodox country, and Orthodoxy is being protected by the State as an inalienable part of the national culture of Russia.

But what is the ultimate value here – the State or the Church, the earthly homeland or the Heavenly Homeland, God or Mammon? If Orthodoxy is to be protected because it serves the Homeland, or the State, or culture, or any other value whatsoever apart from eternal salvation with God, then it is no longer Orthodoxy but at best an exhibit in a museum or a zoo, at worst an idol.

In early, Kievan and Muscovite Russia, the Church was protected, not because it helped to support the State (although it did do that), and not because it constituted a part of Russia’s cultural heritage (although it was that), but because the State of Russia and Russia as a whole existed in order to serve the Church, without which neither the State nor the Nation had more than an ephemeral significance. The earthly homeland, in Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow’s phrase, was the “antechamber” of the Heavenly Homeland. Membership of the earthly homeland was treasured and was fought for because it served as a stepping-stone to membership of the Heavenly Homeland, the Kingdom of Heaven – and for no other reason.

Russia was “Holy Russia” precisely because she served something higher than herself, the ideal of holiness, the ideal of union in faith and love with God. And she began to descend to the far lesser ideal of “Great Russia” under Peter the Great only when she began to serve herself rather than God, when the Church became a tool in the hands of the State, serving the State’s this-worldly aims. However, under the later Romanov Tsars the great ship that was Russia began to return to her heavenly calling, to become holy again. This process accelerated under Tsar-Martyr Nicholas, who led Russia into World War I, not for the sake of her and his greater earthly glory, but to save Orthodoxy in her sister-nation of Serbia. And when the Tsar abdicated, dooming himself and his family to ignominy and death, he did so in order that this war-effort should continue – in other words, for the sake of Orthodoxy in the true sense.

But in today’s Russia, as Protopriest Lev Lebedev writes, “the ideological idol under the name of ‘fatherland’ (‘Russia’, ‘the state’) has been completely preserved. We have already many times noted that these concepts are, in essence, pagan ideological idols not because they are in themselves bad, but because they have been torn out from the trinitarian unity of co-subjected concepts: Faith, Tsar, Fatherland (Orthodoxy, Autocracy, People)… Everything that one might wish to be recognized and positive, even the regeneration of the faith, is done under the slogan of ‘the regeneration of the Fatherland (Russia)’! But nothing is being regenerated. Even among the monarchists the regeneration of the Orthodox Autocratic Monarchy is mainly represented as no more than the means for the regeneration of the Fatherland. We may note that if any of the constituent parts of the triad – Orthodoxy, Autocracy, People – is torn away from the others and becomes the only one, it loses its power. Only together and in the indicated hierarchical order did they constitute, and do they constitute now, the spiritual (and all the other) strength and significance of Great Russia. But for the time being it is the ideological idol ‘fatherland’ that holds sway…”[5]

If the ROCOR wishes to serve the Fatherland, she must wait for the true Fatherland to appear above the horizon, like the submerged city of Kitezh. To embrace the semi-Soviet, pseudo-Orthodox Fatherland that is Putin’s Russia would be a betrayal of her calling, a betrayal of the true Russia.

[1] Nicholas Kazantsev, “Nel’zia ob’edinit’sa s patriarkhiej!”, Nasha Strana, № 2739, 1 November, 2004

[2] http://www.ripnet.org/besieged/rparocora.htm?

[3] Bychkov, “The Synod against a Council”, Moskovskii komsomolets, August 20, 1999, quoted by Joseph Legrande, “Re: [paradosis] Re: Solovki (WAS: Dealing with Heresy)”, orthodox-tradition@yahoogroups.com, 31 August, 2002.

[4] Kazantsev, op. cit.

[5] Lebedev, Velikorossia, St. Petersburg, 1999, p. 655.

Перенесение мощей Митрополита Филарета
Третьего Первоиерарха Русской Православной Зарубежной Церкви

Третьего ноября (ст. стиля) гроб владыки митрополита Филарета был открыт в присутствии нескольких священников. Я разговаривал с двумя священниками.

Они увидели, что тело владыки покрыто белым веществом. На одеянии тоже был белый налет. Когда они счистили это белое вещество, то обнаружили, что лицо и руки совершенно целы. Было даже отмечено, что тело и кожа - в лучшем состоянии и более светлого цвета, чем у владыки Иоанна Шанхайского. Один из священников омывал его руки и лицо водой и вином. Он сказал, что можно было видеть вены под его кожей, а его борода была совершенно мягкой. Его лицо было узнаваемо, и даже рот, который был немного парализован с левой стороны, был виден. Еще они видели часть ноги, которая была совершенно целой и мягкой. Они не осматривали все тело, поскольку это нужно делать комиссии назначенной по решению Синода.

Их особенно поразило то, что материал в гробу вокруг тела был белым и блестящим. Некий директор похоронного дома по этому поводу заметил, что обычно после трех лет этот материал становится черным. Одеяние владыки было ярким и блестящим. Зеленые четки в руке - как только что изготовленные. Бумага в его руке с разрешительной молитвой не имела налета и была чистой, как совершенно новая. Бумажные иконы на его митре были тоже яркими и не имели никаких признаков разложения или выцветания. Покров на его лице (которым покрывали св. Дары в алтаре) был тоже яркий, словно совершенно новый.

Одна только вещь подверглась тлению - это металлические застежки на Евангелии, - они проржавели и рассыпались, когда их тронули. Это важно отметить, потому что некоторые говорили, что тело владыки сохранилось, потому что гроб был положен в холодном месте, "как в холодильнике". Однако директор похоронного дома говорил, что такого вообще не могло быть. Проржавевшие застежки свидетельствуют о высокой влажности внутри гроба, но на бумагу, ткань и тело владыки она не подействовала.

Замечателен был гроб владыки. Он был покрашен черным, и на нем был белый крест. Он был как новый, как будто его покрасили только вчера. То же самое можно было сказать и о мантии, покрывавшей тело владыки. Она была чистой и блестящей. Один человек, который там был, заметил, что пуговица на мантии поржавела от влаги.

Я спросил одного священника, каковы были ощущения, когда открывали гроб. Он сказал, что все было очень мирно, спокойно и торжественно.

Затем пришел архиепископ Лавр и запечатал гроб. После этого каждый день в течение той недели, с понедельника до пятницы служили панихиду. Я там был два раза. Люди говорили, что когда они поклонялись гробу владыки митрополита Филарета, то чувствовали что это не обычный гроб, они ощущали там особую благодать.

В пятницу 8 ноября (ст. стиля) гроб перенесли в главную церковь. День был дождливый. В церкви было множество народа. Служили панихиду. Гроб поставили в середину церкви в начале службы, а затем отнесли в сторону, направо, к тому месту, где обычно принимают исповеди. Я заметил, что многие люди приходили со свечами к гробу и поклонялись ему в течение всей службы.

На следующее утро, в субботу, на Праздник Собора Архангела Михаила и прочих сил бесплотных, в церкви было около 300 человек. Служили человек тридцать: один архиепископ, одиннадцать диаканов, остальные - священники.

На литургии о. Валерий произнес проповедь. Он отметил последние слова, найденные в пишущей машинке митрополита Филарета: "держи, что имеешь..." (Откр. 3,11). О. Валерий сказал, что это как раз то, что мы должны делать: быть послушными и верными Вере Церковной. Он сказал, что, быть может, владыка не был очень хорошим администратором, но он был великим молитвенником и истинным постником. После литургии они обычно собирались на трапезу, но владыка не ел после всех этих служб а только выпивал чаю. Только иногда он что-то съедал, но ел очень мало, "как птица". Все этому удивлялись, потому что видели, как он служил и молился. Откуда он черпал силы?

О. Валерий рассказывал, какой был владыка милосердный. Он помогал многим людям. Многим он помог деньгами, но об этом не знали, потому что он это делал тайно. О. Валерий знал женщину, которую с двумя детьми бросил муж. Владыка помог ей. Когда владыка лежал в гробу, эта самая женщина стояла при гробе и плакала слезами благодарности за то, что он сделал для нее и для ее детей.

Владыка был богословски очень образованным человеком и очень хорошо знал писания Отцов Церкви. Проповедь владыки против экуменизма не была его мнением, а имела в своем корне учение св. Отец. Когда он был митрополитом, произошли истинно значительные и великие события: прославление в 1981 г. Новомучеников и Исповедников Российских и Царственных мучеников. Были прославлены также св. Герман Аляскинский, св. блаженная Ксения Петербургская и св. праведный Иоанн Кронштадский.

Владыка очень любил детей и молодежь. В Синоде он устраивал чаепития, на которые он их приглашал и говорил с ними о св. Писании и о Церковной жизни. Он действительно любил молодое поколение и заботился о душах молодых людей. Теперь многие, хотя уже и не такие молодые, могут вспомнить, какое внимание им оказывал владыка, каким он был тихим и молитвенным. Он был великим молитвенником. На проповеди о. Валерий говорил еще много других добрых слов о владыке.

После Божественной Литургии была панихида. Вышел архиепископ Лавр и сказал несколько слов. То, что он сказал, всех очень поразило. Многие из пришедших были разочарованы, что гроб не открыли. Некоторые подошли к архиерею и говорили об этом. Но тот сказал, что некоторые чувствуют, что нужно захоронить снова гроб... Некоторые готовы воспринимать его тело как мощи, а некоторые - еще не готовы. И вот, чтобы предотвратить некоторые неправильные мысли и чувства, гроб открывать не будут. На заседании Синода будет сделан доклад, и нужно будет ждать, что решит Синод. Гроб положат в могилу. Он еще раз повторил, что не надо скорбеть, что гроб не открыли…

Некоторые говорили, что не удивлены тем, что останки владыки были обнаружены нетленными, потому что он был святым человеком. Те, кто хорошо его знали и были близки ему, говорили о нем, как о глубоком молитвеннике, мудром духовном борце, постнике и о "недвижимом камне, который поддерживал целой и неповрежденной нашу Веру".

Большинство приходов Зарубежной Церкви — против унии с МП. Вся Южная Америка против, подавляющее большинство в Австралии и Канаде — тоже против. В России, понятно, все против. Даже в Восточно-Американской епархии большинство настроено против унии. Вот только в Западно-Американской и Чикаго-Детройтской епархий большинство, вроде, за. Да и еще, конечно, в епархиях Марка и Амвросия большинство тоже за. Но тут надо уточнить, что на западном побережье США поддерживают унию скорее настоятели, но не всё духовенство и что от бывшей Западно-Европейской епархии РПЦЗ остались только обломки, так как епископа Амвросия (Кантакузена) большая часть этой епархии никогда не приняла и подавляющее число приходов давно ушло из под Лавровского Синода.

Все это, конечно, известно в Суздале и Мансонвилле, как и ясен тот факт, что у противников унии нет вождя. А следовательно, после Собора 2006 года, многие клирики и миряне окажутся в растерянности, не зная, что им делать. И вот в Суздале (РПАЦ) и Мансонвилле (РПЦЗ-В) возникает мысль: «Как бы нам заполучить побольше таких приходов?»

Но и там и сям — неблагополучно. Ревнители чистоты православия чрезвычайно враждебно относятся друг ко другу, взаимно обвиняя в «неканоничности». Суздальцы — все между собой переругались. А в Мансонвилле — лица окружающие нашего последнего законного первоиерарха, митрополита Виталия, сперва отсекли «киприанитов», потом отсекли «лазаритов», потом отсекли «варнавитов» ( всё это безо всякого соборного обсуждения). Не за горами тот момент когда «отсекающие» — епископ Владимир и о. Вениамин Жуков —постараются отсечь и друг друга, обвиняя в отступлении от истины.

Если кому-нибудь покажется, что я преувеличиваю, пусть прочтет вывешенные на интернете статьи названных лиц, да еще и опусы «епископа» Виктора Пивоварова в придачу. И подумает: могли бы с такой грубостью выражаться, скажем, митрополит Филарет, архиепископ Антоний Женевский, Владыка Аверкий, о. Лев Лебедев или вообще любой пастырь РПЦЗ ? Чего только стоят такие словосочетания Виктора Пивоварова и его окружения как «псевдоепископский лазаритский лжец» или «жидобес». Кстати, сей «епископ», ставленник о. Вениамина Жукова публично заявляет, что всяк кто не принадлежит к его группировке является «строителем синагоги сатаны».

