Vernost' Number 28

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. "ГРЕХ ЦАРЕУБИЙСТВА". СВЯТ. ИОАНН ШАНХАЙСКИЙ И САН-ФРАНЦИССКИЙ

2. "ТАЙНА ЛИЧНОСТИ ЦАРЯ". Свящ. Кирилл Зайцев (Архим. Константин)

3. "СЛОВО В ДЕНЬ ПРОСЛАВЛЕНИЯ НОВОМУЧЕНИКОВ РОССИЙСКИХ". МИТР. ФИЛАРЕТ (ВОЗНЕСЕНСКИЙ)

4. "ПРИДЕТСЯ ЛИ ВЕРНУТЬСЯ К ПРАКТИКЕ ВЫБОРА ЕПИСКОПОВ ИЗ МИРЯН?" Г.М. Солдатов

8. "ЧЕТВЕРТЫЙ СОБОР: ПРЕССУ - НЕ ПУЩАТЬ!" Ю. Ларников

После смерти Саула, павшего на свой меч во время битвы с Филистимлянами, один Амаликитянин побежал известить о том Давида, гонимого в то время Саулом.

Предполагая, что Давид будет весьма рад принесенной вести, он решил выдать себя за убийцу Саула, чтобы тем еще больше увеличить ожидаемую награду.

Однако, выслушав придуманный Амаликитянином рассказ о том, как он, по просьбе раненного Саула, умертвил его, Давид схватил одежды свои и разорвал их, также сделали и все люди, бывшие с ним. Они рыдали и плакали и постились до вечера. «И сказал Давид отроку, рассказавшему ему: Откуда ты? И ответил он: "я сын пришельца Амаликитянина." Тогда Давид сказал ему: как не побоялся ты поднять руку, чтобы убить помазанника Господня?" и приказал одному из слуг убить его. При том Давид сказал: "кровь твоя на голове твоей; ибо твои уста свидетельствовали на тебя, когда ты говорил: "я убил помазанника Господня." (II Царств, 1, 1-16).

Так был казнен иноплеменник, выдавший себя за убийцу Саула. Он подвергся жестокой казни, хотя Саул сделал много зла, за которое отступился от него Господь, и он являлся гонителем невинного Давида.

Из слов Давида видно, что он сомневался в правдивости рассказа Амаликитянина и не был уверен, что тот именно является убийцей Саула, однако, он предал его смерти, считая достойным смерти одно название себя цареубийцей и похвальбу сим поступком.

В сколько же раз тяжелее и греховнее убийство Православного Помазанника Божия, во сколько раз большая кара должна лежать на убийцах Царя Николая II и Его Семьи?!

В противоположность Саулу отступившему от Бога и за то оставленному Им, Царь Николай II является образцом благочестия и полной преданности воле Божией.

Восприяв не ветхозаветное возлияние елея на главу, а благодатную «Печать дара Духа Святого» в Таинстве Миропомазания, Император Николай II был до конца жизни верен своему высокому званию и сознавал свою ответственность перед Богом.

Император Николай II в каждом поступке отдавал отчет перед своей совестью, вечно «ходил пред Господом Богом». «Благочестивейший» во дни своего земного благополучия не по имени только, а и самым делом, он вот дни своих испытаний проявил терпение, подобное терпению праведного Иова.

На такого - то Царя поднялись руки преступников. И притом уже тогда, когда он от перенесенных им испытаний очистился, как злато в горниле, и был невинным страдальцем в полном смысле того слова.

Преступление против Царя Николая II еще тем страшнее и греховнее, что вместе с ним убита вся его семья, ни в чем не повинные дети!

Такие преступления не остаются безнаказанными. Они вопиют к Небу и низводят Божий гнев на землю.

Если подвергся смерти иноплеменник - мнимый убийца Саула, - за убийство Царя-Страдальца и Его семьи страдает ныне весь русский народ, допустивший страшное злодеяние и безмолвствовавший, когда Царя подвергли унижению и лишению свободы.

Глубокое осознание греховности содеянного и покаяние перед памятью Царя-Мученика требуется от нас Божией правдой.

Память невинных князей свв. Бориса и Глеба пробуждала совесть русских людей во время удельных смут и устыжала князей, начинавших раздоры. Кровь св. Великого князя Игоря произвела душевный переворот в душах Киевлян и объединила Киев и чернигов почитанием убиенного святого князя.

Св. Андрей Боголюбский своей кровью освятил единодержавие Руси, утвердившееся уже значительно позже его мученической кончины.

Всероссийское почитание св. Михаила Тверского исцелило раны на теле России, причиненные борьбой Москвы и Твери.

Прославление св. Царевича Димитрия прояснило сознание русских людей, вдохнуло в них нравственные силы и после тяжких потрясений привело к возрождению России.

Царь-Мученик Николай II со своим многострадальным семейством входит ныне в лик тех страстотерпцев.

Величайшее преступление, совершенное в отношении его, должно быть заглажено горячим почитанием его и прославлением его подвига.

Пред униженным, оклеветанным и умученным должна склониться Русь, как некогда склонились Киевляне перед умученным ими преподобным Князем Игорем, как Владимирцы и Суздальцы- перед убитым великим Князем Андреем Боголюбским!

Тогда Царь-Страстотерпец возымеет дерзновение к Богу, и молитва его спасет русскую землю от переносимых ею бедствий.

Тогда Царь-Мученик и его сострадальцы станут новыми небесными защитниками Святой Руси.

Невинно пролитая кровь возродит Россию и осенит ее новой славой!

Священник Кирилл Зайцев (Архим. Константин) Продолжение см. № 27

Моральная трагедия, обусловленная неспособностью русского образованного общества уразуметь духовную красоту и нравственную высоту своего Царя и даже просто объективно-добровольно распознать и оценить его личность, очень сильно выражена была однажды Епископом Иоанном Шанхайским в слове, сказанном им перед богослужением об упокоении душ Царской семьи. Не менее сильно истолкован был им большой в этом слове и тот страшный грех этого убийства, который лег на весь, в целом, русский народ.

Царь Мученик, - говорил Владыка, - более всего походил на Царя Алексея Михайловича, Тишайшего, но превосходил его своей непоколебимой кротостью… Его внутренний духовно-нравственный облик был так прекрасен, что даже большевики, желая его опорочить, могут упрекнуть его только в одном – в набожности.

«Доподлинно известно, что он всегда начинал и заканчивал свой день молитвою. В великие церковные празднества он всегда приобщался, причем смешивался с народом, приступавшим к великому таинству, как это было при открытии мощей пр. Серафима. Он был образцом целомудрия и главой образцовой православной семьи, воспитывал своих детей в готовности служить русскому народу и строго подготовлял их к предстоящему труду и подвигу. Он был глубоко внимателен к нуждам своих поданных и хотел ярко и близко представить себе их труд и служение. Всем известен случай, когда он прошел один несколько верст в полном солдатском снаряжении чтобы ближе понять условия солдатской службы. Он ходил тогда совсем один, и тем ясно опровергаются клеветники, говорящие, что он боялся за свою жизнь… Говорят, что он был доверчив. Но великий отец Церкви св. Григорий Великий говорил, что чем чище сердце, тем оно доверчивее.

«Чем же воздала Россия своему чистому сердцем, любящему ее более своей жизни, Государю?

«Она отплатила ему клеветой. Он был высокой нравственности – стали говорить об его порочности. Он любил Россию – стали говорить об измене. Даже люди близкие повторяли эту клевету, пересказывали друг другу слухи и разговоры. Под влиянием злого умысла одних, распущенности других, слухи ширились, и начала охладевать любовь к Царю. Потом стали говорить об опасности для России и обсуждать способы освобождения от этой несуществующей опасности и, во имя якобы спасения России, стали говорить, что надо отстранить Государя. Расчетливая злоба сделала свое дело: она отделила Россию от своего Царя, и в страшную минуту в Пскове он остался один… Страшная оставленность Царя… Но не он оставляет Россию, Россия оставляет его, любящего Россию больше своей жизни. Видя это и в надежде, что его самоумаление успокоит и смирит разбушевавшиеся страсти народные, Государь отрекается от престола… Наступило ликование тех, кто хотел низвержения Государя. Остальные молчали. Последовал арест Государя, и дальнейшие события были неизбежны… Государь был убит, Россия молчала…

«Великий грех – поднять руку на Помазанника Божия… Не остается и малейшая причастность к такому греху не отмщенной. В скорби говорим мы «кровь его на нас и на детях наших». Но будем помнить, что это злодеяние совершено в день св. Андрея Критского, зовущего нас к глубокому покаянию… Но покаяние наше должно быть полное, без всякого самооправдания, без всяких оговорок, с осуждением себя и всего злого дела от самого его начала…»

Да, вся современная злодеянию Россия, в какой то мере несет на себе вину цареубийства: те, кто не были пособниками, были попустителями! Но, пожалуй, еще более устрашающим, чем признание всей России виновной в этом злодеянии, является констатирование того, каким относительно малым было впечатление, произведенное в этом именно смысле на русское общество екатеринбургским цареубийством. Все готовы обличать большевиков. На этом все сходятся. А разве в этом дело? С большевиков взятки гладки! Но они, ведь, только произнесли последнюю букву страшной азбуки, которую выдумали не они. Задуматься же над тем, где начинается этот жестокий и мерзостный алфавит, мало кто хочет. В частности, поразительно, как медленно и с каким трудом раскрываются глаза у даже, казалось бы, «прозревших» людей на личность Царя. С каким трудом изживается сложившаяся у русского образованного общества привычка свысока смотреть на кроткого Помазанника! Вот как, задним числом, рисует лучший биограф Царя С.С. Ольденбург, эту отвратительную повадку русского общества:

«Сторонясь от всяких подлинных сведений о Царе, и Царской семье, с упорной предвзятостью русская интеллигенция воспринимала и запоминала то, что печаталось о Царе в подпольных революционных пасквилях, обычно по своей фантастичности относящихся к области «развесистой клюквы»; ловила шепот придворных сплетен, инсинуации опальных сановников. Мнение о Государе, как о человеке невежественном, ограниченном – некоторые договаривались до выражения «Слабоумный» – человеке безвольном, при этом злом и коварном – было ходячим в интеллигентных кругах. Даже военный чин его – в котором он оставался, потому что отец его скончался, когда Государю было двадцать шесть лет – обращали ему в укор, говоря о «маленьком полковнике», об «уровне» – почему-то «армейского полковника» и т. д…»

Не нужно при этом думать, что подобное отношение к Царю было свойственно лишь злонамеренно подозрительным людям, монархически индифферентным или даже монархизму враждебным. Люди монархически настроенные и лично Государю симпатизировавшие нередко видели в его фигуре что-то жалкое. С каким злорадством подхвачена была либеральным обществом мысль о том, что Царь является двойником несчастного Феодора Иоанновича, к тому же нарочито стилизованного в сценическом изображении, под кроткого, но убогого «простачка»! Но ведь со скорбью, с тяжелым сердцем, сокрушенно покачивая головами, о том же говорили и убежденные монархисты, не обретая в Царе того, что хотели бы видеть, и, не ощущая его твердой руки на руле государственного корабля.

Можно понять, а в известном смысле даже оправдать тех, кто так думали «тогда»: ведь, перспектива была укорочена и искажена. Но «теперь», после всего свершившегося – дозволительно ли оставаться при прежних трафаретах? А между тем, Царь оставался непонятым и после своей мученической смерти, а тем самым непонятой оставалась и объективная трагедия его взаимоотношений с обществом. Так глубок был духовно-психологический отход русского образованного общества от основ Святой Руси, от понимания существа Самодержавной власти на Руси!

Показательна в этом отношении честная и умная книжка В.И. Гурко «Царь и Царица». Автор ее – один из лучших сынов ушедшей России, один из столпов ее государственного строительства. Человек редкого ума и исключительного образования, он был украшением сановной русской бюрократии. Имя его останется незабвенным, как едва ли не главнейшего внутриведомственного подготовителя знаменитой Столыпинской реформы. Пав жертвой интриги он оказался, при проведении реформы в жизнь, обреченным на относительное бездействие, но не озлобился и не превратился в будирующего оппозиционера. Оставаясь, по связям своим, в курсе того, что делалось «на верхах», он лучше, чем кто ни будь, мог «наблюдать» и «оценивать», тем более что ни к каким партиям не принадлежал и чужд был пристрастиям, как правым, так и левым, по убеждениям же был консерватором и монархистом. Трудно представить себе человека, более пригодного для «реабилитации» Царя в глазах общества!

И, действительно, во многих отношениях книга Гурко, отдавая должное Царю, убивает, можно сказать, наповал некоторые ходячие, но абсолютно лживые, представления о нем, издавна отравлявшие сознание русской интеллигенции. Пред нами встает человек безупречный в семейном быту – «сияющее исключение на фоне нравов, ставших привычными в высшем обществе» – и вместе с тем образец полнейшего самоотвержения в исполнении того, что он считал своим Царским Делом. Но высоко расценивая моральный облик Царя, Гурко не находит ключа к пониманию его личности… В плане государственном и для Гурко Царь – «маленький» человек, не стоящий на уровне задач, ставившихся ему действительностью! По мнению Гурко, Царю вообще была чужда широкая картина – он был «миниатюристом», способным осознавать только детали. В связи с этим стоит, по мнению Гурко, неспособность Царя отличать общее «правление» от конкретных и частных «распоряжений», ведшая его к излишней и неоправданной обстоятельствами подозрительности в отстаивании своей власти от не существовавших покушений. Не считаясь с общими принципами управления, он порой настойчиво проводил в мелочах свою волю. Не договаривая своей мысли до конца, Гурко дает понять, что тут, вероятно, сказывалось столь обычное для слабовольных людей упрямство. Впрочем, и Гурко «слабоволие» Царя признает лишь условно, оттеняя, что Царь упорно шел по пути собственных намерений – с одним только исключением, известным Гурко: это – капитуляция 17 октября пред чужим мнением, ему внушенным и ему навязанным по признаку «исторической необходимости».

Не задумываясь над тем, в какой мере это «исключение» способно раскрыть тайну личности Императора Николая II, Гурко проходит мимо него. В другом месте, как бы мимоходом, останавливаясь на умоначертании Царя, Гурко приводит свидетельство А.А. Половцова занесенное им в дневник 12 апреля 1902 года и так изображающее это умоначертание: «Всем управляет Бог, Помазанником Коего является Царь, который поэтому не должен ни с кем сговариваться, а следовать исключительно Божественному внушению"» Гурко склонен искать в этом умоначертанию корень лишь некоторых совершавшихся Государем (отчасти под влиянием Государыни) самоличных действий, врывавшихся в круг нормального течения государственных и церковных дел.

А между тем, стоило углубить эту тему – и именно здесь можно было бы найти общий ключ к пониманию поведения Царя, иногда казавшегося Гурко столь загадочным. Дело в том, что Царь, при всем своем уважении к порядку и к форме, не считал царскую волю формально, чем бы то ни было связанной. Поэтому там, где он, в очень редких случаях, настаивал на исполнении ее в обход формы, были значит у него основания серьезные, которые побуждали его к этому. Искать причин таких действий надо не в упрямстве и не в мелочности Царя, а в чем-то другом. Показательно, кстати сказать, что тот материал, который попутно раскрывает нам сам Гурко, ни в какой мере не вяжется с делаемой им оценкой действий Царя. Гурко отмечает безграничное самообладание Государя, исполненное внутреннего упора непоколебимого. Его никогда не видели ни бурно гневающимся, ни оживленно радостным, ни даже в состоянии повышенной возбужденности. Гнев его выражался в том, что глаза его делались пустыми – он как бы уходил вдаль, ничего не замечая и не видя. Полное спокойствие сохранял он и в моменты опасности. Вместе с тем, переживал он, по указанию того же Гурко, весьма сильно все то, что он ощущал, как удар, наносимый России. Поражение под Сольдау стоило ему недешево. «Я начинаю ощущать мое старое сердце – писал он Царице 12 июня 1915 г. – «Первый раз, ты помнишь, это было в августе прошлого года после самсоновской катастрофы, а теперь опять"» Отмечает Гурко и то, что настойчиво проводил Государь свою волю в относительных «мелочах»: ни разу не нарушил он закона в вопросах общегосударственного значения!…

Вяжется ли с подобными данными упрек Царю в мелочности, в упрямстве? За чертами характера Царя, которые воспроизводит Гурко, чувствуется сильная, изумительно дисциплинированная воля, чувствуется глубокое сознание моральной ответственности, чувствуется и большая душа. Откуда же здесь быть мелочности или упрямству? Эти свойства обнаруживаются тогда, когда человек, позируя на большего человека, на самом деле таковым не является! Когда такой человек срывается со своей «позы», тут, конечно, проявляется подлинная его мелкая природа. Но у Царя то никакой позы не было! Если он на чем-либо настаивал, значит, в его представлении, это не было мелким, и настаивал он на этом не по причине неосмысленно-упорного своеволия, как это бывает в случаях упрямства, а по какому либо существенному, морально оправданному основанию…

Чтобы нам еще отчетливее представить себе свойственную Государю нравственную серьезность, коренящуюся в высокой дисциплине духа, приведем несколько показаний о Государе другого человека, тоже заслуживающего доверия. Мы имеем в виду министра иностранных дел Сазонова, человека чистого, деликатного, морально тонкого. Что ему запомнилось из его общения с Царем?

