AN ESSAY IN UNIVERSAL HISTORY
From an Orthodox Christian Point of View
PART 6: THE AGE OF MAMMON (1945-2001)
Volume 3: From 1992 to 2001
Vladimir Moss
© Copyright Vladimir Moss, 2017: All Rights Reserved
1 The communists have been hurled at the Church like a crazy dog. Their Soviet emblem - the hammer and sickle - corresponds to their mission. With the hammer they beat people over the head, and with the sickle they mow down the churches. But then the Masons will remove the communists and take control of Russia… St. Theodore (Rafanovsky) of Belorussia (+1975).
In order to have a democracy in society there must be a dictatorship in power. Anatoly Chubais.
We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis... and the nations will accept the New World Order. David Rockefeller.
Globalization is all about wealth. It knows the price of everything and value of nothing. Without borders the world will become – is becoming – a howling desert of traffic fumes, concrete and plastic, where nowhere is home and the only language is money. Peter Hitchens.
The best way to shake people out of their inertia is to put them in debt. Then you give them the power to realize their dreams overnight, while ensuring that they’ll spend years paying for their dreams. This is the principle upon which the stability of the Western world rests. A Serb.
Israel is where Jews are. It is not a line on a map. Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir.
The death of God does not mean that man will believe in nothing, but that he will believe in anything. G.K. Chesterton.
Twenty years ago, we said farewell to the Red Empire with damnations and tears. Today, we can take a look at the recent history with calm, as if it were a historic experience. It is important because the debate on socialism has not been settled. A new generation has grown up that has a different worldview; but many young people still read Marx and Lenin. Stalin museums are opening up in the Russian cities, Stalin monuments are being erected. The Red Empire no longer exists, but the Red Man has been preserved. He lasts. Svetlana Aleksiévitch, Nobel Prize Lecture.
Once a Chekist [KGB agent], always a Chekist. Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
What began in Russia will end in America. Elder Ignaty of Harbin (+1958).
Let no one deceive you by any means: that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition… II Thessalonians 2.3.
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3 V. GLOBALIZATION 6
78. GLOBALIZATION AND THE EUROPEAN UNION 7
79. SUPER-ECUMENISM (4) 22
80. RUSSIA IN THE 1990s: (1) THE GLOBALIST NIGHTMARE 27
81. RUSSIA IN THE 1990s: (2) THE SPIRITUAL CATASTROPHE 47
82. THE FALL OF YUGOSLAVIA: (1) THE BOSNIAN WAR 68
83. THE PROGRESS OF ROCOR’S MISSION 78
83. ROMANIDES AND THE NATURE OF SIN 86
85. AMERICA, ISRAEL AND RUSSIA 100
86. FROC: THE FOREIGN BISHOPS INTERVENE 113
87. THE ROCOR-CYPRIANITE UNIA 131
88. ORTHODOXY IN THE THIRD WORLD 136
89. THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX AUTONOMOUS CHURCH 141
90. THE GREEKS DIVIDE AGAIN 151
91. THE SERGIANIST CONQUEST OF JERUSALEM 162
92. THE FALL OF YUGOSLAVIA: (2) THE WAR IN KOSOVO 175
93. ROCOR AND THE SERBS 188
94. THE EVIL EMPIRE STRIKES BACK 192
95. THE MP’S “JUBILEE” COUNCIL 198
96. “THE SECOND OCTOBER REVOLUTION” 210
97. PUTIN’S REVOLUTION: (1) POLITICS AND ECONOMICS 216
98. PUTIN’S REVOLUTION: (2) RELIGION 225
99. THE ABOLITION OF MAN 232
EPILOGUE. THE WORLD AFTER 9/11 256 1. The West 257 2. China 261 3. The Islamic World 264 4. Russia 267 Conclusion 270
APPENDIX 1. ANONYMOUS PROPHECY OF MOUNT ATHOS (1053) 272
APPENDIX 2. A PROPHECY OF ST. NILUS THE MYRRH-GUSHER OF MOUNT ATHOS (+1596) 273
APPENDIX 3. A PROPHECY OF ST. THEOPHAN OF POLTAVA (+1940) 274
4 APPENDIX 4. THE FALL OF ROCOR 276
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V. GLOBALIZATION
6 77. GLOBALIZATION AND THE EUROPEAN UNION
During the Cold War, there had been two very different worlds, Capitalism and Communism, and a third world that swayed from one side to the other. By the end of millennium there was essentially only one world, the world of globalization. Even Russia and China became partially globalized: only North Korea and to some extent Iran remained outside the new global empire. While periods of globalization had existed before in human history – we think of the Roman empire, and of the world before 1914 – they had not truly included the whole world. Only now was there a single world – and therefore the real possibility of a single world ruler.
“I believe,” wrote Thomas L. Friedman, “that if you want to understand the post- Cold War world you have to start by understanding that a new international system has succeeded it – globalization. This is ‘The One Big Thing’ people should focus on. Globalization is not the only thing influencing events in the world today, but to the extent that there is a North Star and a worldwide shaping force, it is this system. What is new is the system. What is old is power politics, chaos, clashing civilizations and liberalism. And what is the drama of the post-Cold War world is the interaction between this new system and these old passions.”1
But what is globalization?
Investopedia defines globalization as “the tendency of investment funds and businesses to move beyond domestic and national markets to other markets around the globe, thereby increasing the interconnection of the world. Globalization has had the effect of markedly increasing international trade and cultural exchange.”2 But it has eroded the power of national governments and increased those of multi-national corporations (150 MNCs now control two-thirds of the world economy). If national governments do not cooperate with the MNCs and the globalization process, they risk seeing factories and jobs removed to other, lower-wage-paying countries. So globalization is both a curse and a blessing, and a major source of instability in the world.
The two most important political events in the western world in the 1990s were the continuing spread of globalization, and its terribly destructive effects on some major countries such as Russia, on the one hand, and the expansion of the European Union, on the other. We shall see that they are closely linked…
Opinions on globalization are sharply divided – indeed, the debate between the globalists and anti-globalists is probably the sharpest debate in the contemporary world. Christians tend to believe that since the Tower of Babel, different languages and nations have been created by God to slow down the spread of evil, and as refuges against it. But for atheist globalists they are the evil.
1 Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree; in M.J. Cohen and John Major, History in Quotations, London: Cassell, 2004, p. 944. 2 http://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/globalization.asp#ixzz4ZuLDrfAT.
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Certain facts are indisputable. Yuval Noah Harari summarises them thus: “Since around 200 BC, most humans have lived in empires. It seems likely that in the future, too, most humans will live in one. But this time the empire will be truly global. The imperial vision of dominion over the entire world could be imminent.
“As the twenty-first century unfolds, nationalism is fast losing ground. More and more people believe that all of humankind is the legitimate source of political authority, rather than the members of a particular nationality, and that safeguarding human rights and protecting the interests of the entire human species should be the guiding light of politics. If so, having close to 200 independent states is a hindrance rather than a help. Since Swedes, Indonesians and Nigerians deserve the same human rights, wouldn’t it be simpler for a single global government to safeguard them?
“The appearance of essentially global problems, such as melting ice caps, nibbles away at whatever legitimacy remains to the independent nation states. No sovereign state will be able to overcome global warming on its own. The Chinese Mandate of Heaven was given by Heaven to solve the problems of mankind. The modern Mandate of Heaven will be given to humankind to solve the problems of heaven, such as the hole in the ozone layer and the accumulation of greenhouse gases. The colour of the global empire may well be green.
“As of 2014, the world is still politically fragmented, but states are fast losing their independence. Not one of them is really able to execute independent economic policies, to declare and wage wars as it pleases, or even to run its own internal affairs as it sees fit. States are increasingly open to the machinations of global markets, to the interference of global companies and NGOs, and to the supervision of global public opinion and the international judicial system. States are obliged to conform to global standards of financial behavior, environmental policy and justice. Immensely powerful currents of capital, labour and information turn and shape the world, with a growing disregard for the borders and opinions of states.
“The global empire being forged before our eyes is not governed by any particular state or ethnic group. Much like the Late Roman Empire, it is ruled by a multi-ethnic elite, and is held together by a common culture and common interests. Throughout the world, more and more entrepreneurs, engineers, experts, scholars, lawyers and managers are called to join the empire. They must ponder whether to answer the imperial call or to remain loyal to their state and people. More and more choose the empire…”3
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3 Harari, Sapiens. A Brief History of Humankind, London: Vintage, 2011, pp. 231-232.
8 Nowhere are the processes of globalization more clearly seen than in the “empire within the Empire”, Europe…
After the events of 1989-91, both positive ones like the reunification of Germany and the Fall of the Soviet Union, but also negative ones like the outbreak of the Yugoslav wars, the European Economic Community felt that the time had come to go beyond their economic union – essentially the single market (or cartel) with its attendant regulatory institutions – and embark on the “ever-increasing unity”, that is, political integration, that had been envisaged in the original Treaty of Rome in 1957.
This was, of course, America’s hour; but the Europeans were determined not to be placed in the shade by their mighty rival across the ocean. They thought they were superior to the Americans in some spheres – for example, in economic philosophy, where the destructiveness of the Anglo-Saxon model (i.e. the Chicago School’s shock therapy) was widely (and rightly) derided. In others, however, - for example, in democracy – they were (again rightly) felt to be inferior. A great prize was set before the two western superpowers: the primary participation in reshaping the vast territory stretching from Berlin to Vladivostok as it struggled to get out from under the rubble of communism and the nationalist wars that in some areas were only just beginning. The Europeans would need to reorganize themselves if they were to help reorganize and rebuild the former communist bloc and bring it into their own sphere of influence…
Let us briefly recap the stages whereby the European project reached this stage in its development, as outlined by Roger Bootle: “In 1957, the Treaty of Rome established the EEC.
“In 1965, the Brussels Treaty streamlined European institutions, laid down the composition of the Council and set out which institutions would be located in the three Community centres – Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg.
“In 1986, the Single European Act marked the watershed, since it extended qualified majority voting in council, making it harder for a single country to veto proposed legislation.”4
And this is precisely why it is at this time that we see the first determined effort by “eurosceptics” to reverse the surging tide crashing against the nation-state. Their leader was the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who in her famous Bruges speech of September, 1988 declared: “We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain only to see them re-imposed at a European level, with a European super-state exercising a new dominance from Brussels.” As Norman Stone writes, “she said, about the tired metaphor of not taking the European train as it was leaving the station, that ‘people who get on a train like that deserve to be taken for a ride’.” 5
4 Bootle, The Trouble with Europe, London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2015, pp. 12-13. 5 Stone, The Atlantic and its Enemies, London: Penguin, 2010, p. 596.
9
Moreover, she was inclined to believe the undiplomatic remark of her minister Nicholas Ridley that the ERM, the proposed first step to European monetary union, was “a German racket designed to take over the whole of Europe”. Such a rebellion against the supra-nationalist ethos of the Europeans could not be tolerated, and Thatcher was duly ousted by her own party supported by the European leaders, whose hatred of her was proverbial.6…
The critical point came in 1992, with the signing of the Maastricht Treaty, more precisely “The Treaty on the European Union”, by the member-states of the EEC (now EU) on February 7, 1992. As the Europeans themselves summarized it, this Treaty “represents a new stage in European integration since it opens the way to political integration. It creates a European Union consisting of three pillars: the European Communities, Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), and police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters (JHA). The Treaty introduces the concept of European citizenship, reinforces the powers of the European Parliament and launches economic and monetary union (EMU). Besides, the EEC becomes the European Community (EC)… “The Maastricht Treaty represents a key stage in European construction. By establishing the European Union, by creating an economic and monetary union and by extending European integration to new areas, the Community has acquired a political dimension…”7
But it was precisely this political dimension, this openly declared drive to abolish the European nation-states and unite them into a single super-state, that caused the trouble. A referendum in Denmark refused to ratify the Treaty. However, alterations were made to the Treaty that enabled a second referendum to come to a more positive verdict. So the Treaty came into legal effect in Denmark after the royal assent was granted in June, 1993. A referendum in France in September, 1992 supported ratification of the Treaty - but only just (50.8% in favour). Although the United Kingdom did not hold a referendum on the Treaty, its passage through the House of Commons was very rough – in spite of the fact that the country had obtained several opt-outs from the Treaty, including acceptance of the euro. This was important because, in the opinion of experts such as the American Fed’s Greenspan, a common currency can be effectively managed only by a single political government. It showed that the British eurosceptics – correctly - saw the Treaty as a threat to British sovereignty.
In order to pacify so-called “nationalists” like the British, the Treaty contained a “principle of subsidiarity”, which “specifies that in areas that are not within its exclusive powers the Community shall only take action where objectives can best be attained by action at Community rather than at national level.” However, to this day this principle has proved to be a dead letter: the movement towards ever-greater centralization of powers in the EU has continued unabated. And in view of the weakness of the democratic principle in the Union – the Treaty’s provisions to
6 President Mitterand said she had the mouth of Marilyn Monroe and the eyes of a Caligula. 7 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=URISERV:xy0026
10 strengthen the power of the European parliament have proved as ineffective as the subsidiarity principle – fears were heightened that the European Union was gradually turning into a more sophisticated, less violent version of the Soviet Union than a democratic federation of states. For instead of the Soviet Politburo there was the unelected European Commission; instead of unfree Soviet republics – increasingly powerless European member-states; instead of the corrupt Soviet bureaucracy – the no less corrupt European bureaucracy. And the black cloud of atheism over both…
Indeed, by a profound irony the price of the liberation of Eastern Europe from the yoke of the Soviet Union turned out to be the strengthening of the yoke of the European Union over Western Europe and beyond; one supra-nationalist socialist dream was replaced by another. For for the sake of dispelling the spectre of the resurrection of German national power, French President Mitterand returned to his socialist, supra-national principles, tying the whole of Germany ever more tightly into the (as he hoped) French-controlled Union. At the same time, – that is, just when the socialist world revolution of the Soviets had fallen apart, and the peoples of Eastern Europe were celebrating their liberation from it, - socialist thinking on a global scale, the creation of a single world government, became very much the talk of “the global village”.
Thus in June, 1991, at the Bilderberger meeting in Baden-Baden, Germany, David Rockefeller said: "We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is [now] more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries."8
This was proof – by a man who should have known - that there did indeed exist a powerful plutocracy, “an intellectual elite and world bankers” striving to create a world government that would be at the expense of “national autodetermination”, that is, the sovereignty of individual national states. From Rockefeller’s remarks, we can see that this plan for a world government had been in the making for nearly sixty-five years, that is, since the early 1950s. We also see from his remarks that the promise of secrecy which the Bilderbergers had felt to be necessary in the early 1950s was now no longer believed to be so pressing at the time of Rockefeller’s speech – presumably because that year, 1991, the year of the West’s seemingly final victory in the Cold War, seemed to betoken “the End of History” and the final triumph of that system of political and economic governance – liberal democracy and the free market – which the Bilderbergers knew well, and knew well how to manipulate and destroy. Again, at the Bildeberger meeting at Evian, France in May, 1992 Henry Kissinger said: "Today Americans would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to
8 See also N. Rockefeller’s speech in 1962: http://streitcouncil.org/uploads/PDF/F&U-%201962- %20May-%20Rockefeller-%20federalism%20and%20free%20world%20order.pdf.
11 restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will pledge with world leaders to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well being granted to them by their world government."
In 1992 it was reported: "In 1959 the organization of the World Constitution and Parliament Association (WCPA) was founded. Its members in their turn are representatives of such organizations as, for example: the United Nations, the World Council of Churches, Green Peace, the World Muslim Congress, the Council on Foreign Relations, the World Court, and the ambassadors and ministers of many countries. This organization has already arranged several meetings of a Provisional World Parliament and passed eleven laws of a World Codex of laws. It is interesting that the WCPA has divided the whole world into ten kingdoms, employing precisely that term in English: 'kingdoms'. It is proposed that a new world financial system will be introduced immediately the first ten countries confirm a World Constitution, since the remaining countries will then be forced to accept this constitution for economic reasons. At the present time the WCPA is trying to convene a Constitutional Assembly so as to substitute the constitution of the USA for the World Constitution. In 1990 the WCPA sent a letter to all heads of government in which it declared the formation of a World Government, and after this many leaders of states openly began to speak about the New World Order."9
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Bringing things up to date, we note that in November, 2008 in Washington, and again in April, 2009 at the G-20 meeting in London, it was agreed to pursue four principles in the resolution of the economic crisis: (i) the need for intensive co- ordination collaboration; (ii) the rejection of protectionism; (iii) the reinforcement of systems of regulation in the economic markets; and (iv) a new world government.”10
Religious leaders have joined in this chorus. Most recently, during a visit to Ecuador Pope Francis called for a world government to deal with problems such as climate change. Again, Baxter Dmitry writes: “world leaders from a diverse collection of religious communities called for world unity in a video message released last week.
“The call for a world government, led by Pope Francis, Ayatollah Al-Milani, the Dalai Lama and Rabbi Abraham Skorka, is seen as a major step on the road to the New World Order that was prophesied over 2,000 years ago.
9 Pravoslavnaia Rus’ (Orthodox Russia), N 15, 1992, p. 16. 10 Eleutherotypia, April 2, 2009.
12 “The world religious leaders came together on June 14 to make a joint statement through a video calling on people to embrace ideas of friendship and unity, and to overcome negativity and division in society.
“In reality, the call for global government by Pope Francis and other wealthy elitists has nothing to do with lifting up impoverished nations or ‘saving humanity.’ Such a government would instead guarantee global surveillance, global wealth inequality and a world run by the exact corrupt interests currently consolidating wealth and power worldwide.”11
But what was the relationship between the globalists’ dreams of a single world government and the European Union? The relationship of a part to the whole. That is why the unification of Europe – beginning with the integration of East Germany into Federal Germany, and continuing with the integration of several other Central and Eastern European countries – was such a crucial test for the globalists.
Thus President George H.W. Bush had seen European unity as the model for world unity, while the core of that unity would be the United Nations: "I see a world of open borders, open trade and, most importantly, open minds; a world that celebrates the common heritage that belongs to all the world's people.... I see a world building on the emerging new model of European unity. ... The United Nations is the place to build international support and consensus for meeting the other challenges we face.... the threats to the environment, terrorism... international drug trafficking... refugees.... We must join together in a new compact -- all of us -- to bring the United Nations into the 21st century."
11 Dmitry, “Pope Francis Calls For ‘One World Government’ To ‘Save Humanity’, YourNewsWire.com, June 23, 2017, http://yournewswire.com/pope-francis-one-world-government. President Putin (of all people!) “has slammed Pope Francis for ‘pushing a political ideology instead of running a church’, and warned that the leader of the Catholic Church ‘is not a man of God.’ “’Pope Francis is using his platform to push a dangerous far-left political ideology on vulnerable people around the world, people who trust him because of his position,’ Putin said. “’If you look at what he (the Pope) says it’s clear that he is not a man of God. At least not the Christian God. Not the God of the Bible,’ Putin said at the Naval Cathedral of St. Nicholas in Kronstadt. “’He dreams of a world government and a global communist system of repression.’ “’As we have seen before in communist states, this system is not compatible with Christianity.’ “The pope has become increasingly brazen this year in pushing the globalist agenda and far-left talking points upon the masses. Earlier this year he called for a global central bank and financial authority, and more recently he said ‘Americans need to be ruled by a world government as soon as possible for their own good.’ “Pope Francis’s idea that Americans would be better off under a world government doesn’t stop there. The radical leftist pontiff also went on record stating that Europe should become one country under one government. “He is also on record calling for a China-style one child policy for Western nations, as well as telling a congregation in Rome that having a personal relationship with Jesus is ‘dangerous and harmful.’ (“President Putin:Warned Pope Francis that the leader of the Catholic Church is not a man of?” News for Today, August 4, 2017, http://newsfortoday.org/president-putinwarned-pope-francis-leader-catholic-church-not-man/)
13 The unification of Germany had been a victory for the globalists. But the hope now was that the European Union project would step into an altogether higher gear, both increasing the depth of political (and not merely economic) union among existing members, but also widening it to include the countries of Eastern Europe. This was a crucial test for the globalists because Europe represented an exceptionally “hard nut” to crack: many old, proud nation-states with many different cultures and languages, and a history of violent conflicts, including recent and bloody conflicts. So if this “hard nut” could be cracked, if Europe could be united, then it boded well for the overall global project. Conversely, if it failed, it might undermine it irreparably. Therefore it could not be allowed to fail; the stages of “ever-increasing unity” stipulated in the Treaty of Rome had to be completed…
These stages, as they have been completed up to the present day, have been summarized by Bootle: “In 1992, the famous Maastricht Treaty prepared for European Monetary Union and introduced elements of a political union (citizenship, common foreign and internal affairs policies). This is when the EEC dropped one of its Es in its abbreviated name and became simply the European Community (EC). This clearly marked the transition from a largely economic association to one with an obvious political dimension.
“In 1995, the Schengen Agreement came into effect, allowing travel without passport control between seven countries (later joined by others): Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain.
- In 1997, the Treaty of Amsterdam saw the UK agreeing to the ‘Social Chapter’ of the Maastricht Treaty. Moreover, the treaty created a new senior post, a sort of Foreign Minister for the EU, known as the High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy. - In 2001, the Treaty of Nice replaced the need for unanimous voting with a qualified majority system in 27 different areas – again diluting the power of a nation state to block measures that it did not like. - In 2007, the Treaty of Lisbon extended qualified majority voting to more areas, established a legal personality for the EU and created a new post: President of the European Council. For the first time in the history of the EU, included in the Lisbon Treaty was a clause making it clear how a state could exit from the Union.”12
It is not that the EU has accomplished good things. In its early years, as we have seen, the Common Market gave an important impulse to the economic recovery of Western Europe and strengthened its unity and self-confidence in the face of the still-real threat from the Communist East. Moreover, as we have seen, when Communism eventually collapsed, membership of the European Union provided a vital “safe haven”, as it were, a reassuring political and economic anchor for the former Communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe that were fleeing the Soviet bear and still had reason to fear its resurgence.