Тут следует обратить внимание на разительный контраст такой терминологии с тоном епископа Истинно-Православной (Катакомбной) Церкви Дионисия (Алферова). Например, в статье »Только консолидация в единый фронт всех противников «нового курса» может обеспечить будущее Церкви» («НС» 2776), в которой он, в частности, пишет: «Наш Синод почившего Архиепископа Лазаря готов к диалогу с другими группами, не допуская против них никаких враждебных действий, не заявляя претензии на исключительность».

Такой же дух истинной христианской любви и абсолютной верности традициям Зарубежной Церкви чувствуется в недавнем окружном послании предстоятеля этой Церкви Архиепископа Тихона.

Да и обращение митрополита Виталия в связи с кончиной Архиепископа Лазаря дышит лаской и любовью — в полном противоречии с обычными потоками осуждений, льющимися из Мансонвиля.

Возникает вопрос: почему документы Мансонвильского Синода настолько отличаются тоном от собственноручно написанных митрополитом Виталием документов? Ответ простой. Его озвучил ньюиоркский судья, разбиравший иск Лавровского Синода против Мансонвилля: «Совершенно очевидно, что он (Вл. Виталий) является пешкой в каком-то внутреннем церковном конфликте». Нет никаких сомнений, что из-за немощи старца-митрополита — в Мансонвилле им пользуются.

В упомянутой статье Владыка Дионисий говорит о возможном в будущем «диалоге на епископском уровне». Но с кем? Уж точно не с Суздальским Синодом, который уже давно, задолго до его хиротонии, клеймит Епископа Дионисия как «лазарито-киприанистского крипто-экумениста». И не с Мансонвильским Синодом в целом, отказывающемся от всякого диалога. Может быть с отдельными архиереями обоих Синодов, которым не по душе экстремизм своих собратьев? Такими, например, как епископ РПЦЗ(В) Сергий (Киндяков)?

Нужно подчеркнуть, что все те безобразия, которые творятся сейчас во всех Синодах — за исключением Синода Архиепископа Тихона, единственного оставшегося во всем верным традициям нашей Церкви — совершенно чужды рядовым мирянам. Я лично знаю многих людей, которые находятся под Мансонвильским Синодом не потому что им по душе его экстремизм него, а из личной верности Митрополиту Виталию. И таких людей, не одобряющих поведение Синода РПЦЗ(В) — подавляющее большинство.

Причем в РПЦЗ(Л) — та же ситуация: несомненное большинство клириков и мирян не разделяет пагубные стремления архиереев.

В этом великая трагедия Зарубежной Церкви: все эти расколы учинили сверху архиереи и малая кучка совпатриотически настроенных священников. Ну, и Служба Внешней Разведки РФ…

Нам, простым мирянам, нужно отозваться на призыв Владыки Дионисия и всем вместе постараться найти выход из кризиса.

Суть постигшей Россию трагедии – в развале Русской Соборности. Вне соборного жития нет благословенного Богом самобытного русского пути коллективного спасения.
Приоритет материальных ценностей над нравственными, утвердившийся в результате демократической революции 90-х годов ХХ века, неотвратимо потянул за собой сопутствующую цепь духовных утрат. Нынешнее ухудшение душевных свойств нашего народа есть прямое следствие разрушения традиционной нравственной среды России, следствие того, что в подавляющем большинстве своем мы прекратили искать Бога и трудиться над стяжанием Его благодати.
Знаменитый русский характер, неповторимый своей задушевностью и милосердием, терпением и стойкостью, самопожертвованием и другими “экзотическими” особенностями православного миросозерцания, после векового – начиная с 1917 года – духовного геноцида перестал быть русским, т.е. святым как норма жизни. Лишь Церковь наша ныне из последних сил пытается сохранить в народной жизни островки Православности, Русскости, Богоподобия... Но и ее враги окружают со всех сторон: угрожают, подкупают, развращают, растлевают – изо всех сил пытаясь учредить “на месте святом” псевдорелигиозное “министерство нравственности” с чиновниками-бюрократами в “фольклорной” униформе православных священнослужителей.
О русское невежество, маловерие и неповоротливость, вопиющие к Небу о скором кровавом прозрении! Если жизнь идёт не по русским законам, не по заповедям Божиим – которые и создали нас, русских, и нашу Судьбу – то история развивается в богоненавистническом направлении. И если никто – а кроме нас, русских, некому! – не остановит сползание мира в геенну из-за самоустранения Русского Народа от исполнения своей духовно-державной миссии, то мы станем не только свидетелями, но и первыми жертвами грядущего земного ада.
Чего ждём? Всё уже стало ясным, как день. Препятствия к вселенской власти антихриста (главное из них – независимая самобытная Россия и ее жизнеспособный народ) почти полностью устранены, богоборческая революция в Третьем Риме практически завершена. Богоборцы ухватили-таки свою удачу за хвост и, наконец, оформили политически, юридически и экономически свои права на владение Россией.
Если бы они были банальными бандитами – хоть и в глобальном масштабе – то ограничились бы таким результатом. Ведь добра в России много – даже им, ненасытным, надолго хватит. Но сатанинская, оккультная сущность оккупантов требует непременно оформить факт материального и духовного порабощения народов России еще и религиозно. Отсюда – все более ожесточенные попытки “модернизировать” Русскую Православную Церковь “в духе времени”, выхолостить самую суть ее спасительного вероучения, развратить священнослужителей и мирян, склонить их к ереси, вероотступничеству и теплохладному равнодушию.

ЦЕРКОВНАЯ БЮРОКРАТИЯ – ВРАГ ДУХОВНОГО ВОЗРОЖДЕНИЯ

К сожалению, эти дьявольские попытки не остаются без плодов. Читаю я, например, журнал заседаний Священного Синода МП от 20.04.05. и сердце кровью обливается. “Имели мы суждение – пишут синодалы – об исходящих от некоторых групп православных мирян инициативах проведения “покаянного крестного хода” из разных епархий в Москву ко дню годовщины убиения святых страстотерпцев императора Николая Александровича, членов его семьи и пострадавших с ними”.
Казалось бы, с какой радостью должны русские архипастыри приветствовать этот молитвенный порыв своей паствы! С каким трепетом раздувать тлеющую в народной душе искру покаяния! Как бережно растить и холить “низовую”, народную инициативу, направленную наконец не на бесплодные политические и идеологические распри, а на восстановление нашей разорванной духовной связи с исторической Родиной, православной Россией, Святой Русью подвижников и мучеников Христовых!..
Но нет! Бюрократическое сознание не способно вместить в себя мистику соборного народного покаяния, его великое значение для грядущих судеб страны. Холодное сердце чиновника остается равнодушным к религиозным переживаниям верующей души, жаждущей получить очищение и прощение в страшных всенародных грехах цареубийства и богоотступничества. А изощренный ум политического интригана привык искать не пути духовного преображения, но пути удовлетворения личной, групповой или клановой корысти...
И вот с церковно-бюрократических высот Синодальной канцелярии раздается вердикт московского Священноначалия: отказать! не пущать! прекратить и впредь ни в коем случае не допускать! Вот ведь как напугала наших владык-архипастырей попытка рядовых мирян вслух заявить о своих духовных потребностях, которые не получают никакого удовлетворения в рамках казенного, официозного “православия”, культивируемого ныне в большинстве наших храмов на потребу “захожанам” и богатым спонсорам.
Впрочем, добраться до сути синодального решения оказывается не так-то просто. Сперва синодалы постановили “подтвердить, что Священноначалие РПЦ приветствует инициативы проведения паломничеств и молитвенных шествий как свидетельств веры”. Замечательно! “Благословение может быть дано и на упомянутое шествие...” Прекрасно! В чем же проблема? “...Если оно будет совершено в послушании Священноначалию...” А разве кто-нибудь от этого заранее отказывался? “...И в соответствии с нижеследующими суждениями Священного Синода”.
Какими же? А вот: “В церкви существуют вполне определенные формы Таинства Покаяния... отступление от форм представляется неоправданным и излишним”... То есть никакого соборного, всенародного покаяния, к которому и призывают организаторы и участники покаянных крестных ходов, синодалы не признают. Читаю и глазам своим не верю – каяться можно только в установленных формах? А о Благодати вообще речь не идёт!
Или ныне Тело Христово – горстка синодалов!? Или русская история не знает массового, всенародного покаяния, свершавшегося многотысячными толпами по велению своей пробужденной совести? Увы, двойные стандарты Синода в этом вопросе очевидны. Как коллективную исповедь в храмах допускать, нарушая все и всяческие церковные правила, так это – пожалуйста. А как в грехах измены Помазаннику Божию соборно покаяться – ни-ни! Ну да, еще бы – ведь нынче это “политически нецелесообразно”. А уродливый идол “целесообразности”, похоже, уже давно заменил в сердцах синодальных вельмож живую веру в Господа нашего Иисуса Христа...
“Патриарх и Священный Синод дважды, в связи с 75-летием и 80-летием страдальческой гибели Царской семьи призывали ко всенародному покаянию в этом грехе”. Мол, что вам надо, неугомонные? Мы ведь уже “призывали”. Отчитались, так сказать... И вопрос теперь закрыт, а вы со своими монархическими крестными ходами нам весь наш демократический комфорт грозите испортить. Какое уж тут благословение! Все, покаяние состоялось, и хватит об этом...
“Истинным плодом принесенного покаяния стало совершающееся возвращение народа на стези веры, благочестия и жизни во Христе, а видимым свидетельством – причисление Русской Православной Церковью Царской семьи к лику святых на Юбилейном Архиерейском Соборе в 2000-м году”. Так-то вот! Покаялись уже, и даже плоды покаяния пожать успели...
Только отчего ж не верю я, грешный, в эти бодрые декларации руководителей нашего “духовного ведомства”? Да от того, что вся окружающая жизнь вопиет мне о “мерзости запустения” на святом месте, месте России – Третьего Рима, который, по слову св. Иоанна Кронштадтского, есть не что иное, как земное подножие Престола Господня. /Наши нынешние начальники даже самого словосочетания “Третий Рим” боятся, как огня. И действительно – ну его, этот Третий Рим, с таким статусом хлопот не оберешься, а спокойной сытой жизни – вовек не видать. Не зря патриарх Алексий в интервью греческой газете "Элевферотипия", текст которого опубликован 23 апреля на сайте ОВЦС МП, сказал буквально следующее “То, что в прошлом многие называли Москву Третьим Римом, говорит о той ответственности за судьбы Православной эйкумены, которую она ощущала как центр единственной в то время независимой православной державы. Сейчас такие наименования, как "Третий Рим" или "Новый Рим", уже неактуальны, поскольку не несут той смысловой нагрузки, какую они имели в прошлом: сегодня Москва является столицей светского государства…” Это – недвусмысленный и ясный текст отречения от той промыслительной роли, которую Господь уготовал России и русскому народу./ От того, что вместо “возвращения народа на стези веры и благочестия” вижу – и на собственном горбу чувствую – тяжелейшее инославное иго, растлевающее и развращающее мой народ, лишающее его последних нравственных сил в противостоянии греху, страстям, порокам, в противоборстве с наглым, повсеместным, повседневным осквернением наших исконных святынь...
Впрочем, похоже, наши синодалы тоже отдают себе отчет в том, что их казенный оптимизм и лицемерное “покаяние” многих коробит. “Синод с прискорбием отмечает, – горюют они, – что в последнее время некоторые пастыри и, к сожалению, в редких случаях даже архиереи позволили себе участвовать в коллективном подписании текстов, расходящихся по содержанию с Соборными определениями”. Ну, о Соборных определениях – это они так, для красного словца. А вот “прискорбие” вельможных московских владык вполне искренно: как ни стараются они задушить своей мертвящей казенщиной любой живой росток народного благочестия, а все же находятся и священники, и даже епископы, которым христианская совесть дороже, чем “указания начальства”. И слава Богу!

“ШИРОКО МЫСЛЯЩИЕ” ПРОТИВ ПОМАЗАННИКА БОЖИЯ

Даже стилистика синодальных постановлений говорит об агонии православного сознания их составителей. Сплошь “формы”, и никакой сути: “канонические уставные формы”, “формы совершения Таинств”, “отступление от форм”, “формы канонического строя Церкви”... Это же лексика инославных законников! Конечно, сами по себе традиционные церковные формы благодатны и спасительны. Но когда их начинают употреблять как дубинку для подавления духовных чаяний народа Божия, они превращаются в орудия душеубийства и мертвящей схоластики. Но наши синодалы, похоже, до сих пор не разобрались, куда попали. Много лет прослужив в священном сане, они, кажется, так и не поняли, что из Церкви, в которой “у Бога все живы” сделать чертог мертвых они не смогут! Доколе жив хоть один истинно православный епископ, один священник и один мирянин...