«Глядя на него у церковных служб, во время которых он никогда не поворачивал головы, я не мог отделаться от мысли, что так молятся люди, изверившиеся в помощи людской и мало надеющиеся на собственные силы, а жаждущие указаний и помощи только свыше…»

«Что бы ни происходило в душе Государя, он никогда не менялся в своих отношениях к окружающим его лицам. Мне пришлось видеть его близко в минуту страшной тревоги за жизнь единственного сына, в котором сосредоточивалась вся его нежность, и кроме некоторой молчаливости и еще большей сдержанности, в нем ничем не сказывались пережитые им страдания… (Спала 1912 г.)

«На третий день моего пребывания в Спале я узнал от пользовавших Наследника врачей, что на выздоровление больного было мало надежды. Мне надо было возвращаться в Петроград. Откланиваясь Государю перед отъездом, я спросил его о состоянии Царевича. Он ответил мне тихим, но спокойным голосом: «надеемся на Бога». В этих словах не было ни тени условности или фальши. Они звучали просто и правдиво».

А вот небольшой, но столь характерный штрих, наблюденный Сазоновым в отношениях Государя к людям, ему явно неприятным! Зашла раз речь об одном бывшем министре, которого Сазонов не называет, но в котором легко угадать Витте. Между ним и Государем лежала не только пропасть непонимания, но и нечто большее. Государь не уважал Витте, а тот платил ему озлобленной антипатией, которой нередко давал волю в своих высказываниях, прикрываемых иногда нарочитым подчеркиванием «пиетета» к памяти Александра III. Государь, конечно, знал об этих чувствах к нему Витте. Велико было удивление Сазонова, когда он в высказываниях Царя о Витте не уловил ни малейшего оттенка раздражения. Сазонов не скрыл своего удивления от Царя.! На это, - рассказывает Сазонов, - Государь ответил мне следующими словами, живо сохранившимися в моей памяти: "«ту струну личного раздражения мне удалось уже давно заставить в себе совершенно замолкнуть. Раздражительностью ничего не поможешь, да к тому же от меня резкое слово звучало бы обиднее, чем от кого ни будь другого».

Ограничимся еще одним отзывом, исходящим от человека, хотя и далекого от России и от ее Царя, но способного, по своему положению, многое увидеть в характере Царя. Это – президент Французской республики Лубэ. Он давал такой отзыв о главе союзного Франции государства:

«Обычно видят в Императоре Николае II человека доброго, великодушного, но немного слабого, беззащитного против влияния и давлений. Это – глубокая ошибка. Он предан своим идеям, он защищает их с терпением и упорством; он имеет задолго продуманные планы, осуществления которых медленно достигает… Под видимостью робости, немного женственной, Царь имеет сильную душу и мужественное сердце, непоколебимо верное. Он знает, куда идет и чего он хочет».

Не будем продолжать нанизывать оценки и свидетельские показания, удостоверяющие исключительные моральные свойства Царя и крепость его воли. Не будем приводить и тех отзывов, которые отмечают столь же исключительную умственную силу Царя. Отсылаем читателя к известной книге С.С. Олденбурга. Ознакомившись с ней, читатель на самом материале, сгруппированном автором книги, убедится в выдающихся качествах Государя, как человека и правителя.

Тем большей загадкой остается стойкость легенды, которая совершенно иначе изображала Царя, а также глубина той пропасти непонимания, которая разделяла общество от Царя и которая создавала почву, благоприятную для происхождения и укрепления этой легенды. Едва ли при объяснении этого явления допустимо ограничиваться указанием на злостность клеветы, направленной против Царя и на намеренную деятельность темных сил. Недостаточно и общего указания на то разномыслие и разночувствие между Царем и обществом, на которое мы выше обращали внимание.

Важно здесь уловить два обстоятельства, которые бросают свет на природу этого разномыслия и разночувствия, корни свои имеющего не только в настроениях общества, но и в некоторых свойствах или, вернее сказать, в некоторой установке сознания самого Царя, которая делала нахождение общего языка между ним и его современниками самого разного направления психологически невозможным.

Одно обстоятельство мы уже отмечали, и теперь остается только несколько ближе к нему подойти. Это – разность понимания Царем и русским обществом института Царской власти.

Государь, как человек церковно-верующий, сознавал себя Помазанником и Царем в том высоком и ответственном понимании этих обозначений, которые присущи учению Церкви. Проблема «абсолютизма», а тем самым и проблема «конституционных» ограничений этого абсолютизма, уяснением каковых проблем в глазах русского образованного общества, даже иногда и правого, исчерпывалось уразумение отношения подданных к Царю, - этих «проблем» в глазах Императора Николая II вообще не существовало. Не существовало их и в глазах любого подлинно-церковного русского человека, или даже такого человека, который, будучи, по своим убеждениям далек от точного учения Церкви, оставался бы способным точно уяснить себе русское понимание вопроса, исторически и юридическо-догматически данное. Русский Царь не был и не мог стать «абсолютным» монархом в понимании Запада. Он был Царем самодержавным – по самой природе своей власти не поддающимся никаким формальным ограничениям ни с чьей стороны. Однако, это никак не означало, что он был Государем, которому не противостояли бы никакие сдержки, и который в одной лишь собственной воле должен был искать границ допустимого. Приведем страничку из очерка гр. Ю. Граббе «Святая Русь в истории России», где почтенный автор останавливается и на религиозной природе царской власти в России.

«Особенно ярко обрисовывается религиозная сущность русской царской власти в чине коронования и миропомазания. В самом начале этого чина, едва Государь входит в собор и становится на свое место, он, «по обычаю древних христианских монархов», вслух своих подданных отвечает на вопрос первенствующего архиерея: «како веруеши?» и читает св. Символ Православной Веры. И лишь после этого начинается самая служба. Все регалии принимаются Царем «во имя Отца и Сына и Святого Духа»; читаются глубокие по содержанию молитвы с исповеданием, что земное царство вверено Государю от Господа, с прошением о том, чтобы Господь всеял в сердца его страх Божий, соблюл его в непорочной вере, как хранителя Св. Церкви, «да судит он людей Божиих в правде и нищих Его в суде, спасет сыны убогих и наследник будет небесного царствия…» Но особенно торжественный и трогательный момент – это чтение Царем коленопреклоненной молитвы, полной смирения, покорности и благодарности Богу: «Ты же, Владыко и Господи мой, - молился Царь, - настави мя в деле, на неже послал мя еси, вразуми и управи мя в великом служении сем… Буди сердце мое в руку Твоею еже вся устоити к пользе врученных мне людей и к славе Твоей, яко да и в день Суда, Твоего непостыдно воздам Тебе слово…»

«Катков говорил, что в присяге – наша конституция, по которой мы имеем больше чем политические права – мы имеем политические обязанности. Это отчасти верно, но, в сущности, подлинная конституция была в священном короновании. Там исповедывалась неразрывность нашей Царской власти с Православной Церковью, там Самодержавец торжественно заявляет, что он ограничен Законом Божиим, что он – Божий слуга. В молитвах этого замечательного чина, развивавшегося уже в Императорский период, а до того весьма краткого, - самое глубокое изложение сущности русской верховной власти и ее главной задачи. Тут государственные принципы Святой Руси получают свое самое яркое и глубокое выражение».

Вне подобной церковно-религиозной осмысленности Царской власти в России, нельзя, вообще, понять ее сущности. Тот, кто не понимает, что такое «Православие», не может, понять и того, что такое – Русский Царь. Отделенная от этой своей церковно-православной природы, несущей в себе сильнейшие и глубочайшие «ограничения», теряет самый свой смысл Царская власть, как она выработана тысячелетней русской историей. Это прекрасно понял такой относительно далекий от Церкви человек, как знаменитый историк русского права Сергеевич, который распознал юридическое своеобразие русского самодержавия и потому самым решительным образом отвергал применимость к нему – в исторической перспективе! – понятий западного абсолютизма.

Этого то и не понимало русское общество. Оно не могло иметь ученой проницательности величайшего русского правоведа-историка, и оно, вместе с тем, в такой мере утратило уже способность мыслить и чувствовать так, как велит Церковь Православная, что для него смысл русского самодержавия испарился. Тут и лежит корень непонимания обществом Царя -–непонимания безысходного.

Царь, оставаясь Русским Царем, не мог себя ограничить западной конституцией, не мог сделать этого не потому, чтобы судорожно держался он за свою власть, а потому, что самая власть эта, по существу своему, не поддавалась ограничению. Ограничить ее – значило изменить не ее, а изменить ей. И тут, в дополнение к тому, что явствует из вышеприведенной страницы, заимствованной у Граббе, напомним еще одно обстоятельство, еще более, с точки зрения церковно-верующего человека, значительное. Русский Царь не просто Царь – Помазанник, которому вручена Промыслом судьба великого народа. Он – тот единственный Царь на земле, которому вручена от Бога задача охранять Святую Церковь и нести высокое царское послушание до второго пришествия Христова. Русский Царь – тот Богом поставленный носитель земной власти, действием которого до времени сдерживалась сила Врага. В этом только в этом смысл преемственности русской царской власти от Византии…

Нужно именно это учесть, чтобы уяснить себе, какую трагедию переживал Император Николай II, когда у него «вымучивали» манифест 17 октября, и, наконец, вырвали то, как он говорил, «страшное решение», которое он, перекрестившись, принял, не видя другой возможности спасти страну.

Создав народное представительство, Царь принял, однако, новый порядок, лишь как изменение техники высшего правительственного механизма. Человек исключительно лояльный и свободный от личных пристрастий и увлечений, он с необыкновенной скрупулезностью соблюдал закон в отношении Государственной Думы, - как он соблюдал закон и во всех иных случаях и направлениях. Но внутренне чуждой оставалась ему эта механика, не знавшая прецедентов в русской прошлом.

Об этом ясно свидетельствует опубликованная в советской России переписка Царя с министром внутренних дел Н.А. Маклаковым. Настраивая Царя против Думы, Маклаков в 1913 г. испросил у Царя разрешение распустить ее, если ему не удастся ее «ввести в законное русло». Из замыслов Маклакова ничего не вышло, так как он встретил в Совете министров решительную и сплоченную оппозицию. Но любопытно, что Царь в своей переписке с Маклаковым высказывал полное свое несочувствие сложившемуся у нас государственному порядку. Он писал: «Также считаю необходимым и благонамеренным немедленно обсудить в Совете министров мою давнишнюю мысль об изменении статьи учреждения Государственной Думы, в силу которой, если Дума не согласится с изменениями Государственного Совета и не утвердит проекта, то законопроект уничтожается. Это – при отсутствии у нас конституции, есть полная бессмыслица. Представление на выбор и утверждение Государя мнения и большинства и меньшинства будет хорошим возвращением к прежнему спокойному течению законодательной деятельности, и притом в русском духе».

Таково было «личное» мнение Царя, на котором он, конечно, не стал настаивать, ибо был человеком, лишенным тех мелочности и упрямства, которые ему так упорно ставят в вину. Напротив того, он своеобразную, во многих отношениях замечательную «конституцию» русскую, нашедшую себе превосходное юридическое выражение в Основных Законах 23 апреля – своего рода шедевре государственного права! – заботливо покрывал своим высоким покровительством. Но это отнюдь не могло означать для него, чтобы он всегда и при всех условиях считал себя обязанным подчиняться той форме, которая была выражена в «конституционных» законодательных актах. Ведь, он, только он один, продолжал нести и в рамках новых «основных законов» ответственность перед Богом за судьбы Русского народа! Никакая власть на земле неспособна была лишить Царя права и снять с него обязанность считать и чувствовать себя высшим арбитром в последних решениях, требуемых обстоятельствами чрезвычайными. Когда германский император предложил ему, в целях ослабления ответственности за Портсмутский договор, передать его на ратификацию Думе, Царь ответил, что ответственность за свои решения несет он перед Богом и историей…

СЛОВО В ДЕНЬ ПРОСЛАВЛЕНИЯ НОВОМУЧЕНИКОВ РОССИЙСКИХ

Когда я, грешный, смотрю на этот вот образ, который перед нами, то мне вспоминается слово "Апокалипсиса". Как святой Иоанн Богослов видел у престола Господня двадцать четыре праведных старца, а, кроме того, как он говорит, - великое множество людей, которых никто не мог сосчитать, стоящих в белых сверкающих одеждах с пальмовыми ветвями в руках, как знаком победы. Один из старцев спросил Иоанна Богослова: "Эти, в белых одеждах, - кто они? И откуда они пришли?" Смиренно ответил Евангелист: "Ты знаешь, господин". И старец тогда говорит: "Это те, которые пришли от великой скорби. Они омыли свои одежды, они убелили их кровью Агнца Божественного и теперь вечно будут с Богом, и Бог будет с ними". Это мне вспоминается, когда мы видим и здесь, на этой иконе, сонм новомучеников и исповедников, которых, в действительности, числа мы и не знаем.

Кто может исчести? Кто может даже охватить хотя бы мыслью, сколько там положило свою жизнь за веру и истину Христову наших братьев? И действительно, как и вчера говорилось, на всем протяжении нашей Родины нет ни одного уголка, который не был бы полит кровью свидетелей Христовых. И если наша Родина впервые показала миру такую страшную хулу, страшное богохульство и безумный бунт народа, который в ней утвердили захватившие власть разбойники, хотя осквернилась земля этой страшной, небывалой в истории человечества хулою, но кровь святых мучеников и исповедников обильно оросила землю Российскую и очистила нашу Родину от этой скверны ея. И вот мы с вами ныне празднуем их прославление. Еще раз повторяю: прославляем, конечно, их не мы. Они - у Бога святы, Бог их увенчал, а Церковь своим прославлением указывает только на то, что это - новые святые угодники Божии, к которым теперь можем мы молитвенно обращаться, как это принято по уставу Церковному. Так вот, будем помнить еще вот что: когда-то святитель Феофан Затворник кому-то писал: "Настоящее прославление святых и настоящее их поминовение заключается не только в том, чтобы им молиться или их хвалить, восхвалять, а в том, чтобы подражать их жизни и подвигам". Наши собратья, которые этим подвигом перешли в загробный мир и теперь прославлены, они были люди такие, что, именно вот, когда пришла пора тяжкого и страшного испытания, они оказались верны Богу и Божией правде.

Пока что нас не постигли еще здесь такие испытания, но знаем мы, как сейчас запутана, как сложна жизнь, как она ежедневно преподносит самые неожиданные и неприятные новости; что будет впереди - мы не знаем, и очень может быть, что и на нашу долю может выпасть что-либо подобное.Так вот, молясь им и восхваляя их, мы должны молить все время о том, чтобы они и нашу слабость и маловерие укрепили, если придется нам когда-либо уже стать со злом лицом к лицу, так, как стали они.

Мы говорили вчера о том, что никогда еще в истории человечества зло не обрушивалось с такой яростью на Церковь Христову, как это было в России. Но сбылось слово Спасителя нашего! Он сказал: создам Церковь Мою, и врата ада, то есть, все адские усилия, - не одолеют ея. И вот - не одолели. Этот сонм мучеников, которые сохранили верность Христу, указывает на победу Церкви над этим злом, над этой злой атакой, над этим разливом зла. Вы знаете, как бывает на океане, когда буря выходит: могучие валы, целые водные горы набрасываются на скалы, а скалы стоят твердо, непоколебимо, и эта налетевшая громадная волна бессильно разбивается и откатывается назад. Вот так же и они разбивались и будут разбиваться, потому что, повторяю, верно слово Христово. Церковь Христову не одолеют никакие темные силы, а мы с вами только должны заботиться о том, чтобы поучаться примеру наших мучеников и исповедников и так же хранить верность Господу всегда, везде и во всем, как они хранили.

ПРИДЕТСЯ ЛИ ВЕРНУТЬСЯ К ПРАКТИКЕ ВЫБОРА ЕПИСКОПОВ ИЗ МИРЯН?

Архиереи привели Зарубежную Русь в тупик, из которого верующим необходимо найти путь выхода. Но где он? Из Синода митрополита Лавра слышны воззвания о том, что это единственная каноническая зарубежная юрисдикция. От духовенства, которое с митрополитом Виталием слышно, что они с законным Главой Церкви, а остальные раскольники. В это же время появились другие малые группы, рассчитывающие на то, что верующие примкнут к ним. А куда примыкать, когда почти во всех этих "юрисдикциях" происходит хаос? Причем некоторые архиереи и клирики митрополита Лавра видят себя не иначе как в составе МП.

Враждующие друг с другом группы ведут закулисные переговоры о будущем Церкви в канцеляриях и синодах без участия рядового духовенства и верующих, нарушая таким образом церковную соборность. Как на верных клириков, так и на отдельных верующих сыпятся угрозы, устраивается публичная травля в прессе и на Интернете. Те от кого необходимо было бы ожидать приличного поведения пачкают перед иностранцами русское имя, показывая, что они не научились на Западе как себя вести.

Такое церковное положение, напоминает, каким оно было на Руси после монгольского нашествия.

Единство в Зарубежной Церкви во многом было нарушено духовными лицами, вышедшими из бывшего Советского Союза. Лица, которые при прежних зарубежных иерархах вряд ли бы были приняты в состав Церкви в виду их поведения были приняты в состав сегодняшней Церкви. Многие из них занялись не религиозным назиданием своих пасомых, а как опытные политруки начали вести подрывную работу по подготовке слияния с МП.

Под омофором каких архиереев могли бы объединиться люди верные историческому пути РПЦЗ? Это до сих пор неизвестно.

Поэтому иным из мирян Зарубежной Руси не видится другого выхода, как вернуться к опыту наших праотцев.