12 Bootle, The Trouble with Europe, London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2015, pp. 12-13.
14 However, there can be no doubt now that the EU is an empire that has over- reached itself, both externally, in that it is trying to take in such countries as Ukraine and Turkey, and internally, in that it is trying to control more and more of the internal life of its member-states Indeed, as time has passed a totalitarian spirit hidden beneath the EU’s democratic front as begun to make itself felt. Thus in March, 2012 the economic crisis led European politicians to sign a “European Fiscal Compact” (or “Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union”) that threatened the submergence of what remained of national sovereignty into a truly totalitarian state.13 As regulations and directives poured out of Brussels that none of the members states’ parliaments had been given a chance to vote on; as the extreme corruption and unaccountability of the central bureaucratic apparatus continued unchecked (and whistleblower accountants were sacked); as referendums on the European Constitution were lost, but then simply ignored - it began to dawn on many, especially in Britain (which voted to leave the European Union in June, 2016), that this benign colossus might one day turn nasty, as previous hegemons on the European continent had turned nasty…
Most recently, since the migration crisis began, it has been especially the group of Central and East European states known as the Višegrad bloc (or V4) that has been warning against the over-bureaucratic, undemocratic approach of the Brussels Commission. As Alan Posener of Die Welt says, the East Europeans were under the yoke of the Soviets and do not ever want to go under a similar yoke again.14 For if “nationalism” and “national sovereignty” are bogey words for the West Europeans, “socialism” is the bogey-word for the East Europeans; the dominant attitudes of each half of the continent reflect their different historical experiences. In particular, the resurrection of the Soviet empire under Putin has made the East Europeans very nervous. They naturally look to the EU – and in particular NATO – for protection; but at the same time they observe that the West Europeans are quite happy to make deals with the old enemy over the East Europeans’ heads…
It is not simply the democratic deficit that recalls other totalitarian colossi: there is also the historicist spirit that seems to prevail among Europe’s rulers. What they are doing has to be right because it is the inevitable result of the march of history. And, as Marx and Lenin said, there is no arguing with History – if you do not want to be crushed by it… For, as Bootle writes: “European integration has had an air of inevitability about it. It seemed to be the summation and healing of the past and the way of the future. Nation states were on the way out, passé. A united Europe would embody the best of European traditions while securing Europe’s future in the modern world.”15 The worm in the apple lay in the phrase: “ever-increasing unity”. The question was: what did it really mean in the long term? Many, especially in Britain, had been in favour of joining the EU for economic reasons, and had not really tried to answer this political question. But increasingly it has been necessary to answer it. And the possible answers are alarming indeed…
13 See european-council.europa.eu/media/639235/st00tscg26_en12.pdf. 14 Posener, in “The Battle for Europe”, shown on BBC2 on February 9, 2017. 15 Bootle, op. cit., p. 31.
15 Bootle again: “What is the point of the EU? Is it to link together countries and peoples that are ‘European’? Is it to link together countries and peoples that are geographically close together? Is it to link together countries that conduct themselves in a certain way and are prepared and able to obey EU law? Or is it simply to carry on expanding as far as it can, because bigger is better, so that the EU can be regarded as an early progenitor of global government?
“Without a clear answer to these questions, it is difficult to see why the EU should not contemplate expansion to nations that are geographically close, such as Israel or the countries of North Africa, even though they are not strictly European. (Interestingly, the remit of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) does extend into the Middle East and North Africa.) Or if the key concept is cultural, what about countries that are European in character and history but are far distant, such as Canada, Australia or New Zealand?
“This question is of exceptional importance. For if there is no clear answer to the question of how far EU membership should spread, perhaps it should be restricted to a smaller territory – or indeed, perhaps the EU should not exist at all…”16
The globalists desperately want the European Union to exist - because regional unities of this kind are essential stepping-stones or stages on the road to full globalization and the single world government. At the time of writing (2017), however, there have been some serious hitches in the progress of the globalization project, notably the financial crisis of 2008, Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine in 2014, Brexit in 2016, and the coming to power of Donald Trump in 2017. Britain’s decision to leave the European Union is a serious blow to European integration, not so much economically as politically; for other dissatisfied countries may wish to follow her example. Ironically, Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May sees Brexit as fully within the process of globalization; she emphasizes the greater opportunities for global trade that it will give her country. But her vision is of a global community of independent nation-states, not of regional blocs that suppress national sovereignties – the exact opposite of the European project. Trump, meanwhile, while strongly supporting Brexit and criticizing the European Union, has already proclaimed his hostility both to North American and to Transatlantic economic treaties, and threatens to derail the whole project. Nevertheless, the globalists remain very powerful and will certain strive to overcome these obstacles and fire up “the crucible of globalization” again.
In this context, the vigorously Eurosceptic views of the former Czech President, Vaclav Klaus, remain extremely relevant. In 2005 Klaus called for the EU to be "scrapped" and replaced by a free trade area to be called the "Organisation of European States." He attacked the EU as an institution that undermines freedom, calling it "as big a threat to freedom as the Soviet Union was". Also in 2005 he remarked that the EU was a "failed and bankrupt entity”.17 He was the only European leader to refuse to sign the Lisbon Treaty in 2007…
16 Bootle, op. cit., p. 42. 17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A1clav_Klaus.
16
In 2016 he expanded on the EU’s incipient totalitarianism: “The fall of communism opened the door for freedom and democracy in our countries. We enjoyed it tremendously and erroneously supposed that freedom is here, and is here to stay. We were wrong. During the 27 years after the fall of communism, we have slowly begun discovering that we live in a world which is different than the one we dreamt of. It became evident that the lack of freedom is not inevitably connected with only one – however evil – form of totalitarian and authoritarian regime, with communism. There are other non-democratic isms and institutional arrangements which lead to similar results and consequences.
“Due to them we live in a far more socialist and etatist, controlled and regulated society now than we could have imagined 27 years ago. We feel that we are in number of respects returning back to the arrangements we used to live in the past and which we had considered gone once and for all. I do not have in mind specifically my country but Europe and the Western world as a whole.
“After the fall of communism, my optimism was based on a strong belief in the power of principles of free society, of free markets, of the ideas of freedom, as well as on a belief in our ability to promote and safeguard these ideas. Today, coming slowly to the end of the second decade of the 21st century, my feeling is different. Did we have wrong expectations? Were we naive? I don´t think so.
“1. We knew that socialism, or socialdemocratism, or ‘soziale Marktwirtschaft’ is here, is here to stay and – due to its internal dynamics – would expand;
“2. We were always afraid of the green ideology, in which we saw a dangerous alternative to the traditional socialist doctrine;
“3. We were aware of the built-in leftism of intellectuals. We followed with great concern the ‘excessive production of under-educated intellectuals’ that emerged in the West as a result of the expansion of university education for all;
“4. Communism had been based on an apotheosis of science and on a firmly rooted hope that science would solve all existing human and social problems. To our great regret, the West believed in the same fallacy.
“I can assure you that we were aware of all that in the moment of the fall of communism. We – perhaps – underestimated some other crucial issues:
“- We probably did not fully appreciate the far-reaching implications of the 1960s, the fact that this ‘romantic’ era was a period of the radical and destructive denial of the authority, of traditional values and social institutions;
“- We underestimated that the growing apotheosis of human rights was in fact a revolutionary denial of civic rights and of many liberties and behavioral patterns
17 connected with them. Human rights do not need any citizenship. That is why human-rightism calls for the destruction of the sovereignty of individual countries, particularly in today’s Europe…”18
Still more recently, Victor Orban, the Prime Minister of Hungary, has attacked what he has called “Homo Brusselicus”, European man deprived of national, gender and religious identity. More particularly, he has attacked his fellow Hungarian George Soros’ plan, supported by the EU, of compulsory distribution of Muslim immigrants around Europe: “Over the next few decades the main question in Europe will be this: will Europe remain the continent of the Europeans?... Who will live in Europe? This is a historical question which we must face up to today. As regards the specific situation – and this is quite telling about the world that we live in today – there’s no concrete, reliable information on the percentages of traditional indigenous Christians and the incoming Muslim communities living in Europe’s individual countries. In practice it is forbidden to gather information like this. And the data which is gathered is not adequate for us to predict what the future holds for us, as migrants, immigrants, are not evenly distributed throughout the different age groups. So the general figures say little about what awaits us. We should focus most on people under the age of 15, and also those between 15 and 45. From those figures we can project, we can calculate, what the situation will be like in each country in, say, 2050.
“Sparing no money and effort, every year the Hungarian government commissions an extensive international survey in order to find out what the European people think about these issues. This is not about what their leaders think, because we know that. The suspicion is that the opinions of the people don’t coincide with those of their leaders. This year’s survey showed that, across the 28 European Union countries, 81% of EU nationals thought immigration to be a serious or very serious issue. At a pan-European level, 64% believe that immigration leads to increased crime, and 59% believe that immigration changes the culture we live in. As regards the performance of Brussels, 76% of European nationals say that Brussels’ performance on immigration is poor. When asked whether more power should be given to Brussels to resolve this situation, or if nation states’ powers should be strengthened instead, we find that 36% of European citizens expect a solution from Brussels and would give it more power, while 51% expect nation states to provide solutions. In Hungary, 25% of our fellow citizens – and this is not an insignificant number, as we’re talking about every fourth Hungarian – believe that more power should be given to Brussels. But luckily 61% of our fellow citizens think that Brussels should have less power, and we should even take back those powers that we previously transferred to it – or at least some of them.
“Naturally, when considering the whole issue of who will live in Europe, one could argue that this problem will be solved by successful integration. The reality, however, is that we’re not aware of any examples of successful integration. It’s obvious that migration is not the answer to economic problems and labour
18 “The European Freedom Award in the Freedom Endangering European Union”, Hlavni Strana, November 5, 2016, http://www.klaus.cz/clanky/4014.
18 shortages. Interestingly, people in Europe are least concerned about migrants taking their jobs. This probably reflects some form of personal experience. I can believe there are desperate situations, just like a castaway on the ocean finally giving in to the urge to drink seawater: it’s water, but it doesn’t quench one’s thirst, and only adds to the problem. This is more or less the situation in which those who want to cure their economic ills with immigrants will find themselves. In countering arguments for successful integration, we must also point out that if people with diverging goals find themselves in the same system or country, it won’t lead to integration, but to chaos. It’s obvious that the culture of migrants contrasts dramatically with European culture. Opposing ideologies and values cannot be simultaneously upheld, as they are mutually exclusive. To give you the most obvious example, the European people think it desirable for men and women to be equal, while for the Muslim community this idea is unacceptable, as in their culture the relationship between men and women is seen in terms of a hierarchical order. These two concepts cannot be upheld at the same time. It’s only a question of time before one or the other prevails.
Of course one could also argue that communities coming to us from different cultures can be re-educated. But we must see – and Bishop Tőkés also spoke about this – that now the Muslim communities coming to Europe see their own culture, their own faith, their own lifestyles and their own principles as stronger and more valuable than ours. So, whether we like it or not, in terms of respect for life, optimism, commitment, the subordination of individual interests and ideals, today Muslim communities are stronger than Christian communities. Why would anyone want to adopt a culture that appears to be weaker than their own strong culture? They won’t, and they never will! Therefore re-education and integration based on re- education cannot succeed…
“My summary conclusions are as follows. Christian democratic parties in Europe have become un-Christian: we are trying to satisfy the values and cultural expectations of the liberal media and intelligentsia. The second important aspect is that left-wing politics has lost ground, and the social democratic parties are themselves no longer social democratic. They have lost the proletariat, if I can put it that way. The numbers and power of organised labour have fallen, mostly because many industrial jobs have been relocated outside the European Union, and therefore not even social democratic parties are what they once used to be. They’ve married themselves to global business interests representing neoliberal economic policy, and now they have a single policy area, they’re concentrating on a single area: preservation of their influence over culture. This is the second important element in Europe today. And the third important thing is that Europe is currently being prepared to hand its territory over to a new mixed, Islamised Europe. We are observing the conscious step-by-step implementation of this policy. In order for this to happen, for the territory to be ready to be handed over, it is necessary to continue the de-Christianisation of Europe – and we can see these attempts. Priority must be given to group identities rather than national identities, and political governance must be replaced with the rule of bureaucracy. This is the aim of Brussels’ continuous and stealthy withdrawal of powers from the nation states. This is the
19 situation in Europe today, Ladies and Gentlemen. This is the battlefield on which Central European countries are fighting today.”19
The turn of the millennium marked the high-water mark of globalization and democratization. In 2001, the EU felt confident enough to declare at Laaken that “the only boundary that the European Union draws is defined by democracy and human rights”20. This unheard-of definition of territorial (or rather, extra-territorial) state boundaries implied that the European Union was not so much a confederation of states as a global civilization that had the right to intervene anywhere in the world that democracy and human rights were under threat.
The definition suggested that the universalist and expansionist nature of western civilization was not only striving defensively to “make the world safe for democracy”, as President Woodrow Wilson put it in 1918, but was also trying offensively to make sure that nowhere on earth was safe from democracy and pseudo-democratic despotism of the global government. Thus in 2006 it was proposed that NATO be globalized in both scope and membership.21 In 2008 the proposal to extend NATO membership to the Georgia gave Russia the excuse it was looking for to invade Georgia. In 2014 the proposal to make Ukraine an associate member of the EU gave it the excuse to invade Ukraine… Of course, Russia is no less of an evil despotism than the EU. Moreover, since it pretends to be Orthodox, it is a still greater, because subtler, threat to True Orthodoxy. The point is that globalism and “Eurosodom” are potent symbols against which other despotisms such as Russia and Islamism can rally support.22
The expansionist, globalist project of which the European project is a part recalls the very first such project in history, the Tower of Babel. Moreover, the Europeans seem willingly to accept this parallel. Thus Andrew Drapper writes: “The EU Parliament building is pretty obviously intended to look like or is modelled after the biblical tower of babel. Or perhaps more accurately it is modelled after Pieter Brueghel the Elder’s painting ‘The Tower of Babel’ (1563).
“Though modernist in style, the parliament building is recognisably intended to represent the unfinished Tower of Babel. This is further supported by things like the famous Council of Europe poster depicting the EU Parliament building in the process of being finished by the people of Europe. The test on the poster, ‘Europe: Many Tongues, One Voice.’ Here a very strong connection is made not only to the image of the Tower of Babel in Brueghel’s painting, but also to the record of the Tower of Babel as recorded in the Bible.”23
19 “Full speech of V. Orbán: Will Europe belong to Europeans?”, V Post, July 24, 2017, https://visegradpost.com/en/2017/07/24/full-speech-of-v-orban-will-europe-belong-to-europeans. 20 Simms, op. cit., p. 512. 21 Ivo Daalder and James Goldgeier, “Global Nato”, Foreign Affairs, October, 2006, p. 106. 22 See Appendix 1. 23 Drapper, “Why we MUST leave the European Union! Part One”, The Red Pill Report, February 15, 2017.
20 And so history comes round full circle: contemporary globalization returns to history’s (or rather, prehistory’s) first globalization project, Nimrod’s attempt to unite the people in building a tower to reach from earth to heaven to make a name for himself and to make himself equal to the gods. We know how that attempt ended: who is to say that the contemporary effort will not have a similarly catastrophic end? And is it not the same end that Angel of the Apocalypse announced, saying: “Babylon the Great is fallen, and has a become a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird. For all the nations were drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury.” And I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, My people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues. For her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. Render to her just as she rendered to you, and repay her double according to her works, in the cup which she has mixed, mix double for her. In the measure that she glorified herself and lived luxuriously, in the same measure give her torment and sorrow; for she says in her heart, ‘I sit as queen, and am no widow, and will not see sorrow.’ Therefore her plagues will come in one day – death and mourning and famine. And she will be utterly burned with fire. For strong is the Lord God Who judges her…” (Revelation 17.2-8).
21 79. SUPER-ECUMENISM (4)
In parallel with political and economic globalization, there proceeded spiritual globalization – ecumenism.
In March, 1992, the heads of the Local Orthodox Churches met in Constantinople and issued a communiqué that more or less renounced missionary work. After condemning the work of Catholic Uniates and Protestant fundamentalists in Orthodox countries, they went on to “remind all that every form of proselytism – to be distinguished from evangelization and mission – is absolutely condemned by the Orthodox. Proselytism, practiced in nations already Christian, and in many cases even Orthodox, sometimes through material enticement and sometimes by various forms of violence, poisons the relations among Christians and destroys the road towards their unity. Mission, by contrast, carried out in non-Christian countries and among non-Christian peoples, constitutes a sacred duty of the Church, worthy of every assistance” (point 4). Here a dishonourable deal was being proposed: if you refrain from proselytising in Orthodox countries, we will not receive converts in western countries. Of course, this renunciation of proselytism among western heretics had been implicit in the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s statements since the encyclical of 1920, and in all the Orthodox leaders’ actions in ecumenical forums since the 1960s. But it still came as a shock to see the “Orthodox Church” renouncing the hope of conversion and therefore salvation for hundreds of millions of westerners. Here the ecumenical “Orthodox” renounced the first commandment of the Lord to His Church after the Resurrection: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you…” (Matthew 28.19-20).
The communiqué also made threats against “schismatic groups competing with the canonical structure of the Orthodox Church” (point 3). Presumably, the True Orthodox were meant. This threat was made clearer when, in May, a delegation from the Ecumenical Patriarchate together with a detachment of Athonite police expelled the Russian-American monks of the Skete of the Prophet Elijah, who did not commemorate the patriarch, from Mount Athos.24
From the middle of the 1990s, some signs of a spiritual revival in World Orthodoxy were discerned in the emergence of anti-ecumenist movements in Russia, Serbia, Bulgaria and Georgia. Thus in November, 1994 the Serbian Bishop Artemije of Raska and Prizren, the leading anti-ecumenist in the Serbian Church, said to his fellow hierarchs with regard to their participation in the ecumenical movement: "We have lost the purity of the faith, the canonical inheritance of the Church and faithfulness to the holy Tradition of the Orthodox Church." 25
24 Damian Thompson, “Holy Sanctuary in turmoil over monks’ eviction”, The Daily Telegraph, June 4, 1992; “Ecumenists seize Skete of the Prophet Elias”, Living Orthodoxy, vol. XIII, № 4, July-August, 1991, pp. 1, 9. For other harassment of non-commemorators on Mount Athos, see Monk Maximus of the Great Lavra, Human Rights on Mount Athos, Welshpool: Stylite Publishing, 1990; “Of Truth and Falsehood: Allegations of the ‘O.C.A.’ and Response from the Holy Mountain”, Living Orthodoxy, vol. XIII, № 3, May-June, 1991. 25 Tserkovnie Novosti (Church News), June, 1997, № 6 (62), p. 4.
22
Those were honest and true words. But they were not followed up by appropriate action. Thus when 340 priests, monks and nuns of the Serbian Church protested against ecumenism and called on the patriarchate to leave the WCC in 1997, none of the Serbian bishops signed the document. Instead, in their council in June, they decided to leave the WCC – but with the following condition: “Taking into account, however, that this is a far-reaching decision that affects not only the life and mission of the Serbian Church but of Orthodoxy in general and its salvific mission in the world, the Assembly of Bishops of the Serbian Church has decided that prior to its final resignation, it will first forward its position and rationale to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and to all heads of local Orthodox Churches with the proposal and request that a Pan-Orthodox Conference be convened as soon as possible with regard to further participation of Orthodox Churches in general in the WCC. Only after this consultation would our own local Church adopts its final position on the issue and share it with the public.”
“Unfortunately,” writes Bishop Artemije, “it soon became apparent that the concluding points of this decision of the Serbian Orthodox Church Assembly annulled all the aforementioned compelling reasons for a final and permanent withdrawal from membership and partnership with the WCC. The Thessalonica Summit of the representatives of all of the Orthodox Churches was soon held and its ‘conclusions’ prevented the Serbian Orthodox Church from carrying out its 1997 decision to withdraw from the WCC… The essence of the conclusions of the Thessalonica gathering was to seek a radical reorganization of the Council, which did not occur in the next seven years to the present day [September, 2004]. These ‘conclusions’, therefore, remained ‘a dead letter’. The WCC did not reorganize itself in any respect and become closer to the Orthodox Church of Christ, nor did any local Orthodox Church (including the Serbian Church) withdraw from membership in the WCC as a result of this. The reasons and justifications for withdrawing from membership from the WCC (as presented in the decision of the S.O.C, Assembly) are also still valid, as are, unfortunately, the harmful ecclesiological consequences that follow from that membership. Thus by its second response this Assembly of the Serbian Orthodox Church, abandoning its earlier decision (from 1997) and its justification, continued and extended its organic participation as an equal member of the WCC, guiding itself and its flock down the path of ruin…”26
During the late 1990s, the Bulgarian and Georgian Churches left the WCC. It is particularly interesting to see how and why this took place in the two countries, which were still ruled by communist-appointed “patriarchs”. Patriarch Maximus of Bulgaria had been challenged by Metropolitan Pimen on the grounds of anti- communism (although Pimen was no less sergianist and even more ecumenist than Maximus). However, Pimen and his fellow hierarchs later repented, and were restored to their former positions on October 1, 1998.27 As we have seen, Patriarch
26 Bishop Artemije, Statement to the Thessalonica Theological Conference, September, 2004; in The Shepherd, June, 2005, pp. 15-16. 27 Church News, October-November, 1998, vol. 10, № 8 (75), p. 8.