Что ж получается? Как масонское Мировое Правительство стремится к контролю над своими вассалами по всей планете, так и наше Церковное правительство в лице священноначалия МП стремится во всем контролировать своих наёмных священников, подробно определяя по собственному усмотрению и исповедание веры, и набор молитв, чтобы тайна христианской жизни каждого клирика и монаха была видна начальству, так сказать, “в режиме он-лайн”... Чтобы каждый Христовый вольнодумец и “вольномолец” был своевременно выявлен и устранён!

Так навязанная сатанистами новая модель мiра и форма взаимоотношений распространяется на русское православное духовенство. Таким образом христоненавистники и богоборцы при помощи отступников и еретиков стремятся захватить Церковь и установить тотальный контроль над внутренней жизнью истинных последователей Христа.

Думаю, именно для этого нас убаюкивали апологеты ИНН, когда говорили: “берите любые внешние символы – в душу вашу никто не сможет заглянуть, ей это не повредит”. Что ж – к святым-то сердцам, может, вражине и впрямь не пробраться, но много ли ныне таких сердец? Зато ко всем нам, остальным, – слабым, грешным, духовно малоопытным – современные технологии позволяют предтечам антихриста подобрать весьма высокоэффективные “отмычки”.

Их цель – притвориться своими, завоевать доверие, притупить православную бдительность русского человека. А потом, пользуясь этим, виртуально жить внутри нашего сознания и направлять изнутри всю внешнюю жизнь клеймёных маловеров. Воистину, мiр постепенно превращается в театр марионеток, который с помощью технических чудес в конце концов будет дистанционно управляться главным кукловодом, карабасом-антихристом.

Неудивительно, что на этом фоне стремление православных христиан восстановить в России монархию во главе с Помазанником Божиим вызывает у “широко мыслящих” церковных начальников страх и активный протест. Отсюда и нелепое синодальное заявление, и попытки всеми силами приглушить православно-монархическую тему в среде православной общественности. Ну, не могут они позволить нам беспрепятственно провести покаянные крестные ходы с молитвами о призвании Православного Царя на Русский Престол.

В Христианского Бога они, скорее всего, не верят. Но все-таки опасаются: а вдруг? Они же знают, что “священник-немонархист не имеет права стоять у престола Божия”. Знают и все остальные каноны Церкви Христовой. Всё знают, но не исполняют. Значит, не любят Господа нашего Иисуса Христа! А потому – боятся расплаты... И вот, выбирая между Христом и номенклатурно-синодальными благами, они выбрали эти блага, отвергнув Бога и Его грядущего Помазанника!

Так всё отчетливее вырисовывается роль отступнической церковной бюрократии как религиозной обслуги антихристианского Кремля. Их задача – сделать Православие безопасным для правящего режима. Обмануть малое стадо Христово и увлечь его за собой под кров своей безблагодатной, театрализованной лжецеркви. Задушить, задавить в смрадных объятиях этой лжецеркви Церковь истинную, воинствующую, жертвенную, непримиримую.

Под влиянием этих высокопоставленных отступников – невзирая на американское золото “приватизированных” куполов – наша церковная организация всё более принимает очертания ветхозаветной синагоги: внешне богоугодной и благодатной, а по сути богоборческой, добившейся распятия Христа. Нынешняя “церковная политика” руководителей Московской Патриархии ведет – ни больше, ни меньше – к духовной самоликвидации Русской Церкви как Тела Христова в пользу какой-то невиданной доселе секты. И все это – для того, чтобы угодить Мировому Правительству и его лукавому послушнику – “демократическому” Кремлю. Ликвидировать историческую Россию, как Русское Государство с православной душой. Добиться, наряду с политическим и экономическим порабощением русского народа, его окончательной религиозной, духовной деградации!

Впрочем, нет худа без добра. Эти сатанинские планы глобалистов всё отчетливее проявляются в нашей жизни, в каждой семье и каждом русском сердце, которое враги Христа вновь ставят перед выбором – Православие или смерть. И деление человечества “на овец и козлищ” – это последнее, апокалиптическое размежевание боголюбцев и богоборцев, продолжается с неослабевающей силой. Ибо сказавший нам “Аз есмь Альфа и Омега, начаток и конец, Сый, иже бе и грядый, Вседержитель” (Апок 1,8) сказал также: “Неправедный пусть еще делает неправду; нечистый пусть еще сквернится; праведный да творит правду еще, и святый да освящается еще. Се, гряду скоро, и мзда Моя со мною, воздати коемуждо по делом его” (Апок. 22, 11).

Да, то, что делают современные синодалы, может окончательно снять с нашей Церкви благодатный покров, превратив её в сухую ветвь высохшей смоковницы, которая уже не сможет дать ни одного доброго плода. Да, на горизонте – Третья Мировая, которая по мысли богоборцев должна огнем и кровью запечатлеть их окончательную победу над Христианством.

Но ведь и въевшаяся в глубину нашей жизни богоборческая грязь тоже уже никак не может быть смыта с лица Святой Руси, кроме как огнём искушений и кровью мучеников! И потому моё христианское сознание, моё русское сердце свидетельствуют мне: еще не все потеряно! И я верую Господу моему, повелевшему мне быть верным до смерти, твердо верую: Он не бросит нас на растерзание всей этой нечисти, не оставит нас Своим благим попечением, не попустит Церкви Своей пасть под ударами инославных еретиков, отступников и богоборцев!

Господи, не оставь меня, нерадивого, за пределами Твоего Малого стада! Господи, спаси всех, доверенных мне Тобою!

Матушка Богородица, поддержи, помилуй нас, и даже не ищущих воли Сына Твоего и Бога нашего Иисуса Христа укрепи, чтобы устоять в Православии! Немощны мы зело от нераскаянных грехов наших многих – очисти сердца наши, чтобы получить благодать ведения и стать оружием в руках Твоих, Заступница и Спасительница наша! Да освободим Русь от поганого богоборческого ига! Да очистится Церковь-Мать от волков, губящих стада Христовы! Да воссияет свет славы Божьей над Православным Царством Русским во спасение оставшихся на всей земле верующих, всех жаждущих вечной Жизни в Любви Отца и Сына и Святаго Духа. Аминь.

ПЕРЕПОДОБНЫЙ ИОСИФ ВОЛОЦКИЙ И СОВРЕМЕННОСТЬ

ОТ РЕДАКЦИИ: 16–17 апреля 2005 года в Москве состоялась Всероссийская научно-практическая конференция, посвященная 501-й годовщине Московского Собора 1504 года, положившего конец распространению на Руси ереси жидовствующих и осудившего еретиков. В ней приняли участие несколько сотен делегатов со всех концов страны. В итоговом документе этой Конференции, в частности, говорится:

“Актуальность и непреходящее значение Московского Собора 1504 года для Православия сегодня трудно переоценить. Уже ни для кого не является секретом, что против России ведется широкомасштабная война, и полем сражения в этой войне является СОЗНАНИЕ человека и общества в целом. Для православного человека очевидно и ясно, что современная война носит четко выраженный духовный характер.

Великая роль Святых преподобных Иосифа Волоцкого и Нила Сорского, Святителя Геннадия Новгородского посвятивших себя борьбе с ересью жидовствующих, покушающейся не только на отдельные догматы Церкви Христовой, но на саму Православную Веру и на само государство Российское, заключается в том, что они показали пример для всех нас, кому дороги наша Церковь и наше Отечество, как надлежит поступать с врагами”.

На этом фоне вопиющим беззаконием выглядят те гонения, которые развернуты ныне жидовствующими клириками Московского Патриархата против ревнителей православного благочестия. “26 марта этого года, – сообщает информационное агентство “Русинформ”, – во вторую субботу Великого Поста, в Свято-Введенской Оптиной пустыни на полунощнице братия обители пропели величание святителю Геннадию Новгородскому и преподобному Иосифу Волоцкому. Нерусская по происхождению часть братии во главе с приехавшим с Московского подворья игуменом Мелхиседеком подняла бунт, требуя наказать русских иноков, осмелившихся молитвенно прибегнуть к сим почитаемым во всей Вселенской Церкви святым. По их навету “провинившиеся” иноки были подвергнуты прещениям, – снятию иноческих одежд. И только возмущение и вмешательство твердо стоящей в чистоте православного вероучения братии убедило отца наместника не поддаваться на провокации тех, кто пытается изнутри терзать Церковь Божию, и снять с иноков, претерпевших злокозни, ранее наложенные прещения”.

Таковы плоды инославного вмешательства в нашу церковную жизнь. Причем, весьма знаменательно, что происходило все это безобразие не где-нибудь, а в ставропигиальной Оптиной пустыни, бывшей некогда оплотом старчества, неисчерпаемым кладезем благодати и могучим источником православного русского духа. На таком примере можно ясно видеть, куда ведут нас экуменические синодалы, какое “православие” им нужно, каковы из истинные цели. Как говорится, факты налицо! Хорош и “отец наместник”, которому приходится объяснять, что в молитвенном почитании знаменитых русских святых нет ничего противозаконного.

“Духовное разложение современного общества превзошло все мыслимо допустимые пределы, – говорится там. – Налицо стремление большинства средств массовой информации развратить самую незащищенную в духовном отношении часть нашего народа – молодежь, на которую творцы новой ереси жидовствующих делают ставку в разрушении России. Примеров тому более, чем достаточно.

Серьезность своих намерений “новые жидовствующие”, выступающие под маской “глобализаторов”, уже не скрывают и провозглашают свою победу как дело вполне решенное. Но верные чада Православной Матери-Церкви знают, что Россия была, есть и будет. Не смотря ни на что, вопреки всему, подобно птице Феникс, она воспрянет из пепла и воссияет во всей первозданной чистоте своей Православной Веры, в Духе Истины и Любви Господа и Бога нашего Иисуса Христа...

Участники конференции, заслушав доклады ученых-историков и богословов, священнослужителей и мирян пришли к единодушному выводу:

Современная ересь “новых жидовствующих” изощренно внедряется в нашу православную жизнь в различных формах, таких как экуменизм, рукоположение в священный сан лиц иудейского происхождения, нарушение канонов и правил Апостолов и Святых Соборов, что в свою очередь ведет к обмирщению Церкви, отчуждению церковной верхушки от своей паствы и поощрению богоборцев во власти. Такое явление в церковной жизни создает прямую угрозу существованию православной веры в России, как первенствующей и господствующей, а также создало необходимые условия для тотального разрушения государства Российского и уничтожения Русского народа, как носителя православной веры.

В сложившейся ситуации необходимо Соборное сопротивление и противоборство русского народа сатанинской идеологии, из которой берут начало ереси – как 500 лет назад, так и сегодня. Фундаментом, краеугольным камнем, с которого может быть видна Победа русского православного воинства над ересью, является слово преподобного Иосифа Волоцкого, который в своем труде “Просветитель” не только разоблачил конкретную ересь XV века, но, защищая православие, дал образец противодействия любому враждебному ему течению – будь это латиняне, протестанты, экстрасенсы или иные проявления “нового религиозного сознания”.

В связи с вышеизложенным, конференция постановила:

“1. Совместными усилиями всех православных приходов инициировать созыв Поместного Собора Русской Православной Церкви, который является главным условием восстановления в церковной жизни традиций, преданных Святыми Апостолами и Святыми Отцами, ее Единства, а также разрешения всех нестроений в Церкви и в обществе.

3. Да, всякая власть от Бога. Но от Бога может быть и власть Царская, во главе с Царем православным, Помазанником Божиим – как Божие Благословение на дела земные – и власть, попущенная Богом для наказания развратившегося народа за его грехи, для его исправления, которое возможно только через покаяние и возвращение к жизни праведной, благочестивой, нелицемерной. Кто отдает свою Веру и Отечество земное на поругание, тот не достоин и Небесного Отечества. “Побеждающий наследует все, и буду ему Богом, и он будет мне сыном. Боязливых же и неверных, и скверных и убийц, и любодеев, и чародеев, и идолослужителей и всех лжецов участь – в озере, горящем огнем и серою”. (Откр. 21, 7,8)

5. Всемерно оказывая содействие молитвенным стояниям и крестным ходам, поддержать доброе начинание православного народа России, Белоруссии и Украины в совершении Чина всенародного покаяния в грехах русского народа...