Из истории мы знаем, что после принятия Русью православия, в продолжение некоторого времени, почти все архиереи были иностранцы. С 11-го до 13-го века, большинство епископов были из монашествующих Киево-Печерской Лавры и постригавшихся в иночество лиц белого духовенства, для которых при хиротониях делались исключения.

Безмонашеское архиерейство было в особенности в практике в Великом Новгороде, где, например в 1164 и 1185 гг. два родных брата -Илия и Гавриил были поставлены в архиереи.

Многие кандидаты из избираемых на епископские кафедры удельными князьями и народом на вече, были боярами, бывшими воинами или состоятельными людьми. Кандидатами выбирались люди грамотные, знавшие административное и хозяйственное дело.

Вследствие монгольского ига и междоусобиц, среди удельных князей на Руси не было политического и церковно-административного единства. Начиная с 12-го века на Руси в выборе епископов поднялась избирательная роль мирян, подобно тому, как это практиковалось в первые века христианства, когда выбор делался соборно - с участием всех членов Церкви. Практика выборов кандидатов в архиереи допускала избрание мирян. Новгородцы избирали епископов на вече с участием духовенства и верующих. Так в 1156 г. на вече был избран новгородцами в архиереи Аркадий, после чего он вел в своей епархии духовные дела, а его хиротония была совершена только через два года. Бывало так, что при наличии нескольких кандидатов их избрание решалось при помощи жребия.

Практика соборного избрания архиереев и духовенства устанавливала тесную связь с верующими, что было важно на Руси, так как епископы имели влияние на местные дела торговли, на договоры и на суд. В Новгороде, например, многие государственные собрания проводились в покоях правящего архиерея.

Избрание архиереев народом прочно укоренилось на Руси. Случалось, что когда митрополиты присылали архиереев, то князья отсылали их обратно с объяснением, что они не были избраны народом.

Вспомним что избрание в патриархи Св. Тихона было именно соборным. А в МП выборы производятся без соборного участия с народом: все уже были выбраны заранее на "высшем уровне", "партией и правительством".

Архиереи МП следуют по пагубному, указанному им митрополитом Сергием пути ересей, не желая отказаться от введенных обновленческих новшеств, сотрудничества с государственными властями, экуменизмом и т. д. Для поднятия авторитета перед верующими и другими Поместными Церквами, МП стремится доказать свою преемственность от дореволюционной Церкви, и при участии государственной власти старается присоединить к себе каноническую и независимую РПЦЗ.

Если такая уния произойдет, то в Русской Церкви больше не будет раздаваться свободный голос с обличением ересей МП.

Если некоторые зарубежные архиереи, клирики и миряне желают присоединение к МП, то наибольшая часть верных Церкви считает, что РПЦЗ должна "сохраняя свою каноничность и чистоту Православной Веры" продолжать по прежнему свою духовную миссию без внесения в нее ересей МП.

Все более становится понятным для многих, что кто уйдет в раскол от РПЦЗ станет частью МП, а верные Церкви, как и прежде, будут идти под руководством канонических архиереев по указанному им пути Блаженнейшим Митрополитом Антонием и другими Первосвятителями Церкви.

Поэтому многие верующие задают вопрос о том, кто из архиереев не согласен идти по пути лжи с МП?

Общество Памяти Блаженнейшего Митрополита Антония поддерживает связь с верными Церкви архиереями на родине и в Зарубежной Руси высказавшихся, что для защиты независимости Церкви от ведущей к духовной гибели МП желательна организация братств и большее участие верующих в церковной жизни.

В виду возможного ухода в МП некоторых архиереев, РПЦЗ потребуется выбор достойных кандидатов из монашествующих или белого духовенства для хиротоний в епископы на вдовствующие заграничные епархии. В таком выборе кандидатов для хиротоний архиереев и рукоположений священников, верующим предстоит исполнить свой христианский долг и сделать рекомендации.

Весьма возможно также, что если РПЦЗ покинет ее первоиерарх, то придется сделать соборный съезд духовенства и мирян, как это делается в Американской Православной Церкви и избрать достойного первосвятителя для Зарубежной Руси.

Будем надеяться, что не будет надобности возвращаться к древней новгородской практике избрания архиереев из мирян. Но это "в отчаянной обстановке" могло бы стать одним из возможных путей выхода из тупика.

According to Patriarch Alexis II of Moscow, Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky), author of the notorious declaration of 1927 and first Soviet “Patriarch”, “can in full measure be called one of the confessors of Christ”. This judgement leads one to ponder how quickly white can be called black and black white by those who have fallen away from Holy Orthodoxy. Metropolitan Sergius’ traitrous declaration is well known, and its disastrous consequences for the Russian Church widely acknowledged, even in the Moscow Patriarchate. However, the leaders of the Patriarchate can in no way allow his memory to be blackened or even slightly tarnished, otherwise the whole house of cards in which they live will come tumbling down. Their position would be even more shaky if it were known, not only that Metropolitan Sergius was the leader of the anti-Church revolution that took place in 1927, and a leading participant in the “Living Church” revolution of 1922, but also played a prominent role in the very first Church revolution that took place in Russian Orthodoxy in this century – the revolution of March, 1917…

But first it is necessary to say something about the political revolution that preceded, and paved the way for, the revolution in the Church.

“Terrible and mysterious,” wrote Metropolitan Anastasius, second leader of the Russian Church Abroad, “is the dark visage of the revolution. Viewed from the vantage point of its inner essence, it is not contained within the framework of history and cannot be studied on the same level as other historical facts. In its deepest roots it transcends the boundaries of space and time, as was determined by Gustave le Bon, who considered it an irrational phenomenon in which certain mystical, supernatural powers were at work. But what before may have been considered dubious became completely obvious after the Russian Revolution. In it everyone sensed, as one contemporary writer expressed himself, the critical incarnation of absolute evil in the temper of man; in other words, the participation of the devil – that father of lies and ancient enemy of God, who tries to make man his obedient weapon against God – was clearly revealed.”

Great lights such as St. John of Kronstadt had warned of the coming catastrophe. In 1907 Bishop Andronicus, the future hieromartyr, wrote: “It is not a question of the struggle between two administrative regimes, but of a struggle between faith and unbelief, between Christianity and antichristianity. The ancient antichristian plot, which was begun by those who shouted furiously to Pilate about Jesus Christ: ‘Crucify Him, crucify Him: His blood be on us and on our children’ - continued in various branches and secret societies. In the 16^th century it poured into the special secret antichristian order of the Templars, and in the 18^th century it became more definite in the Illuminati, the Rosencrucians and, finally, in Freemasonry it merged into a universal Jewish organization. And now, having gathered strength to the point where France is completely in the hands of the Masons, it – Masonry – already openly persecutes Christianity out of existence there. In the end Masonry will be poured out into one man of iniquity, the son of destruction – the Antichrist (II Thessalonians 2). In this resides the solution of the riddle of our most recent freedoms: their aim is the destruction of Christianity in Rus’. That is why what used to be the French word ‘liberal’, which meant among the Masons a ‘generous’ contributor to the Masonic aims, and then received the meaning of ‘freedom-loving’ with regard to questions of faith, has now already passed openly over to antichristianity. In this resides the solution of the riddle of that stubborn battle for control of the school, which is being waged in the zemstvo and the State Duma: if the liberal tendency gains control of the school, the success of antichristianity is guaranteed. In this resides the solution of the riddle of the sympathy of liberals for all kinds of sects in Christianity and non-Christian religions. And the sectarians have not been slumbering – they have now set about attacking the little children… And when your children grow up and enter university – there Milyukov [the future foreign minister in the Provisional Government] and co. will juggle with the facts and deceive them, teaching them that science has proved man’s origin from the apes. And they will really make our children into beasts, with just this difference, that the ape is a humble and obedient animal whereas these men-beasts will be proud, bold, cruel and unclean….”

However, the reaction of the Orthodox Church to the revolution was at first muted. The abdication of the Tsar in favour of his brother, Great Prince Michael Alexandrovich, on March 2/15, 1917 elicited surprisingly little reaction in view of the enormous, indeed apocalyptic significance of the event. Sadly, even the Holy Synod failed to measure up to its responsibilities at this time.

The first question that needed to be answered concerned the legitimacy of the new Provisional Government. The constitution of the Russian Empire did not allow for any transition to a non-autocratic, still less an anti-autocratic form of government. However, the Synod not only refused the request of the Tsarist Procurator, Rayev, that it publicly support the monarchy: it welcomed Great Prince Michael’s refusal to accept the throne from his brother, offered no resistance when the Royal Throne was removed by the new Procurator, Prince V. Lvov, from the hall in which its sessions took place, and on March 9/22 published an Address to the faithful children of the Orthodox Church in which it declared that “the will of God has been accomplished” and called on the church people to support the new government.

“This document, which appeared during the days when the whole of Orthodox Russia was anxiously waiting for what the Church would say with regard to the events that had taken place in the country, introduced no clarity into the ecclesiastical consciousness of the people. The Synod did not utter a word about the arrest of the Emperor and even of his completely innocent children, about the bloody lynch-mob trials established by the soldiers over their officers or about the disorders that had led to the death of people; it did not give a religio-moral evaluation of the revolutionary excesses, it did not condemn the guilty ones. Finally, the Address completely ignored the question how one should relate to the deposition and arrest of the Anointed of God, how to conduct Divine services in church without the important prayer for the prosperity of the Emperor’s House…”

For the liberals in the Church, however, the Synod’s Address did not go far enough. They wanted the removal not only of the Tsar, but also of the very concept of the Sacred Monarchy. Thus in its sessions of March 11 and 12, the Council of the Petrograd religious-philosophical society, resolved that the Synod’s acceptance of the Tsar’s abdication “does not correspond to the enormous religious importance of the act, by which the Church recognized the Tsar in the rite of the coronation of the anointed of God. It is necessary, for the liberation of the people’s conscience and to avoid the possibility of a restoration, that a corresponding act be issued in the name of the Church hierarchy abolishing the power of the Sacrament of Royal Anointing, by analogy with the church acts abolishing the power of the Sacraments of Marriage and the Priesthood.”

In the end very few refused to swear a new oath to the Provisional Government. Among the few was Count Paul Mikhailovich Grabbe, who later raised the question of the restoration of the patriarchate at the Local Council of the Russian Church and some years after that received a martyr’s crown. Only slightly less uncompromising was the leading monarchist hierarch, Archbishop Anthony (Khrapovitsky), who on March 5/18 preached to his flock in Kharkov: “When we received the news of the abdication from the Throne of the Most Pious Emperor Nicholas Alexandrovich, we prepared, in accordance with his direction, to commemorate the Most Pious Emperor Michael Alexandrovich. But now he, too, has abdicated, and has ordered obedience to the Provisional Government, and that is the reason, and the only reason, why we commemorate the Provisional Government. Otherwise no power would be able to force us to cease the commemoration of the Tsar and the Tsar’s House.”

Probably the best justification of the Synod’s line was expressed by Archpriest John Vostorgov, who was to receive a martyr’s crown the next year: “Our former Emperor, who has abdicated from the throne, transferred power in a lawful manner to his brother. In his turn the brother of the Emperor, having abdicated from power until the final decision of the Constituent Assembly, in the same lawful manner transferred power to the Provisional Government, and to that permanent government that which be given to Russia by the Constituent Assembly. And so we now have a completely lawful Provisional Government which is the powers that be, as the Word of God calls it. To this power, which is now the One Supreme and All-Russian power, we are obliged to submit in accordance with the duty of religious conscience; we are obliged to pray for it; we are obliged also to obey the local authorities established by it. In this obedience, after the abdication of the former Emperor and his brother, and after their indications that the Provisional Government is lawful, there can be no betrayal of the former oath, but in it consists our direct duty.”

And yet, when the foreign minister of the new government, Paul Milyukov, was asked who had elected his government, he replied: “The Russian revolution elected us”. But the revolution cannot be lawful, being the incarnation of lawlessness… Therefore confusion and searching of consciences continued.

This can be seen in a letter of some Orthodox Christians to the Holy Synod dated July 24, 1917: “We Orthodox Christians most ardently beseech you to explain to us in the newspaper Russkoye Slovo what.. the oath given to us to be faithful to the Tsar, Nicholas Alexandrovich, means. People are saying in our area that if this oath is worth nothing, then the new oath to the new Tsar [the Provisional Government?] will be worth nothing. Which oath must be more pleasing to God. The first or the second? Because the Tsar is not dead, but is alive and in prison…”

In any case, the Holy Synod was soon to learn from its own experience what the new government really represented. Instead of the separation between Church and State which the government promised and so many Church leaders longed for, the new Procurator, Prince Lvov, immediately began to act like a new dictator worse than any of the Procurators of the Tsarist period. As we have seen, at the beginning of his first appearance at the Synod on March 4/17, he removed the Royal Throne (it was placed in a museum). Two days later he secured the forced retirement of the Metropolitan of Petrograd, Pitirim, on the grounds that he had been placed in his see by Rasputin. The removal of the highly-respected Metropolitan of Moscow, Macarius, Apostle of the Altai, required a little more time and a personal visit to Moscow by Lvov to stir up opposition to the metropolitan among his priests and laity.

Metropolitan Macarius was never reconciled with his forced and uncanonical removal from his see. This is what he later wrote about the Provisional Government as a whole and Lvov in particular: “They corrupted the army with their speeches. They opened the prisons. They released onto the peaceful population convicts, thieves and robbers. They abolished the police and administration, placing the life and property of citizens at the disposal of every armed rogue… They destroyed trade and industry, imposing taxes that swallowed up the profits of enterprises… They squandered the resources of the exchequer in a crazy manner. They radically undermined all the sources of life in the country. They established elections to the Constituent Assembly on bases that are incomprehensible to Russia. They defiled the Russian language, distorting it for the amusement of half-illiterates and sluggards. They did not even guard their own honour, violating the promise they had given to the abdicated Tsar to allow him and his family free departure, by which they prepared for him inevitable death…

“Who started the persecution on the Orthodox Church and handed her head over to crucifixion? Who demanded the execution of the Patriarch? Was it those whom the Duma decried as ‘servants of the dark forces’, labelled as enemies of the freedom of the Church?... No, it was not those, but those him the Duma opposed to them as a true defender of the Church, whom it intended for, and promoted to the rank of over-procurator of the Most Holy Synod – the member of the Provisional Government, now servant of the Sovnarkom – Vladimir Lvov.”

On April 14/27, a stormy meeting took place between Lvov and the Holy Synod. The subject was the unlawful transfer by Lvov of the Holy Synod’s official organ, Tserkovno-Obshchestvennij Vestnik, into the hands of the renovationist Professor Titlinov, who was now using it to preach his Gospel of “Socialist Christianity”. The next day Lvov marched into the Synod at the head of a detachment of soldiers and read an order for the cessation of the winter session of the Synod and the retirement of all its members with the single exception of Archbishop Sergius (Stragorodsky) of Finland.

Thus in little more than a month after the abdication of the Tsar, the Church was effectively in the hands of a lay dictator, who had single-handedly dismissed her most senior bishops in the name of the “freedom of the Church”. But who was this Archbishop Sergius, the one member of the old Synod that the revolutionary powers did not want to remove?

Archbishop Sergius (born 1867) was perhaps the most prominent of the learned, academic bishops of Russia after his teacher, Archbishop Anthony (Khrapovitsky). Thanks to his erudition and the well-known “suppleness” of his views, he took a very active part in the work of the society for the rapprochement of the Orthodox and Anglican Churches. This sympathy for the ideas of the West manifested itself also in his active participation in the activities of the liberal religious-philosophical society, and in his sympathy for the socialist revolutionaries. Thus when the revolutionary Peter Schmidt was shot in 1906, Archbishop Sergius, who was at that time rector of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, served a pannikhida at his grave; and he also gave refuge in his hierarchical house in Vyborg to the revolutionaries Michael Novorussky and Nicholas Morozov. Having such sympathies, it is not surprising that he was not liked by the Royal Family: in 1915 the Empress wrote to the Emperor that Sergius “must leave the Synod”.

Not surprisingly, Archbishop Sergius was among those who welcomed the February revolution – although, as we have seen, there were many other bishops and priests who did the same. Moreover, he was one of only two members of the Synod who approved Lvov’s transfer of the Synod’s official organ, the Tserkovno-Obshchestvennij Vestnik into the hands of Titlinov. Now Titlinov was a professor at the Petrograd Academy of which Sergius was the rector; the two worked closely together, being inspired by the same liberal views. Archbishop (later Patriarch) Tikhon had protested against this transfer, and the small number of signatures for the transfer made it illegal. Lvov, however, in his zeal to hand this important Church organ into the hands of the liberals, completely ignored the illegality of the act and handed the press over to Titlinov.

At the session of April 14/27, Sergius apparently changed course and agreed with the other bishops in condemning the unlawful transfer. However, Lvov understood that this was only a tactical protest. So he did not include Sergius among the bishops whom he purged from the Synod. He thought that Sergius would continue to be his tool in the revolution that he was introducing in the Church. And he was right in so thinking.

For on April 29 / May 13, the new Synod headed by Archbishop Sergius accepted an Address to the Church concerning the establishment of the principle of the election of the episcopate, and the preparation for a Council and the establishment of a Preconciliar Council. This Address triggered a revolution in the Church. The revolution consisted in the fact that all over the country the elective principle with the participation of laymen replaced the system of “episcopal autocracy” which had prevailed thereto. In almost all dioceses Diocesan Congresses elected special “diocesan councils” or committees composed of clergy and laity that restricted the power of the bishops. The application of the elective principle to almost all ecclesiastical posts, from parish offices to episcopal sees, resulted in the removal of several bishops from their sees and the election of new ones in their stead.