23 Ilia of Georgia was recruited by the Georgian KGB in 1962.28 As metropolitan of Sukhumi in the late 1970s he betrayed the Catacomb Schema-Metropolitan Gennady (Sekach) to the Georgian KGB, as a result of which Gennady spent two- and-half years in prison in Kutaisi.29 So why should such a tried and tested “ecu- communist” leave the ecumenical movement now?
The Georgian decision was elicited by the separation of two groups from the official Church of Georgia because of the latter’s participation in the ecumenical movement. One priest with his flock joined the Cyprianites, and then a monastery, a convent and a secular parish joined the “Holy Orthodox Church of North America” (HOCNA) under Metropolitan Ephraim of Boston. Rattled by these events, and fearing a more general exodus, the patriarchate withdrew from the WCC in May, 1997 – but then promptly placed the leaders of the True Orthodox under ban! On August 21 the Betani monastery was stormed by the Georgian Patriarchate. At one point the patriarchal leader Archimandrite Joachim shouted at the “disobedient” True Orthodox that one should obey one’s spiritual superior unconditionally, even to the point of becoming a Muslim if so ordered!30
Having withdrawn from the WCC, the Georgian Patriarchate decided, in October, 1997, to denounce certain ecumenical agreements as “unacceptable”. These documents included: 1) the Chambésy documents of 1990 and 1993 (Union with Non-Chalcedonian (Oriental) Churches); 2) the Framework Agreement between the Orthodox Church of Antioch and the Oriental (Non-Chalcedonian) Church of Antioch; 3) the Balamand Union with the Latins (Roman-Catholic Church) of 1993; 4) Easter Celebration by the Autonomous Orthodox Church of Finland according to the Papal Paschalion; 5) the so-called ‘Branch Theory’ was also denounced; as well as 6) common prayers and intercommunion with non-Orthodox denominations. However, the Georgians did not break communion with the Orthodox Churches that did accept these documents and remained in the ecumenical movement. So this “Third Way”31 had the advantage of appearing to be “traditionalist” while avoiding the painful step that real traditionalism entails: breaking communion with all the transgressors. It was compared to the position of the Cyprianites, who condemned the ecumenical movement but did not declare the ecumenists to be graceless. But to be fair to the Cyprianites: they had at any rate officially broken communion with all the ecumenists. But the Georgians could with more justice be called “crypto- ecumenists” – ecumenists who wanted to give the impression of being against ecumenism. Moreover, the Cyprianites continued to receive people and parishes from the Georgian Church, thereby showing that the Georgian “Third Way” was not acceptable to them. ROCOR, on the other hand, gradually began to accept the “Third Way” as the right way. Thus “at the meeting of the [ROCOR] Synod of
28 Orthodox Tradition, vol. XV, № 1, p. 34. This information has recently been confirmed: “DOKUMENT: Kartochki ‘psevdonim’ (forma № 3a) KGB SSSR na agentov, zaverbovannykh iz chisla ierarkhov i dukhovenstva Gruzinskoj Pravoslavnoj Tserkvi. 1970-80e gg.”, http://portalcredo.ru/site/?act=news&id=56312&cf=, August 14, 2007. 29 Nun E., a disciple of Metropolitan Gennady, personal communication, September, 1990. 30 Vertograd-Inform, № 2, December, 1998, p. 25; Church News, September, 1997, vol. 9, № 9, pp. 8-10. 31 Fr. Basil Lourié, “The Synodal Decision of the Official Georgian Church and ‘the Third Way’ between Ecumenism and Orthodoxy”, Vertograd-Inform, № 10 (43), October, 1998, pp. 7-8.
24 Bishops on 27 October 2000, it was resolved to send a letter of admonition to Metropolitan Cyprian of Fili, of the Greek Synod in Resistance, asking that he not open parishes on the territory of the Georgian Orthodox Church, especially because the latter had condemned ecumenism and left the World Council of Churches.”32
The hollowness of the “Third Way” was demonstrated at the Eighth General Assembly of the WCC in Harare in December, 1998, when “the two Patriarchates of Georgia and Bulgaria were exposed, since, although they had withdrawn from the WCC for supposedly serious reasons, now – through their observers at Harare – they declared their loyalty, on the one hand, to the ecumenical ideal and, on the other hand, justified themselves on the grounds that their decisions to withdraw from the WCC were prompted by pressure from ‘conservative elements’!
“A Georgian clergyman, Father Vasili Kobakhidze, revealingly stated that ‘… the Georgian Orthodox were, are, and always will be your brothers and sisters in the Lord. Patriarch Ilia and the Orthodox Church of Georgia were forced to leave the ecumenical movement on account of fanatics and fundamentalists and in order to avoid an internal schism, but they always pray for Christian unity.’
“In one of his delegation’s documents, the Bulgarian theologian Ivan Dimitrov (one of seven Bulgarian observers), expressed ‘sorrow for their Church’s withdrawal from the WCC,’ saying that ‘the Bulgarian church’s decision to withdraw from the WCC had been taken, “not out of anti-ecumenical convictions, but under pressure from the Old Calendarist church.”’33
This was an important admission, obliquely confirmed by the text of the Bulgarian Church’s official withdrawal from the WCC.34 It showed the fighters for Church truth that, appearances notwithstanding, their actions were having an influence on the world around them.
At this point some mention should be made of the position of the Jerusalem Patriarchate, which some said was anti-ecumenist. In fact, while more “conservative” than the other Churches of World Orthodoxy, the Jerusalem Patriarchate has never broken communion with World Orthodoxy, nor decisively broken with the major organizations of the ecumenical movement. It is relatively guarded in relation to other confessions only because it has to defend the Holy Places from the pretensions of Catholics, Armenians, Copts and others.
32 Andrei Psarev, “The Development of Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia’s Attitude Toward Other Local Orthodox Churches”, http://www.sobor2006.com/printerfriendly2.php?id=119_0_3_0 , p. 8. 33 “Looking Back on Harare”, Orthodox Tradition, vol. XVII, № 4, 2000, p. 4. 34 Patriarch Maximus wrote to the General Secretary of the WCC on November 27, 1998 as follows: “The Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church at their session on the 9th of April 1998, Protocol No. 9, having taken into consideration that the hopes from its membership in the World Council of Churches have not been fully justified, as well as from the confusion of the Orthodox Christians in this country with that membership (of our Church in the WCC), with a view to safeguard the fullness of our Holy Church, have decided to discontinue its membership in it” (http://www.wcccoe.org/wcc/assembly/pre-47.html ). (My italics (V.M)).
25 In confirmation of this, we may cite the following joint statement of the Jerusalem Patriarchate, the Antiochian Patriarchate, and Monophysites, Papists, and Protestants at the Seventh Assembly of the Middle East Council of Churches in 1999: "God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us... Oriental Orthodox [Monophysite], Orthodox, Catholic, and Evangelical... We renew our commitment to strive to be [the] One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, according to the will of the Lord Jesus, 'so that they may be one' (John 17:11)... by opening our hearts and minds to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, so that we encounter each other cooperatively, with respect, and with kindness. In Him, we are one."35
35 Dr. Fred Strickert, The Washington Report: On Middle East Affairs: Christianity and the Middle East, July/August 1999, pp. 84-85.
26 80. RUSSIA IN THE 1990s: (1) THE GLOBALIST NIGHTMARE
Nowhere more clearly than in Russia do we see the struggle between globalization and the nation-state – a struggle whose outcome is still unknown to this day…
From the vantage point of 2017, when a powerful reaction against globalization is beginning, and Putin’s neo-Soviet and neo-fascist Russia appears to be in the ascendant over a divided and dispirited America, we can see that the American victory in the Cold War was ephemeral and superficial. Many plausible explanations have been given for this. One, expounded by the former world chess champion, Garry Kasparov, is that the West gave far too much money and concessions to Russia after 1991 without demanding enough in return – in particular, the thorough uprooting of the KGB system. There is merit to this explanation – although it is difficult to see how that system could have been uprooted unless America had physically conquered and occupied the former Soviet Union. A second explanation, although discounted by Kasparov, also has merit: that the country felt humiliated and betrayed by its defeat, and was never really reconciled to it, just as Germany was not reconciled to its defeat in 1918. A third explanation is that if the KGB system was not uprooted, at least everything else was – by globalization, and in particular the Chicago Boys’ Friedmanite shock therapy, which so impoverished such a large part of the population that they lost their former (albeit brief) admiration for democracy and the West and returned to old collectivist modes of thinking. A fourth explanation is that God did not allow the Russians to liberate themselves from the nightmare of the twentieth century because they were still under the curse – they had not repented of the unprecedented sins of that century.
In this chapter we shall look at the first three explanations, beginning with Kasparov’s: “After my disappointing experiences discussing my homeland with American experts, it came as no surprise that President Bush often sounded more alarmed than overjoyed by the prospect of the Soviet Union falling to pieces. The empire was evil, yes, but it was the evil he and everyone in his administration knew very well. Bush also felt he could rely on Gorbachev, although he was a man backed by the KGB and who had never been elected to anything over the unknown quantity of the populist and popularly elected Boris Yeltsin.
“There was more than rhetoric involved in these bizarre attempts to prop up an old foe. Billions of dollars in Western aid and loan guarantees were provided to keep the USSR on life support. Germany alone extended an £8 billion package that was part of the agreement on German unification. Germany’s financial commitments to Russia would balloon to $45 billion by 1992 and they included money for sending Russian troops home and even building housing for them in Russia.
“The United States also stepped in with assurance well before any outcome was clear on democratic reforms in Moscow. On December 12, 1990, President Bush announced a package worth over $1.3 billion in credit and credit guarantees and waived the 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment that put strict controls on doing business with the USSR. Four months later, Bush authorized another $1.5 billion in agricultural loan guarantees. The United States also sent medical aid directly to the Baltic States
27 after the Soviet crackdown there, and to Ukraine for the victims of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe.
“American and other G7 multilateral aid and credit to Russia and other Soviet states only increased over the next few years, with Russia by far the largest beneficiary. In March 1993, feeling the need to support Boris Yeltsin’s government, which was under parliamentary pressure, the G7 put together a $43 billion assistance plan. Japan bowed to the pressure of its fellow G7 members and did not tie its nearly $2 billion in aid to the disputed Kuril Islands. The IMF and the World Bank also opened their wallets, with the World Bank making its largest project loan ever of $610 million to help rebuild Russia’s oil industry. Russia failed to collect all of the offered and due to failing to achieve some required economic requirements. Thankfully, it was too little and far too late to keep the USSR together.
“Separately, during the 1990s billions of dollars came into secure the Soviet nuclear weapons and related programs in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. This can hardly be called anything but a wise investment, since the last things anyone wanted to see was a lack of oversight of nuclear weapons and materials or a diaspora of Soviet nuclear scientists in need of employment.
“All these numbers are tedious, but it is important to counter the popular Russian victimhood myth spread by Putin’s propaganda and by his anti-American, anti-NATO sympathizers around the world. The story goes that Russia was humiliated by the West when the USSR collapsed, leading to resentment and mistrust. They say the Cold War victory ‘lost Russia’ first by not providing enough assistance and then by expanding NATO too aggressively. Both accusations are demonstrably false… if anything the West has been far too willing to forgive and forget the past crimes and dangerous potential of its old enemy.
“In reality, many Western leaders became trapped by the idea that Russia was ‘too big to lose’ and had to be supported at all costs even when it was clear they were throwing good money after bad down a hole of post-Soviet corruption and mismanagement. The danger of hardliners kicking out Gorbachev or the Communists coming back and beating Yeltsin was considered too great. The brief August 1991 coup by hardliners against Gorbachev, whether it was real or of Gorbachev’s own desperate orchestration, resulted in an immediate bump in American aid. Similarly, when the Russian Duma challenged Yeltsin’s reforms in 1993, the US Senate immediately responded by pushing through a $2.5 billion aid package that had been delayed…
“Ironically, the roots of Russia’s descent back into totalitarianism can be traced to the West doing too much to respect the legacy of the USSR as a great power, not too little. Russia was allowed to inherit the Soviet Union’s seat on the UN Security Council when that organization, which had been designed to preserve the Cold War status quo, should instead have been formed to reflect the primacy of the free world. There were no demands for lustration – investigating and prosecuting, or at least ejecting, Soviet officials for their crimes – while Gorbachev was practically canonized in the West.
28 “Not exactly humiliation, unless you count the embarrassment of needing billions in cash and aid from a former rival, a rival that generations of Soviet propaganda had portrayed as heartless and destructive. The USSR lost the Cold War, and losing is painful. This sentiment, feeling like losers, was a consequence of failing to move on from the nation that vanished under our feet. The USSR lost the Cold War, but it was a victory not just for the United States and the West, but for Russians and all Soviet citizens and everyone living behind the Iron Curtain. We were free to live, to speak, and to think for ourselves. The real loss came when we failed to uproot the KGB system…”36
*
But this raises the question: why? Why were the Russians unable to uproot that system, when they had both the opportunity and the motivation, having suffered from it more than any other people? Although the answer to this question must be found at a deeper level than the purely political or economic, we should begin with the unprecedentedly severe economic collapse suffered by Russia in the 1990s, and the fear it generated.
“The basic choice,” writes Tony Judt, “facing post-Communist governments was either to attempt a one-time, overnight transformation from subsidized socialist economies into market-driven capitalism – the ‘big bang’ approach – or else proceed cautiously to dismantle or sell off the more egregiously malfunctioning sectors of the ‘planned economy’ while preserving as long as possible those features which mattered most to the local population: cheap rents, guaranteed jobs, free social services. The first strategy conformed best to the free-market theorems beloved of an emerging generation of post-Communist economists and businessmen; the second was more politically prudent. The problem was that either approach must in the short term (and perhaps the not-so-short term) cause significant pain and loss in Boris Yeltsin’s Russia, where both were applied, the economy shrank dramatically for eight years – the biggest peacetime setback for a major economy in modern history.”37
Of course, Kasparov is right in saying that a smooth transition from Communism to Capitalism “was a hugely difficult task under any circumstances. The history of left- wing dictatorships transitioning to democracy with market economics is a short collection of horror stories. Communism is like an autoimmune disorder; it doesn’t do the killing itself, but it weakens the system so much that the victim is left helpless and unable to fight off anything else. It destroys the human spirit on an individual level, perverting the values of a successful free society.”38
However, Kasparov is superficial in his analysis of the causes of this failure. It was not just that the spirit of entrepreneurialism had not been nourished in the Soviet period, so that people were unused to taking initiatives without orders from above. The problem went deeper in that the only people who had both the money (dollars,
36 Kasparov, op. cit., pp. 27-30. 37 Judt, Postwar, London: Pimlico, 2007, p. 686. 38 Kasparov, op. cit., p. 33.
29 preferably) and the contacts in high places and abroad to build up a successful business were former Communist party members. But they brought with them the corruption of a lifetime in Soviet politics. Cynically swapping the badge “communist” for the badge “democrat”, these “oligarchs”, as they were called, introduced the old ways of corrupt Communism into the brave new world of liberal democracy. Even those who sincerely welcomed the democratic revolution and wanted to make an honest living as minor entrepreneurs could make little headway in a system that was built on bribery and falsehood, and in which scarce resources were snapped up by a few extremely rich individuals – who, to make things still more galling, were mainly Jews…
“Every day, Russians read about the new billionaires being created by cozy deals with the government. You didn’t have to understand how things like privatization vouchers, loans for shares, and rigged auctions worked to realize there was huge scam going on. Worried that reforms might be rolled back by conservatives, Yeltsin’s reform team, led by Yegor Gaidar and Chubais, started selling things off at a frantic pace at absurdly low valuations. Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Boris Berezovsky, already two of the wealthiest and most influential oligarchs, acquired their huge energy firms, Yukos and Sifneft, for less than 10 percent of their real value.”39
A vast gap soon opened up between the “haves” and the “have-nots” in the new system; even professors were reduced to selling their last possessions on the streets. Hardly surprisingly, this led to a powerful wave of resentment against the “haves”, against the government that worked with them, and against the ideas of Capitalism and Democracy. In turn, these feelings swelled the already substantial ranks of the unrepentant Communists, who had never accepted the fall of the Soviet Union and were aiming at a return to power.
It all began with a virtual surrender of state authority by Yeltsin even before the fall of Communism. Of course, the previous state was evil. But anarchy was not an adequate replacement: it just allowed other evil actors to fill the vacuum of power.
As Misha Glenny writes, “It was not long before Yeltsin was moving beyond even the most radical of his youthful team of disciples by announcing that on the eve of January 1st, 1992, the Russian government would free all prices (with some crucial exceptions). With this single act, seventy years of centralist discipline, where the writ of the state penetrated the dustiest nooks of people’s lives, went into hibernation for a decade. It took just months for Russia to descend into a surreal anarchic capitalism, the Wild East.
“The pilots of Yeltsin’s self-styled ‘kamikaze cabinet’ were two young economists, Yegor Gaidar and Anatoly Chubais. Guided by the watchword ‘deregulate’, they flew their planes into the engine room of the Soviet social contract, which had ensure a stable – if grim – course for seventy years. We dismantled everything,’ explained Oleg Davydov, a key official at the Ministry of Trade, ‘we began liberalization in the absence of any controls.’
39 Kasparov, op. cit., p. 76.
30 “Price liberalization, a dry economic term, was the starting gun for a roller-coaster ride into the unknown. For the American economists and advisers who swarmed in the Government in Moscow, this was a unique opportunity. Russia’s economy became a giant Petri-dish of Chicago-school market economics, but among the cultures they were busy cultivating was a Frankenstein that slipped out through the door of their laboratory unnoticed.
“This was partly because the reforms contained a number of catastrophic anomalies. The prices that mattered to millions of ordinary Russians – namely, bread and rents – were liberalized, while those prices that mattered to a tiny enterprising minority were not. In what Gaidar once referred to with gentle understatement as ‘a mistake’, the reform team inexplicably held down the prices of Russia’s vast natural resources – oil, gas, diamonds and metals. A new class of traders could still buy these commodities at the old Soviet subsidized price, often as much as forty times cheaper than the world market value. This was a licence to print money.
“At the same time, the Government agreed to privatize the state monopoly that the Soviet Union had imposed on the import and export of all goods and commodities. This monopoly compelled foreign companies to conduct their business with the Foreign Trade Ministry in Moscow as an intermediary. When it cam to settling the contract, foreign companies did not deal directly with the individual enterprises that were buying or selling. The Ministry would buy from the diamond mines or oil fields in Siberia at the subsidized prices; for example, $1 a barrel of oil. It would then sell on to the foreign buyers at the prince of diamonds or oil on the global market, pocketing the difference and channeling the profits back into the state coffers.
“By exploiting the discrepancy between the high cost of raw materials on world markets, on the one hand, and their subsidized domestic prices on the other, this regime ensured that huge foreign-currency earnings afforded some compensation for the witless inefficiencies of the Soviet planned economy. The Ministry’s monopoly was one of the few things about the Soviet Union that actually worked. It was a supporting wall of the economy: remove it without first installing a replacement and the house would collapse. The ‘kamikaze cabinet’ just removed it.
“The coupling of a privatized foreign-trade mechanism with the retention of rock- bottom subsidized commodity prices gave birth within months to an entirely new species of robber baron – the Russian oligarch. The logic of this life form is simple: buy Siberian oil for $1 a barrel and sell it for $30 in the Baltic states and before long you become a very very rich man. The state was no longer getting its cut from the deal. Instead that vast profit was going to a few individuals.
“Within a matter of four years, a group of several hundred fabulously wealthy men and women had evolved, while an inner clique of mega-billionaires formed a cortex that exercised ever more decisive political influence over President Yeltsin. Between the oligarchs and tens of millions who had fallen into penury stood a small, fragile and exasperated middle class.
31 “This process of enrichment was quite simply the grandest larceny in history and stands no historical comparison. As the New Russia dressed itself up to look like a responsible capitalist economy that was attractive to foreign investment, its most powerful capitalists were raiding its key commodities (mineral resources of almost incalculable value), trading them for dollars and then exporting these funds out of the country in the biggest single flight of capital the world has ever seen. As the IMF shoveled billions into Russia to stabilize the economy and prop up the rouble, the oligarchs sent even larger sums to obscure banks in every corner of the world, from Switzerland to the Pacific island of Nauru, to be swallowed almost immediately in bafflingly complex money-laundering schemes. The whole process was dramatic testimony to how veniality and myopic stupidity are always likely to triumph in the absence of regulatory institutions.
“The Soviet bureaucrats who still administered the state did not understand how to monitor, regulate or adjudicate the principles of commercial exchange. The result ‘was that for all practical purposes the law-enforcement agencies themselves abandoned their task of safeguarding private commercial structures,’ as Olga Kryshtanovskaya, the leading sociologist of the New Russia explained. The police and even the KGB were clueless as to how one might enforce contract law.40 The protection rackets and Mafiosi were not so clueless – their central role in the new Russian economy was to ensure that contracts entered into were honoured. They were the new law-enforcement agencies, and the oligarchs needed their services. Between them, the oligarchs and mafia groups defined the justice system of the New Russia. Between 1991 and 1996, the Russian state effectively absented itself from the policing of society, and the distinctions between legality and illegality, morality and immorality barely existed. In any event, there were no hard-and-fast definitions of organized crime, money-laundering or extortion and, by implication, all commercial transactions were illegal and legal at the same time. This applied as much to drugs and women as it did to cars, cigarettes and oil. Had the rule of law prevailed, there is no question that the oligarch’s behaviours would have warranted severe punishment.