The judgement of God is being carried out on the Church and the people of Russia…

A selection is being made of those true warriors of Christ who alone will be able…

And that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast or the number of his name…

The year 1917 marked the beginning of the time of the end, the time of the Antichrist, in accordance with the prophecies of such luminaries of the Church as St. Seraphim of Sarov, St. Ambrose of Optina, Bishop Theophanes the Recluse, St. John of Kronstadt and the holy new martyrs and confessors of Russia. On November 9, 1917, Divine Providence drew the attention of all those with eyes to see the signs of the times to an extraordinary “coincidence”: in one column of newsprint in the London “Times”, there appeared, one above the other, two articles, the one announcing the outbreak of revolution in Petrograd, and the other – the promise of a homeland for the Jews in Palestine (the Balfour declaration). Thus at precisely the same time the two horns of the beast of the last times, the power of apostate Jewry, appeared above the vast sea of the formerly Christian world: the anti-theist, materialist horn of Soviet power, and the theist, Judaistic horn of Zionist Israel.

The fall of Russia, the last Orthodox Christian empire, was followed by further blows to the monarchical, God-established principle of political government. In 1918 the Catholic empire of Austro-Hungary and the Protestant empire of Germany collapsed. In 1924 the Orthodox kingdom of Greece fell; and in 1941 and 1944 the last Orthodox monarchies of Yugoslavia and Bulgaria also fell. By the end of the Second World War there were no real monarchies left in Europe or America, and the world was dominated by two powers based on the anti-monarchical, democratic principle: the United States of America, representing the more individualist, tolerant variety of democratism, and the Soviet Union, representing the more collectivist, intolerant variety.

50 years later, the situation had changed again. The Soviet Union was no more, and its rival for leadership of the communist world, China, was well on the way to transforming itself into a capitalist democracy. With the fall of the anti-theist, materialist horn of the beast, the attention of many Orthodox was turned to the other, theist (though also secularist) horn – Israel, founded in 1948 under the sponsorship of Britain and the Soviet Union, and to Israel’s allies in the West, especially America, the only remaining superpower. In particular, alarm was aroused by the spread throughout the West, and thence into the East, of new forms of identification and money exchange – credit cards, bar-codes, 18-figure identity cards, etc. – which appeared to contain the number of the beast, 666. The question raised in many minds, and addressed in the present article, is: could this be the seal of the Antichrist?

Let us begin by examining, not the seal of the Antichrist as such, but the reign of the Antichrist since 1917. In what does it consist? What are its essential characteristics?

According to the holy apostles and fathers of the Church, the reign of the Antichrist will be characterised by an extreme form of anarchy – that is, the absence of law and order. Now the origin of all law and order is God, so all law and order, all true authority, is established by God. That is the meaning of the apostle’s famous saying: “There is no power that is not of God; the powers that be are established by God” (Romans 13.1). Christians honour the king and pray for the powers that be precisely in order to avoid the great evil of anarchy, “that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence” (I Timothy 2.2). Since anarchy is opposed to God-established authority, it is opposed to God, and must therefore itself be opposed by all those who fear God and obey His holy will.

A ruler may be unjust and cruel at times, or even very often, but as long as he prevents anarchy Christians must obey him. Thus St. Irenaeus of Lyons writes: “Some rulers are given by God with a view to the improvement and benefit of their subjects and the preservation of justice; others are given with a view to producing fear, punishment and reproof; yet others are given with a view to displaying mockery, insult and pride – in each case in accordance with the deserts of the subjects. Thus… God’s judgement falls equally on all men.”[1] Again, St. Isidore of Pelusium writes that the evil ruler “has been allowed to spew out this evil, like Pharaoh, and, in such an instance, to carry out extreme punishment or to chastise those for whom great cruelty is required, as when the king of Babylon chastised the Jews.”[2]

But there is line beyond which an evil ruler ceases to be a ruler and becomes an anti-ruler, an unlawful tyrant, who is not to be obeyed. Thus the Jews were commanded by God through the Prophet Jeremiah to submit to the king of Babylon, evil though he was; whereas they were commanded through another prophet, Moses, to resist and flee from the Egyptian Pharaoh, and rebelled again, with God’s blessing, under Antiochus Epiphanes. For in the one case the authority, though evil, was still an authority, which it was beneficial to obey; whereas in the other cases the authority was in fact an anti-authority, obedience to which would have taken the people further away from God.

Anarchy, the absence of true authority, can be of two kinds: organised and disorganised. When a true authority collapses, there usually follows a period of disorganised anarchy, which is characterised by individual crimes of all kinds – murder, robbery, rape, sacrilege, - that go unchecked and unpunished because of the absence of a true power. Such was the period of Russian history that followed the collapse of the Orthodox empire in February, 1917. The Provisional government, having itself contributed to the collapse of the empire, and having received its authority neither (through holy anointing) from God nor (by means of a popular vote) from men, was unable to check the rising tide of anarchy and collapsed ignominiously. The disorganised anarchy of the Provisional government was followed by the organised anarchy of the Bolshevik “government”…

Now Christians are obliged to recognise every power that is in fact a power in the apostolic meaning of the word – that is, which at least tries to prevent anarchy by rewarding the good and punishing the bad (Romans 13.3; I Peter 2.14). Such a power does not have to be Christian: although only the Orthodox anointed kings, working together with the Orthodox hierarchs, are able to establish God’s order in anything approaching fullness, even pagan, heretical and Muslim states punish those crimes that are recognised as such by the vast majority of mankind, and are therefore recognised as legitimate by the Church. However, such recognition can only be relative – relative, that is, to the degree to which the government does in fact establish order, - and in extreme cases can be refused altogether.

Thus in the fourth century, the Persian King Sapor proposed to Hieromartyr Simeon, Bishop of Seleucia and Ctesiphon, that he worship the sun, in exchange for which he would receive every possible honour and gift. But if he refused, this would bring about the complete destruction of Christianity in Persia. Now already before he had made this proposal to Simeon, King Sapor had started to kill the clergy, confiscate church property and raze the churches to the ground. So when he was brought before the king for his reply, St. Simeon not only refused to worship the sun but also, upon entering, refused to recognise the king by bowing. This omission of his previous respect for the king’s authority was noticed and questioned by the King. St. Simeon replied: "Before I bowed down to you, giving you honour as a king, but now I come being brought to deny my God and Faith. It is not good for me to bow before an enemy of my God!"[3]

Again, when Julian the Apostate (361-363) came to the throne, the Church refused to recognize him. Thus St. Basil the Great prayed for the defeat of Julian in his wars against the Persians; and it was through his prayers that the apostate was in fact killed, as was revealed by God to the holy hermit Julian of Mesopotamia.[4] At this, St. Basil’s friend, St. Gregory the Theologian wrote: “I call to spiritual rejoicing all those who constantly remained in fasting, in mourning and prayer, and by day and by night besought deliverance from the sorrows that surrounded us and found a reliable healing from the evils in unshakeable hope… What hoards of weapons, what myriads of men could have produced what our prayers and the will of God produced?” Gregory called Julian not only an “apostate”, but also “universal enemy” and “general murderer”, a traitor to Romanity – that is, the state of the Roman empire - as well as to Christianity.[5]

Again, when the Norman Duke William invaded England in 1066 with the blessing of the Pope, and was crowned as the first Catholic king of England in the following year, the brother-bishops and hieromartyrs Ethelric and Ethelwine solemnly anathematized both him and the Pope, and called on the people to rise up against the false authority.

Again, in 1611 St. Hermogen, patriarch of Moscow, called on the Russian people to rise up against the crypto-Catholic false Demetrius, although the latter had been anointed by a supposedly Orthodox patriarch.

The state that is refused recognition by the Church is the state of organized anarchy – that is, the state in which crime is not only not punished, as in disorganized anarchy, but is confirmed and recognized as lawful. Thus the essence of antichristian power is not simply the doing of evil – all states, even the most Orthodox, at times do evil – but the systematic recognition of evil as good, of lawlessness as the law, of the abnormal as the norm and even the aim of society. Such a state is “the mystery of lawlessness” (II Thessalonians 2.7).

Such a state was the Bolshevik regime, which, taking advantage of the disorganized anarchy prevailing under the Provisional government, not only did not restore order into the chaos, but consolidated, intensified and organized it, made it the norm, made it “lawful”. Church tradition calls unlawful councils, councils that preach heresy instead of truth, “robber councils”. In the same way, unlawful states such as the Bolshevik regime can be called “robber states”, insofar as murder, robbery and sacrilege become the norm under them – indeed, are committed primarily by the state itself. Robber states cannot command the obedience of God-fearing Christians, for they are not authorities in the apostolic sense of the word, but “anti-authorities”. Rather, such states must be rebuked and rejected by them.

That is why, on November 11, 1917, the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church addressed a letter to the faithful calling the revolution “descended from the Antichrist” and declaring: “Open combat is fought against the Christian Faith, in opposition to all that is sacred, arrogantly abasing all that bears the name of God (II Thessalonians 2.4)… But no earthly kingdom founded on ungodliness can ever survive: it will perish from internal strife and party dissension. Thus, because of its frenzy of atheism, the State of Russia will fall… For those who use the sole foundation of their power in the coercion of the whole people by one class, no motherland or holy place exists. They have become traitors to the motherland and instigated an appalling betrayal of Russia and her true allies. But, to our grief, as yet no government has arisen which is sufficiently one with the people to deserve the blessing of the Orthodox Church. And such will not appear on Russian soil until we turn with agonizing prayer and tears of repentance to Him, without Whom we labour in vain to lay foundations…”

In January, 1918, Patriarch Tikhon and the Local Council meeting in Moscow anathematized the Bolsheviks. The significance of this anathema lies not so much in its casting out of the Bolsheviks themselves (all those who deny God are subject to anathema, that is, separation from God, for that very denial), as in the command to the faithful: “I adjure all of you who are faithful children of the Orthodox Church of Christ not to commune with such outcasts of the human race in any matter whatsoever; ‘cast out the wicked from among you’ (I Corinthians 5.13).” In other words, the Bolsheviks were to be regarded, not only as apostates from Christ (that was obvious), but also as having no moral authority, no claim to obedience whatsoever.[6]

It has been argued that the Patriarch’s decree did not anathematise Soviet power as such, but only those who were committing acts of violence and sacrilege against the Church in various parts of the country. However, this argument fails to take into account several facts. First, the patriarch himself, in his declarations of June 16 and July 1, 1923, repented precisely of his “anathematisation of Soviet power”.[7] Secondly, even if the decree did not formally anathematise Soviet power as such, since Soviet power sanctioned and initiated the acts of violence, the faithful were in effect being exhorted to having nothing to do with it. And thirdly, in his Epistle to the Council of People’s Commissars on the first anniversary of the revolution, November 7, 1918, the Patriarch obliquely but clearly confirmed his non-recognition of Soviet power, saying: “It is not our business to make judgments about earthly authorities. Every power allowed by God would attract to itself Our blessing if it were truly ‘the servant of God’, for the good of those subject to it, and were ‘terrible not for good works, but for evil’ (Romans 13.3,4). But now to you, who have used authority for the persecution of the innocent, We extend this Our word of exhortation… “[8]

Most important of all, when the Patriarch’s decree came to be read out to the Council on January 22 / February 4, it was enthusiastically endorsed by it in terms which make it clear that the Council understood the Patriarch to have anathematised precisely Soviet power: “The Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia in his epistle to the beloved in the Lord archpastors, pastors and all faithful children of the Orthodox Church of Christ has drawn the spiritual sword against the outcasts of the human race – the Bolsheviks, and anathematised them. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church adjures all her faithful children not to enter into any communion with these outcasts. For their satanic deeds they are cursed in this life and in the life to come. Orthodox! His Holiness the Patriarch has been given the right to bind and to loose according to the word of the Saviour… Do not destroy your souls, cease communion with the servants of Satan – the Bolsheviks. Parents, if your children are Bolsheviks, demand authoritatively that they renounce their errors, that they bring forth repentance for their eternal sin, and if they do not obey you, renounce them. Wives, if your husbands are Bolsheviks and stubbornly continue to serve Satan, leave your husbands, save yourselves and your children from the soul-destroying infection. An Orthodox Christian cannot have communion with the servants of the devil… Repent, and with burning prayer call for help from the Lord of Hosts and thrust away from yourselves ‘the hand of strangers’ – the age-old enemies of the Christian faith, who have declared themselves in self-appointed fashion ‘the people’s power’… If you do not obey the Church, you will not be her sons, but participants in the cruel and satanic deeds wrought by the open and secret enemies of Christian truth… Dare! Do not delay! Do not destroy your soul and hand it over to the devil and his stooges.”[9]

This first instinct of the Russian Church in the face of Soviet power has never been extinguished among Russian Christians. It continued to manifest itself both at home and abroad - for example, in the First All-Emigration Council of the Russian Church Abroad in 1921, and both in the early and the later decades of Soviet power - for example, among the "passportless" Christians of the Catacomb Church in the 1960s and 70s. However, it was very soon tempered by the realisation that such outright rejection of Soviet power on a large scale could be sustained only by war - and after the defeat of the White Armies in the Civil War there were no armies left to carry on the fight against the Bolsheviks. Therefore from the early 1920s a new attitude towards Soviet power began to evolve among the Tikhonite Christians: loyalty towards it as a political institution ("for all power is from God"), and acceptance of such of its laws as could be interpreted in favour of the Church (for example, the law on the separation of Church and State), combined with rejection of its atheistic world-view (large parts of which the renovationists, by contrast, accepted). In essence, this new attitude involved accepting that the Soviet State was not the Antichrist, as the Local Council of 1917-18 and the Russian Church Abroad had in effect declared, but Caesar, no worse in principle than the Caesars of Ancient Rome, to whom the things belonging to Caesar were due.