Although the spirit behind this revolutionary wave was undoubtedly anti-ecclesiastical in essence, by the Providence of God it resulted in some changes that were beneficial for the Church – as well as some that were harmful. Thus the staunchly monarchist Archbishop Anthony (Khrapovitsky) of Kharkov, after being forced to retire, was later reinstated at the demand of the people. Again, Archbishop Tikhon (Bellavin) of Lithuania was elected metropolitan of Moscow, Archbishop Benjamin (Kazansky) was made metropolitan of Petrograd, and Archbishop Sergius – metropolitan of Vladimir.

From June 1 to 7 an All-Russian Congress of clergy and laity took place in Moscow consisting of 800 delegates from all the dioceses. This Congress carried forward the renovationist wave; and with Archbishop Sergius in charge of the Preconciliar Council, it looked as if the All-Russian Council that was being prepared would finally seal the break with the pre-revolutionary past and bring the Russian Church into the mainstream of twentieth-century ecclesiastical life, by which the liberals meant, in effect, her protestantization. But it was not to be.

For the All-Russian Council of 1917-18 put a halt to the renovationist wave that was threatening to overwhelm the Church. The election of the Patriarch restored the principle of leadership from the top without destroying sobornost’. The anathematization of the Bolsheviks re-established the correct, confessing attitude of the Church towards the atheist revolution. And the glorification of the first new martyrs established an example to follow for all the members of the Church. When the Tsar and his family were murdered in July, 1918, the Patriarch courageously condemned the act, thereby redeeming at least in part the Synod’s less than courageous actions in March, 1917.

However, in 1922 Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky) of Kiev said that “if the Council was at fault in anything, it was perhaps in failing to express with sufficient force its condemnation of the revolution and the overthrow of his Majesty. Who will be able to deny that the February revolution was as God-hating as it was anti-monarchist? Who can condemn the Bolshevik revolution and at the same time approve of the Provisional government?”

One hierarch who condemned neither the Bolshevik revolution nor the Provisional government was Metropolitan Sergius. His part in the transfer of the Synod’s official organ to Titlinov was exposed during the Council, and his subsequent role in the renovationist wave in the first half of 1917 was noted. Nevertheless, he remained in power, and when the second Church revolution arose, in 1922, he was again at hand to profit from, and take a leading part in it.

Thus on June 3/16, he and two other important hierarchs declared their full adhesion to the “Living Church” as follows: “We, Metropolitan Sergius of Vladimir and Shuya, Archbishop Eudocimus of Nizhegorod and Arzamas and Archbishop Seraphim of Kostroma and Galich, having studied the platform of the Temporary Church Administration and the canonical lawfulness of its administration, consider it the only lawful, canonical, higher church authority, and all the instructions issuing from it we consider to be completely lawful and obligatory. We call on all true pastors and believing sons of the Church, both those entrusted to us and those belonging to other dioceses, to follow our example.”

Sergius repented of his membership of the “Living Church” (although, as Hieromartyr Damascene of Glukhov pointed out, he took his time over it). However, the people did not trust him, shouting to the Patriarch not to receive him; while the renowned Elder Nectarius of Optina said that the poison of renovationism was in him still. It was only the generosity of the Patriarch that gave him another chance. That generosity was to prove fateful for the Russian Church. For in 1927 Sergius effected the third, most successful revolution in the Church since 1917, a revolution whose leaders are still in power to this day…

Sergius’ defenders often declare what he did in 1927 was done only under the most intense pressure, and only in order to preserve the Church from extinction. But an examination of his earlier career from 1905 onwards reveals without a shadow of doubt that he was a renovationist at heart long before his fateful declaration of 1927, and that in 1927 he finally succeeded in doing what he had been trying to do since the first days of the February revolution – drag the Church into union with the revolution. Therefore it behoves us to repeat the words of David: “Incline not my heart unto words of evil, to make excuse with excuses in sins, with men that work iniquity; and I will not join with their chosen” (Psalm 140.4-5).

Русь Святая жива и невредима, но сегодня она невидима,

как некогда невидимы были семь тысяч верных даже Илье-пророку.

Низкий Вам поклон за прекрасную статью “Главная беда”, а редакции “Руси Православной” – за отличное послесловие к вашей статье.

И всё же при чтении статьи у меня возникли некоторые недоумения. Надеюсь, Вы не обидитесь, если я выскажу их вслух. К сожалению, в последнее время характерными чертами проповеди многих православных патриотов стали некоторая высокомерность в поучениях и неоправданный укор всем и вся . Вот и Вы не избежали того же.

Вы пишете: “Когда же мы станем настоящими Русскими, верными сынами Божиими? Когда поймём, что нательный крест – это ответственность за всю вселенную, за каждую душу?

Зачем же мы тогда вообще ходим в храмы Божии? К кому? Что мы выносим из них? Как служим Богу? О чем молимся? В чём каемся?

Доколе, люди русские? Почто нам жизнь такая, если она не Богу, не Матери-Церкви, не близким во Христе? Тошно, други мои…

Ваша боль – за всех, за всё – понятна. Еще Достоевский отметил эту черту русской души, написав, что русскому человеку непременно нужно, чтобы всё человечество пошло за Христом. И это одна из сильнейших сторон русской души. Именно она – основа истинно христианской молитвы за весь мiр. Но это совсем не означает, что надо пламенно требовать от всех окружающих скорейшего обращения в “настоящих русских”.

Вы пишете: “мы должны осознавать свою общую, соборную обязанность перед Богом”. Обозначив столь сложное понятие, как соборность в наши дни “последних времен”, Вы тем не менее не раскрываете его реальное содержание. Как сегодня та соборность, к которой Вы призываете, может осуществляться? Что это за соборность? Истинная соборность непременно требует единомыслия, единодушия, а не голосования большинства. Но где сегодня это всерусское единодушие?

“Что должны сказать мы о себе? Как жить, как действовать нам?” Ответ на эти вопросы находим, – пишет святитель Игнатий (Брянчанинов), – у древних иноков: они предвозвестили о нашем положении; они и предначертали образ действия в этом положении.

“В последнее время, – сказал один из них, – те, которые поистине будут работать Богу, благоразумно скроют себя от людей и не будут совершать посреди них знамений и чудес. Они пойдут путем делания, растворенного смирением, и в Царствии Небесном окажутся большими Отцов, прославившихся знамениями”. Вот каково пребывание Святой Руси в ХХI веке. Русь Святая жива и невредима, но она сегодня невидима, как некогда невидимы были 7000 верных даже Илье-пророку.

Сразу же зададут вопрос: что же – сидеть без дела, сложа руки?

На этот вопрос тоже есть святоотеческий ответ, данный нам преподобным Силуаном Афонским: “Много лет болит душа моя от мысли, что вот мы, монахи, отреклись от мiра, покинули и родных, и родину, оставили все, что составляет обычно жизнь людей, дали обеты перед Богом, и святыми ангелами, и людьми жить по закону Христову, отказались от своей воли и проводим, в сущности, мучительную жизнь и все же не преуспеваем в добре.

Много ли из нас спасающихся? Я первый погибаю. Вижу и других, что страсти обладают ими. А когда встречаю мiрских, то вижу, что живут они в великом невежестве, нерадиво и не каются. И вот понемногу, незаметно для себя я втянулся в молитву за мiръ...” То есть делание христианина есть в первую очередь делание молитвенное. Если бы мы это дело выполняли как следует, то и все другое быстро бы исправилось.

Впрочем, одним этим ограничиваться, конечно, нельзя. Нужна и борьба со злом. Но какая? Образцом такой борьбы за просвещение обманутых, доверчивых наших людей является послесловие редакции “РП” к Вашей статье. В чём её пафос? В призыве: “Бежим скорее от еретика Гундяева!”

Это истинно православный пафос. Скажу более, это подражание святому апостолу и евангелисту Иоанну Богослову. Помните: в городе Ефесе была баня. И вот однажды, когда апостол Иоанн шел с несколькими христианами мимо этой бани, он увидел моющегося там еретика Керинфа. “Бежим скорее отсюда, чтобы не упала баня, в ней же враг правды Божией обретается”, – воскликнул святой апостол, обращаясь к своим спутникам. Вдумаемся: наперсник Христов, который воскрешал мертвых, обращал к вере идолопоклонников и не усомнился принять на себя грехи разбойника, бежит от еретика, указуя этим поступком, как и нам следует поступать в таком случае. И апостол Павел подтверждает это: “Еретика отвращайся, зная, что таковой развратился и грешит, будучи самоосужден”.

Святитель Игнатий Брянчанинов заповедал: “Изучи дух времени, чтобы устраниться от него”. Плач же о бедственном состоянии русских душ должен, видимо, для большинства стать келейным. И все же мне радостно от того, что не иссякают на Руси воины Христовы, такие как Константин Душенов, Михаил Назаров, священник Андрей Горбунов, Священник Евгений Смольянинов, священник Владимир Христовой, священник Димитрий Каплун… А с учётом того, что далеко не всем русским воинам Христовым дан дар писательства, ясно, что этот список далеко не полон, и если бы его современные подвижники не скрыли себя благоразумно от людей, то нашему изумленному взору явились бы многие и многие тысячи граждан Святой Руси, торжествующей свою духовную победу над сатанинскими нападками и соблазнами современного гибнущего мiра.

Непреложны слова Спасителя: “Не бойся, малое стадо, яко благоизволи Отец дать вам Царство”. Вглядитесь попристальней – вот наше Малое Русское стадо Христово, благоразумно скрывшее себя от людей, продолжает победное шествие по Святой Руси, нисколько не унывая от своей малочисленности по сравнению с ордами обезумевших мiролюбцев, исполняя заповедь преподобного Серафима Саровского: “стяжи дух мирен, и вокруг тебя тысячи спасутся”. Осуществляя тем самым единственно возможный путь возрождения и спасения России…

Если опустился до резкости и поучения, прошу смиренно простить.

Виноградов Вадим Петрович (по профессии кинорежиссер).

The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever.

What is the State? What is its origin and purpose? What are the obligations of the Christian to the State? In what circumstances should the Christian disobey the State? Are there any circumstances in which the Christian should rise up in rebellion against the State?

These questions – and especially the last two – have become particularly important for Orthodox Christians in the last two centuries, often dividing them into bitterly opposed camps. Thus in 1821 the Greeks of Europe rebelled against the Ottoman Turkish empire, for which they were anathematised by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, leading to a schism between the patriarchate and the newly-formed Church of Greece. Again, in 1918 the Russian Orthodox Church anathematised the Bolsheviks and all those who co-operated with them. But in 1927 Metropolitan Sergius initiated a policy of active co-operation with Soviet power, which led to a schism between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Catacomb Church that has lasted to the present day.

Let us try to establish certain principles to help us to orient ourselves in such conflicts, which are likely to intensify as we approach the time of the Antichrist.

In the beginning of human history – that is, in Paradise, - there was no such thing as political life. Some heterodox thinkers, such as Thomas Aquinas, in their concern to demonstrate the essential goodness of the state have argued that the rudiments of the State already existed in the Garden, with Adam ruling like a king over Eve.[1] But this is an artificial schema. The Church may indeed be said to have existed in Paradise – as we read in The Order of Orthodoxy for the Week of Orthodoxy: “This is our God, providing for and sustaining His beloved inheritance, the Holy Church, comforting the forefathers who had fallen away through sin with His unlying Word, laying the foundation for Her already in Paradise…”[2] But the State, while also from God and therefore good as such, is a product of the Fall and would never have been necessary if Adam had not sinned. As Metropolitan Anastasius (Gribanovsky) of New York writes: “Political power appeared on earth only after the fall of the first people. In Paradise the overseer’s shout was not heard. Man can never forget that he was once royally free, and that political power appeared as the quit-rent of sin.”[3]

The State is necessary to fallen, sinful man because “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6.23), and the purpose of the State is, if not to conquer death in man – only Christ in the Church can do that – at any rate to slow down its spread, to enable man to survive, both as an individual and as a species. To survive he needs to unite in communities with other men, forming families, tribes and, eventually, states. This process is aided, of course, by the fact that man is social by nature, and comes into the world already as a member of a family. So, contrary to the teaching of some heterodox thinkers, such as Thomas Hobbes, it is not only out of fear that men unite into large groups, but out of the natural bonds of family life. In this sense the state is simply the family writ large.

And since the family naturally has a single head, the father, so the state naturally has a single head, the king. Hieromonk Dionysius writes: “Both the familial and the monarchical systems are established by God for the earthly existence of sinful, fallen man. The first-formed man, abiding in living communion with God, was not subject to anyone except God, and was lord over the irrational creatures. But when man sinned and destroyed the Divine hierarchy of submission, having fallen away from God – he became the slave of sin and the devil, and as a result of this became subject to a man like himself. The sinful will of man demands submission for the limitation of his own destructive activity. This Divine establishment has in mind only the good of man – the limitation of the spread of sin. And history itself confirms that whatever may be the defects of monarchy, they cannot compare with the evil brought upon men by revolution and anarchy.”[4]

Now states issue laws, which determine what is a crime and what is to be the punishment for crime. To the extent that the laws are good, and well executed, the people can live in peace and pursue the aim for which God placed them on the earth – the salvation of their souls for eternity. To the extent that they are bad, and/or badly executed, not only is it much more difficult for men to pursue the supreme aim of their existence: the very existence of future generations is put in jeopardy.

The difference between sin and crime is that whereas sin is transgression of the law of God only, crime is transgression both of the law of God and of the law of man as defined by the State. The first sin, that of Adam and Eve in the garden, was punished by their expulsion from Paradise, or the Church – that is, from communion with God. The second sin, that of Abel’s murder of his brother Cain, was, according to every legal code in every civilised state, a crime as well as a sin. But since there was as yet no state, it was God Himself Who imposed the punishment – expulsion from the society of men (“a fugitive and a vagabond you shall be on the earth” (Genesis 4.12)). The paradox is that Cain was the builder of the first state in recorded history, a city, as he fled from the presence of the Lord (Genesis 4.16,17) …

The fact that the first state was founded by the first murderer has cast a shadow over statehood ever since. On the one hand, the State exists in order to curb sin in its crudest and most destructive aspects, and to that extent it is of Christ, “Who rules in the kingdom of men, [and] gives it to whomever He will” (Daniel 4.17). On the other hand, the greatest and most destructive crimes known to man have been committed precisely by the State, and to that extent it is an evil phenomenon, permitted but not blessed by God – for God sometimes “sets over it the lowest of men” (Daniel 4.17). Moreover, since Cain and at least until Saul and the kings of Israel, all states known to man were not only the main agents both of mass murder and of slavery, but were also worshippers of demons who compelled their citizens to worship demons, too. And if Blessed Augustine, in his famous book, The City of God, could see the Providence and Justice of God working even in the most antichristian states and institutions, this could not prevent him from taking a most pessimistic view of the origin and nature of most states (even the Roman). [5]

St. Augustine traced the history of two lines of men descending from Seth and Cain respectively - the City of God, or the community of those who are saved, and the City of Man, or the community of those who are damned. The City of God is not to be identified with the Church (because the Church contains both good and bad), nor is the City of Man to be identified with the State (because the State contains both good and bad). Nevertheless, the Church is clearly closer to the first pole as the State is to the second….

This is the reason why the history of Church-State relations until Constantine the Great is a history of almost perpetual conflict. Thus until David and the foundation of the state of Israel, the people of God – that is, the Church – was not associated with any state, but was constantly being persecuted by contemporary rulers, as Moses and the Israelites were by Pharaoh.

And this symbolises a deeper truth: that the people of God, spiritually speaking, have never lived in states, but have always been stateless wanderers, desert people, as it were; “for here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come" (Hebrews 13.14). We seek, that is, the City of God, the new Jerusalem, which is to be fully revealed only in the age to come (Revelation 21-22).

On the other hand, the people who reject God are spiritually speaking citizens of the kingdoms of this earth, rooted in the earth of worldly cares and desires. That is why they like to build huge urban states and civilisations that enable them to satisfy these desires to the maximum extent. It is not by accident, therefore, that Cain and his immediate descendants were the creators not only of cities, but also of all the cultural and technological inventions that make city life so alluring to fallen man.

For, as New Hieroconfessor Barnabas, Bishop of Pechersk, writes: "In its original source culture is the fruit, not of the fallen human spirit in general, but a consequence of its exceptional darkening in one of the primordial branches of the race of Adam... The Cainites have only one aim - the construction of a secure, carnal, material life, whatever the cost. They understood, of course, that the Seed of the Woman, the Promised Deliverer from evil that is coming at the end of the ages, will never appear in their descendants, so, instead of humbling themselves and repenting, the Cainites did the opposite: in blasphemous despair and hatred towards God, they gave themselves over irrevocably to bestial passions and the construction on earth of their kingdom, which is continually fighting against the Kingdom of God."[6]

The Cainites eventually became the overwhelming majority of mankind, corrupting even most of the Sethites. Thus Josephus writes: “This posterity of Seth continued to esteem God as the Lord of the universe, and to have an entire regard to virtue, for seven generations; but in process of time they were perverted…

“But Noah was very uneasy at what they did; and being displeased at their conduct, persuaded them to change their disposition, and their actions for the better: but seeing they did not yield to him, but were slaves to wicked pleasures, he was afraid they would kill him, together with his wife and children, and those they had married; so he departed out of the land.”[7]

He departed, and entered, the Ark. And then God destroyed the whole Cainite civilisation in the Great Flood. So statehood in its first historical examples was demonic and antichristian and was destroyed by the just judgement of God.