“Meanwhile, in an administration learning to cohabit with the new business conditions, some bad seeds were germinating. The old Soviet criminal-justice system may had had no capacity to regulate the rampant commercial activity that flourished from 1992, but individual bureaucrats could go a long way to facilitate it by rubber- stamping a timely loan from the Central Bank, or by granting a crucial export licence. The catchword at the time was ‘resources’ – the gangster’s ‘resource’ was the ability to wield convincing violence. The oligarch could use his ‘resources’ to blag his way into the ownership of whole factories for a song, and then use this as leverage for further funds. The bureaucrat’s ‘resource’ was his rubber stamp, ever ready in the desk drawer. Each group sold its ‘resources’ to the other. ‘In Soviet times,’ explained Lev Timofeev, a mathematician and economist who was a prominent dissident in the Brezhnev period, ‘the bureaucrat would initiate a deal. He well understood that he operated in a market – there were always shortages in the Soviet Union and a bureaucrat could sell his
40 The present writer had some experience of this. He signed publishing contracts in Russia and Bulgaria in the early 1990s. Neither were fulfilled – and it was obvious that this was because there was no way of enforcing their fulfillment. (V.M.)
32 influence to help individuals overcome that shortage. The key shift in the 1990s comes when the individuals – that is, businessmen – approach the bureaucrat and offer a deal.’
“This simple triangular conspiracy between oligarchs, bureaucrats and organized crime was happily concealed from most by the intense drama being acted out on the streets of Moscow and other major cities: unbridled sexual activity, outrageous displays of wealth, and impenetrable political intrigues. Above all, it was hidden by the outbreak of violent mob wars,”41 such as those between the Solntsevo and Chechen brotherhoods.42
A clear example of a Soviet bureaucrat exploiting the conspiracy between oligarchs, bureaucrats and organized crime was a certain Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. “On 28 June 1991, he became head of the Committee for External Relations of the Saint Petersburg Mayor's Office, with responsibility for promoting international relations and foreign investments and registering business ventures. Within a year, Putin was investigated by the city legislative council led by Marina Salye. It was concluded that he had understated prices and permitted the export of metals valued at $93 million in exchange for foreign food aid that never arrived.”43
So here we have the answer to the question why the KGB system was not rooted out. The answer is: because there was no state powerful enough and savvy enough to root it out. More precisely: anarchy reigned. And even the KGB was not in control of it; in the early 1990s it was in a crisis situation. Gradually it would reassert control – but only by joining forces with the oligarchs and the mafia under the joint leadership of Putin…
*
Let us now look at the foreign element in Russia’s anarchy - the Friedmanite “shock therapy”. We have already encountered this globalist therapy several times: in Chile, in Bolivia, in China and in Poland. And we will see that the strategy began to be applied to Russia before the Soviet Union’s final collapse, when it was in the throes of the shock of perestroika and therefore needed the West’s financial help.
Naomi Klein writes: “When Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev flew to London to attend his fist G7 Summit in July 1991, he had every reason to expect a hero’s welcome. For the previous three years, he had seemed not so much to stride across the international stage as to float, charming the media, signing disarmament treaties and picking up peace prizes, including the Nobel in 1990…
“By the beginning of the nineties, with his twin policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring), Gorbachev had led the Soviet Union through a remarkable process of democratization: the press had been freed, Russia’s parliament, local councils, president and vice president had been elected, and the constitutional court
41 Glenny, McMafia. Serious Organized Crime, London: Vintage, 2009, pp. 70-74. 42 Glenny, op. cit., p. 80. 43 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin.
33 was independent. As for the economy, Gorbachev was moving toward a mixture of a free market and a strong safety net, with key industries under public control – a process he predicted would take ten to fifteen years to be completed. His end goal was to build social democracy on the Scandinavian model, ‘a socialist beacon for all mankind’.
“At first it seemed that the West also wanted Gorbachev to succeed in loosening up the Soviet economy and transforming it into something close to Sweden’s. The Nobel Committee explicitly described the prize as a way of offering support to the transition – ‘a helping hand in an hour of need’. And on a visit to Prague, Gorbachev made it clear that he couldn’t do it all alone: ‘Like mountain climbers on one rope, the world’s nations can either climb together to the summit or fall together into the abyss,’ he said.
“So what happened at the G7 meeting in 1991 was totally unexpected. The nearly unanimous message that Gorbachev received from his fellow heads of state was that, if he did not embrace radical economic shock therapy immediately, they would sever the rope and let him fall. ‘Their suggestions as to the tempo and methods of transition were astonishing,’ Gorbachev wrote of the event.
“Poland had just completed its first round of shock therapy under the IMF’s and Jeffrey Sachs’s tutelage, and the consensus among British prime minister John Major, U.S. president George H.W. Bush, Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney and Japanese prime minister Toshiki Kaifu was that the Soviet Union had to follow Poland’s lead on an even faster timetable. After the meeting, Gorbachev got the same marching orders from the IMF, the World Bank and every other major lending institutions. Later that year, when Russia asked for debt forgiveness to weather a catastrophic economic crisis, the stern answer was that the debts had to be honored. Since the time when Sachs had marshaled aid and debt relief for Poland, the political mood had changed – it was meaner.
“What happened next – the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev’s eclipse by Yeltsin, and the tumultuous course of economic shock therapy – is a well-documented chapter of contemporary history. It is, however, a story too often told in the bland language of ‘reform’, a narrative so generic that it has hidden one of the greatest crimes committed against a democracy in modern history. Russia, like China, was forced to choose between a Chicago School economic program and an authentic democratic revolution. Faced with that choice, China’s leaders had attacked their own people in order to prevent democracy from disturbing their free-market plans. Russia was different: the democratic revolution was already well under way – in order to push through a Chicago School economic program, that peaceful and hopeful process that Gorbachev began had to be violently interrupted, then radically reversed.
“Gorbachev knew that the only way to impose the kind of shock therapy being advocated by the G7 and the IMF was with force – as did many in the West pushing for these policies. The Economist magazine, in an influential 1990 piece, urged Gorbachev to adopt ‘strong-man rule… to smash the resistance that has blocked serious economic reform.’ Only two weeks after the Nobel Committee had declared an end to the Cold War, The Economist was urging Gorbachev to model himself after one of the Cold War’s most notorious killers. Under the heading ‘Mikhail Sergeevich Pinochet?’ the article
34 concluded that even though following its advice could cause ‘possible blood-letting… it might, just might, be the Soviet Union’s turn for what could be called the Pinochet approach to liberal economics.’ The Washington Post was willing to go further. In August 1991, the paper ran a commentary under the headline ‘Pinochet’s Chile a Pragmatic Model for Soviet Economy’. The article supported the idea of a coup for getting rid of the slow-going Gorbachev, but the author, Michael Schtage, worried that the Soviet president’s opponents ‘had neither the savvy nor the support to seize the Pinochet option’. They should model themselves, Schtage wrote, after ‘a despot who really knew how to run a coup, retired Chilean general Augusto Pinochet.’
“Gorbachev soon found himself facing an adversary who was more than willing to play the role of a Russian Pinochet. Boris Yeltsin, though holding the post of Russian president, had a much lower profile than Gorbachev, who headed all the Soviet Union. That was to change dramatically on August 19, 1991, one month after the G7 Summit….
“… As a leader, he had always been a kind of anti-Gorbachev. Where Gorbachev had projected propriety and sobriety (one of his most controversial measures was an aggressive anti-vodka-drinking campaign). Yeltsin was a notorious glutton and a heavy drinker. Prior to the coup, many Russians harbored reservations about Yeltsin, but he had helped save democracy from a Communist coup, and that made him, at least for the time being, a people’s hero…
“Jeffrey Sachs was in the room at the Kremlin on the day Yeltsin announced that the Soviet Union was no more. Sachs recalled the Russian president saying, ‘Gentlemen, I just want to announce that the Soviet Union has ended…’ And I said, ‘Gee, you know, this is once in a century. This is the most incredible thing you can imagine; this is a true liberation, let’s help these people.’ Yeltsin had invited Sachs to come to Russia to serve as an adviser, and Sachs was more than game: ‘If Poland can do it, so can Russia,’ he declared.
“But Yeltsin didn’t just want advice, he wanted the kind of gold-plated fund-raising that Sachs had pulled off for Poland. ‘The only hope,’ Yeltsin said, ‘was the promises of the Group of Seven quickly to grant us large sums of financial aid.’ Sachs told Yeltsin he was confident that if Moscow was willing to go with the ‘big bang’ approach in establishing a capitalist economy, he could raise something in the area of $15 billion. They would need to be ambitious, and they would need to move fast. What Yeltsin did not know was that Sachs’s luck was about to run out.
“Russia’s conversion to capitalism had much in common with the corrupt approach that had sparked the Tiananmen Square protests in China four years earlier. Moscow’s mayor, Gavriil Popov, has claimed that there were really only two options for how to break up the centrally-controlled economy: ‘Property can be divided among all members of society, or the best pieces can be given to the leaders… In a word, there’s the democratic approach, and there’s the nomenklatura, apparatchik approach.’ Yeltsin took the latter approach – and he was in a hurry. In late 1991, he went to the parliament and made an unorthodox proposal: if they gave him one year of special powers, under which he could issue laws by decree rather than bring them to parliament for a vote, he would solve the economic crisis and give them back a thriving, healthy system. What
35 Yeltsin was asking for was the kind of executive power enjoyed by dictators, not democrats, but the parliament was still grateful to the president for his role during the attempted coup, and the country was desperate for foreign aid. The answer was yes: Yeltsin could have one year of absolute power to remake Russia’s economy.
“He immediately assembled a team of economists, many of whom, in the final years of Communism, had formed a kind of free-market book club, reading the basic texts of the Chicago School thinkers and discussing how the theories could be applied to Russia. Thought they had never studies in the U.S., they were such devoted fans of Milton Friedman that the Russian press took to calling Yeltsin’s team ‘the Chicago Boys’, a knock-off of the original title, and fitting in the context of Russia’s thriving black market economy. In the West they were dubbed ‘the young reformers’. The group’s figurehead was Yegor Gaidar, whom Yeltsin names as one of the two deputy prime ministers. Pyotr Aven, a Yeltsin minister in 1991-92 who was part of the inner circle, said of his former clique, ‘Their identification of themselves with God, which flowed naturally from their belief in their all-round superiority, was, unfortunately, typical of our reformers.’
“Surveying the group that had suddenly ascended to power in Moscow, the Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta observed the rather astonishing development that ‘for the first time Russia will get in its government a team of liberals who consider themselves followers of Friedrich von Hayek and the ‘Chicago School’ of Milton Friedman.’ Their policies were ‘quite clear – “strict financial stabilization” according to “shock therapy” recipes.’ At the same time as Yeltsin made these appointments, the newspaper noted, he had also put the notorious strongman, Yury Skokov ‘in charge of the defense and repressive departments: the Army, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the State Security Committee.’ The decisions were clearly connected. The article ended with a prediction: ‘It will come as no surprise if they attempt to construct something like a homegrown Pinochet system, in which the rule of the “Chicago boys” will be played by Gaidar’s team.’
“To provide ideological and technical backup for Yeltsin’s Chicago Boys, the U.S. government funded its own transition experts whose jobs ranged from writing privatization decrees, to launching a New York-style stock exchange, to designing a Russian mutual fund market. In the fall of 1992, US-AID awarded a $2.1 million contract to the Harvard Institute for International Development, which sent teams of young lawyers and economists to shadow the Gaidar team. In May 1995, Harvard named Sachs director of the Harvard Institute for International Development, which meant that he played two roles in Russia’s reform period: he began as a freelance adviser to Yeltsin, then moved on to overseeing Harvard’s large Russia outpost, funded by the U.S. government.
“Once again a group of self-described revolutionaries huddled in secret to write a radical economic program. As Dimitry Vasiliev, one of the key reformers, recalled, ‘At the start we didn’t have a single employee, not even a fax machine. And in those conditions, in just a month and a half, we had to write a comprehensive privatization program, we had to write twenty normative laws… It was a really romantic period.’
36 “On October 28, 1991, Yeltsin announced the lifting of price controls, predicting that ‘the liberalization of prices will put everything in its right place’. The ‘reformers’ waited only one week after Gorbachev resigned to launch their economic shock therapy program… [It] also included free-trade policies and the first phase of the rapid-fire privatization of the country’s approximately 225,000 state-owned companies.
“’The country was taken by surprise by the “Chicago Boy” program,’ one of Yeltsin’s original economic advisers recalled. ‘That surprise was deliberate, part of Gaidar’s strategy of unleashing change so suddenly and quickly that resistance would be impossible. The problem his team was up against was the usual one: the threat of democracy obstructing their plans. Russians did not want their economy organized by a Communist central committee, but most still believe firmly in wealth redistribution and in an activist role for government. Like the Polish supporters of Solidarity, 67 percent of Russians told pollsters in 1992 they believed workers’ cooperatives were the most equitable way to privatize the assets of the Communist state, and 70 percent said they considered maintaining full employment to be a core function of government. That meant that if Yeltsin’s team had submitted their plans to democratic debate, rather than launching a stealth attack on an already deeply disoriented public, the Chicago School revolution would not have stood a chance…
“Joseph Stiglitz, who at the time was serving as chief economist at the World Bank, summarized the mentality that guided the shock therapists. His metaphors should by now be familiar. ‘Only a blitzkrieg approach during the “window of opportunity” provided by the “fog of transition” would get the changes made before the population had a chance to organize to protect its previous tested interests.’ In other words, the shock doctrine.
“Stiglitz called Russia’s reformers ‘market Bolsheviks’ for their fondness for cataclysmic revolution. However, where the original Bolsheviks fully intended to build their centrally planned state in the ashes of the old, the market Bolsheviks believed in a kind of magic: if the optimal conditions for profit making were created, the country would rebuild itself, no planning required. (It was a faith that would reemerge, a decade later, in Iraq.)
“Yeltsin made wild promises that ‘for approximately six months, things will be worse,’ but then the recovery would begin, and soon enough Russia would be an economic titan, one of the top four economies of the world. This logic of so-called creative destruction resulted in scarce creation and spiraling destruction. After only one year, shock therapy had taken a devastating toll: millions of middle-class Russians had lost their life savings when money lost its value, and abrupt cuts to subsidies meant millions of workers had not been paid in months.44 The average Russian consumed 40 percent less in 1992 than in 1991, and a third of the population fell below the poverty line. The middle class was forced to sell personal belongings from card tables on the streets – desperate acts that the Chicago School economists praised as ‘entrepreneurial’,
44 The present writer experienced the same in another post-communist country, when employed as a lecturer by Sophia State University in Bulgaria in 1994-94. (V.M.)
37 proof that a capitalist renaissance was indeed under way, one family heirloom and second-hand blazer at a time.
“As in Poland, Russians did, eventually, regain their bearings and began to demand an end to the sadistic economic adventure (‘no more experiments’ was a popular piece of graffiti in Moscow at the time), Under pressure from voters, the country’s elected parliament – the same body that had supported Yeltsin’s rise to power – decided it was time to rein in the president and his ersatz Chicago Boys. In December 1992, they voted to unseat Yegor Gaidar, and three months later, in March 1993, the parliamentarians voted to repeal the special powers they had given to Yeltsin to impose his economic laws by decree. The grace period had expired, and the results were abysmal; from now on, laws had to go through parliament, a standard measure in any liberal democracy and following the procedures set out in Russia’s constitution.
“The deputies were acting within their rights, but Yeltsin had grown accustomed to his augmented powers and had come to think of himself less as a president and more as a monarch (he had taken to calling himself Boris I). He retaliated against the parliament’s ‘mutiny’ by going on television and declaring a state of emergency, which conveniently restored his imperial powers. Three days later, Russia’s independent Constitutional Court (the creation of which was one of Gorbachev’s most significant democratic breakthroughs) ruled 9-3 that Yeltsin’s power grab violated, on eight different counts, the constitution he had sworn to uphold.
“Until this point, it had still been possible to present ‘economic reform’ and democratic reform as part of the same project in Russia. But once Yeltsin declared a state of emergency the two projects were on a collision course, with Yeltsin and his shock therapists in direct opposition to the elected parliament and the constitution.
“Nevertheless, the West threw its weight behind Yeltsin, who was still cast in the role of a progressive ‘genuinely committed to freedom and democracy, genuinely committed to reform’, in the words of the then president Bill Clinton. The majority of the Western press also sided with Yeltsin against the entire parliament, whose members were dismissed as ‘communist hard-liners’ trying to roll back democratic reforms. They suffered, according to the New York Times Moscow bureau chief, from ‘a Soviet mentality – suspicious of reform, ignorant of democracy, disdainful of intellectuals or democrats.’
“In fact, these were the same politicians, for all their flaws (and with 1,041 deputies there were plenty), who had stood with Yeltsin and Gorbachev against the coup by the hardliners in 1991, who had voted to dissolve the Soviet Union and who had, until recently, thrown their support behind Yeltsin. Yet The Washington Post opted to cast Russia’s parliamentarians as ‘antigovernment’ – as if they were interlopers and not themselves part of the government.
“In the spring of 1993, the collusion drew closer when parliament brought forward a budget bill that did not follow IMF demands for strict austerity. Yeltsin responded by trying to eliminate the parliament. He hastily threw together a referendum, supported in Orwellian fashion by the press, which asked voters if they agreed to dissolve
38 parliament and hold snap elections. Not enough voters turned out to give Yeltsin the mandate he needed. He still claimed victory, however, maintaining that the exercise proved the country was behind him, because he had slipped in an entirely non-binding question about whether voters supported his reforms. A slim majority said yes.
“In Russia, the referendum was widely seen as a propaganda exercise, and a failed one at that. The reality was that Yeltsin and Washington were still stuck with a parliament that had the constitutional right to do what it was doing, slowing down the shock therapy transformation. An intense pressure campaign began Lawrence Summers, then U.S. Treasury undersecretary, warned that ‘the momentum for Russian reform must be reinvigorated and intensified to ensure sustained multilateral support.’ The IMF got the message, and an unnamed official leaked to the press that a promised $1.5 billion loan was being rescinded because the IMF was ‘unhappy with Russia’s backtracking on reform’. Pyotr Aven, the former Yeltsin minister, said, ‘The maniacal obsession of the IMF with budgetary and monetary policy, and its absolutely superficial and formal attitude to everything else… placed not a small role in what happened.’
“What happened was that the day after the IMF leak, Yeltsin, confident that he had the West’s support, took his first irreversible step toward what was now being openly referred to as the ‘Pinochet option’: he issued decree 1400, announcing that the constitution was abolished and parliament dissolved. Two days later, a special session of parliament voted 636-2 to impeach Yeltsin for this outrageous act (the equivalent of the U.S. president unilaterally dissolving Congress). Vice-President Aleksandr Rutskoi announced that Russia had already ‘paid a dear price for the political adventurism’ of Yeltsin and the reformers.
“Some kind of armed conflict between Yeltsin and the parliament was now inevitable. Despite the fact that Russia’s Constitutional Court once again ruled Yeltsin’s behavior unconstitutional, Clinton continued to back him, and Congress voted to give Yeltsin $2.5 billion in aid. Emboldened, Yeltsin sent in troops to surround the parliament and get the city to cut off power, heat and phone lines to the White House parliament building. Boris Kagarlitsky, director of the Institute of Globalization Studies in Moscow, told me that supporters of Russian democracy ‘were coming in by the thousands trying to break the blockade. There were two weeks of peaceful demonstrations confronting the troops and police forces, which led to partial unblocking of the parliament building, with people able to bring food and water inside. Peaceful resistance was growing more popular and gaining broader support every day.’
“With each side becoming more entrenched, the only compromise that could have resolved the standoff would have been for both sides to agree to early elections, putting everybody’s job up for public review. Many were urging this outcome, but just as Yeltsin was weighing his options, and reportedly leaning toward elections, news came from Poland that voters had rained down their decisive punishment on Solidarity, the party that had betrayed them with shock therapy.
39 “After they witnessed Solidarity get pounded at the polls, it was obvious to Yeltsin and his Western advisers that early elections were far too risky. In Russia, too much wealth hung in the balance: huge oil-fields, about 30 percent of the world’s natural gas reserves, 20 percent of its nickel, not to mention weapons factories and the state media apparatus with which the Communist Party had controlled the vast population.
“Yeltsin abandoned negotiations and moved into war posture. Having just doubled military salaries, he had most of the army on his side, and he ‘surrounded the parliament with thousands of Interior Ministry troops, barbed wire and water cannons and refused to let anyone pass,’ according to The Washington Post. Vice-President Rutskoi, Yeltsin’s main rival in parliament, had by this point armed his guards and welcomed proto-fascist nationalists into his camp. He urged his supporters to ‘not give a moment of peace’ to Yeltsin’s ‘dictatorship’. Kagarlitsky, who participated in the protest and wrote a book about the episode, told me that on October 3, crowds of supporters of the parliament ‘marched to the Ostankino TV center to demand that news be announced. Some people in the crowd were armed, but most were not. There were children in the crowd. It was met by Yeltsin’s troops and machinegunned.’ About one hundred demonstrators, and one member of the military, were killed. Yeltsin’s next move was to dissolve all city and regional councils in the country. Russia’s young democracy was being destroyed piece by piece.
“There is no doubt that some parliamentarians showed antipathy for a peaceful settlement by egging on the crowds, but as even the former U.S. State Department official Leslie Gelb wrote, the parliament was ‘not dominated by a bunch of right-wing crazies’. It was Yeltsin’s illegal dissolution of parliament and his defiance of the country’s highest court that precipitated the crisis – moves that were bound to be met by desperate measures in a country that had little desire to give up the democracy it had just won.