This attitude presupposed that it was possible, in the Soviet Union as in Ancient Rome, to draw a clear line between politics and religion. But in practice, even more than in theory, this line proved very hard to draw. For the early Bolsheviks, at any rate, there was no such dividing line; for them, everything was ideological, everything had to be in accordance with their ideology, there could be no room for disagreement, no private spheres into which the state and its ideology did not pry. Unlike most of the Roman emperors, who allowed the Christians to order their own lives in their own way so long as they showed loyalty to the state (which, as we have seen, the Christians were very eager to do), the Bolsheviks insisted in imposing their own ways upon the Christians in every sphere: in family life (civil marriage only, divorce on demand, children spying on parents), in education (compulsory Marxism), in economics (dekulakization, collectivization), in military service (the oath of allegiance to Lenin), in science (Darwinism, Lysenkoism), in art (socialist realism), and in religion (the requisitioning of valuables, registration, commemoration of the authorities at the Liturgy, reporting of confessions by the priests). Resistance to any one of these demands was counted as "anti-Soviet behaviour", i.e. political disloyalty. Therefore it was no use protesting one's political loyalty to the regime if one refused to accept just one of these demands. According to the Soviet interpretation of the word: "Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one has become guilty of all of it" (James 2.10), such a person was an enemy of the people.

In view of this, it is not surprising that many Christians came to the conclusion that it was less morally debilitating to reject the whole regime that made such impossible demands, since the penalty would be the same whether one asserted one's loyalty to it or not. And if this meant living as an outlaw, so be it. Such a rejection of, or flight from the state had precedents in Russian history; and we find some priests, such as Hieromartyr Timothy Strelkov of Mikhailovka (+1930) and even some bishops, such as Hieroconfessor Amphilochius of Yeniseisk (+1946), adopting this course.[10]

Nevertheless, the path of total rejection of the Soviet state required enormous courage, strength and self-sacrifice, not only for oneself but also (which was more difficult) for one's family or flock. It is therefore not surprising that, already during the Civil War, the Church began to soften her anti-Soviet rhetoric and try once more to draw the line between politics and religion. This is what Patriarch Tikhon tried to do in the later years of his patriarchate – with the best of motives (to save Christian lives), but, it must be said, only mixed results. Thus his decision to allow some, but not all of the Church's valuables to be requisitioned by the Bolsheviks in 1922 not only did not bring help to the starving of the Volga, as was the intention, but led to many clashes between believers and the authorities and many deaths of believers. For, as the holy Elder Nectarius of Optina said: "You see now, the patriarch gave the order to give up all valuables from the churches, but they belonged to the Church!"[11]

The decision to negotiate and compromise with the Bolsheviks - in transgression of the decrees of the 1917-18 Council - only brought confusion and division to the Church. Thus on the right wing of the Church there were those who thought that the patriarch had already gone too far; while on the left wing there were those who wanted to go further. However, neither Patriarch Tikhon nor his successor, Metropolitan Peter, crossed the line which would have involved surrendering the spiritual freedom of the Church into the hands of the authorities.

That line was crossed only with the coming to power, in 1927, of Metropolitan Peter’s deputy, Metropolitan Sergius. He sought and obtained legalization for his church organization, the present-day Moscow Patriarchate. And then introduced the commemoration of the God-hating anti-authorities at the Divine Liturgy.

This was a fateful step, because to seek legalisation from a state inescapably implies recognition of that state to a greater or lesser degree; at a minimum, it implies recognition of that state as God-established and the majority of its laws as binding on Christians. But how can a state that openly and systematically wars against God be God-established? And how can a state that legalizes all manner of crimes be considered to be legal in itself and the fount of legality?! Rather, such a state is not an authority at all, but the beast of the Apocalypse, of whom it is written that it receives its authority, not from God, but from the devil (Revelation 13.2).

Moreover, by declaring, in his famous “Declaration”, that the Soviet regime's joys were the Church's joys, and its sorrows the Church's sorrows, Sergius in effect declared an identity of aims between the Church and the State. And this was not just a lie, but a lie against the faith, a concession to the communist ideology. For it implied that communism as such was good, and its victory to be welcomed. Thus Sergius Nilus quoted Izvestia, which said that Metropolitan Sergius’ “Declaration” was an attempt “to construct a cross in such a way that it would look like a hammer to a worker, and like a sickle to a peasant”. “In other words,” said Nilus, “to exchange the cross for the Soviet seal, the seal of the beast (Rev. 13.16).”[12]

In order to protect the flock of Christ from Sergius' apostasy, the leaders of the True Church had to draw once more the line between politics and religion. One approach was to distinguish between physical opposition to the regime and spiritual opposition to it. Thus Hieromartyr Archbishop Barlaam of Perm wrote that physical opposition was not permitted, but spiritual opposition was obligatory.[13] Again, Hieromartyr Bishop Mark (Novoselov) wrote: “I am an enemy of Soviet power – and what is more, by dint of my religious convictions, insofar as Soviet power is an atheist power and even anti-theist. I believe that as a true Christian I cannot strengthen this power by any means… [There is] a petition which the Church has commanded to be used everyday in certain well-known conditions… The purpose of this formula is to request the overthrow of the infidel power by God… But this formula does not amount to a summons to believers to take active measures, but only calls them to pray for the overthrow of the power that has fallen away from God.”[14] This criterion allowed Christians quite sincerely to reject the charge of "counter-revolution" - if "counter-revolution" were understood to mean physical rebellion. The problem was, as we have seen, that the Bolsheviks understood "counter-revolution" in a much wider sense…

Another, still more basic problem was that it still left the question whether Soviet power was from God or not unresolved. If Soviet power was from God, it should be counted as Caesar and should be given what was Caesar's. But bitter experience had shown that this "Caesar" wanted to seat himself in the temple as if he were God (II Thessalonians 2.4). So was he not in fact Antichrist, whose power is not from God, but from Satan (Revelation 13.2), being allowed by God for the punishment of sinners, but by no means established by Him? If so, then there was no alternative but to flee into the catacombs, rejecting totally the government of Satan on earth.

In the early years after Metropolitan Sergius' declaration, many Catacomb Christians, while in practice not surrendering what was God's to the Soviets, in theory could not make up their minds whether the Soviet regime was Caesar or Antichrist. Thus Hieromartyr Joseph (Gavrilov), superior of Raithu Desert (+1930), confessed at his interrogation: "I have never, and do not now, belong to any political parties. I consider Soviet power to be given from God, but a power that is from God must fulfill the will of God, and Soviet power does not fulfill the will of God. Therefore it is not from God, but from Satan. It closes churches, mocks the holy icons, teaches children atheism, etc. That is, it fulfills the will of Satan... It is better to die with faith than without faith. I am a real believer, faith has saved me in battles, and I hope that in the future faith will save me from death. I firmly believe in the Resurrection of Christ and His Second Coming. I have not gone against the taxes, since it says in Scripture: 'To Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's.'"[15] From this confession, impressive though it is, it is not clear whether Hieromartyr Joseph recognised the Soviet regime as Caesar, and therefore from God, or as Antichrist, and therefore from Satan. In the end the Bolsheviks resolved his dilemma for him. They shot him, and therefore showed that they were - Antichrist.

In the Russian Church in Exile, meanwhile, a consensus had emerged that the Soviet regime was not Caesar, but Antichrist. This was the position of, for example, Archbishop Theophanes of Poltava, Metropolitan Innocent of Peking and Archbishop Averky of Jordanville.[16] As Bishop Gregory (Grabbe), the foremost canonist of the Russian Church Abroad, wrote: “With regard to the question of the commemoration of authorities, we must bear in mind that now we are having dealings not simply with a pagan government like Nero’s, but with the apostasy of the last times. Not with a so far unenlightened authority, but with apostasy. The Holy Fathers did not relate to Julian the Apostate in the same way as they did to the other pagan Emperors. And we cannot relate to the antichristian authorities in the same way as to any other, for its nature is purely satanic…”[17]

If the Soviet state was the collective Antichrist, the beast of the Apocalypse, what was its seal? In the case of the Church, this question has already been answered: the seal was “legalisation” by “the mystery of lawlessness”, on the one hand, and the commemoration of the Antichrist by name at the liturgy, on the other. This was the “abomination of desolation” set up in the Holy of holies.

In the case of individual Christians, the answer is analogous: the seal of the Antichrist was any and every activity that sucked the Christian into participation in, and recognition of, the Soviet state. For the main lesson of the 1920s and 30s was that it is vain to see a modus vivendi with the Antichrist: he takes everything and gives nothing in return, as Metropolitan Peter once bitterly complained to the Soviet “over-procurator” Tuchkov. So the Christians began to avoid everything that tied them in any way to the state: Soviet passports (which, at least in some periods, involved definite obligations to the state); service in the Red Army (how can a Christian fight for “the conquests of October”?); Soviet educational institutions (which involved compulsory study of, and examinations in, Marxism-Leninism); and any and every kind of electoral or political activity (which was monopolised by the communist party).

There was no consensus among Catacomb Christians about what activities were to be considered as “Soviet” and therefore sinful; some groups and branches of the Church were stricter, others less strict. Thus some “non-commemorators” took jobs in Soviet institutions and restricted their abstinence from Soviet life to non-membership of the communist party and the Soviet church. Others, however, not only refused to work for the Antichrist in any way, but even refused to have electricity in their homes, since this, too, came to them from the Antichrist. As Soviet power weakened, some Catacomb Christians felt able to practise “economy” and temper the strictness of their rule, Thus the Catacomb hieromonk Gury (Pavlov) was a “passportless”, but took a Soviet passport in 1990 in order to receive consecration to the episcopate in the U.S.A.

The question of Soviet passports needs to be examined in a little more detail. Passportisation had been introduced into the Soviet Union only in 1932, and only for the most urbanized areas. Already then it was used as a means of winkling out Catacomb Christians. Thus M.V. Shkvarovsky writes: “Completing their liquidation of the Josephites, there was a meeting of regional inspectors for cultic matters on March 16, 1933, at a time when passportisation was being introduced. The meeting decided, on the orders of the OGPU, ‘not to give passports to servants of the cult of the Josephite confession of faith’, which meant automatic expulsion from Leningrad. Similar things happened in other major cities of the USSR.”[18]

Catacomb hierarchs did not bless their spiritual children to take passports because in filling in the forms the social origins and record of Christians was revealed, making them liable to persecution. Also Catacomb Christians did not want to receive what they considered to be the seal of the Antichrist, or to declare themselves citizens of the antichristian kingdom.

In the 1930s the peasants had not been given passports but were chained to the land which they worked. They were herded into the collective farms and forced to do various things against their conscience, such as vote for the communist officials who had destroyed their way of life and their churches. Those who refused to do this – refusals were particularly common in the Lipetsk, Tambov and Voronezh areas – were rigorously persecuted, and often left to die of hunger.

On May 4, 1961, however, the Soviet government issued its decree on “parasitism” and introduced its campaign for general passportisation. In local papers throughout the country it was announced that, in order to receive a Soviet passport, a citizen of the USSR would have to recognize all the laws of Soviet power, past and present, beginning from Lenin’s decrees. Since this involved, in effect, a recognition of all the crimes of Soviet power, a movement arose to reject Soviet passports, a movement which was centred mainly in the country areas among those peasants and their families who had rejected collectivization in the 1930s.