Immediately after the Flood God commands Noah to establish a system of justice that is the embryo of statehood as it should be: “The blood of your lives will I require: at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made He man” (Genesis 9.5-6). Commenting on these words, Protopriest Basil Boshchansky writes, that they “give the blessing of God to that institution which appeared in defence of human life” – that is, the State.[8]

As Henry Morris explains: “The word ‘require’ is a judicial term, God appearing as a judge who exacts a strict and severe penalty for infraction of a sacred law. If a beast kills a man, the beast must be put to death (note also Exodus 21.28). If a man kills another man (wilfully and culpably, it is assumed), then he also must be put to death by ‘every man’s brother’. This latter phrase is not intended to initiate family revenge slayings, of course, but rather to stress that all men are responsible to see that this justice is executed. At the time these words were first spoken, all men indeed were blood brothers; for only the three sons of Noah were living at the time, other than Noah himself. Since all future people would be descended from these three men and their wives, in a very real sense all men are brothers, because all were once in the loins of these three brothers. This is in essence a command to establish a formal system of human government, in order to assure that justice is carried out, especially in the case of murder. The authority to execute this judgement of God on a murderer was thus delegated to man.”[9]

But not to every man. The authority to pronounce the judgement of God on a man can only be given to men whom God has appointed to judge – that is, to political rulers. For, as E. Kholmogorov writes, “everywhere in Scripture an opposition is presupposed between the power of the leader and the position of the citizen, of him who is subject to the leader. The work that is done by the leader for the sake of the common good, to preserve order, does not belong to the jurisdiction of the private person, and if it did belong to the private person, there would be no need of leadership…

“What precisely are the obligations laid upon leaders, what constitutes the essence of the power of the leader?

“The first is the power of discernment – the power of the judge. The essence and meaning of the power of leadership consists in distinguishing between what is good and what is bad, and in rewarding each man in accordance with justice. Leadership is first of all the moral, ethical practice of unceasingly distinguishing that which is in agreement with natural virtue and the commandments of God from that which is contrary to them and dangerous for them. Therefore, as the Apostle Paul says: ‘The leaders are terrible not for good works, but for the evil. Do you not want to fear the authorities? Do good and you will receive praise from them…” (Romans 13.3). The power of the leader is first of all the power of the judge, the right to say: ‘yes’ and ‘no’, so it presupposes a special responsibility and a special weighing of each decision. For this reason alone it cannot belong to everyone. A remarkable witness to this is given in Scripture in the story about Moses: ‘And he went out the second day and behold, two Hebrews were quarrelling; and he said to the one who did the wrong, “Why are you striking your companion?” Then he said, Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you intend to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?”’ (Exodus 2.13-14). And truly – there was nowhere Moses could at that time receive power over the people of Israel, he had no right either to judge or to say with authority: “Why are you doing wrong?” And so the one who was doing wrong rejected his authority, he saw in Moses’ claim to judge only one foundation – the threat of using arms, the notorious “right of the mighty”, but with the aid of this right Moses could neither establish justice nor assume leadership over the people. For that reason he fled into the wilderness, and returned already as one having power, having been established as Leader by the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob… Only with this establishment did he receive both the power to judge and the power to restrain that proceeds from it…

“The second power belonging to the leader is the power of restraining, the power of the sword, which proceeds from the power to discern, the power of judgement. After good and evil have been distinguished and a verdict has been reached – the punishing sword of the leader must fall on the head of the lawless one and crush it. States without the power of punishment that is in accordance with the Christian principles of power, without a death penalty and without the right to wage war, simply do not exist. A power built without the death penalty and war as weapons against evil would be an unchristian and unevangelical power, it would directly contradict the teaching on the essence of power given by the holy Apostle Paul: ‘If you do evil, fear, for he does not wield the sword in vain: he is a servant of God, an avenger to punish him who does evil’ (Romans 13.4). If the authorities refused to apply the sword given them, if their refusal were not motivated by compassion for a particular penitent evildoer, but were principled, it would be a direct refusal of the service for which they had been established by God. That is why the Old and New Testaments are full of witnesses to the necessity of the power of the sword to restrain moral evil from bursting its limits. Only violence is condemned, that is, the power of the sword without the power of judgement, the sword applied not in accordance with righteousness, not to avenge evil, but to restrict the righteous man.

“We can understand that the power of sword, being bound to the power of judgement, cannot belong to everyone, but only to him who is vested with the power to judge. The power of the sword is placed in the service of judgement and constitutes a special service in society, the service of restraining… The very concept of restraining, of him who restrains [II Thessalonians 2.7], is imbued with deep meaning. It leads to the idea of the fence, of the special obstacle which stands in the way of the invasion of evil into everyday life, and of the guard who prevents such an invasion… It is precisely this idea that the Orthodox Church puts into her teaching on the Christian Kingdom and on the Tsar who stands at its head – the one who restrains, o katecwn, the one person entitled to bear the power of judging and punishing… The Christian Kingdom constitutes the fence of the Church, the fence of the whole Christian community, the fence whose existence is part of God’s fulfilment of our petition in prayer: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one”. Of course, this petition mainly refers to our personal inner spiritual life, to its fencing off from the actions of demons… But it also applies to external life. All states that are well constructed, which are erected in agreement with the given apostolic model, protect each of us from a mass of temptations. The existence of the city watch and our hoping on it guard us from unexpected murders, in which it is sometimes very difficult to draw the line between “necessary defence” and unreasonable “caution” which can cost an innocent his life. Appealing to the authorities makes it possible for us, in hundreds of cases, to avoid defiling our hands with reprisal against one who has done wrong, and not only with reprisal itself, but also with the bad feelings bound up with it – anger, hatred, the temptation to cross the boundary where retribution ends and revenge begins… We who are accustomed to stable state institutions, and who have never really encountered absence of authority and chaos, cannot even imagine the full degree of sinfulness involved in lawlessness and anarchy – an existence defined neither by the law nor by the sword of the leader. Every day the Christian would be forced to encounter a situation in which he would be presented with a choice, not between sin and virtue, but between a greater sin and a lesser sin; he would sin, not through passion, not through arbitrariness, but simply through the necessity of living…

“The reason why the army and police exist, and are separate from us, having a special line and form of being, - and are separate from us, moreover, from ancient times, - is in order to deliver us from the many temptations linked with the application of force, to free us from the very heavy occupation of the soldier and the executioner…

“The very idea of leadership and the judging and punishing functions of this leadership are undoubtedly established by God. And the just fulfilment of these functions is a service rendered to God.”[10]

In the Old Testament the Lord established the sacrament of anointing to the kingdom: “I have found David My servant, with My holy oil have I anointed him” (Psalm 88.19). Even certain pagan kings were given an invisible anointing to rule justly and help the people of God, such as Cyrus of Persia (Isaiah 45.1). This was a foreshadowing of the role to be played by the greatest of the pagan kingdoms, Rome...

When the Lord Jesus Christ, the King of heaven, was born as a man on earth, He was immediately enrolled as a citizen of an earthly kingdom, the Roman Empire. In fact, His birth, which marked the beginning of the Eternal Kingdom of God on earth, coincided almost exactly with the birth of the Roman Empire under its first emperor, Augustus. For several of the Holy Fathers and ecclesiastical writers, this coincidence pointed to a certain special mission of the Roman empire, as if the Empire, being born at the same time as Christ, was Divinely established to be a vehicule for the spreading of the Gospel to all nations. Thus St. Leo the Great, Pope of Rome, wrote: "Divine Providence fashioned the Roman Empire, the growth of which was extended to boundaries so wide that all races everywhere became next-door neighbours. For it was particularly germane to the Divine scheme that many kingdoms should be bound together under a single government, and that the world-wide preaching should have a swift means of access to all people, over whom the rule of a single state held sway."[11]

The empire was to create a political unity that would help and protect the spiritual unity created by the Church; it was to be the Guardian of the Ark. As an epistle accepted by the Seventh Ecumenical Council put it some centuries later, when the empire was already Christian: “The priest is the sanctification and strengthening of the Emperor’s power, and the Emperor’s power is the power and steadfastness of the priesthood.”[12]

On the face of it, this was a very bold and paradoxical teaching. After all, the people of God at the beginning of the Christian era were the Jews, not the Romans. The Romans were pagans; they worshipped demons, not the True God Who had revealed Himself to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In 63 B.C. they had actually conquered the people of God, and their rule was bitterly resented. In 70 A.D. they destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in a campaign of appalling cruelty and scattered the Jews over the face of the earth. How could Old Rome, the Rome of Nero and Titus and Domitian and Diocletian, possibly be construed as working with God rather than against Him?

The solution to this paradox is to be found in an examination of two encounters recounted in the Gospel between Christ and two “rulers of this world” – Satan and Pontius Pilate.

In the first, Satan takes Christ onto a high mountain and shows him all the kingdoms of this world in a moment of time. “And the devil said to Him, ‘All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if You will make obeisance before Me, all will be Yours.’ And Jesus answered and said to him: ‘Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written, You shall make obeisance to the Lord your God, and Him only will you worship.’” (Luke 4.6-8).

Thus up to that time Satan had control over all the kingdoms of the world – but by might, the might given him by the sins of men, not by right. As St. Cyril of Alexandria exclaims: “How can you promise that which is not yours? Who made you heir of God’s kingdom? Who made you lord of all under heaven? You have seized these things by fraud. Restore them, therefore, to the incarnate Son, the Lord of all…”[13]

And indeed, the Lord accepted neither Satan’s lordship over the world, nor the satanism that was so closely associated with the pagan statehood of the ancient world (insofar as the pagan god-kings often demanded worship of themselves as gods). He came to restore true statehood, which recognises the ultimate supremacy only of the one true God, and which demands veneration of the earthly ruler, but worship only of the Heavenly King. And since, by the time of the Nativity of Christ, all the major pagan kingdoms had been swallowed up in Rome, it was to the transformation of Roman statehood that the Lord came in the first place.

For, as K.V. Glazkov writes: “The good news announced by the Lord Jesus Christ could not leave untransfigured a single one of the spheres of man’s life. One of the acts of our Lord Jesus Christ consisted in bringing the heavenly truths to the earth, in instilling them into the consciousness of mankind with the aim of its spiritual regeneration, in restructuring the laws of communal life on new principles announced by Christ the Saviour, in the creation of a Christian order of this communal life, and, consequently, in a radical change of pagan statehood. Proceeding from here it becomes clear what place the Church must occupy in relation to the state. It is not the place of an opponent from a hostile camp, not the place of a warring party, but the place of a pastor in relation to his flock, the place of a loving father in relation to his lost children. Even in those moments when there was not and could not be any unanimity or union between the Church and the State, Christ the Saviour forbade the Church to stand on one side from the state, still less to break all links with it, saying: ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s’ (Luke 20.25).”[14]

Let us now turn to the second time Christ confronted a ruler of this world – His trial before Pilate. While acknowledging that the power of this representative of Caesar was lawful, the Lord at the same time insists that Pilate’s and Caesar’s power derived from God, the true King and Lawgiver For “you could have no power at all against Me,” He says to Pilate, “unless it had been given to you from above” (John 19.11). These words, paradoxically, both limit Caesar’s power, insofar as it is subject to God’s, and strengthen it, by indicating that it has God’s seal and blessing in principle (if not in all its particular manifestations).

And He continues: “Therefore the one who delivered Me to you has the greater sin.” The one who delivered Christ to Pilate was Caiaphas, chief priest of the Jews. For, as is well known (to all except contemporary ecumenist Christians), it was the Jews, His own people, who condemned Christ for blasphemy and demanded His execution at the hands of the Roman authorities in the person of Pontius Pilate. Since Pilate was not interested in the charge of blasphemy, the only way in which the Jews could get their way was to accuse Christ of fomenting rebellion against Rome – a hypocritical charge, since it was precisely the Jews, not Christ, who were planning revolution.[15] Not only did Pilate not believe this accusation: he did everything he could to have Christ released, giving in only when he feared that the Jews were about to start a riot and denounce him to the emperor in Rome. Thus it was the Jews, not the Romans, who were primarily responsible for the death of Christ.

This has the consequence that, insofar Pilate could have used his God-given power to save the Lord from an unjust death, Roman state power appears in this situation as the potential, if not yet the actual, protector of Christ from His fiercest enemies. In other words, already during the life of Christ, we see the future role of Rome as “he who restrains” the Antichrist (II Thessalonians 2.7) and the guardian of the Body of Christ…

In the trial of Christ before Pilate, Roman power, still spiritually weak, did not use its power for the good; but its sympathies were clearly already with Christ, and this sympathy would later, under Constantine the Great, be turned into full and whole-hearted support. In fact, we do not have to wait that long to see Roman power fulfilling the role of protector of the Christians. Thus already in 35, on the basis of a report sent to him by Pilate, the Emperor Tiberius proposed to the senate that Christ should be recognised as a god. The senate refused this request, and declared that Christianity was an “illicit superstition”; but Tiberius ignored this and imposed a veto on any accusations being brought against the Christians in the future. In 36 or 37 the Roman legate to Syria, Vitellius, deposed Caiaphas for his unlawful execution of the Archdeacon and Protomartyr Stephen (in 34), and in 62 the High Priest Ananias was similarly deposed for executing St. James the Just, the first Bishop of Jerusalem. In between these dates the Apostle Paul was saved from a lynching at the hands of the Jews by the Roman authorities (Acts 21, 23.28-29, 25.19).[16]

So for at least a generation after the Death and Resurrection of Christ the Romans, far from being persecutors of the Christians, were their chief protectors against the Jews – the former people of God who had now become the chief enemies of God. It is therefore not surprising that the Apostles, following in the tradition of Christ’s own recognition of the Romans as a lawful power, exhorted the Christians to obey Caesar in everything that did not involve transgressing the law of God. Thus St. Paul commands Christians to give thanks for the emperor "and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceful life in all godliness and honesty" (I Timothy 2.1-2).

And if it be asked how it was possible for Paul to give thanks for a pagan emperor who sometimes persecuted Christians for their refusal to worship idols, including the idol of the emperor himself, then Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow provides the answer: "The Spirit of God in him foresaw and more or less showed him the future light of Christian kingdoms. His God-inspired vision, piercing through future centuries, encounters Constantine, who brings peace to the Church and sanctifies the kingdom by faith; and Theodosius and Justinian, who defend the Church from the impudence of heresies. Of course, he also goes on to see Vladimir and Alexander Nevsky and many spreaders of the faith, defenders of the Church and guardians of Orthodoxy. After this it is not surprising that St. Paul should write: I beseech you not only to pray, but also to give thanks for the king and all those in authority; because there will be not only such kings and authorities for whom it is necessary to pray with sorrow…., but also those for whom we must thank God with joy for His precious gift."[17]

It is precisely the emperor's ability to maintain law and order, "a quiet and peaceful life", which makes him so important for the Church; for while Christianity can survive under any regime, and, in the persons of the martyrs, even triumph over it, it can spread and become consolidated among the masses of the people only if supported by the State. Therefore "Be subject for the Lord's sake," says St. Peter, "to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do wrong and praise those who do right... Fear God. Honour the emperor" (I Peter 2.13, 17). The emperor is to be obeyed, says St. Paul, "not only because of wrath, but for conscience's sake" (Romans 13.5). For he is "the servant of God for good" and "wields not the sword in vain" (Romans 13.4).

St. Isidore of Pelusium explained the importance of submission to the State as follows. "Anarchy is always the worst of all evils... That is why, although the body is a single whole, not everything in it is of equal honour, but some members rule, while others are in subjection. So we are right to say that the authorities - that is, leadership and royal power - are established by God so that society should not fall into disorder."[18]

At the same time, submission to the emperor was never considered to be unconditional. The Christians, unlike the Jews, were loyal subjects of the Roman emperors, paying their taxes, obeying their laws and serving in their armies; but when asked to worship idols they refused, even at the cost of their lives. One of those who gave his life rather than obey an emperor’s decree was Hieromartyr Hippolytus, Pope of Rome in the third century, who wrote: “Believers in God must not be hypocritical, nor fear people invested in authority, with the exception of those cases when some evil deed is committed [Romans 13.1-4]. On the contrary, if the leaders, having in mind their faith in God, force them to do something contrary to this faith, then it is better for them to die than to carry out the command of the leaders. After all, when the apostle teaches submission to ‘all the powers that be’ (Romans 13.1), he was not saying that we should renounce our faith and the Divine commandments, and indifferently carry out everything that people tell us to do; but that we, while fearing the authorities, should do nothing evil and that we should not deserve punishment from them as some evildoers (Romans 13.4).”[19]

The fruit of the Christians’ patience, their refusal, on the one hand, to place the emperor above God, and, on the other, to succumb to the propaganda of revolution, produced its inestimable fruit in the conversion of the empire to Christianity, as a result of which the empire not only tolerated Christianity, but became its active co-worker in that “symphony of powers” which is the hallmark of Orthodox statehood.

If the early Christians honoured and (in most cases) obeyed the pagan Roman emperors, we might expect them to have adopted a similarly benevolent attitude towards the heretical Roman emperors. However, the language adopted in relation to the Arian emperor Constantius by the holy Fathers was violent in the extreme: “patron of impiety and Emperor of heresy,… godless, unholy,.. this modern Ahab, this second Belshazzar”, “the abomination of desolation”, like Pharaoh, worse than Pilate and a forerunner of the Antichrist, are just some of the epithets employed by St. Athanasius the Great. In the West, St. Hilary of Poitiers was hardly less violent in his language against the Arian emperor: he called him a forerunner of the Antichrist.