“A clear signal from Washington or the EU could have forced Yeltsin to engage in serious negotiations with the parliamentarians, but he received only encouragement. Finally, on the morning of October 4, 1992, Yeltsin fulfilled his long-prescribed destiny and became Russia’s very own Pinochet, unleashing a series of violent events with unmistakable echoes of the coup in Chile exactly twenty years earlier. In what was the third traumatic shock inflicted by Yeltsin on the Russian people, he ordered a reluctant army to storm the Russian White House, setting it on fire and leaving charred the very building he had built his reputation defending just two years earlier. Communism may have collapsed without the firing of a single shot, but Chicago-style capitalism, it turned out, required a great deal of gunfire to defend itself. Yeltsin called in five thousand soldiers, dozens of tanks and armored personnel carriers, helicopters and elite shock troops armed with automatic machine guns – all to defend Russia’s new capitalist economy from the grave threat of democracy…
“By the end of the day, the all-out military assault had taken the lives of approximately five hundred people and wounded almost a thousand, the most violence Moscow had seen since 1917. Peter Reddaway and Dmitri Glinski, who wrote the definitive account of the Yeltsin years (The Tragedy of Russia’s Reforms. Market Bolshevism against Democracy) point out that ‘during the mopping-up operation in and
40 around the White House, 1,700 persons had been arrested, and 11 weapons seized. Some of the arrested were interned in a sports stadium, recalling the procedures used by Pinochet after the 1973 coup in Chile.’ Many were taken to police stations, where they were severely beaten…”45
At this point, October, 1994, Russian democracy died, to be replaced by an uncrowned monarch - who was, however, largely controlled by a clique of very rich “oligarchs”. The coup had been carried out with the full support of the West, thereby demonstrating what had been evident for some decades already, that the West’s primary concern and value was not democracy, but the free market. Various kinds of dictatorship from Pinochet to the Saudi kings to Yeltsin could be protected and supported – so long as they delivered the economic goods: oil and/or completely unregulated markets that the big western corporations could then exploit at enormous profit. The illusion of democracy was useful, and was especially plausible in countries like Russia where there had certainly been no democracy; so the hugely destructive changes introduced by the economic “experts” could all be described as the necessary transition from despotism to democracy. But “democracy” was the means, the excuse, not the end: the end was the unbridled rule of King Mammon…
“After Yeltsin’s coup,” continues Klein, “Stanley Fischer, first deputy managing director of the IMF (and a 1970s Chicago Boy), advocated ‘moving as fast as possible on all fronts.’ So did Lawrence Summers, who was helping to shape Russia policy in the Clinton administration. The ‘three “-isms”’, as he called them – ‘privatization, stabilization and liberalization – must all be completed as soon as possible.’
“Change was so rapid that it was impossible for Russians to keep up. Workers often did not even know that their factories and mines had been sold – let alone how they had been sold or to whom (a profound confusion I would witness a decade later in the state-owned factories of Iraq). In theory, all this wheeling and dealing was supposed to create the economic boom that would lift Russia out of desperation; in practice, the Communist state was simply replaced with a corporatist one: the beneficiaries of the boom were confined to a small club of Russians, many of them former Communist party apparatchiks, and a handful of Western mutual fund managers who made dizzying returns investing in newly privatized Russian companies. A clique of nouveaux billionaires, many of whom were to become part of the group universally known as ‘the oligarchs’ for their imperial levels of wealth and power, teamed up with Yeltsin’s Chicago Boys and stripped the country of nearly everything of value, moving the enormous profits offshore at a rate of $2 billion a month. Before shock therapy, Russia had no millionaires; by 2003, the number of Russian billionaires had risen to seventeen, according to the Forbes list.
“That is partly because, in a rare departure from Chicago School orthodoxy, Yeltsin and his team did not allow foreign multinationals to buy up Russia’s assets directly; they kept the prizes for Russians, then opened up the newly privatized companies, owned by so-called oligarchs, to foreign shareholders. The returns were still astronomical. ‘Looking for an investment that could gain 2,000 per cent in three years?’
45 Klein, The Shock Doctrine, London: Penguin, 2007, pp. 218-228, 229.
41 The Wall Street Journal asked. ‘Only one stock market offers that hope.. Russia.’ Many investment banks, including Credit Suisse First Boston, as well as a few deep-pocketed financiers, quickly set up dedicated Russian mutual funds…”46
However, there was a problem: ordinary Russian people were not fooled by what was going on, and so the “democratic” cover for the robbery that was going on, Yeltsin, lost popularity – drastically. And so “in December 1994 Yeltsin did what so many desperate leaders [including Serbia’s Slobodan Milošević just a few years earlier] have done throughout history to hold on to power: he started a war. His national security chief, Oleg Lobov, had confided to a legislator, ‘We need a small, victorious war to raise the president’s ratings,’ and the defence minister predicted that his army could defeat the forces in the breakaway republic of Chechnya in a matter of hours – a cakewalk.
“For a while at least, the plan seemed to work. In its first phase, the Chechen independence movement was partially suppressed, and Russian troops took over the already abandoned presidential palace in Grozny, allowing Yeltsin to declare glorious victory. It would prove to be a short-term triumph, both in Chechnya and in Moscow. When Yeltsin faced reelection in 1996, he was still so unpopular and his defeat looked so certain that his advisers toyed with canceling the vote altogether; a letter signed by a group of Russian bankers published in all the Russian national newspapers strongly hinted at this possibility. Yeltsin’s privatization minister, Anatoly Chubais (whom Sachs once described as ‘a freedom fighter’), became one of the most outspoken proponents of the Pinochet option. ‘In order to have a democracy in society there must be a dictatorship in power,’ he pronounced. It was a direct echo of both the excuses made for Pinochet by Chile’s Chicago Boys and Deng Xiaoping’s philosophy of Friedmanism without the freedom.
“In the end the election went ahead and Yeltsin won, thanks to an estimated $100 million in financing from oligarchs (thirty-three times the legal amount) as well as eight hundred times more coverage on oligarch-controlled TV stations than his rivals. With the threat of a sudden change in government removed, the knockoff Chicago Boys were able to move to the most contentious, and most lucrative, part of their program: selling off what Lenin had once called ‘the commanding heights’.
“Forty percent of an oil company comparable in size to France’s Total was sold for $88 million (Total’s sales in 2006 were $193 million). Norilsk Nickel, which produced a fifth of the world’s nickel, was sold for $170 million – even though its profits alone soon reached $1.5 billion annually. The massive oil company Yukos, which controls more oil than Kuwait, was sold for $309 million; it now earns more than $3 billion in revenue a year. Fifty-one percent of the oil giant Sidenko went for $130 million; just two years later this stake would be valued on the international market at $2.8 billion. A huge weapons factory sold for $3 million, the price of a vacation home in Aspen.
“The scandal wasn’t just that Russia’s public riches were auctioned off for a fraction of their worth – it was also that, in true corporatist style, they were purchased with public money. As the Moscow Times journalists Matt Bivens and Jonas Bernstein put it,
46 Klein, op. cit., pp. 231.
42 ‘a few hand-picked men took over Russia’s state-developed oil fields for free, as part of a giant shell game in which one arm of government paid another arm.’ In a bold act of cooperation between the politicians selling the public companies and the businessmen buying them, several of Yeltsin’s ministers transferred large sums of public money, which should have gone into the national bank or treasury, into private banks that had one been hastily incorporated by oligarchs. The state then contracted with the same banks to run the privatization auctions for the oil fields and mines. The banks ran the auctions, but they also bid in them – and sure enough, the oligarch-owned banks decided to make themselves the proud new owners of the previously public assets. The money that they put up to buy the shares in these public companies was likely the same public money that Yeltsin’s ministers had deposited with them earlier. In other words, the Russian people fronted the money for the looting of their own country.
“As one of Russia’s ‘young reformers’ put it, when Russia’s Communists decided to break up the Soviet Union, they made an ‘exchange [of] power for property’. Just like his mentor Pinochet’s, Yeltsin’s own family grew extremely rich, his children and several of their spouses appointed to top posts at large privatized forms.
“With oligarchs firmly in control of the key assets of the Russian state, they opened up their new companies to blue-chip multinationals, who snapped up large portions. In 1997, Royal Dutch/Shell and BP entered into partnerships with two key Russian oil giants, Gazprom and Sidanko. These were highly profitable investments, but the principal share of the wealth in Russia was in the hands of Russian players, not their foreign partners. It is an oversight that the IMF and the U.S. Treasury would successfully rectify in future privatization auctions in Bolivia and Argentina. And in Iraq after the invasion, the U.S. would go even further, attempting to cut the local elite out of lucrative privatization deals entirely.
“Wayne Merry, the chief political analyst at the U.S. embassy in Moscow during the key years of 1990 to 1994, has admitted that the choice between democracy and market interests in Russia was a stark one. ‘The U.S. government chose the economic over the political. We chose the freeing of prices, privatization of industry, and the creation of a really unfettered, unregulated capitalism, and essentially hoped that rule of law, civil society, and representative democracy would develop somehow automatically as a result of that… Unfortunately, the choice was to ignore popular will and to press on with the policy.’”47
Shock therapy in Russia “had cracked it open to flows of hot money – short-term speculative investment and currency trading, which are highly profitable. Such intense speculation meant that in 1998, when the Asian financial crisis started spreading, Russia was left wholly unprotected. Its already precarious economy crashed definitively. The public blamed Yeltsin, and his approval rating dropped to an utterly untenable 6 percent. With the futures of many of the oligarchs in jeopardy once again, it was going to take yet another major shock to save the economic project and stave off the threat of genuine democracy coming to Russia.
47 Klein, op. cit., pp. 232-234.
43 *
“In September 1999, the country was hit by a series of exceedingly cruel terrorist attacks: seemingly out of the blue, four apartment buildings were blown up in the middle of the night, killing close to three hundred people…
“The man put in charge of hunting down the ‘animals’ was Russia’s prime minister, the steely and vaguely sinister Vladimir Putin…”48
As was revealed by former FSB (KGB) Agent Alexander Litvinenko, the “animals” were in fact the KGB, who staged the explosions and then put the blame onto Chechen terrorists in order to provide an excuse for the start of a Second Chechen war.49 For his exposures, Litvinenko paid with his life (through the bizarre method of Polonium-210 poisoning, a mini-nuclear bomb) in London in 2006. In 2016 the British Supreme Court determined that Putin was “probably” behind the Litvinenko killing.
“Immediately after the apartment bombings, in late September 1999, Putin launched air strikes on Chechnya, attacking civilian areas. In the new light of terror, the fact that Putin was a seventeen-year veteran of the KGB – the most feared symbol of the Communist era – suddenly seemed reassuring to many Russians. With Yeltsin’s alcoholism making him increasingly dysfunctional, Putin the protector was perfectly positioned to succeed him as president. On December 31, 1999, with the war in Chechnya foreclosing serious debate, several oligarchs [notably Berezovsky] engineered a quiet takeover from Yeltsin to Putin, no elections necessary. Before he left power, Yeltsin took one last page out of the Pinochet playbook and demanded legal immunity for himself. Putin’s first act as president was signing a law protecting Yeltsin from any criminal prosecution, whether for corruption or for the military’s killing of pro-democracy demonstrators that took place on his watch.”50
Klein concludes her verdict on Yeltsin’s reign as follows: “Yeltsin is regarded by history more as a corrupt buffoon than a menacing strongman. Yet his economic policies, and the wars he waged in order to protect them, contributed significantly to the Chicago School crusade death toll, which has been mounting steadily since Chile in the seventies. In addition to the casualties of Yeltsin’s October coup, the wars in Chechnya have killed an estimated 100,000 civilians. The larger massacres he precipitated have taken place in slow motion, but their numbers are much higher – the ‘collateral damage’ of economic shock therapy.
“In the absence of major famine, plague or battle, never have so many lost so much in so short a time. By 1998, more than 80 percent of Russian farms had gone bankrupt, and roughly seventy thousand state factories had closed, creating an epidemic of unemployment. In 1989, before shock therapy, 2 million people in the Russian Federation were living in poverty, on less than $4 a day. By the time the shock
48 Klein, op. cit., pp. 236, 237. 49 See “Russian Apartment Bombings”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_apartment_bombings 50 Klein, op. cit., p. 237.
44 therapists had administered their ‘bitter medicine’ in the mid-nineties, 74 million Russians were living below the poverty line, according to the World Bank. That means that Russia’s ‘economic reforms’ can claim credit for the impoverishment of 72 million people in only eight years. By 1996, 25 percent of Russians – almost 37 million people – lived in poverty described as ‘desperate’.
“Although millions of Russians have been pulled out of poverty in recent years, thanks largely to soaring oil and gas prices, Russia’s underclass of extreme poor has remained permanent – with all the sicknesses associated with that discarded status. As miserable as life under Communism was, with crowded, cold apartments, Russians at least were housed; in 2006 the government admitted that there were 715,000 homeless kids in Russia, and UNICEF has put the number as high as 3.5 million children.
“During the Cold War, widespread alcoholism was always seen in the West as evidence that life under Communism was so dismal that Russians needed large quantities of vodka to get through the day.51 Under capitalism, however, Russians drink more than twice as much alcohol as they used to – and they are reaching for harder painkillers as well. Russia’s drug czar, Aleksandr Mikhailov, says that the number of users went up 900 percent from 1994 to 2004, to more than 4 million people, many of them heroin addicts. The drug epidemic has contributed to another silent killer: in 1995, fifty thousand Russians were HIV positive, and in only two years that number doubled; ten years later, according to UNAIDS, nearly a million Russians were HIV positive.
“These are the slow deaths, but there are fast ones as well. As soon as shock therapy was introduced in 1992, Russia’s already high suicide rate began to rise; 1994, the peak of Yeltsin’s ‘reforms’, saw the suicide rate climb to almost double what it had been eight years earlier. Russians also killed each other with much greater frequency: by 1994, violent crime had increased more than fourfold.
“’What have our motherland and her people gotten out of the last 15 criminal years?’ Vladimir Gusev, a Moscow academic, asked at a 2006 democracy demonstration. ‘The years of criminal capitalism have killed off 10 percent of our population.’ Russia’s population is indeed in dramatic decline – the country is losing roughly 700,000 people a year. Between 1992, the first full year of shock therapy, and 2006, Russia’s population shrank by 6.6 million. Three decades ago, André Gunder Frank, the dissident Chicago economist, wrote a letter to Milton Friedman accusing him of ‘economic genocide’. Many Russians describe the slow disappearance of their fellow citizens in similar terms today.
“This planned misery is made all the more grotesque because the wealth accumulated by the elite is flaunted in Moscow as nowhere else outside of a handful of oil emirates. In Russia today, wealth is so stratified that the rich and the poor seem to be living not only in different countries but in different centuries. One time zone is
51 One explanation provided by Schema-Monk Epiphany (Chernov) is that one in four Russians were employed as spies on their neighbours by the KGB, and vodka served to drown the guilt this engendered. (V.M.)
45 downtown Moscow, transformed in fast-forward into a futuristic twenty-first-century sin city, where oligarchs race around in black Mercedes convoys, guarded by top-of- the-line mercenary soldiers, and where Western money managers are seduced by the open investment rules by day and by on-the-house prostitutes by night. In the other time zone, a seventeen-year-old provincial girl, asked about her hopes for the future, replied, ‘It’s difficult to talk about the twenty-first century when you’re sitting here reading by candlelight. The twenty-first century does not matter. It’s the nineteenth century here.’
“The pillage of a country with as much wealth as Russia required extreme acts of terror – from the torching of the parliament to the invasion of Chechnya. ‘Policy that breeds poverty and crime,’ writes Georgi Arbatov, one of Yeltsin’s original (and ignored) economic advisers, ‘… can survive only if democracy is suppressed.’ Just as it had been in the Southern Cone, in Bolivia under the state of siege, in China during Tiananmen. Just as it would be in Iraq…”52
Writing in 1998, Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of Russia’s democratic party Yabloko, wrote: “Corporatist states, marked by high-level criminality but bearing the trappings of democracy, differ more than is sometimes recognized from Western-style market democracies. Their markets are driven by oligarchs, whose goal is increasing their personal wealth. Freedom of the press and other civil liberties are suppressed. Laws are frequently ignored or suspended and constitutions obeyed only when convenient. Corruption is rife from the streets to the halls of power. Personalities, contacts, and clans count for more than institutions and laws. For examples, one need only reflect on the unhappy experiences of many Latin American countries in the 1970s and 1980s…
“… While Russia has its economic successes, many aspects of the economy suggest that it is moving toward a corporatist market in which corruption is rampant. The most important of these trends is the rise of the Russian oligarchs, who have created a form of robber-baron capitalism. Far from creating an open market, Russia has consolidated a semi-criminal oligarchy that was already largely in place under the old Soviet system. After communism’s collapse, it merely changed it appearance, just as a snake sheds its skin…”53
The snake shed its skin once more only two years later, when Putin came to power. He simply replaced one set of robber-barons by another, still wealthier and still more criminal clan or gang. What was added was a powerful “boss of bosses” to introduce “order” into this criminal world, guaranteeing the maximum and most efficient corruption. As Anton Grigoriev puts it: “In the 1990s there was disorganized criminality. In the 2000s this was turned into the vertically integrated backbone of the new order.”54
52 Klein, op. cit., pp. 237-239. 53 Yavlinsky, “Russia’s Phony Capitalism”, Foreign Affairs, May/June, 1998, pp. 68, 69. 54 Grigoriev, “Banditizm i novij poriadok pri Putine” (Banditism and the New Order under Putin), http://anton-grigoriev.livejournal.com/1684413.html?utm_source=fbsharing&utm_medium=social.
46 81. RUSSIA IN THE 1990s: (2) THE SPIRITUAL CATASTROPHE
However, all these politico-economic explanations of Russia’s failure to recover in the 1990s are superficial. If the people had thoroughly repented of the evils they had committed, individually and collectively, since the revolution, God could have nullified these material factors. Let us now turn to spiritual causes, to asking why internal renewal, that is, repentance, failed to take place on a sufficient scale to draw God’s mercy back to the people…
The ROCOR philosopher Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyin (+1954) said: “Russia will be regenerated only when in the soul of the Russian man there will again appear an altar for God and a throne for the Tsar”.55
These two conditions required the removal of two obstacles or spiritual mountains in the way of the building of God’s Temple (Zechariah 4.7): (1) the Moscow Patriarchate, that KGB-controlled mockery of an Orthodox church, enabling a true altar to be erected to the true God, and (2) the ideology of democracy, enabling a truly autocratic (i.e. Orthodox, not western-style or constitutional) monarchism to take its place.
Let us look at what progress was made towards these goals in the 1990s.
“All things work together for good for those who love God” (Romans 8.28), and the economic catastrophe that we have outlined in the last chapter had at least this good consequence: it enabled many Russians to see that communism and democracy were not simple opposites, the one evil and the other good. As long as Russians denounced communism but praised democracy, without seeing the close historical and philosophical kinship between these two western heresies, it was impossible for them to understand the real roots of the revolution and therefore return to True Orthodoxy. Nevertheless, already early in the 1990s Orthodox Russians were beginning to see the real nature, not only of the October Bolshevik- Communist, but also of the February Democratic-Masonic revolution that preceded it…
But at the beginning the tide was running in the opposite direction… In 1992 the Freemasons regained the power they had lost in Russia in 1922. Thus the Masonic historian Richard Rhoda wrote: “This writer has been advised in a letter of April 22, 1996 of the following by George Dergachev, Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Russia. On January 14, 1992, the first regular Lodge ‘Harmony’ was constituted in Moscow by the Grand Lodge Nationale Française. This lodge now has 41 members.
“September 8, 1993 will be a memorable day in Russian Freemasonry, for three more lodges were constituted by the Grand Lodge Nationale Française: Lotus No. 2 in Moscow with 36 current members; New Astrea No. 3 in St. Petersburg with 19
55 Ilyin is said to be a favourite author of Putin. But this seems extremely unlikely in view of Ilyin’s anti-Sovietism and profound religiosity.
47 current members; and Gamaioun No. 4 in Voronezh with 13 current members…
“M.W. Bro. Dergachev writes: ‘Most of the Brothers have graduated from the Universities. Among them there are scientists, journalists, businessmen, bankers, officers of the Army, Navy, policemen, engineers, writers, producers and lawyers.’ These four Regular Daughter Lodges of the Grand Lodge Nationale Française formed the Grand Lodge of Russia on June 24, 1995. In addition to their Mother Grand Lodge, they have been recognized by the Grand Lodges of Poland, Hungary and New York. The Grand Master and Bro. Vladimir Djanguirian, his Grand Secretary, attended by invitation the Annual Communication of the Grand Lodge of New York this past May…”56
Nor was the Masonic movement in Russia just an unimportant fad. For President Yeltsin himself became a Freemason in 1992 (as announced in Pravda); while his successor, the KGB Lieutenant-Colonel Vladimir Putin, became one in Germany, where he was stationed at the time. Nevertheless, the economic catastrophe of the 1990s served to disillusion Russians with democracy, and therefore with Masonry by association…
Instead, in the midst of poverty, anarchy and crime, many began to long nostalgically for the “order” of the Soviet period, considering that the cheapness of Soviet sausages outweighed the destruction of tens of millions of souls through Soviet violence and atheist propaganda. Like the children of Israel who became disillusioned with the rigorous freedom (combined with serpents) of the desert, they began to long once more for the fleshpots of Egypt, for the slavery which had nevertheless guaranteed them a certain standard of living and to which they had become accustomed. But unlike the Israelites, the wanderers in the desert of post- Soviet Russia had no Moses to urge them ever onwards to the Promised Land.