E.A. Petrova writes: “Protests against general passportisation arose among Christians throughout the vast country. A huge number of secret Christians who had passports began to reject them, destroy them, burn them and loudly, for all to hear, renounce Soviet citizenship. Many Christians from the patriarchal church also gave in their passports. There were cases in which as many as 200 people at one time went up to the local soviet and gave in their passports. In one day the whole of a Christian community near Tashkent gave in 100 passports at once. Communities in Kemerovo and Novosibirsk provinces gave in their passports, and Christians in the Altai area burned their passports… Protests against general passportisation broke out in Belorussia, in the Ukraine, and in the Voronezh, Tambov and Ryazan provinces… Christians who renounced their Soviet passports began to be seized and, imprisoned and exiled. But in spite of these repressions the movement of the passportless Christians grew and became stronger. It was precisely in these years that the Catacomb Church received a major influx from Christians of the patriarchal church who renounced Soviet passports and returned into the bosom of the True Orthodox Church.”[19]

In the 1970s the detailed questionnaires required in order to receive passports were abandoned, but in 1974 it was made obligatory for all Soviet citizens to have a passport, and a new, red passport differing quite significantly from the old, green one. However, it contained a cover with the words: “Passport of a citizen of the Soviet Socialist Republics” together with a hammer and sickle, which was still unacceptable to the Passportless, who therefore continued to be subject to prison, exile and hunger. Those who joined the Catacomb Church at this time often erased the word “citizen”, replacing it with the word “Christian”, so that they had a “Passport of a Christian of the Soviet Socialist Republics”.

In recent years the great podvig of the Passportless Catacomb Christians has been criticised by some, and not only, as we would expect, by members of the Soviet and other heterodox churches. Thus Metropolitan Vitaly, first-hierarch of the ROCA, in a dialogue with representatives of the Passportless, compared the Soviet Union to the Roman empire. St Paul had been proud of his Roman citizenship, he wrote, so what was wrong with having a Soviet passport and being called a Soviet citizen?[20] Passportless Christians were appalled by the comparison – as if Rome, the state in which Christ Himself was born and was registered in a census, and which later grew into the great Orthodox Christian empires of Byzantium, the New Rome, and Russia, the Third Rome, could be compared to the anti-state, the collective Antichrist, that destroyed the Russian empire! [21] Rome, even in its pagan phase, had protected the Christians from the fury of the Jews: the Soviet Union was, in its early phase, the instrument of the Jews against the Christians. Rome, even in its pagan phase, guaranteed a framework of law and order within which the apostles could rapidly spread the faith from one end of the world to the other: the Soviet Union forced a population that was already Orthodox in its great majority to renounce their faith or hide it “in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth” (Hebrews 11.38).

Still more recently, an anonymous publication has accused the Catacomb Christians of “premature flight” from the world, analogous to the flight of the Old Believers from Russian society. On this path of premature flight from the world, writes the anonymous author, “set out the schismatic Old Believers under Peter. In our century, the Catacomb Christians decisively refused to accept any state documents, seeing in them the seal of the Antichrist. Of course, in Peter’s reign, and still more in Stalin’s regime, elements of an antichristian kingdom were evident. But such terrible rebellions against the God-established order were not yet the end, ‘this is only the beginning of sorrows’, as the Gospel says (Luke 21.9).”[22]

So what is the anonymous author asserting? That the Catacomb Christians are schismatics on a par with the Old Believers?! This not only constitutes a serious slander against the Catacomb Church, but also betrays a blindness with regard to the eschatological significance of the Russian-Jewish revolution, which, if only the “beginning” of sorrows, was nevertheless also the beginning of the reign of the Antichrist, when the relationship between the Church and the State changed from one of cooperation and mutual recognition to one of mutual non-recognition and the most fundamental incompatibility.

There can be no doubt that Peter the Great inflicted great damage on the Church (and thereby indirectly also on the State, for which it paid in 1917) through his westernizing reforms. However, the conscience of the Church, while rejecting his errors, has always recognized that he died as a Christian and God-anointed tsar (see the Life of St. Metrophanes of Voronezh, who appeared to one of his venerators after his death and told him: “If you want to be pleasing to me, pray for the repose of the soul of Emperor Peter the Great”[23]). No saint of the Church ever counselled rebellion against Peter or his successors, as opposed to resistance to certain of their decrees.[24]

As for the Old Believers, their rebellion was not in the first place against Peter and his reforms, but against Patriarch Nicon and his reforms, which was quickly followed by rebellion against Peter’s father, Tsar Alexis Mikhailovich also. Later, they seized on Peter’s reforms as an excuse for widening and deepening their rebellion against the God-established order, making them the forerunners, not of the True Orthodox Christians of the Soviet catacombs, who always recognized that which the Old Believers rejected, but of the revolutionaries of 1905 and 1917.

As Archbishop Anthony (Khrapovitsky) wrote in 1912,in his encyclical to the Old Believers: “The spirit of this world… winks at real revolutionaries and sent the money of your rich men to create the Moscow rebellion of 1905.”[25]

Another, more moderate objection is sometimes raised: that the exploit (podvig) of the Catacomb Christians, while admirable and justified in view of the ferocity of the Soviet regime, was nevertheless not necessary, for one could be saved without resorting to such extreme measures.

The present writer is not aware of any decision by any competent Church authority that would clarify the question whether the rejection of Soviet passports was necessary for the salvation of Christians in the Soviet period. It may be that such a question cannot be answered in a clear and categorical manner in view of the great complexity and diversity of the relations between individual believers and the Soviet state. Only God knows whether any particular degree of involvement in Soviet life constituted apostasy or an acceptable level of accommodation to circumstances.

However, the question whether the podvig of the Catacomb Christians was “necessary” is much easier to answer. It is as easy to answer as the question: Is it necessary to keep as far away from sin as possible, or: Is it necessary to take every possible precaution against sin? The answer, of course, is: yes, it is absolutely necessary!

The English have a parable: when you have supper with the devil, take a very long spoon. The Catacomb Christians took not even very long spoons to the marriage feast of the devil and the citizens of the Soviet state. In their completely laudable zeal to keep their bridal garments spotless for the marriage feast of Christ and His Church, they chose not even to step over the threshold of the Soviet madhouse. They chose rather to go hungry than eat of the devil’s food, the communion of heretics and apostates.

And not only did they save their own souls thereby: they also provided an absolutely necessary warning to those Christians who, thinking that they could take coals into their breast and not be burned, were being tempted into closer relations with the Antichrist. For as the beast’s ferocity gradually lessened from the 1956 amnesty onwards, and the Soviet state began to acquire some (but never all) of the external characteristics of the “normal” state, it was indeed tempting to think that the leopard was changing its spots, that the lion was becoming a vegetarian, that Pharaoh was becoming Caesar – so that it was now time to give to Caesar what was Caesar’s…

Against this terribly dangerous temptation, the movement of the Passportless, which exploded at precisely this time, came as a powerful warning. “No,” they said, “the beast has not changed its nature. If its persecution is less widespread now than before, this is because the opposition to him has been largely destroyed. The persecution now is no less fierce than before, only it is more subtle, for it now mixes rewards – the comforts of the Soviet “paradise” – with punishments. But ‘here we have no continuing city’; and if this was true even under the God-loving tsars, how can it not be even more so now, under the God-hating Antichrist? If Christ suffered outside the walls of the city in order to sanctify us by His Blood, then we, too, must go out to Him outside the walls of the antichristian state (Hebrews 13.12-14).”

Now, having said all this, it must be admitted that the seal of the Antichrist in Soviet Russia could not have been the same seal that is mentioned in Revelation 13, if only because it was not a mark placed on the right hand and forehead.[26] However, we are fully justified in calling it a seal (of the collective Antichrist), if not the seal (of the personal Antichrist); for its acceptance, at least in certain contexts (for example, the context of the 1961 law), entailed acceptance of the whole lawless legislation and ideology of the Soviet state. To that extent it was not just a neutral act of registration; it was an act of registration in Satan’s kingdom, the kingdom of the Antichrist, and as such was not only the forerunner of the seal, but in a sense the beginning of that seal, in that it had the same apocalyptic significance for the life of Christians.

If we do not understand the period of Church history immediately preceding our own, then we shall not be able to understand or perceive the signs of our own times. Thus a correct understanding of the seal of the Antichrist in the Soviet period is a necessary prerequisite to understanding the seal in the post-Soviet period.

The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 posed a difficult problem of interpretation. Was the Antichrist really dead? If so, then had the end times, paradoxically, come to an end? Or was this only a temporary “breathing space” in which the Antichrist was preparing a new, more subtle, more universal and more deadly onslaught?

The signs were mixed. On the one hand, there can be no doubt that perestroika and the fall of communism came not a moment too soon for the beleaguered Catacomb Church, which was scattered and divided, and desperately short of bishops and priests of unquestioned Orthodoxy and apostolic succession. The fall of the iron curtain enabled the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad to enter Russia and regenerate the hierarchy of the True Church, while the introduction of freedom of speech and the press enabled millions of Soviet citizens to learn the truth about their state and church for the first time. On the basis of this knowledge, they could now seek entrance into the True Church without the fear of being sent to prison or the camps. In the wave of disillusion with post-Soviet democracy that followed in the mid-1990s, it was pointed out – rightly – that freedom is a two-edged weapon, which can destroy as well as give life, and that “freedom” had brought Russia poverty and crime as well as interesting newspapers. However, for the soul thirsting for truth there is no more precious gift than the freedom to seek and find; and that opportunity was now, at last, presented to the masses.

On the other hand, only a minority of Russians used this freedom to seek the truth that makes one truly, spiritually free. And so if the fall of communism in 1989-91 was a liberation, it was a liberation strangely lacking in joy. Orthodoxy was restored neither to the state nor to the official church, and the masses of the people remained unconverted. Ten years later, a priest of the Moscow Patriarchate could claim that “the regeneration of ecclesiastical life has become a clear manifestation of the miraculous transfiguration of Russia”.[27] But behind the newly gilded cupolas reigned heresy and corruption on a frightening scale. It was as Bishop Theophan the Recluse had prophesied over a century before: “Although the Christian name will be heard everywhere, and everywhere will be visible churches and ecclesiastical ceremonies, all this will be just appearances, and within there will be true apostasy. On this soil the Antichrist will be born...” This judgement was echoed by Hieroconfessor Archimandrite Nektary (Chernobyl): “’Perestroika’ is a great trap of the dark powers. They are preparing something new and more terrible. Russia is standing on the threshold of the Antichrist”.[28]

None of the communist persecutors of the previous seventy years, throughout the whole vast territory of eastern Europe and Russia, was brought to trial for his crimes. The consequences have been all too evident. Thus one group of “repentant” communists, sensing the signs of the political times, seized power in 1991 in a “democratic” coup and immediately formed such close and dependent ties on its western allies that the formerly advanced (if inefficient) economy of Russia was transformed into a scrap-heap of obsolescent factories, on the one hand, and a source of cheap raw materials for the West, on the other.[29] Another group, playing on the sense of betrayal felt by many, formed a nationalist opposition – but an opposition characterized by hatred, envy and negativism rather than a constructive understanding of the nation’s real spiritual needs and identity. Still others, using the contacts and dollars acquired in their communist days, went into “business” – that is, a mixture of crime, extortion and the worst practices of capitalism. In essence, therefore, the communists never really fell from power: power in the new, “democratic” state was simply divided up between former communists who had changed their names.[30] It is little wonder that in many churches the prayer to be delivered “from the bitter torment of atheist rule” continues to be chanted…

In the midst of this disorganized anarchy, many have begun to long nostalgically for the organized anarchy of the Soviet period, considering that the cheapness of Soviet sausages somehow outweighed the destruction of tens of millions of souls through Soviet violence and propaganda. Like the children of Israel who became disillusioned with the rigorous freedom of the desert, they have begun to long once more for the fleshpots of Egypt. But unlike the Israelites, the wanderers in the desert of post-Soviet Russia have had no Moses to urge them ever onwards to the Promised Land. True, they feel the need for such a leader; and if many still long for the return of a Stalin, there are many who prefer the image of Tsar Nicholas II, whose ever-increasing veneration must be considered one of the most encouraging phenomena of the 1990s. But veneration for the pre-revolutionary tsars will not bring forward the appearance of a post-revolutionary tsar unless that veneration is combined with repentance. Few understand that the people must become worthy of such a tsar by a return to the True Church and a life based on the commandments of God. Otherwise, if they continue to worship the golden calf, the new Moses, if such a one appears, will break the tablets of the new law before their eyes. And if they continue to follow the new Dathans and Abirams of the heretical Moscow Patriarchate, then under their feet, too, the earth will open – or they will be condemned to wander another forty years in the desert, dying before they reach the promised land of a cleansed and Holy Russia.