Again, when the Emperor Justinian, a zealot of Orthodoxy, momentarily wavered and tried to force Pope Agapetus to accept a Monophysite Patriarch of Constantinople, the Orthodox pope replied: “I wished to come to the most Christian of all emperors, Justinian, and I have found now a Diocletian. However, I do not fear your threats.”[20]

Evidently a new, higher standard was now required of rulers – or, at any rate, Roman rulers. Since the conversion of Constantine and the Christianisation of the empire, the appearance of a heterodox emperor constituted a retrograde step and extreme danger for the flock of Christ and possibly heralded the coming of the Antichrist. It therefore had to be resisted with the greatest force and boldness.

In general, however, while severely criticising the heretical emperors, the holy Fathers did not call on the faithful to rebel against them. For this would have threatened the institution of the Roman empire itself, which everyone accepted was established by God. However, there are two partial exceptions to this rule which repay further study.

The first took place in the reign of Julian the Apostate (361-363). Although the Church did not initiate or bless any armed rebellion against him, St. Basil the Great did actively pray for his defeat 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.[21]

Not only St. Basil prayed in this way: his friend, St. Gregory the Theologian, who had called Julian not only an “apostate”, but also “universal enemy” and “general murderer”, now, on his death, called the Christians to “spiritual rejoicing”

This raises the interesting and important question: what was different about Julian the Apostate that made him so much worse than previous persecutors and unworthy even of that honour and obedience that had been given to them? Two possible answers suggest themselves. The first is that Julian was the first – and last – of the Byzantine emperors who openly trampled on the memory and legitimacy of St. Constantine, declaring that he “insolently usurped the throne”.[22] In this way he questioned the legitimacy of the Christian Empire as such – a revolutionary position that we do not come across again in Eastern Orthodox history (if we except the short interlude of the political zealots in Thessalonica in the 1340s) until the fall of the Russian Empire.

A second reason for ascribing to Julian an exceptional place amongst the forerunners of the Antichrist was his reversal of the Emperor Hadrian’s decree of the year 135 forbidding the Jews from returning to Jerusalem and, still worse, his helping the Jews to rebuild the Temple, in defiance of the Lord’s prophecy that “there shall be left not one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down” (Mark 13.2). By a miracle from God the rebuilding of the Temple was forcibly stopped. But if Julian had succeeded, then, wondered the Christians, what would have prevented him from sitting in the Temple as God – in other words, taking the place of the Antichrist himself?

Another exception to the rule of submission to heretical rulers was the rebellion of St. Hermegild, prince of Spain, against his Arian father, King Leogivild. Most of Spain was ruled at that time by the Visigoths, a Germanic tribe which had adopted the Arian faith. However, the majority of the Spanish population were Romans by race and Orthodox by religion. Hermenegild was converted by his Frankish Orthodox wife, and by St. Leander, bishop of Seville, who lived in the Byzantine part of Spain. He then rebelled against his father, but in spite of support from the Byzantines his rebellion was crushed, and he himself was imprisoned and then killed at Pascha, 585 for refusing to accept communion from an Arian bishop.

The Spanish Church did not hail Hermenegild as a martyr, because the Orthodox had not been persecuted by their Arian overlords and there was not much support, even in the Orthodox population, for the rebellion of a son against his father. However, he was immediately hailed as a martyr by the holy Pope Gregory the Dialogist, the writer of his Life; and by the Orthodox Church in the East. Moreover, within a very few years, at the great Council of Toledo in 589, the new king, Reccared and the whole of the Gothic nobility accepted Orthodoxy. Arianism never again lifted its head in Spain. Thus, in the words of St. Dmitri of Rostov, “the fruit of the death of this one man was life and Orthodoxy for all the people of Spain”.[23]

The abortive, but nevertheless ultimately successful, rebellion of St. Hermenegild appeared to establish the principle that legitimate political power was either Roman power, or that power which, while independent of the Roman, shared in the faith of the Romans, Orthodoxy. A power that was not Orthodox could legitimately be overthrown from without or rebelled against from within as long as the motive was truly religious – the establishment or re-establishment of Orthodoxy. This did not mean, however, that Christians were obliged in all cases to rebel against pagan or heterodox régimes; for, as Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky) points out, civil war is one of the worst of all evils and is to be undertaken only if the alternative is likely to be even worse in terms of the salvation of souls.[24]

When the people of God fall under the power of a pagan or heterodox ruler, the reason is their sinfulness, which makes them unworthy of an Orthodox king and in need rather of the chastisement that the harsher rule of the heterodox brings upon them. For “If My People had heard Me, if Israel had walked in My ways, quickly would I have humbled their enemies, and upon their oppressors would I have laid My hand.” (Psalm 80. 12-13). A believing people will not rebel against this situation, knowing that, in submitting to a pagan or heterodox ruler, they are in fact submitting to the Lord and that He, in Whose hand are the hearts of all kings, and Who rules “over all the kingdoms of the heathen“ (II Chronicles 20.6), will protect them from evil.

In such cases, as St. Isidore of Pelusium writes, the 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.”[25] Or, as St. Irenaeus of Lyons puts it: “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 just judgement falls equally on all men.”[26]

However, such submission must never turn into sympathy with the aims or faith of the heterodox ruler, otherwise they will receive the same rebuke that King Jehoshaphat of Judah received from the Prophet Jehu: “Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the Lord? Therefore is wrath upon thee from the Lord” (II Chronicles 19.2). Moreover, in certain situations the danger presented by submission to a heterodox ruler may be so great that a certain point God commands His people to rebel.

In practice, rebellion against pagan or heterodox rulers for the sake of Orthodoxy has been very rare in Orthodox history since the time of St. Hermenegil. One example sometimes cited is the rebellion of Moscow under Great Prince Demetrius Donskoj against the Tatar prince Mamai in 1380, which was undertaken with the blessing of St. Sergius of Radonezh. The example is the more striking in that the Tatars had been recognised as the lawful rulers of Russia by the Russian Church for nearly 150 years.

However, it needs to be borne in mind, first, that Mamai was himself a rebel against the Horde, so that in resisting him the Russians were not rebelling against their lawful sovereigns, but rather supporting them. In any case, two years later the lawful khan came and sacked Moscow; so there was not, and could not be, any radical change from the policy of submission to the Tatars (it was not until a century later, in 1480, that the Muscovites refused to pay any further tribute to the khans). Secondly, St. Sergius in fact blessed the Grand-Prince to fight only when all other measures had failed. Thus, as Kontzevich writes, “the Chronicle of St. Nicon has preserved for posterity the description of Prince Demetrius Donskoy’s visit to St. Sergius before his campaign against the Tatars. In the ensuing conversation with the Grand Prince, the holy Elder first advised him to respect the evil Tatar Mamai with gifts and honor, following the example of St. Basil the Great, whose gifts appeased Julian the Apostate: ‘You, too, my Lord, pay your respects to them, give them gold and silver, and God will not allow them to destroy us: He will elevate you, seeing your humility, and will bring down the pride of the enemy.’ ‘All this I have done already,’ answered Demetrius, ‘but my enemy becomes even more conceited.’ Having heard these words, the Saint of God made the sign of the Cross over him and was inspired to pronounce: ‘Go, my Prince, without fear! The Lord will help you against the godless enemies.’ Then, lowering his voice, he said to the Prince alone to hear: ‘You will conquer your enemy.’”[27]

A clearer example is provided by the refusal of the best of the Russian people to accept a Catholic tsar in the Time of Troubles. Most of the Russian clergy accepted the first false Demetrius, who was anointed and crowned by Patriarch Ignatius. However, writes Fr. Lev Lebedev, “in relation to the second false Demetrius [they] conducted themselves more courageously. Bishops Galacteon of Suzdal and Joseph of Kolomna suffered for their non-acceptance of the usurper. Archbishop Theoctistus of Tver received a martyric death in Tushino. Dressed only in a shirt, the bare-footed Metropolitan Philaret of Rostov, the future patriarch, was brought by the Poles into the camp of the usurper, where he remained in captivity. Seeing such terrible events, Bishop Gennadius of Pskov ‘died of sorrow…’” [28]

In February, 1610 the protagonists of the second false Demetrius switched their support to the Polish crown. They presented King Sigismund with a set of conditions on which they were prepared to accept his son Vladislav as Tsar. The first was that the Orthodox faith should remain inviolate. The second was that supreme authority in the state should be shared between the tsar and a combined boyar assembly and zemskii sobor. In other words, they were seeking the establishment of a kind of constitutional monarchy in Russia.

However, their plans fell through, for Vladislav did not come to Moscow to claim his throne, and when his father Sigismund declared his intention of taking his place, Patriarch Hermogen issued a stern command that the Russian people were not to “kiss the cross before a Catholic king”. Hermogen was killed by the Poles in the dungeon of the Kremlin. However, his refusal to recognise the legitimacy of a Catholic tsar was decisive in arousing the Russians to expel the Poles and restore Orthodoxy. And his canonisation just before another, still more terrible time of troubles in 1914 would be a sign: now, too, you must reject the State that wars against Christ…

The lives of the holy martyrs Hermenegild of Spain and Hermogen of Russia show that in extreme cases, when Orthodoxy is at stake, even civil war for the sake of the reestablishment of Orthodoxy is permitted and blessed by God. However, it is essential that the aim should be precisely Orthodoxy and not some secondary value which, while good in itself, cannot justify the destruction of civil peace and the suffering and death, often on a vast scale, that inevitably ensues. Such secondary values include national independence and freedom from tyranny.

National independence was the primary value that motivated the rebellion of the Jews against Roman power in 66-70 A.D. – and they were terribly punished for it. A similar danger threatened the Greek Church and nation at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Influenced by nationalist ideas emanating from the French Revolution, which spread in Greece through the masonic-like organisation called the philiki hetairia, the Greeks of Europe rose up against their Turkish overlords. But the Greeks of Constantinople and Asia Minor remained loyal to the Sultan, whose legitimacy they had recognised since the fall of Constantinople in 1453. At this point the frightened Turks pressurised Patriarch Gregory V and his Synod to anathematize the insurgents.

Some have argued that the patriarch secretly repudiated this anathema and sympathised with the insurgents; which is why the Turks, suspecting him of treachery, hanged him on April 10, 1821. However, the evidence does not support this view. The patriarch had always refused to join the philiki hetairia, to which the leader of the insurgents, Metropolitan Germanos of Old Patras, belonged. Moreover, the righteousness of his character precludes the possibility that he could have been plotting against the Sultan to whom he had sworn allegiance.

The true attitude of the Church to the revolution had been expressed in a work called “Paternal Teaching” published in Constantinople in 1789, and which, according to Charles Frazee, "was signed by Anthimus of Jerusalem but was probably the work of the later Patriarch Gregory V. The document is a polemic against revolutionary ideas, calling on the Christians ‘to note how brilliantly our Lord, infinite in mercy and all-wise, protects intact the holy and Orthodox Faith of the devout, and preserves all things’. It warns that the devil is constantly at work raising up evil plans; among them is the idea of liberty, which appears to be so good, but is only there to deceive the people. The document points out that [the struggle for] political freedom is contrary to the Scriptural command to obey authority, that it results in the impoverishment of the people, in murder and robbery. The sultan is the protector of Christian life in the Ottoman Empire; to oppose him is to oppose God."[29]

Certainly, the Greeks had to pay a heavy price for the political freedom they gained. After the martyrdom of Patriarch Gregory (whose body was washed ashore in Odessa, and given a splendid State funeral by the Russian Church), the Turks ran amok in Constantinople, killing many Greeks and causing heavy damage to the churches; and there were further pogroms in Smyrna, Adrianople, Crete and especially Chios, which had been occupied by the revolutionaries and where in reprisal tens of thousands were killed or sold into slavery. When the new patriarch, Eugenios, again anathematized the insurgents, twenty-eight bishops and almost a thousand priests in free Greece in turn anathematized the patriarch, calling him a Judas and a wolf in sheep's clothing, and ceasing to commemorate him in the Liturgy.

As for the new State of Greece, it "looked to the west," writes Charles Frazee, "the west of the American and French Revolutions, rather than to the old idea of an Orthodox community as it had functioned under the Ottomans. The emotions of the times did not let men see it; Orthodoxy and Greek nationality were still identified, but the winds were blowing against the dominant position of the Church in the life of the individual and the nation..."[30]

Thus, forgetting the lessons of the council of Florence four hundred years earlier, the new State and Church entered into negotiations with the Pope for help against the Turks. Metropolitan Germanus was even empowered to speak concerning the possibility of a reunion of the Churches. However, it was the Pope who drew back at this point, pressurised by the other western States, which considered the sultan to be a legitimate monarch. The western powers helped Greece again when, in 1827, an Allied fleet under a British admiral destroyed the Turkish-Egyptian fleet at Navarino. But after the assassination of the president of Greece, Count Kapodistrias, in 1832, the country descended further into poverty and near civil war.

Then, in 1833, the western powers appointed a Catholic prince, Otto of Bavaria, as king of Greece, with three regents until he came of age, the most important being the Protestant George von Maurer. Maurer proceeded to work out a constitution for the country, which proposed autocephaly for the Church under a Synod of bishops, and the subordination of the Synod to the State on the model of the Bavarian and Russian constitutions, to the extent that "no decision of the Synod could be published or carried into execution without the permission of the government having been obtained". In spite of the protests of the patriarch of Constantinople and the tsar of Russia, and the walk-out of the archbishops of Rethymnon and Adrianople, this constitution was ratified by the signatures of thirty-six bishops on July 26, 1833.

The Greek Church therefore exchanged the admittedly uncanonical position of the patriarchate of Constantinople under Turkish rule for the even less canonical position of a Synod anathematized by the patriarch and under the control of a Catholic king and a Protestant constitution! In addition to this, all monasteries with fewer than six monks were dissolved, and heavy taxes imposed on the remaining monasteries. And very little money was given to a Church which had lost six to seven thousand clergy in the war, and whose remaining clergy had an abysmally low standard of education.

The dangers posed for Orthodoxy by nationalist passions can most clearly be seen in the controversial question of the Bulgarian schism. Already in 1860, before the liberation of their country by the Russian armies in 1877-78, the Bulgars had succeeded in obtaining the status of a millet, or autonomous national-religious community, and therefore the right to have an autocephalous Church independent of the patriarch of Constantinople. However, not content with having an autocephalous Church for the territory of Bulgaria, in 1870 the Bulgars, with the active cooperation of the Turkish government, set up a bishop in Constantinople with the title of Exarch, who was to have jurisdiction over all the Bulgars in Turkey itself. This undoubtedly uncanonical act was resisted with fury by Patriarch Anthimus VI and his Synod, who in 1872 excommunicated the Bulgarian exarch and all those with him, branding them as schismatics and heretics, their heresy being the newly-defined one of "phyletism", that is, nationalism, the invasion of the national principle into the affairs of the Ecumenical Church.[31]

Now such a condemnation of nationalism was certainly timely. For the Bulgarians' attempts to achieve ecclesiastical independence had given rise to another danger - the Vatican's attempt to introduce a uniate movement into Bulgaria. However, for many Orthodox the conciliar condemnation of nationalism carried little weight because it came from the patriarchate which they considered the first sinner in this respect.

Thus D.A. Khomyakov wrote. “Is not ‘pride in Orthodoxy’ nothing other than the cultural pride of the ancient Greek? And, of course, the true ‘phyletism’, formulated for the struggle against the Bulgarians, is precisely the characteristic of the Greeks themselves to a much greater extent than the Bulgarians, Serbs, Syrians and others. With them it is only a protest against the basic phyletism of the Greeks. The contemporary Greek considers himself the exclusive bearer of pure Orthodoxy..."[32]

For a brief moment, in 1912, the Greeks joined with the Bulgarians and the Serbs against the Turks in the First Balkan War. But this brief unity among the Orthodox nations was shattered when war broke out between them in 1913 for the control of Macedonia. An attack on Greece and Serbia by Bulgaria was met with firm resistance by the other nations, including Turkey. And the war ended in defeat for Bulgaria - and, still more tragically, for the ideal of Orthodox Catholicism….

Every attempt by an Orthodox or formerly Orthodox nation in modern times to achieve regeneration, not through a return to purity of faith and good works, but through national self-aggrandisement, has been severely punished by the Lord. Thus when Georgia tried to break away from Russia in 1917, she soon found herself, first under a Menshevik, and then under a Bolshevik government. When the Greeks tried to capitalise on the defeat of Turkey in the First World War in 1922, they were defeated and the whole of the Greek population of Asia Minor (and, in 1974, northern Cyprus also) was expelled. When the Serbs tried to achieve a “Greater Serbia” by war against all the other republics of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the result was a lesser Serbia – lesser in size, in economy and, above all, in spiritual stature.

The Jews in the time of Nebuchadnezzar had similar strivings for national independence and greatness, but were met with the words: “Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people, and live. Why will ye die, thou and thy people, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, as the Lord hath spoken against the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon?… I will acknowledge them that are carried away captive of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for their good. For I will set My eyes on them for good, and I will bring them again to this land…” (Jeremiah 27.12-13, 24.5-6). Thus captivity, national humiliation at the hands even of pagans, is sometimes for the good of the people of God, and should not be resisted. For God’s will is worked even in the pagan kingdoms.