True, they felt the need for such a leader; and if many still longed for the return of a Stalin, there were others who preferred the image of Tsar Nicholas II, whose increasing veneration among the people (if not among the hierarchs) was one of the most encouraging phenomena of the 1990s. But veneration for the pre- revolutionary tsars was not going to bring about the appearance of a post- revolutionary tsar unless that veneration was combined with repentance. Few understood that the people had to become worthy of such a tsar by a return to the True Church and a life based on the commandments of God. Otherwise, if they continued to worship the golden calf, the new Moses, like the old one, would break the tablets of the new law before their eyes. And if they continued to follow the new Dathans and Abirams of the heretical MP, then under their feet, too, the earth would open up – or they would be condemned to wander another forty years in the desert, dying before they reached the promised land of a cleansed and Holy Russia.
As time passed, the corrupting and divisive effects of Russian “democracy” as ruled by Masons, mafia criminals and Chicago economists became more and more
56 Rhoda, “Russian Freemasonry: A New Dawn”, paper read at Orient Lodge № 15 on June 29, 1996, http://members.aol.com/houltonme/rus.htm.
48 evident. Pornography and crime of all kinds increased dramatically; and in the opinion of many it was now more difficult to bring up children in true Christian piety than it had been in the Soviet period. The general level of culture also declined; and the freedom given to religion turned out to be more to the advantage of all kinds of sects and false religions than to True Orthodoxy…
In fact, it was not so much a real religious renaissance as what Bishop Theophan the Recluse had prophesied over a century before: “Although the Christian name will be heard everywhere, and everywhere will be visible churches and ecclesiastical ceremonies, all this will be just appearances, and within there will be true apostasy. On this soil the Antichrist will be born...”57
That the return of democracy would not bring with it a real cleansing of political life became evident when none of the communist persecutors of the previous seventy years throughout Eastern Europe were brought to trial for their crimes. As was noted above, there was no lustration process, no “decommunization” analogous to the denazification that took place in Germany in 1945. Consequently, there was no recovery as there had been in Germany after 1945. Instead, one group of “repentant” communists, sensing the signs of the political times, seized power in 1991 in a “democratic” coup and immediately formed such close and dependent ties with its western allies that the formerly advanced (if inefficient) economy of Russia was transformed into a scrap-heap of obsolescent factories, on the one hand, and a source of cheap raw materials for the West, on the other.58 Another group, playing on the sense of betrayal felt by many, formed a nationalist opposition – but an opposition characterized by hatred, envy and negativism rather than a constructive understanding of the nation’s real spiritual needs and identity. Still others, using the contacts and dollars acquired in their communist days, went into “business” – that is, a mixture of crime, extortion and the worst practices of capitalism. It is little wonder that True Orthodox churches felt it necessary to retain the prayer to be delivered “from the bitter torment of atheist rule”…
*
The apparent fall of communism throughout most of the Soviet bloc in 1989-91 raised hopes of a restoration of True Orthodoxy in Russia, which, if they seem naïve in retrospect, were nevertheless very real at the time. In retrospect, we can see that the changes introduced by glasnost’ and perestroika were less fundamental than at first appeared, and that the spirit and power of communism was far from dead when the red flag was pulled down from over the Kremlin on December 25, 1991. If some of the economic ideas of the revolution were discredited, and if its persecution of religion was removed, its fundamental concepts – the replacement of the Church by the State, God by the people, Tradition by science, Spirit by matter – remained as firmly entrenched as ever.
57 Bishop Theophan, Tolkovanie na Vtoroe Poslanie sv. Apostola Pavla k Soluniam (Interpretation of the Second Epistle of the Holy Apostle Paul to the Thessalonians), 2.3-5. 58 Mikhail Nazarov, Tajna Rossii (The Mystery of Russia), Moscow: “Russkaia Idea”, 1999.
49 Nevertheless, the changes were significant enough to indicate the beginning of a new era. If we seek for historical parallels, then we can recall the return of the Jews under Zerubbabel to Jerusalem after their 70-year captivity in Babylon, or the Edict of Milan in 313, when the Emperor St. Constantine the Great came to an agreement with the pagan emperor Licinius to end the persecution of the Christians in the Roman empire. The problem for the Christians of the 1990s was: no Zerubbabel or Constantine was in sight.
The True Orthodox Christians of the Catacomb Church were cautious, fearing a deception. They were not convinced that the leopard had not changed its spots (Jeremiah 13.23), believing that the communists had merely assumed the mask of “democrats”, the wolves had simply put on sheep’s clothing while remaining inwardly as ravenous as before (Matthew 7.15). In general, therefore, they remained in the underground, not seeking to register their communities or acquire above- ground churches in which to worship.
Meanwhile, the Moscow Patriarchate (MP) – or “Soviet church” was fearful that its monopoly position in church life under the Soviets would be lost in the new democracy. Nevertheless, it took the opportunity presented by the new legislation to receive all the money budgeted for church restoration by the Russian parliament and open many churches (1830 were opened in the first nine months of 1990 alone).
The first question to be answered was: how were the political changes to be evaluated? Was the collective Antichrist really dead? Was this only a temporary “breathing space” in which the Antichrist was preparing a new, subtler, and more deadly onslaught? Or was a real resurrection of Holy Rus’ about to take place, albeit after a difficult transitional phase?
The Church certainly stood to gain important benefits from democratization. Thus the fall of communism came not a moment too soon for the beleaguered Catacomb Church, which was divided and desperately short of bishops of unquestioned Orthodoxy and apostolic succession. As we have seen, ROCOR had been enabled ROCOR to enter Russia and regenerate the hierarchy of the True Church.
Again, the introduction of freedom of speech and the press enabled millions of Soviet citizens to learn the truth about their state and church for the first time. On the basis of this knowledge, they could now seek entrance into the True Church without the fear of being sent to prison or the camps. In the wave of disillusion with post-Soviet democracy that followed in the mid-1990s, it was pointed out – rightly – that freedom is a two-edged weapon, which can destroy as well as give life, and that “freedom” had brought Russia poverty and crime as well as goods on the shelves and interesting newspapers. However, for the soul thirsting for truth there is no more precious gift than the freedom to seek and find; and that opportunity was now, at last, presented to the masses.
On the other hand, only a minority of Russians used this freedom to seek the truth that makes one truly, spiritually free. And so if the fall of communism in 1989-
50 91 was a liberation, it was a liberation strangely lacking in joy. Orthodoxy was restored neither to the state nor to the official church, and the masses of the people remained unconverted. Ten years later, a priest of the MP could claim that “the regeneration of ecclesiastical life has become a clear manifestation of the miraculous transfiguration of Russia”.59 But behind the newly gilded cupolas reigned heresy and corruption on a frightening scale.
Thus Fr. Paul Adelheim, an MP priest who was killed in mysterious circumstances in the early 2000s, wrote: “Spiritual life is being destroyed and annihilated – moreover, it is being annihilated deliberately, of course, by the Moscow Patriarchate itself. It is destroying what it is possible to destroy in the Church… Our faith in the Church has been substituted by ideology. The Church has taken the place of the former Politburo of the USSR. That is what they call it now. They say that Russia is headed by chekists [KGB agents] and churchmen. It turns out in fact that there is no place in this Church for Christ.” Moreover, surveys showed that although the numbers of those confessing themselves to be Orthodox Christians had risen60, the correctness and depth of belief of these new Christians was very much open to question61… More people called themselves “Orthodox” than confessed to believing in God!
In September, 1991, Patriarch Alexis of Moscow said, in justification of the Moscow Patriarchate’s cooperation with Stalin in the 1920s and 30s: “A church that has millions of faithful cannot go into the catacombs. The hierarchy of the church has taken the sin on their souls: the sin of silence and of lying for the good of the people in order that they not be completely removed from real life. In the government of the diocese and as head of the negotiations for the patriarchate of Moscow, I also had to cede one point in order to defend another. I ask pardon of God, I ask pardon, understanding and prayers of all those whom I harmed through the concessions, the silence, the forced passivity or the expressions of loyalty that the hierarchy may have manifested during that period.”62
This is closer to self-justification than repentance (and was in any case contradicted by later statements). It is similar to the statement of Metropolitan Nicholas (Corneanu) of Banat of the Romanian Patriarchate, who confessed that he had collaborated with the Securitate, the Romanian equivalent of the KGB, and had defrocked the priest Fr. Calciu for false political reasons, but nevertheless declared that if he had not made such compromises he would have been forced to abandon
59 Fr. Andrej Rumyantsev, “Kesariu – Kesarevo” (To Caesar what is Caesar’s), Vecherniaia Moskva (Evening Moscow), 21 September, 2000, p. 1. 60 However, according to Vladimir Rozanskij (“Rome and Moscow: a willing separation?” Asia News, 3 June, 2004), the “Moscow’ authorities confirmed that ‘for Easter [2004] less than 1% of the population attended any kind of religious service’. In the last ten years, there are twenty times more churches than there were under communism, with buildings being built or reopened. Yet in relation to the immediate post-communism years, only one third of people now attend the services”. 61 Kimmo Kaariainen, Religion in Russia after the Collapse of Communism, Lewiston-Queenston- Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press, 1998, p. 84; Tatiana Senina, “Ty nosish’ imia, budto zhiv, no ty mertv” (You have the name of being alive, but you are dead), Vertograd-Inform, September-October, 2000, pp. 46-72. 62 30 Dias (Thirty Days), Rome/Sao Paolo, August-September, 1991, p. 23.
51 his post, “which in the conditions of the time would not have been good for the Church”. In other words, as Vladimir Kozyrev writes: “It means: ‘I dishonoured the Church and my Episcopal responsibility, I betrayed those whom I had to protect, I scandalized my flock. But all this I had to do for the good of the Church!’”63
In another interview in 1997 Patriarch Alexis said, referring to the Church in the time of Patriarch Tikhon: “The Church could not, did not have the right, to go into the catacombs. She remained together with the people and drank to the dregs the cup of sufferings that fell to its lot.”64 Patriarch Alexis here forgot to mention that Patriarch Tikhon specifically blessed Michael Zhizhilenko, the future Hieromartyr Maximus of Serpukhov, to become a secret catacomb bishop if the pressure on the Church from the State became too great. As for his claim that the sergianists shared the cup of the people’s suffering, this must be counted as conscious hypocrisy. It is well known that the Soviet hierarchs lived a life of considerable luxury, while lifting not a finger for the Catacomb Christians and dissidents sent to torments and death in KGB prisons!
On November 9, 2001, the patriarch threw off the mask of repentance completely, stating in defence of the declaration: “This was a clever step by which Metropolitan Sergius tried to save the church and clergy. In declaring that the members of the Church want to see themselves as part of the motherland and want to share her joys and sorrows, he tried to show to those who were persecuting the church and who were destroying it that we, the children of the church, want to be loyal citizens so that the affiliation of people with the church would not place them outside the law.”65 So the greatest act of betrayal in Russian history was “a clever step”, which did not destroy the Judas and those who followed him but “saved the church and clergy”!
After the failure of the putsch articles began to appear revealing the links of the Church hierarchy with the KGB. Rattled, the patriarch wrote to Frs. Gleb Yakunin and George Edelstein that their articles were “full of the spirit of unscrupulous blasphemy against the Church.”66
One of the biggest fruits of glasnost’ – which did not, however, lead to a real ecclesiastical perestroika – was the confirmation in January, 1992, by a Commission of the Presidium of the Russian Supreme Soviet investigating the causes and circumstances of the 1991 putsch, that for several decades at least the leaders of the Moscow Patriarchate had been KGB agents. Members of the commission - L. Ponomarev, V. Polosin and Fr. Gleb Yakunin – obtained access to the records of the fourth, Church department of the KGB’s Fifth Directorate (in which the future president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, had worked), and revealed that Metropolitans
63 Kozyrev, “[orthodox-synod] Re: The Orthodox Episcopate of the Russian persecuted Church”, [email protected]. 28 November, 2002. 64 Anatoly Krasikov, "'Tretij Rim' i bolsheviki (bez grifa 'sovershenno sekretno')" (The Third Rome and the Bolsheviks), in Filatov, S.B. (ed.), Religia i prava cheloveka (Religion and Human Rights), Moscow: Nauka, 1996, p. 198. 65 http://www.ripnet.org/besieged/rparocora.htm? 66 Zhurnal Moskovskoj Patriarkhii (Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate), 1991, № 10.
52 Juvenal of Krutitsa, Pitirim of Volokolamsk, Philaret of Kiev and Philaret of Minsk were all KGB agents, with the codenames “Adamant”, “Abbat”, “Antonov” and “Ostrovsky”.
This “news” was hardly unexpected. In 1989 Kharchev, Chairman of the Council for Religious Affairs, confirmed that the Russian Orthodox Church was rigorously controlled by the Central Committee of the Communist Party, especially its Ideological Department, and by the KGB.67 Again, Victor Sheimov, a former KGB major with responsibilities for upgrading the KGB’s communications security system until his defection in 1980, described the Fifth Directorate as being “responsible for suppressing ideological dissent, running the Soviet Orthodox Church and laying the groundwork for the First Chief Directorate’s subversive promotion of favourable opinion about the country’s position and policy.”68 One of Sheimov’s jobs was to draft agents to infiltrate the “Soviet Orthodox Church”. Again, in 1992 a former KGB agent, A. Shushpanov, described his experiences working in the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department of External Ecclesiastical Relations. He said that most of the people working there were in fact KGB agents.69
But it was the Commission’s report on March 6 that contained the most shocking revelations: “KGB agents, using such aliases as Sviatoslav, Adamant, Mikhailov, Nesterovich, Ognev and others, made trips abroad, organised by the Russian Orthodox Department of External Relations [which was headed by Metropolitan Cyril (Gundiaev), the future patriarch], performing missions assigned to them by the leadership of the KGB. The nature of their missions shows that this department was inseparably linked with the state and that it had emerged as a covert centre of KGB agents among the faithful.”
Again: “The Commission draws the attention of the Russian Orthodox Church leadership to the fact that the Central Committee of the CPSU and KGB agencies have used a number of church bodies for their purposes by recruiting and planting KGB agents. Such deep infiltration by intelligence service agents into religious associations poses a serious threat to society and the State. Agencies that are called upon to ensure State security can thus exert uncontrolled impact on religious associations numbering millions of members, and through them on the situation at home and abroad.”70
The findings of the Commission included:- (i) the words of the head of the KGB Yury Andropov to the Central Committee sometime in the 1970s: “The organs of state security keep the contacts of the Vatican with the Russian Orthodox Church under control…”; (ii) “At the 6th General Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Vancouver, the religious delegation from the USSR contained 47 (!) agents of the KGB, including religious authorities, clergy and technical personnel”
67 Kharchev, Argumenty i Fakty (Arguments and Facts), 1992, № 8, p. 5. 68 Sheimov, Tower of Secrets, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1993, p. 418, in “The New Soviet Man”, Orthodox Christian Witness, June 3/16, 1996. 69 Shushpanov, Moskovskie Novosti (Moscow News), 12 July, 1992, p. 20, in “The New Soviet Man”, Orthodox Christian Witness, June 3/16, 1996. 70 Fr. George Edelshtein, “Double Agents in the Church”, Moscow News, August 26, 2005.
53 (July, 1983); (iii) “The most important were the journeys of agents ‘Antonov’, ‘Ostrovsky’ and ‘Adamant’ to Italy for conversations with the Pope of Rome on the question of further relations between the Vatican and the Russian Orthodox Church, and in particular regarding the problems of the uniates” (1989).71
The Commission also discovered, but did not publish the fact, that the patriarch himself was an agent with the codename “Drozdov” (he was thought to have the rank of major).
This was not made public because, writes Fen Montaigne, “members of the parliamentary commission had told the patriarch that they would not name him as an agent if he began cleaning house in the church and acknowledging the breadth of cooperation between the church and the KGB. ‘So far, we have kept silence because we wanted to give the patriarch a chance,’ said Alexander Nezhny, a journalist who said his comparison of the archives and church bulletins convinced him that Alexis II is indeed ‘Drozdov’.”72
Later investigations confirmed the fact. Thus on March 18, 1996 the Estonian newspaper Postimees published the following KGB report from the Estonian SSR: “Agent ‘Drozdov’, born in 1929, a priest of the Orthodox Church, has a higher education, a degree in theology, speaks Russian and Estonian perfectly, and some limited German. He enlisted on February 28, 1958 out of patriotic feelings in order to expose and drive out the anti-Soviet elements among the Orthodox clergy, with whom he has connections, which represents an overriding interest to the KGB agencies. At the time of enlistment it was taken into consideration that in the future (after securing his practical work) he would be promoted through the available channels to Bishop of Tallinn and Estonia. In the period of his collaboration with the organs of the KGB, ‘Drozdov’ has proved himself in a positive manner, is accurate in his reports, energetic and sociable. He understands theological matters and international situations well, is eager to carry out tasks given him by us and has already presented a good quantity of worthy material… After securing the agent in practical jobs for the agencies of state security concretely worked out, we intend to
71 For more details of the parliamentary commission's revelations, see Priamoj Put' (The Straight Path), №№ 1-2, January, 1992, p. 1; № 3, February, 1992, p. 1; February, 1992; Alexander Nezhny, "Tret’e Imia" (The Third Name), Ogonek (Little Fire), № 4 (3366), January 25 - February 1, 1992; Iain Walker and Chester Stern, "Holy Agents of the KGB", The Mail on Sunday, March 29, 1992; John Dunlop, "KGB Subversion of Russian Orthodox Church", RFE/RL Research Report, vol. 1, № 12, March 20, 1992, pp. 51-53; “Three Leading Moscow Hierarchs Unveiled as KGB Operatives”, Orthodox Life, vol. 42, № 3, May-June, 1992, pp. 25-29; Protodeacon Herman Ivanov-Trinadtsaty, "A ne nachalo li eto kontsa?" (Is this not the Beginning of the End?), Pravoslavnaia Rus' (Orthodox Russia), № 9 (1462), May 1/14, 1992, pp. 609; "Ne bo vragom Tvoim povem..." (I will not give Thy secret to Thine enemy…), Vestnik Germanskoj Eparkhii Russkoj Pravoslavnoj Tservki za Granitsei (Herald of the German Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad), № 1, 1992, pp. 16-22; Fr. Victor Potapov, "Molchaniem predaеtsa Bog" (“God is Betrayed by Silence”), Moscow: Isikhia, 1992, pp. 36-39; Joseph Harriss, "The Gospel according to Marx", Reader's Digest, February, 1993, pp. 59-63. See also I.I. Maslova, “Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov’ i KGB (1960-1980-e gody)” (The Russian Orthodox Church and the KGB (1960s to 1980s), Voprosy Istorii (Questions of History), December, 2005, pp. 86- 87. 72 Montaigne, The Philadelphia Inquirer on May 3, 1992; quoted in "The Church of the KGB", Living Orthodoxy, vol. XIV, № 2, March-April, 1992, pp. 22-23.
54 use him to further our interests by sending him into the capitalist countries as a member of ecclesiastical organizations.”73
Nevertheless, what had been revealed was so shocking that the parliamentary commission was closed down by Ruslan Khasbulatov, the President of the Supreme Soviet, at the insistence, according to Ponomarev, of Patriarch Alexis and the head of the KGB, Yevgeny Primakov. One of the commission’s members, Fr. Gleb Yakunin, was accused of betraying state secrets to the United States and threatened with persecution.
But Fr. Gleb remained defiant. He wrote to the Patriarch in 1994: “If the Church is not cleansed of the taint of the spy and informer, it cannot be reborn. Unfortunately, only one archbishop – Archbishop Chrysostom of Lithuania – has had the courage publicly to acknowledge that in the past he worked as an agent, and has revealed his codename: RESTAVRATOR. No other Church hierarch has followed his example, however.
“The most prominent agents of the past include DROZDOV – the only one of the churchmen to be officially honoured with an award by the KGB of the USSR, in 1988, for outstanding intelligence services – ADAMANT, OSTROVSKY, MIKHAILOV, TOPAZ AND ABBAT. It is obvious that none of these or the less exalted agents is preparing to repent. On the contrary, they deliver themselves of pastoral maxims on the allegedly neutral character of informing on the Church, and articles have appeared in the Church press justifying the role of the informer as essential for the survival of the Church in an anti-religious state.
“The codenames I discovered in the archives of the KGB belong to the top hierarchs of the Moscow Patriarchate.”
After citing this letter, Vasily Mitrokhin, former chief archivist of the KGB, and Professor Christopher Andrew comment: “The letter to Aleksi II was unprecedented in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church – for, as the Patriarch must surely have been aware, DROZDOV, the most important of the KGB agents discovered by Father Gleb in the KGB archives, was in fact himself…”74
In April, 1992, Archbishop Chrysostom of Vilnius said in an interview: “I cooperated with the KGB… but I was not a stool-pigeon…. Yes, we – or, at any rate, I, and I am saying this in the first place about myself – cooperated with the KGB. I cooperated, I gave my signature, I had regular meetings, I gave reports. I have my pseudonym or nickname, as they say – ‘Restavrator’. I cooperated with them consciously so as insistently to pursue my own church line – a patriotic line, too, as
73 Estonian State Archive, record group 131, file 393, pp. 125-126; James Meek, “File links church leader to KGB”, The Sydney Morning Herald, February 13, 1999; Seamus Martin, “Russian Patriarch was (is?) a KGB agent, files say Patriarch Alexeij II received KGB ‘Certificate of Honour’”, Irish Times, September 23, 2000; Arnold Beichman, “Patriarch with a KGB Past”, The Washington Times, September 29, 2000. 74 Andrew and Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive, London and New York: Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 1999, p. 661.