It is in the context of this general mood of confusion, disillusion and apocalyptic expectation that the new forms of identification and money exchange, containing, if the experts are to be believed, the number 666, have aroused such alarm in the Orthodox countries of Eastern Europe and Russia – and indeed, throughout the world. That these forms of identification came from the West rather than the East only increased the sense of apocalyptic foreboding; for in the view of many the capitalist West was no less antichristian than the post-communist East, having many of the same characteristics of lawlessness. Thus the American hieromonk Fr. Seraphim Rose wrote: “If we look around at our 20^th-century civilization, lawlessness or anarchy is perhaps the chief characteristic which identifies it… In the realm of moral teaching, it is quite noticeable, especially in the last twenty years or so, how lawlessness has become the norm, how even people in high positions and the clergy in liberal denominations are quite willing to justify all kinds of things which before were considered immoral… All this is a sign of what St. Paul calls ‘the mystery of lawlessness’.”[31]

Some have mocked the idea that these new forms of identification could be the seal of the Antichrist.[32] Thus the anonymous author cited above writes, quoting Luke 2.1-4: “The Most Pure Virgin Mary, and even the Saviour Himself borne in her cradle, took part in a census. And this took place during the reign of the pagan Emperor Augustus. This act – census-taking – is the essence of all contemporary registration cards, individual numbers, etc. In antiquity officials registered the names of people and gave them a number. The registration was undertaken with the aid of the technical means of that time: with a quill on parchment. Even the Mother of God, who was beyond all corruption and filled with the Holy Spirit, received some kind of number in these lists. Now officials make similar registers with the aid of other means. The essence remains the same: the state receives information on its citizens which is necessary for the execution of government.”[33]

But is the essence really the same then and now? We have already seen that the pagan Roman empire can by no means be considered to be the same kind of state as the kingdom of the Antichrist. There is no evidence that the census information obtained by the Roman emperors was used for any evil purpose. But already in the Soviet period, as we have seen, registration (passportisation) was most definitely used for evil, antichristian purposes, and was therefore avoided by the Catacomb Christians. The question to be asked about the modern forms of identification is: are they now being used, or could they be used in the future, for antichristian purposes?

The anonymous author considers that the modern forms of identification could not be the seal of the Antichrist, in the first place because “they do not symbolize love for any particular person”[34] – and the seal, according to St. Nilus the Myrrhgusher, contains an inscription expressing voluntary acceptance of, and love for, the Antichrist. According to this author, external imprinting, “pieces of paper and plastic and electronic gadgets”, divert the attention of believers from the real, internal imprinting with the seal – apostasy from Christ through participation in the heresy of ecumenism. Moreover, this internal imprinting with heresy has an external aspect in the form of external rituals and sacraments. “’Orthodox’ bishops together with representatives of every possible religion raised a pagan idol in Vancouver, passed through ‘purifying smoke’ in Canberra, etc. There are many examples… The essence of these abominations is renunciation of Christ the God-man. All these actions receive the approbation of the [Moscow Patriarchal] Synod. And not one of the bishops has declared his protest. This means that the whole fullness of the episcopate is ‘sealed’ - by direct participation or silent non-resistance – with the seal of apostasy from Christ. And this is the essence of the number of the beast…”[35]

And yet where is the number here? As far as the present writer knows, the number 666 is not imprinted on any of the participants in ecumenical worship. Of course, we can completely agree with the anonymous author that participation in the ecumenical movement is indeed a sin unto death, and that receiving the “sacraments” of the ecumenists is analogous to imprinting with the seal of the Antichrist. But this is an analogy, a type – no more. It is obvious that the seal of the Antichrist, as described in the Apocalypse, is something different. It is a mark placed on the forehead and right hand without which people will not be able to buy or sell; and this it is difficult in this connection not to be struck by the fact that a very similar, electronic or bio-electronic implant under the skin of the forehead and right hand has been proposed as the basis for a worldwide food distribution system!

Thus P. Budzilovich writes: “In the U.S.A., which is the leader of the builders of the ‘New World Order’, all technical preparations have now been made for the attainment of global control. The National Security Agency already has a super-powerful computer created specially for this aim (Texe Marr ‘Project LUCID - the Beast Universal Human Control System’, Austin, TX, 1996). Work on the creation of this computer and the required mathematical software has been conducted as part of a project with the code-name ‘Project LUCID’ (the abbreviation LUCID means bright, radiant; whence ‘Lucifer’, Satan - light-bearing). They have also worked out means of ‘placing the seal’ of the beast - biological microcircuits, which are planned to be incorporated into the right hand or the head (at the moment, as reported in ‘Phoenix Letter’ for March, 1997, the governments of Denmark, the Philippines and Trinidad are taking steps to introduce such microcircuits to check the identities of their citizens, referring to the success of this programme in the U.S.A. Although this work is being carried out in secret in the U.S.A.). The microcircuits will contain all-encompassing information about their bearers, including photographs, fingerprints, feet, snaps of the irises, information about their financial situation, health, etc. It goes without saying that every individual in the whole world will be given a unique registration number. At the moment it is suggested that such a number should consist of 18 digits, in three groups, which means... six digits in each group, forming the image of the number 666.”[36]

Now a number or equivalent mark imprinted in some such way into the body (and scanned, perhaps, by satellites in space) could indeed be interpreted as a mark given by the beast.

Again, Tim Willard, editor of the “Futurist” magazine, writes of the biochip: ‘The technology behind such a biochip implant is fairly uncomplicated and with a little refinement could be used in a variety of human applications. Conceivably a number could be assigned at birth and follow that person throughout life. Most likely it would be implanted on the back of the right or the left hand so that it would be easy to scan at stores. Then you would simply scan your hand to automatically debit your bank account’”[37]

In this context, the following observation by George Spruksts is important: “Usually, when you want to contact someone on the internet, you type the three letters ‘www’ [for ‘worldwide web’]... It is fascinating that in the international alphabet, ‘w’.. is used to translate the Hebrew letter vav into the standard Roman alphabet. Vav, the sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, represents the number 6. So, in a sense, when you type the three letters ‘www’, you are entering the Hebrew equivalent of ‘666’. We have all known for a long time that the Antichrist will need a global communications system to carry out his evil schemes. Now, we have one with his initials on it.”[38]

It should be remembered that in technologically advanced countries the internet is already widely used for buying and selling various things…

Also important in this context is the observation by the confessor Sergius Nilus that the Star of David, the symbol of Jewish state power, has a structure which can be described in terms of six sixes.

"The symbol or seal of the mystery of iniquity - of the God-fighting devil, as well as its significance and power (albeit illusory), must be known to every Jew - to the whole of the Jewish people and through it to Masonry, as the ally of Jewry. Their seal will also be the seal of their king and antichrist-god, who is not yet, but who will be in the nearest future.

"But does such a symbol, such a seal, really exist among the Jews and Masons?...

"The six-pointed star, composed of two interlocking, equal-sided similar triangles... Each of the triangles has three sides, three corners and three apexes. Consequently, in the two triangles there will be 6 sides, 6 corners and 6 apexes...

"In the seal of the Antichrist, therefore, the number 6 is repeated three times, that is: 666, which for fear of the Jews (John 19.38), for the reader who understands (Matthew 24.15) the symbolism of the mystery, could also be represented by the seer of mysteries in writing, as six hundred and sixty-six...

"... This star is truly just as sacred a symbol for the Jew (and therefore for the Mason) as the sign of the life-giving Cross is for the Christian..

"This seal which is sacred for Jewry bears the name in the ritual of the Jewish services of 'Mochin-Dovid', which means 'Shield of David'. They put it into the grave of every right-believing Jews, as an earnest of his communion with his 'god' beyond the grave...

"The Masons and the offshoots of the Masonic tree - the theosophists, the occultists, the spiritualists, the gnostic, etc. - attach just as sacred a significance to this seal, but it has another name. It is called: "The Seal of Solomon" or the Cabbalistic "Tetragramma".

"And so the symbol or seal of Judaeo-Masonry, the "synagogue of Satan" of the apostates from Christ and Jewish kahal is the "tetragramma" of the Cabbala.

"If the seal of those who.. are preparing a kingdom for the antichrist is the "tetragramma of Solomon" or "Mochin Dovid", then is it not clear that it will also be the seal of the Antichrist himself?

"Will any of those who believe in Christ renounce the Cross of the Lord? Will he agree to replace it with another symbol?

"Nor will the Jews and the Masons renounce their seal, until Israel is converted and they shall look on Him Whom they have pierced..."[39]

So the combination of “666” on biochips inserted into our foreheads and right hands, with “666” (“www”) on the internet, with “666” as the symbol of Jewish political power (the Star of David), constitutes undoubtedly the closest apparent analogy – if it is only an analogy - to the seal of the Antichrist that has yet appeared in human history. Whether it is in fact the seal itself remains to be proved. But only a great insensitivity to “the signs of the times” would fail to be impressed – and alarmed – by this sign.

Now the anonymous author expresses the fear that a premature flight from the world containing these “playthings of civilization” will create schism in the Church, with those who reject them condemning those who do not reject them as schismatics and apostates. While this remains a possibility, we may note that in Greece, where alarm at the new identity cards has provoked mass demonstrations and protests in front of government offices, and some Synods have made an official decisions to reject the cards while others have not, no ecclesiastical schism on this soil has yet arisen. The experience of the Catacomb Church is relevant here again. Although some catacombniks accepted Soviet passports and others did not, no formal schism arose on this soil. The Passportless were (and are) to be found in several catacomb jurisdictions, and some Christians without passports did not refuse to be under the omophorion of bishops with passports. In any case, even if schisms do arise on this soil, that is no reason to sweep the question under the carpet. In this, as in all ecclesiastical controversies, the only rational option is to study the question carefully on the basis of Holy Tradition and come to a corresponding conclusion, whether that leaves one in the majority or in the minority, with the so-called “extremists” or with the “moderates”, with the “zealots” or with the “compromisers”.

Of course, it cannot be denied that it is possible to “jump the gun” and abandon the world too soon. St. Paul wrote to warn the Thessalonian Christians who had already abandoned their jobs in anticipation of the Second Coming of Christ that this would not happen before the removal of “him who restrains” (lawful monarchical power, according to the holy Fathers) and the great apostasy (II Thessalonians 2.1-7). Again, the 19^th century Romanian saint, Callinicus of Cernica, stopped building a church because he thought that the end of the world was near – until an angel appeared to him and told him that there was still time to build churches. Again, in 1962 St. John Maximovich is reported as having declared that the Antichrist had just been born…

These were mistakes, but they were mistakes engendered by highly sensitive consciences acutely aware of the increase of corruption in the world. Such a mistake is less dangerous than the opposite one of underestimating the growth of apocalyptic evil. Indeed, there are far more scriptural passages warning against false optimism in this respect than against excessive pessimism (cf. I Thessalonians 5.3-4). And it goes without saying that as time passes and we come closer to the end, the signs of the times come to match the signs given in the Scriptures more and more closely, making the possibility that such-and-such a phenomenon is in fact the seal of the Antichrist that much greater. As Fr. Seraphim Rose used to say: it is later than we think…

The Jordanville Monk Vsevolod, in an article quoted at length by our anonymous author, considers that while the new identity cards are probably not the seal of the Antichrist, they may well be a preparation for it. This conclusion is less comforting than it sounds; in fact, it implies that we have every reason to approach these identity cards and similar objects with great caution. For who knows at what time the preparation for the seal will turn into the seal itself, especially since the “trial” seal will be very close to the final, “real” seal in form?