But why, then, did the Jews resist Antiochus Epiphanes some centuries later, and this time succeed in winning their national independence? Was Nebuchadnezzar any less of a pagan than Antiochus? No, he was not. But God knew that Nebuchadnezzar’s captivity would be for the good of the Jews, whereas Antiochus struck at the very heart of the Jewish faith. Moreover, the motivation of the Jews in the latter case was better and purer in the former: whereas in the time of Nebuchadnezzar they were fighting for national independence and not for the faith, in the time of Antiochus they were fighting for the faith first of all…

The nineteenth century threw up other difficult problems of political loyalty. One of these arose during the Crimean War of 1854-56, when the Russian armies were fighting the Turks and their western allies on Russian soil. The question was: which side were the Orthodox of Greece and the Balkans to support?

The Ecumenical Patriarch ordered all the monasteries on Mount Athos to pray for the triumph of the Turkish armies during the war. On hearing this, the Georgian elder, Hieroschemamonk Hilarion said of the patriarch: "He is not a Christian", and when he heard that the monks of Grigoriou monastery had carried out the patriarch's command, he said: "You have been deprived of the grace of Holy Baptism, and have deprived your monastery of the grace of God." And when the abbot came to the elder to repent, he said to him: "How did you dare, wretched one, to put Mohammed higher than Christ? God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ says to His Son: 'Sit Thou at My right hand, until I make Thine enemies the footstool of Thy feet' (Psalm 109.1), but you ask Him to put His son under the feet of His enemies!"

Again, in a letter to the head of chancellery of the Russian Holy Synod, Elder Hilarion wrote: "The other peoples' kings [i.e. not the Russian Tsar] often make themselves out to be something great, but not one of them is a king in reality, but they are only adorned and flatter themselves with a great name, but God is not favourably disposed towards them, and does not abide in them. They reign only in part, by the condescension of God. Therefore he who does not love his God-established tsar is not worthy of being called a Christian..."[33]

A hierarchy of political loyalties appeared to be established here. At the top of the hierarchy was loyalty to the Orthodox Christian Emperor, who, since at least the late sixteenth century, had been the Russian Tsar. The greater authority of the Russian Tsar over all other political authorities did not reside in his purely political power, but in the mystical anointing that he received from the Church. Other authorities might be powers in the Apostles’ understanding of the word, in that they in general punished evildoers and rewarded the good (I Peter 2.14; Romans 13.3), but the grace to protect the Church of God was given to the Russian Empire alone. That is why it was incumbent upon all Orthodox Christians to pray and give thanks for the Russian Tsar, even if they lived in other States.

For, as St. Seraphim said: "After Orthodoxy, zealous devotion to the Tsar is the Russian's first duty and the chief foundation of true Christian piety."[34]

Nor was this only a Russian’s duty. Already in 1562 the Ecumenical Patriarch Joasaph called the Tsar “our Tsar”, applying to him the same epithets, “pious, God-crowned and Christ-loving” as were applied to the Byzantine Emperors.[35], and ascribing to him authority over “Orthodox Christians in the entire universe”. Again, in 1589 the Ecumenical Patriarch Jeremiah II confirmed that the Russian Tsardom was "the Third Rome" and declared, addressing the Tsar: "Thou alone under heaven art Christian emperor for all Christians in the world."[36]

Strictly speaking, according to Elder Hilarion, only the Orthodox Christian emperor had full political authority and legitimacy. Other states could be said to share in that gift of the Holy Spirit which is political government (I Corinthians 12.27) only relatively, depending on the closeness of their relationship to the Orthodox empire. According to the Byzantine theory of statehood, which the elder inherited, this would include, first of all, other Orthodox Christian rulers who had received the true anointing of the Holy Church, and then allies or friends of the empire.[37])

Further down the hierarchy, a certain, though lesser, degree of political legitimacy could also be said to belong to other, non-Christian rulers who maintained the basic principles of law and order against the forces of anarchy and revolution. However, such rulers, being heterodox, could support Orthodoxy only indirectly, while by their confession of heterodoxy they inevitably harmed it to some degree.

The Ottoman empire was a clear example of this kind of power. It aided Orthodoxy indirectly by preserving the Balkan Orthodox peoples in existence and defending them from the incursions of western missionaries and heresies (including nationalism). But by its killing of the new martyrs and restrictions on Orthodox education and church-building it showed itself an enemy of Orthodoxy. Such rulers were to be honoured for the sake of their positive contributions, and even their oppressions could be seen as chastisement for sin; which was why Divine Providence allowed them to rule over the Orthodox. But this fact was not to be allowed to obscure the higher honour in which the Orthodox emperor was to be held by Orthodox Christians – all Orthodox Christians.

How was this higher honour to be expressed by those Orthodox living outside the Orthodox empire, or in states like Turkey that were at times hostile to it? Again, active rebellion in favour of the empire, even if it were a practical possibility, could not be an obligation for citizens of other states. In this sense political allegiance has a much more pragmatic connotation, in the Orthodox understanding, than ecclesiastical allegiance. If one’s ecclesiastical lord is a heretic, one must leave him, according to the Law of God, and find an Orthodox one, whatever the cost. But if one’s political lord is a heretic or a pagan, there is no such obligation – only the obligation to pray and long for “the peace of Jerusalem”, the prosperity and final victory of the Orthodox Christian empire.

Thus the holy martyrs Manuel, Sabel and Ismael, on reaching maturity, enrolled in the armies of the Persian King Alamundar, although he was a pagan and Persia was often at war with the Byzantine empire.[38] Again, during the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05, St. Nicholas, archbishop and apostle of Japan, allowed his Japanese Orthodox spiritual children to pray for the victory of the pagan Japanese armies in the war against the Russian empire in 1904-05. But he himself, as an Orthodox Christian and a Russian subject, felt unable to join in those prayers…

The problem is: if we compare these cases with the above-cited judgement of Elder Hilarion, we appear to have two contradictory principles: the principle that loyalty must be demonstrated above all to that State which stands for Christ in the Orthodox Faith, the Orthodox Empire, and the principle that loyalty must be shown to one’s native land, whether or not it is Orthodox, because Christ came, not to destroy the existing worldly structures of family, nation and state, but to transfigure them.

Abstract principles cannot always be reconciled, or placed neatly in a hierarchical order. Dilemmas arise in which there is only one solution: to seek the will of God for the individual person in the concrete situation. Let us consider the case of the Russo-Japanese war. Here it was not the will of God that the Orthodox Empire should triumph, in spite of the fact that paganism was seen to triumph over Orthodoxy, and the foundations of the Orthodox Empire were shaken. We can only speculate why – God’s judgements are a great abyss. However, knowing what God’s judgement turned out to be in this particular case, we can see the wisdom of the Russian Orthodox pastor in his care for his Japanese Orthodox flock. He himself could not possibly pray for what was a victory both of paganism over Orthodoxy and of foreigners over his native land. But, perhaps knowing of the eventual outcome, and also perhaps that his flock was not strong enough to defy their own government over what was a matter of politics rather than faith, he allowed them to express their natural patriotic feelings…

So far we have considered only political authorities which, whether Orthodox, heretical or pagan, can all be called “authorities” in St. Paul’s definition of the word – that is, which in general “are not a terror to good works, but to the evil” (Romans 13.3). As such, and insofar as they are willing and able to maintain a minimum level of law and order, these authorities can be said to be “of God” (Romans 13.1), even if many of their individual actions are carried out in defiance of God. However, the Holy Scriptures speak of another “authority” that receives its power, not from God, but from “the dragon” – that is, from Satan (Revelation 13.2). This is that lowest level of political authority - if it should not rather be called “anti-authority” - which does not even have the minimal quality of preserving law and order, but actively wars against all that is good and pure and simply normal in human society. This power is the power of the Antichrist.

It fell to the lot of the Russian people in 1917 to be the first nation in history to fall under the yoke of the Antichrist, in that collectivist form which called itself Soviet power. For a long time – at least ten years – the Russian Church wavered in her estimation of this power. At the beginning, in the Church Council of 1917-18, she anathematised it, forbade her children to have any relations whatsoever with it, and in general ignored all its decrees. This first, completely uncompromising, instinct of the Russian Church in the face of Soviet power was never permanently extinguished. It continued to manifest itself both at home and abroad, in both the early and the later decades of Soviet power.

Thus the All-Emigration Council of the Russian Church in Exile, which opened its first session on November 8/21, 1921, called on the Genoa conference to refuse recognition to the Bolshevik regime, to arm its opponents, and restore the Romanov dynasty. In defence of this call, which provoked the frenzy of the Bolsheviks and which many regarded as dangerous dabbling in politics, the First-Hierarch of the Church in Exile, Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky) of Kiev, said: “If by politics one understands all that touches upon the life of the people, beginning with the rightful position of the Church within the realm, then the ecclesiastical authorities and Church councils must participate in political life, and from this point of view definite demands are made upon it. Thus, the holy hierarch Hermogenes laid his life on the line by first demanding that the people be loyal to Tsar Basil Shuisky, and when the Poles imprisoned him he demanded the election of Tsar Michael Romanov. At the present time, the paths of the political life of the people are diverging in various directions in a far more definite way: some, in a positive sense, for the Faith and the Church, others in an inimical sense; some in support of the army and against socialism and communism, others exactly the opposite. Thus the Karlovtsy Council not only had the right, but was obliged to bless the army for the struggle against the Bolsheviks, and also, following the Great Council of Moscow of 1917-1918, to condemn socialism and communism.”[39].

However, the sheer weight of the terrorist machine in Russia, and, still more, the lack of unanimity of the Church herself, compelled the Church in the person of the Patriarch to adopt a more neutral, apolitical stance. 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, contrary to what the Local Council of 1917-18 and the Russian Church Abroad had in effect declared, not Antichrist, but Caesar, no worse in principle than the Caesars of Ancient Rome, to whom the things belonging to Caesar were due. This attitude involved the assertion 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 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 (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.

The point is that a neat division between politics and religion, which is hard enough to make in a normal state, is out of the question in the state of the Antichrist. For the Antichrist, everything is politics – or religion, whichever way you like to look at it. Everything is assessed in relation to whether it aids or hinders the fundamental aims of the antichristian state. But how can Christianity be neutral with regard to the aims of antichristianity? How can the Church of Christ deny that her fundamental aims, and the whole purpose of her existence and of everything she does, are totally, diametrically opposed to those of “the Church of the evildoers”?

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.

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. For the Patriarch, in particular, the dilemma was unbearable. While willing to become a martyr personally, he was not prepared to place this burden on the whole Church, and so began to negotiate with the authorities - with, it must be admitted, 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!"[40]

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, like Archbishop Theodore of Volokolamsk, who thought that the patriarch had already gone too far; while on the left wing there were those, like Archbishop Hilarion of Verey, who wanted to go further. The basic problem was that the compromises were always one-sided; the Bolsheviks always took and never gave; their aim was not peaceful co-existence, but the complete conquest of the Church.

And so, as a "Letter from Russia" put it many years later: "It's no use our manoeuvring: there's nothing for us to preserve except the things that are God's. For the things that are Caesar's (if one should really consider it to be Caesar and not Pharaoh) are always associated with the quenching of the Spirit..."[41]

However, the Patriarchal Church remained Orthodox under Patriarch Tikhon and his successor, Metropolitan Peter, for two major reasons: first, because the leaders of the Church kept their flock, if not themselves, out of the morally debilitating swamp of compromises with the Antichrist; and secondly, because, while the Soviet regime was recognised to be, in effect, Caesar rather than Pharaoh, no further concessions were made with regard to the communist ideology.

Everything changed, however, with Metropolitan Sergius' notorious declaration of 1927. By declaring 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. In fact, it implied that communism as such was good, and its victory to be welcomed.

Moreover, Sergius followed this up by committing the sin of Judas; he placed all those who disagreed with him under ban and in effect handed them over to the GPU as "counter-revolutionaries". Far from "saving the Church", as he claimed, he condemned its finest members to torture and death. And then his successors in the present-day Moscow Patriarchate followed this up with the sin of Pilate - the criminal indifference to the truth manifest in their participation in the "heresy of heresies", ecumenism.

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 in such a way as to recognise that Soviet “politics” could not but be antireligious in essence. One approach was to distinguish between physical opposition to the regime and spiritual opposition to it. Thus Archbishop Barlaam of Perm wrote that physical opposition was not permitted, but spiritual opposition was obligatory.[42]

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.”[43]

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, but by no means established by God for the punishment of sinners? 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 fulfil the will of God, and Soviet power does not fulfil 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 fulfils 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.'"[44]

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 precisely- 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. As Archbishop Theophanes put it in the same critical year of 1927: "The Bolshevik authorities are in essence antichristian, and there is no way in which they can be recognised as being established by God."[45]

The canonist of the Russian Church Abroad, Bishop Gregory Grabbe, pointed out the similarity between Soviet power and that of Julian the Apostate: “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.”[46]

Protopriest Michael Polsky, who was on Solovki for the faith, but then fled abroad, explains how Metropolitan Sergius’ declaration opened his eyes to the impossibility of the “apolitical” approach in the conditions of the Soviet Union.

“How can I, a believing person,” he asked, “recognise a godless power? What does it mean – not to be its political enemy? In a joint life with pagans I could recognise Caesar, while rejecting Caesar’s gods. But now, being a believer, I inescapably, necessarily fight against the authorities, whether I like it or not – I undermine its foundations, I destroy the spirit of the revolution, I hinder the socialist construction of the state. If religion in its essence is counter-revolutionary, then I am a counter-revolutionary. My counter-revolution is my struggle for the faith. If I am for religion, I am organically already against the Bolshevik power. And how shall I separate godlessness from the Bolshevik power?

“If humanity has in the Bolsheviks a completely godless power for the first time, then is this not the first and only case in history when religion is inseparable from politics for the believer?”[47]

The Catacomb Church was not able, of course, to define her position in an official manner because of the near impossibility of convening a Council representing the whole Church in the catacombs. However, her relationship to the Soviet State was defined in a catacomb document dating from the Brezhnev years as follows:

"Authority is given by God in order to preserve and fulfil the law... But how should one look on the Soviet authority, following the Apostolic teaching on authorities [Romans 13]? In accordance with the Apostolic teaching which we have set forth, one must acknowledge that the Soviet authority is not an authority. It is an anti-authority. It is not an authority because it is not established by God, but insolently created by an aggregation of the evil actions of men, and it is consolidated and supported by these actions. If the evil actions weaken, the Soviet authority, representing a condensation of evil, likewise weakens... This authority consolidates itself in order to destroy all religions, simply to eradicate faith in God. Its essence is warfare with God, because its root is from satan. The Soviet authority is not authority, because by its nature it cannot fulfil the law, for the essence of its life is evil.

"It may be said that the Soviet authority, in condemning various crimes of men, can still be considered an authority. We do not say that a ruling authority is totally lacking. We only affirm that it is an anti-authority. One must know that the affirmation of real power is bound up with certain actions of men, to whom the instinct of preservation is natural. And they must take into consideration the laws of morality which have been inherent in mankind from ages past. But in essence this authority systematically commits murder physically and spiritually. In reality a hostile power acts, which is called Soviet authority. The enemy strives by cunning to compel humanity to acknowledge this power as an authority. But the Apostolic teaching on authority is inapplicable to it, just as evil is inapplicable to God and the good, because evil is outside God; but the enemies with hypocrisy can take refuge in the well-known saying that everything is from God.

"This Soviet anti-authority is precisely the collective Antichrist, warfare against God..."[48]

Thus we come to the conclusion that the confessing Christians of the Soviet Union suffered and died precisely for Christ and against the Antichrist. This was not a political struggle because the Soviet Antichrist was not a purely political power. It was a power whose raison d’être was war against God, the works of God and the God-established order in every sphere of life. And since, for Soviet power, “he who is not with me is against me”, anyone who was not with Soviet power in its God-fighting ends was also necessarily against it in general. For in the kingdom of the Antichrist there is no sustainable boundary between religion and politics; everything is both religion and politics; for he claims to be both lord (of the bodies) and god (of the souls) of his subjects. This being so, it is impossible to resist the Antichrist in one sphere while co-operating with him in another - the totalitarian man-god must be rejected totally. It is the glory of the holy new Martyrs and Confessors of Russia that, having exhausted all attempts to achieve some kind of honourable modus vivendi with the Antichrist (more often than not, for the sake of others rather than themselves), when they were finally presented with the stark choice between the man-god and the God-Man, they boldly and unswervingly chose the latter, proclaiming: "Thou art my Lord and my God" (John 20.28).

Just as the world was never the same again after the appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ in the world, so it can never the same since the appearance of the Antichrist in the form of Soviet power. Although Soviet power collapsed in 1989-91, this can in no way be considered its final defeat, but rather its temporary wounding, as one horn of the first beast of the Apocalypse was “wounded”, but then recovered and was healed (Revelation 13.3,12). For if one politico-religious institution of the Antichrist has fallen, his spirit continues to live and continues to seek to incarnate itself in political and religious institutions. The Church has been given a temporary “breathing space” in which to gather her forces in preparation for a still more subtle and powerful assault, just as the Christians of the Roman empire were given a breathing space of relative peace before the final persecution of Diocletian.

However, no effective defence of Orthodoxy can be undertaken unless the lessons of the previous era are learned. Unfortunately, these lessons appear to have been learned by very few. Some see in the increased veneration for the Tsar-Martyr, and in the rise of monarchist parties, a sign that the main lesson implicit in the fall of the Orthodox empire is beginning to be learned – the lesson, namely, that the Orthodox empire was a gift from God second in value only to Orthodoxy itself, and therefore needed to be cherished and supported rather than undermined and destroyed.