55 I understood it, with the help of these organs. I was never a stool-pigeon, I was not an informer… But together with those among us hierarchs, there are still more among the priests, there is a mass of unworthy, immoral people. It was this immorality, in the absence of a church court among us, that the KGB used. They defended them from us, the ruling bishops, so that we could not punish them.”75
In the same year he declared to the Council of Bishops of the MP: “In our Church there are genuine members of the KGB, who have made head-spinning careers; for example, Metropolitan Methodius of Voronezh. He is a KGB officer [code-name PAUL], an atheist, a liar, who is constantly advised by the KGB. The Synod was unanimously against such a bishop, but we had to take upon us such a sin. And then what a rise he had!” According to ex-KGB Lieutenant-Colonel Konstantin Preobrazhensky, Methodius was in fact not only a KGB agent, but “a regular officer of the GRU, the Chief Intelligence Directorate of the Defence Ministry”. In the KGB they call such people ‘officers of deep cover’. There are quite a few of them in today’s Moscow Patriarchate.”76
At the same Council, a commission of eight MP bishops headed by Bishop Alexander of Kostroma was formed to investigate the charges of collaboration with the KGB. This commission has up to now (twenty-two years later) produced absolutely nothing! In view of this, it remains true that, as the saying went, “the MP is the last surviving department of the KGB” or “the second administration of the Soviet state”.
Writing in 1995, John Dunlop concluded that “the overwhelming majority of the current one hundred and nineteen bishops of the Moscow Patriarchate were ordained to the episcopacy prior to August of 1991. This suggests that each of these bishops was carefully screened and vetted by both the ideological apparatus of the Communist Party and by the KGB.” 77 Keston College came to the same conclusion.78
In fact, according to Preobrazhensky, “Absolutely all [my italics – V.M.] the bishops and the overwhelming majority of the priests worked with the KGB. After all, the Church was considered to be a hostile medium, and it had to be controlled through agents. Even the very mechanism of appointing bishops allowed only agents there.
“Bishops were put into the nomenklatura of the Central Committee of the CPSU, and so each one was confirmed by the Ideological department. And what department sent documents there for important personnel appointments? You’re right: the KGB. The certificate on the future bishop was prepared by the Fifth administration, which carried out a general watch over the Church, together with the spy service, if he had been even once abroad. Each of the certificates ended with
75 Rossijskaia Gazeta, 1992, № 52, p. 7. 76 Preobrazhensky, “Ecumenism and Intelligence”. 77 Dunlop, “The Moscow Patriarchate as an Empire-Saving Institution”, in Michael Bourdeaux, M.E. Sharp (eds.), The Politics of Religion in Russia and the New States of Eurasia, 1995, Armonk, NY, p. 29. 78 Felix Corbey, “The Patriarch and the KGB”, Keston News Service, September 21, 2000.
56 the same phrase: ‘He has been cooperating since such-and-such a year’.
“This was precisely the most important thing for the Central Committee of the CPSU! This phrase witnessed to the fact that the future bishop was not only loyal to Soviet power, but was hanging from it by a hook: after all, there are unfailingly compromising materials on every agent! And this means that no dissident outbursts were to be expected from this bishop…”79
Other leading hierarchs in the Soviet bloc were communist agents. Thus Patriarch Ilia of Georgia was enrolled as an agent in 1962 – and still remains in power today, in 2017. Metropolitan Savva of Poland was recruited by the Polish communist security forces in 1966, with the codename “Yurek”; Metropolitan Basil, was also an agent.80 Several leaders of the Church in Bulgaria and Romania were similarly compromised…
*
With the KGB firmly back in the saddle, it is not surprising that the corruption in the Moscow Patriarchate continued unchecked. One anonymous member of the MP analyzed the situation as follows: “In spite of the liberation and a certain revival of Church life in recent years, her real situation has not changed markedly for the better. What is the use of an increasing number of baptisms if out of a thousand baptized scarcely one or two can be found who want to become Christians in our sense of the word, but practically everyone considers themselves to be ‘believers’ (in whom?)? What is the use of a growing number of publications of spiritual literature when clearly anti-church and heretical literature is spread at a far faster rate? What is the use of mass weddings when the number of abortions and divorces grows much faster, not to speak of every other kind of sexual immorality? What is the use of transmitting Divine services on television when the great majority of observers of these programmes do not themselves want to pray in church, preferring to play the role of ‘fans’, while those who seriously live the life of the Church hardly watch television? What is the point of teaching the Law of God in schools when all the rest of the school programme remains atheist and a pupil of the sixth class ‘goes through’ the Bible stories in the section of the literature course entitled ‘fairytales’, and takes exams on the history of the ancient world and the sections on Christianity in accordance with exactly the same textbook as fifteen years ago? And even if there is a serious attitude towards the Law of God in the school, what is the point of it if the child’s atheist parents do not teach him Church life, confession and the sacraments, prayer and fasting? Will such learning profit him?
“We are not talking in detail here about the de facto fall of Orthodoxy in West Ukraine…, about the rapid growth and spread of Latinism, of Protestantism, of the
79 Preobrazhensky, KGB v russkoj emigratsii (The KGB in the Russian emigration), New York: Liberty Publishing House, 2006, p. 41. 80 “World Orthodoxy: Savva of Poland admits collaboration with Secret Police”, http://newsnftu.blogspot.com./2009/05/world-orthodoxy-sava-of-poland-admits.html.
57 special heresy that strives to unite Christianity with Judaism, of Krishnaism, ‘non- traditional medicine’, astrology, sorcery and the most various kinds of satanism. We are also not talking here about the open campaign of moral corruption through all the means of mass communication, which are almost exclusively in the hands of the enemies of the Church and the fatherland.
“The main thing is that our Church [the MP] has practically renounced the ideals of Holy Russia and Orthodox Statehood as moral-dogmatic standards, but has become entwined in the rabble of democratic politicians, and while breathing a sigh of nostalgia for the Bolsheviks has begun in the persons of her hierarchs to bless all the initiatives of the new power. This has led to our present position of being unable to resist this concentrated and deeply positioned attack of the enemy forces against the Church, which, moreover, has to a significant degree allowed the enemy to enter the Church and sow his tares in her midst. For example, how can we resist the widely disseminated teaching of Protopriest Alexander Men, who departed far from Orthodoxy, but which has been condemned as a heresy by nobody? Only one small, albeit very well written brochure has appeared in a very limited edition. In the conditions of democracy everyone receives blessings for everything, and in the first place those who do evil are blessed for their evil activities. And we have to look on with horror as the flock of Christ is scattered by wolves before our very eyes…”81
Archpriest Lev Lebedev, a convert from the MP to ROCOR, who suddenly and mysteriously died in a New York hotel room in 1997 just as he was about to give a blistering report on the MP to the ROCOR Synod, was still more trenchant in his criticism:
“Only after… 1990, in a situation and atmosphere of relative civil liberty, and especially after the staged supposed ‘putsch’ of the dissolution of the CPSU in 1991 and even of Soviet power in 1993 (!), did the following become completely clear. The ‘Patriarchate’ in the former Sovdepia was not at all an unfree, enslaved ‘Church of silence’, as it was sometimes called. Its hierarchy had already for a very long time, not at all under coercion, nor under pressure, but completely voluntarily and from the soul, been attempting to please the Soviet regime. They were not the ‘new martyrs’ for the Church that they presented themselves as to their flock, and which is how some observers from outside were inclined to see them. The point is that the episcopate of the ‘patriarchate’ constructed by Sergius had more and more with every succeeding generation (replenishment) truly fraternised and become friendly with the partocrats, the nomenklatura of the CPSS, to the extent that the nomenklatura degenerated morally and ideologically! So that the bishops of the ‘patriarchate’, and especially the highest ones, that is, those who held real power in the Church, became one with the partocrats in spirit, in their manner of thinking, even, to a large extent, in their language (the use of stock phrases from the newspapers in their sermons and speeches had been noted long before). If there is anything more despicable in the world than the Soviet ‘cultural intelligentsia’, then it can only be the episcopate
81 Anonymous, “O Pravoslavnom Tsarstve i Poslednem Vremeni” (On the Orthodox Kingdom and the Last Times), no date or place of publication.
58 of the Moscow ‘patriarchate’! The princes (and ‘princelets’) of the church, exactly like the party boyars, began to be distinguished by an unbelievable haughtiness and arrogance towards those subject to them, and by the basest servility towards those above them, surrounding themselves with houses, dacha-palaces, crowds of toady- lackeys and every kind of luxury. Just like the partocrats, the bloated bishops of the ‘patriarchate’ became thieves from the public purse and swindlers, and acquired an amazing capacity to look with honest, clear eyes on an interlocutor or at their flock and deliberately deceive them in the most convincing manner. Their mendacity, their infinite mendacity almost in everything became a real second nature of the ‘patriarchal’ hierarchy. ‘Evil communications…’ If ecumenism made the Moscow ‘patriarchate’ one in spirit with all the heretics, and even with non-Christians, with whom it entered into spiritual communion through joint prayers, then sergianism made it one in spirit with the partocracy. Now, when the very partocracy has abandoned even the communist ideology that held it together, and even its own party, so as to become openly private owners of the huge resources stolen from the country and the people, and for that reason has ‘rebranded’ itself as democracy, while holding power in Russia as before, the ‘patriarchate’, being as before one with it, serves it on mutually beneficial terms. However, as we have seen, from now on the ‘patriarchate’ has started more and more openly to orient itself on the real masters of the situation – the Jews.
“Like all smart dealers ‘of this world’, the bishops of ‘the patriarchate’ are no longer able to maintain real ecclesiastical brotherhood and friendship in their relationships with each other. Jealousy, envy, enmity, intrigues and denunciations against each other have become the norm of their mutual relations. This has been transmitted to the clergy. If there are several priests in a parish, there can never be true friendship between them; jealousy and envy have become the norm. There is no point even speaking about Christian love among the clergy.
“’The fish begins to rot from the head.’ This condition and behaviour of the hierarchy of the Moscow ‘patriarchate’ has been transferred, not without opposition, to the lower levels – through the middle clergy to the people, the flock, where it received the most powerful and long-lasting resistance. But with time even the flock ‘gave in’. In the mass of the Christians of the churches of the ‘patriarchate’, mutual love has become extremely scarce; more and more its place has been taken by jealousy, envy and the most terrible bitterness against each other (especially on the kliroses and at the money ‘desks’), a bitterness such as you will not find in secular establishments! In the last 10 years this has reached the level of pathological fear of each other in connection with suspicions of witchcraft! Many in the churches now fear to receive a prosphora or boiled wheat or a candle from each other… There where faith has withered there have grown up, like poisonous mushrooms, the most varied superstitions! And, you know, they really do practise witchcraft! And not only in the villages, but also in the cities, moreover completely educated people! They learn from each other methods of ‘black’ and ‘white’ magic, spells, ‘charms’ and ‘anti-charms’. Sorcerers send their ‘patients’ to certain priests, and these in their turn – to sorcerers. Healer-sorcerers have appeared in the midst of the clergy… They go to him in droves, not only from the diocese, but also from other regions. The profit from it is very large. Batiushka generously shares it with the
59 bishop, and for that reason the bishop does not touch him, in spite of the outrage of his brethren and some of the believers!… Suffering from spells and the evil eye have become very widespread illnesses amongst parishioners. Medicine in such cases is useless, it cannot even establish a diagnosis. And people suffer terribly! You should see (especially in the countryside) this bewitched, hunched-up, deformed humanity! And all this is from their own people, as a result of envy and revenge….
“There where hatred has taken the place of love, you can say what you like, only it is not the Church of Christ, and especially not the Russian Orthodox Church.
“The quality of faith has changed to an unrecognizable extent. To put it more bluntly, among people of that social milieu where to this day they sincerely suppose that an abandoned church is very suitable for a lavatory, among people of this milieu faith has long ago been turned into some church-like paganism, where everything comes down to ‘sacrifices’ to God, so that He may not punish them, or give them something they are asking for. Among people of a higher cultural level, alongside this a thirst for ‘spiritual experiences’ is also noticeable. But if there is no grace of the Holy Spirit and the lofty feelings produced by it, then they are trying to imagine them, that is, artificially create them. The result is ‘spiritual deception’ in the form of various levels of exaltation, leading right to psychological and mental illness of one or another level. So that now among believing intelligenty the most zealous are always – without fail and necessarily – psychologically sick people. On this soil especially luxuriant blooms that have flowered in the ‘patriarchate’ have been the manifestations of false ‘eldership’ and the ‘deification’ of young archimandrites by demonized hysterics. In contrast to St. John of Kronstadt, the archimandrites (igumens, hieromonks and other ‘grace-filled batiushkas’) do not drive such people away from themselves, but in every way encourage them, sometimes creating out of these female worshippers veritable bands that morally (and sometimes even physically!) terrorize the other believers. This terrible phenomenon already has a marked antichristian character. One of the female worshippers of one such archimandrite very precisely said: ‘Batiushka is our God!’ What stands behind this is the thirst to have a ‘living god’, a man-god, whom one can make an idol of in one’s life. The epoch of the ‘cult of personality’ did not pass in vain. How many hundred and thousands of souls throughout Russia have been hopelessly spoiled by this newly appeared ‘elders’, ‘grace-filled’ instructors and ‘wonder-workers’! True eldership ceased long ago. Some widely venerated monastics from the Trinity – St. Sergius Lavra, the Pskov Caves monastery, the Riga desert and other places, however one may respect them, cannot be called elders. If only because they were silent through all the years of Khruschev’s mockery of the Church, and are silent now, after the speech of the ‘patriarch’ before the rabbis. Moreover, they do not bless others to speak. Why? Because the ‘patriarchate’ has constantly instilled and instills in its flock that in the Church ‘obedience is higher than fasting and prayer’, having forgotten to explain that this refers to the real Church, and not to the false one! These are undoubtedly sincere and assiduous monastics; they also take the ‘patriarchate’ for the Russian Orthodox Church, that is, they also believe in the lie, encouraging those who trust them to believe in it, too…
“We must note that there were and still are completely honourable people in the
60 bosom of the ‘patriarchate’, people who have sincerely converted to God. But they were always in the minority, and now all the more so, becoming all the time fewer, and they do not have the opportunity to determine Church life. Left only with their human strength, they can do little, although they present an at times exemplary model of asceticism and self-denial.
“The phenomena of spiritual deformity, canonical transgressions and moral sins are possible and, moreover, natural at any time of the existence of any local Church, insofar as it is a community not of ‘the pure and sinless’, but precisely of sinful, damaged people. The Church must therefore be a spiritual hospital for its members, for the flock. If the Church firmly holds to the Orthodox Faith and the holy canons ‘work’ in it in relation both to those above, and those below, to everyone (!), then it is a truly living organism of the Body of Christ, which is given life and raised up to God by the Holy Spirit. Then the excesses of various apostasies, crimes and transgressions of the canons in it are just that – excesses, instances on the background of what is on the whole a normal and correct life. But if the Church falls away both from the Faith and from the canonical order, it ceases to be the Body of Christ, that is, the Church, being turned into a community in which the virtues and correct conditions become occasional exceptions, while the general background and ‘norm of life’ turns out to be crime, apostasy and transgression… In such an inverted order of things the Church situation does not help, but hinders the salvation of those who trustingly enter it, it simply destroys them. Such, we see, is the situation in the Moscow ‘patriarchate’ to the highest degree. And so now it is extremely unclear what is served by the noisy opening of churches and monasteries, and the adornment of some of them in every way, and the building of Sunday schools and other institutions of the ‘patriarchate’. Does all this serve for the spiritual benefit or the further spiritual corruption of people? Most likely, it is the broadening and deepening of the sphere of evil and destruction, a trap for those who have sincerely been drawn to Christ. They will not be able to strike through to Him as long as they accept the ‘patriarchate’ as the Orthodox Church, as long as they believe in a lie that is incompatible with the Spirit of righteousness, the Holy Spirit.”82
Very important was the role of the “startsy”, or elders, in the life of the MP. According to Vadim Lourié, the role of the MP elders, and especially Archimandrite Ioann (Krestiankin) of the Pskov Caves, was critical in turning the masses away from ROCOR at the beginning of the 1990s. “Archimandrite Ioann not only did not approve of the opening in Russia of parishes outside the jurisdiction of the ROC MP, but he also reproached ROCOR herself as a schism: ‘We have no canonical differences with the Russian Church Abroad, but we cannot now accept them on the Russian land, for they, by not recognizing our Mother Church, which lived through all the woes of Rus’ with her people, are becoming, not builders up, but schismatics and destroyers of that little which has remained with us. And if you pray in a church belonging to the [Church] Abroad, you become a schismatic.’ ” 83
82 Lebedev, Velikorossia (Great Russia), St. Petersburg, 1999, pp. 644-647. 83 Lourié, “Dve Tserkvi, dve very i raznie novomucheniki. Razmyshlenia po sluchaiu konchiny arkhimandrita Ioanna (Krestiankina)” (Two Churches, two faiths and different new martyrs. Thoughts on the occasion of the death of Archimandrite Ioann (Krestiankin)”, http://portalcredo.ru/site/print.php?act=comment&id=915.
61
Perhaps the aspect of patriarchal life that most clearly demonstrated its degradation was its attitude to the very heart of all church life – the sacraments.
Ludmilla Perepiolkina writes: “[Baptism] as a rule is administered through ablution or even sprinkling84, although, as one knows, the threefold immersion of the baptized into the baptismal font [is the only correct form of baptism and] signifies Christ’s death and Resurrection on the third day. Therefore a negligent and needlessly hurried administration of this Mystery becomes an act of sacrilege.
“Both the baptized and their godparents are usually admitted to the Mystery without any preceding catechization and testing of faith. As a rule, godparents remain in absolute ignorance regarding their spiritual obligations and their responsibility before God for the upbringing of their godchildren. The godparents attending mass baptisms of the Moscow Patriarchate are mostly irreligious, often non-Orthodox, or atheists in general…
“Superstitious parents sometimes baptize their children several times (‘to keep them from becoming ill…’); religious illiteracy accompanies many other superstitions as well. Lately there have been increased instances of baptizing and even giving Holy Communion (!) to the dead. These awful phenomena are caused not only by the ignorance and covetousness of clergymen, but also by the fact that among the clerics of the Moscow Patriarchate there is an increase in the number of occultists, wizards, psychics. This is because there are not only neophytes among those ordained… but also converts from Eastern cults, Yoga, paganism, occultism and other demonic delusions. Having failed to renounce their former beliefs, the latter dissolve their ‘Christianity’ in this contamination. There are ‘priests’ who practise black magic and are a true horror to their ‘spiritual children’ whom they have enslaved and reduced to becoming zombies…
“In the city churches of the Moscow Patriarchate Chrismation, which is administered immediately after Baptism, resembles a production line in a factory, rather than a Church Mystery. Since at the time of their baptism people have merely their heads sprinkled with water over the baptismal font, they have their clothes on. A priest then hastily goes round the long rank of the newly baptised who stand there in ignorance. Then, at the sacred moment of Chrismation, requiring a special reverence, when the Holy Spirit is received, there is a general hurried discarding of superfluous clothing. Not infrequently a priest may even anoint parts of the body still covered by clothing.
“The following should be noted. Not so long ago a certain degree of confidence in the Patriarchate’s Chrism was based on the fact that every time it was sanctified, a part of the Chrism of the previous years had to be added. Thus, the chrism of the Soviet period must have contained a part of the Chrism sanctified by the Holy Patriarch Tikhon. However, in the most recent years many in the Moscow Patriarchate have been confused, and not only because the Chrism now in use was
84 In 2014 a photograph appeared on Facebook of Patriarch Cyril “baptizing” by sprinkling. (V.M.)
62 sanctified by the apostate Patriarch Alexis II (Ridiger). From many areas of Russia priest of the Moscow Patriarchate have reported that by its fragrance this Chrism is indistinguishable from ordinary oil although it should have a very complex fragrance due to the fact that it should consist of a multitude of fragrances symbolizing the manifold gifts of the Holy Spirit.
“The Mystery of Confession and the Mystery of Baptism elicit the most criticism. Practically everywhere the so-called ‘general confession’ is performed, which is not stipulated by the Church canons and which was not permitted even in the Moscow Patriarchate even in the first years after the Second World war, when there was an acute shortage of clergy. At the present time many young priests, accustomed to practice an insipid and formalized ‘general confession’, refuse to hear individual confession even if it is a question of only one or two people (who want to be confessed individually), not scores of them. A priest only covers the head of a penitent with his epitrachelion and recites the last short prayer of absolution, or simply makes the sign of the cross over him in silence. In 10 minutes time scores of people go through confession in this manner.
“The practice of such ‘remission of sins’ cannot be called anything but criminal! After all, many people, who for 70 years lived in the militantly atheist country where sin had become the norm, and who only recently learned to make the sign of the cross over themselves, often have no idea what sin is. Thus, the overwhelming majority of women who have undergone abortion do not know that they are murderers who have committed a mortal sin.85 The same happens to other people who seek healing of their soul in the Church, but do not find it. Is this not the reason why there is such an unprecedented number of all kinds of sects in post- Soviet Russia?
“Through the efforts of Renovationists of the Moscow Patriarchate, its theological academies and seminaries for years have been preparing a complete break between the Mysteries of Confession and Communion, and a rejection of the obligatory Confession before Communion resulting from such a break.