The question is: how will we know when a certain technology has ceased to be a mere preparation for the seal, and is the seal itself? At this point it must be emphasized, as St. Gregory Palamas reminds us, that no number of itself is evil, for the whole creation, and therefore all numbers, were created good by God.[40] An external mark or number only becomes evil – in this we can fully agree with our anonymous author - when its reception is bound up with inner apostasy from Christ. In other words, it is not the number 666 as such which destroys the soul, but the apostasy from Christ which is the condition of receiving the seal of that number and the material benefits that go with it. Thus, as Monk Sergius writes, “as long as we do not deny Christ with knowledge, we should not be afraid of various technologies, not even if they should inject ‘666’ into our blood system!”[41]

At some point, therefore, the use of this technology will be bound up with certain conditions, conditions which it will be impossible for an Orthodox Christian to accept. As far as the present writer knows, no such conditions are attached – yet – to the use of any of the technologies in question; and it is idle to speculate precisely what these conditions will be. Of one thing, however, we can be certain in advance: that the revelation that the conditions attached to the use of this technology are unacceptable will be more likely to be given to those who have always treated it with the greatest suspicion and have kept away from it even when it was not strictly necessary (because no conditions were attached to its use) than to those who have looked down on their more cautious brothers with scarcely concealed disdain, and who may therefore have ceased to notice that, little by little and in the most clever and insidious way, an originally neutral, even beneficial technology has become the instrument of their damnation.

In 1917 the world entered the era of the Antichrist. “He who restrains”, Orthodox monarchical power, was removed, the great apostasy began and Jewish antichristian power emerged from the underground into the foreground of world history. Since then, the possibility has been ever present that, together with the Antichrist, his seal, too, would appear – not tomorrow, not in generations to come, but today. This fact does not exclude the further possibility that the onslaught of the Antichrist may be temporarily weakened, even turned back, for a period before the end, and that, as some prophecies indicate, there will be a resurrection of the Orthodox empire “for a short time”. But in general the spiritual condition of mankind in the era of the Antichrist will sharply deteriorate, according to the holy fathers, which must make us especially vigilant with regard to the fulfillment of the prophecies contained in the Apocalypse.

The Soviet era was the first era in history in which the majority of Orthodox Christians have had to live for an extended period in a state not established by God and not recognized, but rather anathematized, by the Church – that is, in a state of anarchy which the Apocalypse calls the beast. As such, it is called the era of the collective Antichrist, in contrast to the era of the personal Antichrist, which is yet to come and which will spread over the whole earth. Being the Antichrist, Soviet power had its seal – those forms of legalization and commemoration which entailed the individual Christian’s or church organization’s recognition of the state as God-established and lawful.

The decade since the fall of Soviet power has been an enigmatic period full of conflicting signs whose overall interpretation is not yet clear. On the one hand, an opportunity has been presented to the broad masses of the Russian people to learn the truth and join the True Church. On the other hand, this opportunity has been seized so far by only a small minority, there has been no return to Orthodox forms of official ecclesiastical and political life, and the indications are that the advent of the personal Antichrist, the false king of the Jews, is being prepared. These indications include: the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948; the spread of American-Western-Jewish civilization throughout the world; and the rise in influence of Talmudic Judaism and the bowing before it of most of the world’s religions. Now again, as in the generation before the First Coming of Christ, the land of Israel is at the centre of world history, and the world as a whole is filled with the tense expectation of a coming saviour – only that saviour will be the Antichrist rather than Christ.

In view of this, it is only natural that the appearance of the apocalyptic number 666 in a series of technologies spread and controlled by the dominant American-Western-Jewish civilization should have led many God-fearing Christians to conclude that “the end is near, even at the doors” (Matthew 24.23), and that “those who are in Judaea” – that is, within the sphere of influence of the New World Order and its “seals” – should “flee to the mountains” (Matthew 24.16) – that is, have nothing to do with these technologies or with the mysterious international powers that issue them.

Nevertheless, in the very tentative and humble opinion of the present writer, these technologies are not the seal of the Antichrist itself, but a preparation for it.

This conclusion is based on the following considerations (which it is beyond the scope of this article to argue for in detail): (1) so far no conditions unacceptable to the Christian conscience have been attached to the use of these technologies; (2) the American-Western-Jewish civilization that issues them is in fact much weaker than may appear and is on the point of collapse (cf. the prophecy of Elder Aristocles of Moscow and Mount Athos: “American will feed the world, but will finally collapse”); (3) in consequence, the possibility of a recovery of a truly Orthodox empire and civilization, as indicated by many prophecies, is in fact much stronger than may appear; which (4) accords with the possibility, indicated by certain other prophecies, that the Antichrist, though a Jew, will in fact come, not from a pagan, heretical or Jewish background, but from an Orthodox Christian environment and will imitate Orthodoxy in both his religion and his statehood.

However, in view of the uncertainty of the above conclusion, and of the terrible price to be paid if it is shown to be wrong, and of the abundant exhortations to caution and watchfulness contained in the writings of the holy apostles and fathers of the Church, it is safer to draw the following, somewhat different conclusion: that whether or not we believe that the modern forms of identification are the seal of the Antichrist, the opinion of those zealots of Orthodoxy who believe that they are should be respected and in no way rejected or ignored. After all, it was these same zealots who refused to take Soviet passports as being the seal of the collective Antichrist, who kept the flame of the true understanding of the Soviet beast alive in the last years of Soviet power, who were that “salt” which kept the last remnants of True Orthodoxy in Russia from being corrupted. And if their watchfulness was so vital in the past, it may well be so again in the future. For “blessed is the man that hath not walked in the counsel [Russian: soviet] of the ungodly” (Psalm 1.1). And thrice blessed is he “who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it; for the time is near…” (Revelation 1.3).

1] St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, v, 24, 3; translated in Maurice Wiles & Mark Santer, Documents in Early Christian Thought, Cambridge University Press, 1977, p. 226.

[2] St. Isidore, Letter 6, quoted in Selected Letters of Archbishop Theophan of Poltava, Liberty, TN: St. John of Kronstadt Press, 1989, p. 36.

[3] St. Demetrius of Rostov, Lives of the Saints, April 17; S.V. Bulgakov, Nastol’naya Kniga dlya svyashchenno-tserkovno-sluzhitelej, Kharkov, 1900, p. 140 (in Russian).

[4] Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History, III, 19; V.A. Konovalov, Otnosheniye khristianstva k sovyetskoj vlasti, Montreal, 1936, p. 35 (in Russian).

[5] St. Gregory, First Word against Julian, 35; Second Word against Julian, 26. In the Life of St. Artemius the Great Martyr (St. Demetrius of Rostov, Lives of the Saints, October 20), we read that Julian refused to recognise the legitimacy even of the reign of St. Constantine the Great. In this sense he, like the Bolsheviks after him, renounced Christian Romanity and thereby became anti-Roman as well as anti-Christian.

[6] M.E. Gubonin, Akty Svyateishego Patriarkha Tikhona, Moscow: St. Tikhon's Theological Institute, 1994, pp. 82-85.

[7] Gubonin, op. cit., pp. 280, 296.

[8] Gubonin, op. cit., p. 151.

[9] "Iz sobraniya Tsentral'nogo gosudarstvennogo arkhiva Oktyabr'skoj revolyutsii: listovka byez vykhodnykh dannykh, pod N 1011", Nauka i Religiya, 1989, no. 4 (in Russian).

[10] See Schema-Monk Epiphanius (Chernov), Tserkov' Katakombnaya na Zemlye Rossijskoj, 1980 (Woking, England, 1980, typescript, in Russian).

[11] Matushka Evgenia Grigorievna Rymarenko, "Remembrances of Optina Staretz Hieroschemamonk Nektary", Orthodox Life, vol. 36, no. 3, May-June, 1986, p. 39.

[12] Nilus, “Pis’mo otnositel’no ‘sergianstva’”, Russkij Pastyr’, 28-29, II/III, 1997, p. 180 (in Russian).

[13] Cited in William Fletcher, The Russian Orthodox Church Underground, 1917-1970, Oxford University Press, 1971, p. 64.

[14] Novoselov, quoted in I.I. Osipova, “Istoriya Istinno Pravoslavnoj Tserkvi po Materialam Sledstvennago Dyela”, Pravoslavnaya Rus’, N 14 (1587), July 15/28, 1997, p. 3 (in Russian).

[15] Noviye Prepodobnomuchenki Raifskiye, publication of the Kazan diocese, Moscow, 1997, p. 17 (in Russian).

[16] Cf. Pis'ma Arkhiepiskopa Feofana Poltavskago i Pereyaslavskago, Jordanville, 1976; Archbishop Averky, "Mir nevidimij - sily byezplotniya", Slova i rechi, Jordanville, 1975, vol. 2, pp. 593-95; Metropolitan Innocent, "O Sovyetskoj Vlasti", in Archbishop Nikon (Rklitsky), Zhizneopisaniye Blazhenneishago Antoniya, Mitropolitan Kievskago i Galitskago, Montreal, 1960, volume 6, pp. 168-172 (in Russian).

[17] Grabbe, Pis’ma, Moscow, 1998, p. 85 (in Russian).

[18] Shkvarovsky, Iosiflyanstvo, St. Petersburg, 1999, p. 171(in Russian).

[19] Petrova, "Perestroika Vavilonskoj Bashni - Poslyednij Shans Vsyelukavogo Antikhrista", Moscow, 1991, pp. 5-6 (samizdat MS) (in Russian). Cf. Mervyn Matthews, The Passport Society, Oxford: Westview Press, 1993, chapter 3.

[20] Metropolitan Vitaly, “Otvet bespaspornomu”, Pravoslavnij Vestnik, February-March, 1990 (in Russian).

[21] Petrova, op. cit.

[22] Kreditniye kartochki ili pechat’ antikhrista?, St. Petersburg: Tsentr Pravoslavnogo prosveshcheniya, 2000, pp. 8-9 (in Russian).

[23] Zhitiya Svyatykh, Moscow, 1908; first supplementary book. Quoted in Svecha Pokayaniya, N 1, March, 1998, p. 7 (in Russian).

[24] As Hieromonk Dionysius points out, “the service of ‘him that restraineth’, although undermined, was preserved by Russian monarchical power even after Peter – and it is necessary to emphasize this. It was preserved because neither the people nor the Church renounced the very ideal of the Orthodox kingdom, and, as even V. Klyuchevsky noted, continued to consider as law that which corresponded to this ideal, and not Peter’s decrees.” (Priest Timothy and Hieromonk Dionysius Alferov, O Tserkvi, pravoslavnom Tsarstve i poslednem vremeni, Moscow: “Russkaya Ideya”, 1998, p. 66 (in Russian)).

[25] Quoted in “Otnosheniye k staroobryadchestvu”, Vozdvizheniye, winter, 2000, p. 76 (in Russian).

[26] Only in this sense could the Soviet seal be said to be on the forehead and right hand: in that it prevented people, “from fear of the Jews”, from making the sign of the cross with their right hand on their forehead.

[27] Fr. Andrej Rumyantsev, “Kesaryu – Kesarevo”, Vechernyaya Moskva, 21 September, 2000, p. 1 (in Russian).

[28] Isaac Gindis, “Pamyati Nastavnika”, in Archimandrite Nektary, Vospominania, Jordanville, 2002, pp. 7-8 (in Russian).

[29] See Mikhail Nazarov, Tajna Rossii, Moscow: “Russkaya Ideya”, 1999 (in Russian).

[30] See Vladimir Bukovsky, Moskovskij Protsess, Moscow, 1996 (in Russian).

[31] Rose, in Monk Damascene, Not of this World, Forestville, Ca.: Fr. Seraphim Rose Foundation, 1995, pp. 996-997.

[32] The Old Believer Priest Gennady Chunin has written intelligently against identifying the bar-code in Russian tax declaration forms with the apocalyptic number: “Nalogovij nomer i pechat’ antikhrista”, Dukhovniye Otvety, N 14, 2000, pp. 67-80 (in Russian).

[33] Kreditniye kartochki…, op. cit., p. 35.

[34] Kreditniye kartochki…, op. cit., p. 11.

[35] Kreditniye kartochki…, op. cit., p. 14.

[36] “The New World Order in the year 2000?” Orthodox Russia’, N 9 (1582), May 1/14, 1997, p. 5 (in Russian).

[37] Light for the Last Days, January-March, 1997, pp. 4-5.

[38] Spruksts, “666 & the World Wide Web”, Orthodox@listserv. indiana.edu, 15 September, 1997.

[39] Nilus, It is Near, at the Very Door, Sergiev Posad, 1917, pp. 262-263, 248-250 (in Russian).

[40] St. Gregory Palamas, Migne, P.G. 151, 224; E.P.E. 9, 492. Quoted in Archimandrite Emmanuel Kalyva, The Seal of the Antichrist, Athens, 1989, p. 86 (in Greek).

[41] Monk Sergius of Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Boston, to Subdeacon Paul Inglesby, July 28 / August 10, 2000.

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