This is true. And yet the Empire existed for Orthodoxy, and not Orthodoxy for the Empire – but the great majority of contemporary Russian monarchists support the Moscow Patriarchate, which bowed down to the Soviet Antichrist, is still reluctant to recognise the sanctity of the Tsar-Martyr, and has now become in many ways the chief corrupter of the Russian people, both in faith and in morals.

Even some monarchist writers of the Russian Church Abroad appear to have fallen into this trap. A recent unsigned article in a ROCA publication[49] argues that Russia already has a true Empress – Maria Vladimirovna Romanova, the widow of Great-Prince Vladimir Kirillovich, who in 1991 apostasised from the ROCA to the Moscow Patriarchate, dying shortly thereafter.[50] The writer of this article forgets that the very first condition for any candidate to the throne of the Orthodox Empire is true Orthodoxy. Even supposing that Great-Princess Maria Vladimirovna fulfilled every other condition (which is disputable), the single fact that she is a member of the Moscow Patriarchate and is therefore in heresy, disqualifies her.

Let us remember that after, during the Time of Troubles, when the Poles and renegade Russians forced Tsar Basil Shuisky to abdicate and installed a Catholic tsar in the Kremlin, Patriarch Hermogen not only anathematised the new “tsar” and all who followed him, but called on the Orthodox to rise up in armed rebellion against the usurper. Such a step was completely unprecedented in Church history. It signified that, for an Orthodox nation, a ruler who takes the place of a truly anointed ruler – and, moreover, does not confess the Orthodox faith, as all truly anointed rulers must - is not simply a bad ruler, but an “anti-ruler” – an “anti-christ”, since he was “in the place of” the truly anointed one (the Greek word “christ” means “anointed one”).

While the Moscow Patriarchate that was created by Sovietism still lives, Soviet power still lives, and the position of the True Church in the State is likely to be precarious. Therefore those who long for the re-establishment of a true State, a State with which the Church can not only do business but with which it can enter into a true symphony for the sake of the salvation of all, must work in the first place for the triumph of truth over heresy. For only when the Kingdom that is not of this world has taken its residence in our hearts through the sanctification that comes through truth can we realistically hope for that blessed moment when that other-worldly Kingdom will also conquer the kingdom of this world.

[1] J.S. McClelland writes: “Thomas argues that there must have been political life before the Fall. Some form of rulership must have existed in the garden of Eden. Thomas accepts Aristotle’s opinion that men are naturally superior to women, so he infers that God must have wanted Eve to be guided by Adam; only then would life in the garden have been complete” (A History of Western Political Thought, Routledge: London and New York, 1996, p. 116).

[2] Cf. the second epistle attributed to St. Clement of Rome: "The Church does not now exist for the first time, but comes from on high; for she was spiritual, and was manifested in the last days that He might save us" (XIV, 1).

[3] Metropolitan Anastasius, Besedy s sobstvennym serdtsem, 1935, p. 159; reprinted in Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Calendar for 1998, Jordanville, 1998 (in Russian).

[4] Hieromonk Dionysius, Priest Timothy Alferov, O Tserkvi, Pravoslavnom Tsarstve i Poslednem Vremeni, Moscow: “Russkaya Ideya”, 1998, p. 15 (in Russian).

[5] St. Augustine, The City of God, XIX, 15.

[6] Bishop Barnabas, Pravoslaviye, Kolomna: New Golutvin monastery, 1995, pp. 128, 129 (in Russian).

[7] Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, I, 3.

[8] Boshchansky, Zhizn’ vo Khriste, in Tserkovnaya Zhizn’, NN 3-4, May-August, 1998, p. 41 (in Russian).

[9] Morris, The Genesis Record, Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1976, p. 224.

[10] E. Kholmogorov, “O Khristianskom tsarstve i ‘voorushennom narode’”, 1999 (MS), pp. 1-3, 5, 6 (in Russian).

[11] St. Leo, Sermon 32, P.L. 54, col. 423.

[12] Deyaniya Vselenskikh Soborov, volume 7, Kazan, 1891, p. 98 (in Russian).

[13] St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel of Saint Luke, Homily 12, New York: Studion Publishers, 1983, p. 89.

[14] Glazkov, “Zashchita ot liberalizma”, Pravoslavnaya Rus’, N 15 (1636), August 1/14, 1999, p. 10 (in Russian).

[15] Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky), "Christ the Savior and the Jewish Revolution", Orthodox Life, vol. 35, no. 4, July-August, 1988, pp. 11-31.

[16] Professor Marta Sordi, The Christians and the Roman Empire, London: Routledge, 1994, chapter 1.

[17] Metropolitan Philaret, Works, vol. II, pp. 171-173 (in Russian).

[18] St. Isidore, Letter 6 to Dionysius.

[19] The Works of St. Hippolytus, Bishop of Rome, volume 1, p. 101; quoted in Fomin, S. & Fomina, T., Rossiya pered vtorym prishestviyem, Third Edition, Sergiev Posad, 1998, p. 56 (in Russian).

[20] Quoted in A.A. Vasiliev, A History of the Byzantine Empire, Milwaukee: University of Wisconsin Press, 1958, p. 151.

[21] V.A. Konovalov, Otnosheniye khristianstva k sovyetskoj vlasti, Montreal, 1936, p. 35 (in Russian).

22] See his dialogue with St. Artemius in the life of the great martyr, in St. Dmitri of Rostov, The Great Collection of the Lives of the Saints, October 20.

[23] St. Dmitri of Rostov, The Great Collection of the Lives of the Saints, November 1.

[24] Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky), The Christian Faith and War, Jordanville, 1973, p. 12.

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

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

[27] I.M. Kontzevich, The Acquisition of the Holy Spirit in Ancient Russia, Platina, Ca.:St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood,1988, pp.178-179.[28] Lebedev, Moskva Patriarshaya, Moscow: “Veche”, 1995, p. 14 (in Russian).

[29] Frazee, The Orthodox Church and Independent Greece 1821-1853, Cambridge University Press, 1969, p. 8.

[30] Ibid., p. 48.

[31] See K. Dinkov, Istoria na B'lgarskata Ts'rkva, Vratsa, 1953, pp. 80-96; D. Kosev, "Bor'ba za samostoyatel'na natsionalna tserkva", in Istoria na B'lgaria, Sofia: Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 1987, vol. 6, pp. 124-188 (in Bulgarian); Fr. Basil Lourié, “Ekklesiologika otstupayushchej armii”, Vertograd-Inform, no. 10 (43), October, 1998, 1999, pp. 25-27, 28-29; E. Pavlenko, “Eres’ i filetizma: istoriya i sovremennost’”, Vertograd-Inform, N 9 (54), September, 1999, pp. 17-24 (in Russian).

[32] Khomyakov, Pravoslaviye, Samoderzhaviye, Narodnost’, Minsk: Belaruskaya Gramata, 1997, p. 19 (in Russian). Cf. Glubokovsky, N.N. "Pravoslaviye po yego sushchestvu", in Tserkov' i Vremya, 1991, pp. 5-6 (in Russian).

[33] Hieromonk Anthony of the Holy Mountain, Ocherki zhizni i podvigov startsa ieroskhimonakha Ilariona gruzina, Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville, 1985, pp. 68-74, 95 (in Russian).

[34] St. Seraphim, in Sergius Nilus, "Shto zhdyot Rossiyu?", Moskovskiye Vedomosti, N 68, 1905 (in Russian).

[35] Fomin, S. & Fomina, T., Rossiya pered vtorym prishestviyem, Sergiev Posad, volume I, pp. 230, 270 (in Russian).

[36] Sir Steven Runciman, The Orthodox Churches and the Secular State, Oxford University Press, 1971, p. 51.

[37] “This doctrine,” writes I.P. Medvedev, “found practical expression in.. a hierarchical system of States…The place of each sovereign in this official, hierarchical gradation of all the princes of the world in relation to the Byzantine Emperor was defined by kinship terms borrowed from the terminology of family law: father-son-brother, but also friend… The use of kinship terms by the Byzantine Emperor in addressing a foreign Sovereign was not a simple metaphor or rhetoric, but a definite title which was given on the basis of a mutual agreement, that is, bestowed by the Emperor.. And so at the head of the oikoumene was the Basileus Romanon, the Byzantine Emperor, the father of ‘the family of sovereigns and peoples’. Closest of all ‘by kinship’ among the politically independent sovereigns were certain Christian rulers of countries bordering on the Empire, for example Armenia, Alania and Bulgaria; they were spiritual sons of the Byzantine Emperor. Less close were the Christian masters of the Germans and French, who were included in this ‘family of sovereigns and peoples’ with the rights of spiritual brothers of the Emperor. After them came the friends, that is, independent sovereigns and peoples who received this title by dint of a special agreement – the emir of Egypt and the ruler of India, and later the Venetians, the king of England, etc. Finally, we must name a large group of princes who were ranked, not according to degree of ‘kinship’, but by dint of particularities of address and protocol – the small appanage principalities of Armenia, Iberia, Abkhazia, the Italian cities, Moravia and Serbia (group 1), and the appanage princes of Hungary and Rus’, the Khazar and Pecheneg khans, etc. (group II)… As a whole the idea of a centralised hierarchical structure of the world was preserved throughout the existence of the Byzantine Empire. (Proof that this system existed not only in the minds of the Byzantines is provided by, among other things, decrees of Turkish sultans which still, in the 14^th century, called the Byzantine Emperors Emperors of Bulgaria, Alania, Russia, Iberia, Turkey, etc.) The Byzantine Emperors were unwilling to make any changes in the accepted titles. The most curious deviations from the rules were represented by the attempts to include in this system, in the 14^th century – the Russian Great Prince with the rights of…’a related brother’ of the Byzantine Emperor, and in the 15^th century – the Turkish sultan with the rights of a son, and then also of a brother… In the opinion of Ostrogorsky, one can speak only a an ‘idealized submission’ to the Empire, which by no means excluded the complete independence of the State in a political sense.” (S. Fomin & T. Fomina, op. cit., pp. 138-139).

[38] St. Dmitri of Rostov, Zhitiya Svyatykh, volume VI (June 17), p. 390 (in Russian); Orthodox Life, vol. 29, N 3, May-June, 1979, p. 3.

[39] Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Boston, A History of the Russian Church Abroad, Seattle: St. Nectarios Press, 1961, p. 24; Archbishop Nikon, Zhizneopisanie Blazhennejshago Antoniya, Mitropolita Kievsakgo i Galitskago, New York, 1960, vol. VI, p. 36 (in Russian).

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

[41] Russkaya Mysl', no. 3143, March 17, 1977 (in Russian).

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

[43] Novoselov, quoted in I.I. Osipova. “Istoriya Istinno Pravoslavnoj Tserkvi po Materialam Sledstvennago Dyela”, Pravoslavnaya Rus’, N 14 (1587), July 15/28, 1997, p. 5 (in Russian).

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

[45] Pis'ma Arkhiepiskopa Feofana Poltavskago i Pereyaslavskago, Jordanville, 1976. However, in recent years the ROCA leadership has appeared to adopt a “softer” attitude towards Soviet power. This appeared particularly in 1990, in a dialogue between Metropolitan Vitaly, first-hierarch of the ROCA, and representatives of the “passportless” branch of the Catacomb Church (E.A. Petrova, “Perestroika Vavilonski Bashni”, Moscow samizdat, 1991 (in Russian)). The metropolitan compared citizenship of the Soviet Union to citizenship of the Roman empire in the time of the Apostle Paul, who was actually proud of his Roman citizenship and used it to protect himself against the Jews. However, the passportless categorically rejected this comparison, insisting that the Soviet Union must be considered to be, in effect, the Antichrist, being that power which is established, not by God, but by the devil (Revelation 13.2), and that citizenship of the Antichrist is nothing to be proud of, but rather entails promises to uphold anti-theist legislation that no Christian can agree to.

Paradoxically, the passportless position is here closer not only to Patriarch Tikhon’s anathema against the Bolsheviks in 1918, which called on Christians to have nothing whatsoever to do with the Bolsheviks, and even urged Christian wives to leave their Bolshevik husbands, but also to the position of the first president of the ROCA, Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky), who in 1921, as we have seen, called for an armed invasion of Soviet Russia and a general insurrection against Soviet power.

[46] Bishop Gregory, Pis’ma, Moscow, 1998, p. 85 (in Russian).

[47] Polsky, “Polozheniye Tserkvi v Sovetskoj Rossii”, in Putevoditel’ po pravoslavnoj asketike, St. Petersburg, 1999, p. 203 (in Russian).

[48] Andreyev, Russia's Catacomb Saints, Platina: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1982, pp. 541-42.

[49] “Nasledstvennost’ ili Vybory?”, Svecha Pokayaniya (Tsaritsyn), N 4, February, 2000, pp. 11-13 (in Russian).

[50] See the article by Grand-Duke Vladimir's former spiritual father, Archbishop Anthony of Los Angeles, "Velikij Knyaz' Vladimir Kirillovich i yego posyeshcheniye SSSR", Pravoslavnij Vestnik, (Montreal), NN 60-61, January-February, 1993 (in Russian).

* * *

ЧЕТВЕРТЫЙ СОБОР: ПРЕССУ - НЕ ПУЩАТЬ!

Ю. Ларников

На IV Всезарубежном Соборе верхушка РПЦЗ во главе с митр. Лавром планирует завершить " слияние в экстазе" с такой же верхушкой МП РПЦ.

"Я уверен, что так и будет", √ поспешил заявить в интервью корреспонденту ИТАР-ТАСС епископ Гавриил Манхэттенский, секретарь Синода, о чем опубликовано на официальном сайте РПЦЗ.

Должно состояться это действо в начале мая 2006 года в г. Сан Франциско, в Кафедральном Соборе, возведенном святым Иоанном Шанхайским - бесстыдное кощунство обеих ╚верхушек╩.

Для этого на Всезарубежный Собор приглашаются высокие чины из МП. Чинам из МП загодя будет сообщено, какие формы ухаживания перед тем самым ╚экстазом╩ иерархи РПЦЗ(Л) примут с признательностью. А какие - пока не нужно делать предметом гласности.

Не заливаясь краской смущения, об этом повествуют члены так называемой ╚предсоборной комиссии╩ членам так называемой ╚комиссии по переговорам с МП╩ (прот. П.Перекрестов).

Процесс ╚слияния╩ настолько интимный, что естественно желание участников держать в тайне некоторые детали.

Кто будет приглашен на Всезарубежный Собор, а кого и на пушечный выстрел к нему не подпустят? Кого включат в мандатную комиссию? Кто будет контролировать подсчет голосов при голосовании? Кому будет дано слово, а кто обойдется без него? О чем будет говорить арх. Марк Германский (впрочем, это не самый большой секрет), и как отреагирует епископ Гавриил Манхэттенский (после его интервью 6 октября с.г., данного ИТАР-ТАСС, это тоже ╚секрет Полишинеля╩). А еще очень важный вопрос: от кого и в каких размерах пойдут денежные субсидии?

В силу интимности процесса организаторы Собора приняли замечательную по своей простоте резолюцию: прессу на текущие секции Собора не пускать! На открытие и закрытие пусть появятся. А внутрь - ни-ни! И особо следить за журналистами и фотографами. Чтобы - полный молчок и... благоговение. Ну, ни дать, ни взять, чисто заседание политбюро и Бильдербергского Клуба!

Если же кто-то из прессы захочет побеседовать с участниками Собора, то тут же должен подскакивать специальный ╚смотрящий╩: сэр, вы интересуетесь нюансами? Все они вот здесь, в официальной подборке документов. Здесь и про РПЦЗ, и про МП, и про святого Иоанна Шанхайского, и про то, как проходит сближение и слияние. После Собора, как водится, будет дана пресс-конференция. Пресс-релизы будут своевременно готовиться.

Всем этим, как сообщается, будут заниматься профессиональные кадры с обеих сторон: прот. В.Потапов (журналист с ╚Голоса Америки╩) и прот. П.Перекрестов с участием инока Всеволода (Филипьева) и люди из Издательского совета МП РПЦ. Распечатка предварительных материалов будет осуществляться, скорее всего, в Москве - там и печать лучше, и краски сочнее. Переправка кип с агитпропом из РФ в Сан Франциско за счет заказчиков. Пресс-релизы (две-три странички на скрепке) на ксероксе нашлепают местные.

Нет ли ошибки в том, что за журналистами будут ╚следить╩? Совершенно никакой. Будут следить и не пущать! О необходимости этого давно уже говорится и в кулуарах соборного организационного комитета, и между членами ╚комиссии по переговорам с МП╩. Составляется список ╚смотрящих╩ и определяется даже бюджет для этой ╚службы╩.

При необходимости же организаторам Собора от РПЦЗ будет оказана физическая поддержка от лиц, сопровождающих ╚эмпэшных╩ гостей. Эти лица будут - в силу своей профессиональной подготовки! - почти незаметны в толпе. Но их влияние на голосование, принятие решений и просто даже выражение личных мнений может стать решающим.

ОТ РЕДАКЦИИ: Несмотря на заверения прот. Петра Перекрестова, что Предсоборная Комиссия устраивает всё по примеру прежних Всезарубежных Соборов, на этом, санфранцисском, будет осуществляться полный контроль выступлений. Все тексты будут заранее проверены и только одобренные цензурой подлежат оглашению. Причем на этом Соборе специально запрещено поднимать вопрос о предательской деятельности митрополита Сергия и о неканоничном поведении Московской Патриархии.

Наша Страна № 2784

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