“The Moscow Patriarchate promotes the conviction that ‘obedience is more important than prayer and fasting’, than the Canons and Patristic teaching. This conviction has been turned into a means of the personal dependence and subjugation of church-going people to pseudo-clergy, pseudo-elders and pseudo- Patriarch…
85 In an article published in Pravoslavnoe Slovo (The Orthodox Word), № 12 (49), 1995), priest Timothy Selsky writes that in the MP cathedral of a small town he noticed… a price-list displayed at the candle counter. “The column reading ‘Prayer after Abortion – 8000 Roubles’ caught my eye. What sort of a new rite was this? As I learned later, a woman who would pay the required sum at the candle counter would have a certain prayer read over her, a prayer which allegedly should be read after having killed one’s own child in the womb. Whence all this? What is the mystery of such an easy remission of a mortal sin unknown to any of the Holy Church Fathers? Have we lived to see the day when the forgiveness of the sin of infanticide is bought just like that for a mere 8000 roubles and without any confession at all?” (V.M.)
63 “The most profound Mystery of the Church is that of Holy Communion… The gravest sin of the apostates is the profanation of this Mystery. They turn the Divine Liturgy, which only true believers are permitted to attend, into a show, a spectacle for the crowds of tourists and television viewers, and the Holy Gifts – Christ’s Body and Blood – are given to anybody and at random…
“Besides the corrupting influence which the distortion of the Mystery of Confession or its rejection has upon Orthodox Christians, this innovation is instrumental in achieving the ecumenical objective of allowing access to the Orthodox Mystery of Holy Communion to the non-Orthodox. The resolution of the Holy Synod of the Moscow Patriarchate concerning admission of Catholics to Communion in Orthodox Churches in Russia had been in force from 1969 to 1986. Subsequently this resolution has not been abolished, it has only been suspended (although on paper only)… At the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s one could regularly observe crowds of Western tourists being admitted to Communion (without prior Confession, of course) in the church of St. John the Theologian at the Theological Academy of St. Petersburg. A Jesuit hieromonk Michael Arranz, a Professor of the Eastern Institute in Rome, who in those years was lecturing on Liturgics at the ‘Orthodox’ Theological Academy in Leningrad, would partake of Communion in the Sanctuary of that church along with the clergy.
“When celebrating the Proskomedia and reciting litanies (ektenias), the ecumenists would commemorate heretics along with the Orthodox in accordance with their sermon on ‘the church without frontiers’, and during the Great Entrance of the Divine Liturgy they would replace the words ‘and may the Lord God remember you all Orthodox Christians in His Kingdom’ by ‘and all Christians’.
“In 1994 the Bishops’ Council of the MP left practically all matters concerning communication with the non-Orthodox to the personal discretion of its bishops and clergy, merely pointing out to them the undesirability of bewildering their flock.
“The instances of Protestants partaking of Holy Communion, unprecedented, in the MP, have now become a regular phenomenon, at least in the Novgorod diocese, where its ruling Archbishop Lev [Tserpitsky] openly admits Protestants and Catholics to Communion in the ancient Cathedral of St. Sophia in the city of Novgorod. In this and similar instances the obvious motivation is undoubtedly the material benefit gained as a result of attracting foreign tourists, along with their dollars, pounds and marks, into the Patriarchate’s churches…”86
As we have seen, Metropolitan Nikodem of Leningrad was both a KGB agent and a secret Vatican bishop. In 1992 the Pope said that he had two cardinals among the bishops in Russia.87 Perhaps one of them was Archbishop Lev….
86 Perepiolkina, Ecumenism – A Path to Perdition, St. Petersburg, 1999, pp. 116-117, 118-120, 121, 122. An earlier, Russian-language edition of this important book is entitled Ekumenizm - put' vedushchej k pogibeli (Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville, 1992). 87 Perepiolkina, op. cit., p. 204.
64
Another of them may have been Archbishop Theodosius (Protsyuk) of Omsk, who, according to Perepiolkina, “has not only received legates from the Vatican and openly concelebrated with them, even the Divine Liturgy, but presented the well- known Verenfried with an ‘episcopal cross…, thus becoming an inseparable friend’ of the wealthy Catholic sponsor.
“The practice of offering communion to the heterodox… is reaching epidemic proportions in the MP. This may be illustrated by the state of affairs in the Kaliningrad vicariate of the MP which is… ruled by Bishop Panteleimon (Kutov), a subordinate of Metropolitan Cyril (Gundyaev). In connection with the building project (still only a project, although some donations have already been collected a long time ago) for a Cathedral in the former Koenigsberg (now Kalinigrad), local parishioners hope that ‘this will be an Orthodox church not only by its name. Unfortunately, Bishop Panteleimon’s ecumenical views leave little hope that in the new Cathedral things will be any different from what they are now in the patriarchal churches of the Kaliningrad area, where Orthodox people are offered communion from one chalice with heretics. Bishop Panteleimon himself felt no embarrassment when he declared that ‘Catholics… partook of communion in our churches, and the priests offered prayers for them’.
“The ecumenical epidemic has spread to even the remotest areas. In accordance with the Balamand Agreement [of 1994], the same church buildings are now being regularly used by representatives of different denominations (particularly in the Baltic States). In the village (!) Yegla of Borovichi region of the Novgorod district they are building a church which right at the start will be intended for ecumenical services. It will have three altars: Catholic, Protestant and ‘Orthodox’. The number of such ecumenical prayer houses in Russia is growing.”88
“Ordination… It is generally known that anyone seeking after a high (or simply well-secured) position in the MP under the Communists had to win, in one way or another, the special favour of the God-defying regime.
“All this is entirely contrary to the 30th Apostolic Rule which reads: ‘If any bishop comes into possession of a church office by employing the secular rulers, let him be deposed from office, and let him be excommunicated. And all those who communicate with him too.’ (Compare Rule 3 of the 7th Ecumenical Council.) An unlawful tree cannot produce lawful fruit. Every year the ranks of the Patriarchate’s clergy have been supplemented by those ordained in violation of the Church canons: those tainted by simony, by second marriage, known homosexuals, obviously un-Orthodox and even those married to sectarians (the wife of a Moscow priest A. Borisov, one of the leaders of the late Archpriest Men’s group within the Moscow Patriarchate, is a Pentecostalist who organizes her sect’s meetings in his church.)
“Simony flourishes openly in some dioceses. Thus, it is well know that in
88 Perepiolkina, op. cit., pp. 213-214.
65 Western Ukraine a prospective priest must remunerate his bishop with a sum of 10,000 roubles (the price of a ‘Volga’ car) for his ordination. Parishioners would collect the required sum and present it to their young priest on the day of his first church service. We have no reason to think that his ‘custom’ has in any way suffered from the anarchy which set in after the beginning of perestroika…
“The Sacrament of Marriage is almost always administered without any preparation and without prior Confession of the couple to be married. The determining factor is the payment of a certain sum of money (which in recent years has increased to two, three and more times the average monthly wage). Contrary to the rules, several couples are wed at the same time and often on unstated days and during fasts. Marriages with non-Orthodox and with people of other faiths are allowed. For instance, some of St. Petersburg’s clergy recall a case in the later 70s when one of the well-known Archpriests of that city married his own daughter to a Moslem. It should be added that the perpetration of these and other kinds of unlawful acts is often motivated by the financial and social status of the parties to the marriage…
“Church prayer is also being profaned by the Patriarchate’s clergy when they ‘sanctify’ banks, restaurants, casinos, communist banners of the Red Army and Fleet, as well as buildings used by psychics and ‘healers’. The apostate MP has entered into a special relationship with the ‘Orthodox’ magicians in white coats…
“We may also mention the widespread advertising and sale of ‘holy’ water on the planes of Aeroflot, in shops and restaurants.
“All this, together with ‘funeral services’ for atheists and non-baptised persons (which an Orthodox clergyman may bring himself to perform only as a result of losing the fear of God), and a scandalous acceptance by the hierarchy of the MP (in the person of Metropolitan Pitirim) of a ‘donation’ from the criminal sect ‘Aum Shinri Kyo’ has become the means of replenishing church funds with dirty money.
“Such actions as the luxurious church ceremonies at the funeral of journalist List’yev, notorious for his immoral television programs (in particular those promoting incest), the burial of one of the mafia leaders in the sacred caves of the Pskov Monastery of the Caves, have become a rather symptomatic phenomenon in the Moscow Patriarchate…
“Criminal power has come to replace party power in Russia. This power has immediately secured the support of the MP and has occupied an appropriate place in its life. The MP itself is acquiring a criminal character with its ‘church’ banks, multi-billion fraud and cooperation with the mafia…
“During the long decades of Communist dictatorship an indulgent attitude to all ‘weaknesses’ and deviations of hierarchs and clergy had become firmly ingrained in the consciousness of the members of the MP. This justification of shortcomings was motivated by the alleged ‘captivity’ of the clergy (which from year to year was becoming increasingly voluntary). At the same time the episcopate succeeded in
66 enhancing among the laity and clergy a peculiar kind of Papism (‘The Patriarch is responsible for everything’) and the cult of ‘blessed ignorance’ which, allegedly, makes one’s salvation easier to achieve. All these phenomena flourished and became the very essence of the Moscow Patriarchate, as the years of ‘democratic’ rule have been demonstrating, when discussions about ‘forced’ acts of apostasy… have become meaningless…”89
Many Russians, while not blind to the corruption in the patriarchate, supported it for the sake of the Fatherland; for Russia, they thought (correctly), could not be resurrected without a Church, and the MP was the only Church that they saw (incorrectly) as being able to become the religion of the State. However, as Protopriest Lev Lebedev wrote, “fatherland”, “Russia”, “the State” had become idols in post-Soviet Russia, more important than the true Faith, without which they are worthless: “The ideological idol under the name of ‘fatherland’ (‘Russia’, ‘the state’) has been completely preserved. We have already many times noted that these concepts are, in essence, pagan ideological idols not because they are in themselves bad, but because they have been torn out from the trinitarian unity of co- subjected concepts: Faith, Tsar, Fatherland (Orthodoxy, Autocracy, People)… Everything that one might wish to be recognized and positive, even the regeneration of the faith, is done under the slogan of ‘the regeneration of the Fatherland (Russia)’! But nothing is being regenerated. Even among the monarchists the regeneration of the Orthodox Autocratic Monarchy is mainly represented as no more than the means for the regeneration of the Fatherland. We may note that if any of the constituent parts of the triad – Orthodoxy, Autocracy, People – is torn away from the others and becomes the only one, it loses its power. Only together and in the indicated hierarchical order did they constitute, and do they constitute now, the spiritual (and all the other) strength and significance of Great Russia. But for the time being it is the ideological idol ‘fatherland’ that holds sway…”90
And as long as that idol is worshipped there can be no talk of repentance. For, as Putin’s apologist, Yegor Kholmogorov, has said: “We as a people must be ashamed only about one thing, of our poor fulfilment of the task placed on us by God, of ‘ruling the peoples autocratically’. And any ‘national repentance’ which people like to talk endlessly about must begin with our tanks on the streets of Eastern Europe…"
89 Perepiolkina, op. cit., pp. 125, 127, 129, 130. 90 Lebedev, op. cit., p. 655.
67 82. THE FALL OF YUGOSLAVIA: (1) THE BOSNIAN WAR
A similar failure to repent was taking place in other countries of Eastern Europe. Thus Anca Stati writes that in Romania there was an attempt to repent of the sins of communism immediately after the so-called revolution of 1990. Students and many young people went on the streets and occupied the University Square in Bucharest, demanding a strong condemnation of communism and of all the communists. They wanted all communists to be banned from public office. They claimed that the revolution had been confiscated by neo-communists and they were right! They were saying prayers and singing Christian songs. However, the official Church did not support them at all. Nor did the government. They used the mass media to denigrate people participating to the event. In order to disperse them, President Iliescu, a former communist, called for the mineworkers of Jiu Valley to ”re- establish order and discipline''. Most of the participants in the movement were beaten and arrested. God knows what happened to many of them…91
But the Balkan country in which the failure to repent of Communism undoubtedly caused the most suffering was Yugoslavia. We have seen how the Serbian ex-Communist Milošević and the Croat ex-Communist Tuđman had diverted the need to repent of Communism and return to True Christianity in both countries into a bitter nationalist war that only multiplied the sins of both nations. But there can be no doubt that the transition from communism to, in effect, fascism began earlier in Serbia and went deeper and broader – with tragic consequences both for Serbia, for Yugoslavia as a whole and for Orthodoxy.
After the demonstrations of March, 1991, there was little opposition to Milošević’s incitement of the Serbs to war with their fellow Yugoslavs in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and, in the end, Kosovo. Even the politicians who demonstrated against him, such as Vuk Drašković, agreed with his plans for a Greater Serbia. That is why they were so easily outmanoeuvred by Milošević, who, unlike his more strictly Marxist wife, Mira, was prepared to work with anybody to achieve his aims.
After the war in Croatia died down towards the end of 1991, in 1992, war broke out in neighbouring Bosnia, where an extra complexity was created by the involvement of a third nation, the Muslims. A third nation, not a third religion; for although the Bosnian war has been made out to be a religious war between Orthodox, Catholics and Muslims, it was in fact, according to Srdan Vrčan, a political conflict that was given a religious colouring by the warring leaders in order to gain the support of their peoples.92
“The Slav Moslems of Bosnia,” writes Glenny, “are the only nation in Europe and possibly in the world, who are nominally identified by their religion and not their language or ethnicity. Most are Slavs (Croats and Serbs) or more accurately in
91 Stati, personal communication, November 14, 2014. 92 Vrčan, "The War in Former Yugoslavia and Religion", Religion, State and Society, 22/4, 1994, pp. 374-75. This is also the opinion of Samuel Huntingdon, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, London: Touchstone Books, 1998, pp. 268-269.
68 Bosnia’s case, Catholic or Orthodox Christians, who were converted during the five centuries of Ottoman rule in Bosnia, although doubtless there is a rich mix of Turkish, Albanian, Jewish and Egyptian blood as well, given the ethnic fluidity of Ottoman imperial structures. Before the collapse of the Porte’s rule, the Moslems were identifiable as the landowning aristocracy of Bosnia, that is, they were associated with class and religion rather than nationhood. For many centuries, Bosnia’s rulers, local and regional, came from this class, so while other Balkan nations were busy creating and then nurturing a modern national identity in the nineteenth century, there was less impetus for the Bosnian Moslems to do this – they were already established as the privileged of the region. It was not until the inter-war period that the Moslems began to transcend their religious and class origins and instead to assume a national identity. Like all other minorities in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, they had to subordinate any sense of community they may have developed to the dominance of the three main southern Slav tribes.
“The impact of the Second World War and the genocidal struggle between Serbs and Croats was felt most keenly in Bosnia. The majority of Moslems co-operated with the Croat Fascists, the Ustashas, against the Serb-dominated Partisans. This was particularly marked in Herzegovina where the most primitive branches of the Serb and Croat tribes live, and in eastern and southern Bosnia. Each district in Bosnia has a monument listing the fighters who died fighting for Tito’s Partizans in the National Liberation Struggle. During my visits to Bosnia, I would always visit the monument to see the relative numbers of Moslems and Serbs who died – in most regions four Serbs died for every Moslem. In some areas, like the north- western Moslem enclave of Cazin-Bihač, support for the Partizans was much stronger among the Moslems and this local co-operation yielded a very different relationship between Serbs Moslems after the war.
“Following the creation of Tito’s Yugoslavia, the Moslems were originally granted the status of a minority. Because of the difficulty prescribed by a nationality identified by religion in a country committed to principles of atheism, the communist leadership originally hoped that the Moslems of Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) would simply orient themselves naturally towards either Serb or Croat culture, leading eventually to their natural extinction.
“However, as was so often the case in state socialist countries, the opposite occurred. It was during this period that the Moslems adopted all the characteristics of a modern nation. At the height of Yugoslavia’s isolation after the break with Cominform in June 1948, Tito decided to move large amounts of heavy industry from the peripheral regions of the country into mountainous Bosnia for security reasons. The poorly-educated Moslem artisan classes were rapidly transformed into a literate working class, while the ambitious educational programme of the Communist Party unwittingly encouraged the development of a Moslem intelligentsia, as it did in Albanian and Macedonian intelligentsia. In the 1960s, young Moslem graduates and professionals were able to articulate the needs and requirements of their community as a distinct entity within Yugoslavia for the first time. The student unrest which swept Europe in 1968 found a powerful resonance
69 in Sarajevo, where for the first time young Moslems were able to force concessions from the Party which grudgingly admitted that their people fulfilled all the requirements of a Yugoslav nation. As latent nationalist tension between Serbs and Croats within the Yugoslav League of Communists emerged into the open, for the first time since the war, between 1966 and 1972, Moslem functionaries in the Bosnian League of Communists successfully applied pressure on the leadership in Belgrade to elevate the Moslems’ status from national minority to communist nation. This was finally achieved in 1971. They argued that, within Bosnia, the presence of the Moslems would dilute any actual or potential resentment felt between the republic’s Serbs and Croats. Tito was convinced by this argument and the Moslems’ elevation to nationhood was enshrined in the constitution of 1974. From then on, they were no longer referred to as ‘moslems’ with a small ‘m’, but as ‘Moslems’ (in Serbo-Croat Moslem is only written with a capital when it refers to nationhood)…
“It was at this time that Tito had wanted to find some form of political compensation to allay the fears of non-Serbs in Yugoslavia who were concerned that the crushing of the Croatian Spring in 1971 meant a revival of Serb domination in Yugoslavia. The verbose and baffling result was the 1974 constitution which makes Das Kapital seem like light reading. However, it included two very important new provisions. The first was the strengthening of local power in Serbia’s two Socialist autonomous provinces, Kosovo and Vojvodina. The second was to enshrine the Moslems in Bosnia and the Sandžak as an official Yugoslav nation. Following this recognition of Moslem nationhood, it was argued that Serbs and Croats might gradually discard the popular belief that the Moslems remained at heart either Catholic or Orthodox Slavs. Although largely secular, the explicit religious origins of the Moslems’ identity (they have no specific ethnic or linguistic criteria to differentiate themselves from Serbs or Croats of Bosnia, neither do they have a Belgrade or Zagreb to turn to for material, political or spiritual aid) have made the process of defining their nationhood exceptionally difficult. Not only do many Moslems incline towards certain aspects of either Serbian or Croatian culture, Serbs and Croats under the influence of war psychosis have no received their dangerous belief that Moslems remain at heart Orthodox or Catholic Christian who will at some future point return to the fold, willingly or otherwise…
“The decision by the European Community to recognize Slovenia and Croatia pushed Bosnia into the abyss. Once this had happened, the Bosnian government had only three roads along which it could travel and each led to war. It could have stayed in the rump Yugoslavia and been ruled over by Milošević and Serbia, It could have accepted the territorial division of Bosnia between Serbia and Croatia, as suggested by Tuđman and Milošević. Or it could have applied for recognition as an independent state. The Croat and Moslem considered the first solution unacceptable; the Moslems and Yugoslavs, the second; and the Serbs, the third. This enforced choice could not have been presented at a worse time – Serbia and Croatia had been radicalized by the trauma of a war which neither side had yet won and neither side lost. This has hung over the UN peace-keeping operation in Croatia like a big, black cloud. It also meant that the Croats and Serbs could continue their fight by proxy in Bosnia-Herzegovina, as indeed they did. In addition, there had been an
70 enormous build up of arms throughout the former Yugoslavia.
“Bosnia’s national mix ensures that it cannot be divided without war. At the same time, Bosnia has never existed, since the medieval kingdom, as an independent state. A sovereign Bosnia-Herzegovina would create severe economic problems for its inhabitants and the threat of conflict between the national communities would most likely be immanent. Nor, however, can Bosnia belong to either Croatia or Serbia – it can act as a bridge between the two but its relationship with both republics must be equal and agreed on by both sides. Bosnia has always survived by dint of a protective shield provided either by a Yugoslav state or the Austrian or Ottoman empires. Of all the entities making up the former Yugoslavia, Bosnia boasts the longest history as a definable state, kingdom or republic. None the less its internal stability was invariably guaranteed by an external power which mediated between the three communities (the sublime Porte, Vienna, the inter-war royal dictatorship or Titoism). On the one occasion that this broke down between 1941 and 1945, the results were horrifying: religious war whose violence surpassed that of all other wartime conflicts in the region.
“For this reason, the Bosnian President Alija Izerbegović tried exceptionally hard to counter the bald secessionism of Tuđman and the merciless unitarism of Milošević on the other. The Bosnian dilemma also gave a serious meaning to the idea of an ‘asymmetrical federation’ which was put forward by the Slovenes during initial discussions on constitutional change in 1990. The asymmetrical federation envisaged Yugoslavia as an entity with slightly more authority than the CIS. It also included the provision for republics to have closer structural ties with other parts of the federation to which they claimed a particular affinity – therefore the Serbs from Bosnian Krajina could develop special education or economic relations with Serbia proper, while the Croats of western Herzegovina and Posavina could enjoy a similar relationship with Zagreb.”93
It is beyond the scope of this book to continue the story of any of the Yugoslav wars in detail. Suffice it to say that there was little gain or credit from them for anyone: all sides committed atrocities, while the West dithered and showed cowardice (for example, at Srebrenica, where the slaughter of 7000 Moslems by the Serbs could have been prevented if the air strikes asked for by the Dutch peace- makers had been delivered). But there is no question that the main responsibility lies with Serbs.
For, as Judt writes, “The appalling ferocity and sadism of the Croat and Bosnian wars – the serial abuse, degradation, torture, rape and murder of hundreds of thousands of their fellow citizens – was the work of Serb men, mostly young, aroused to paroxysms of casual hatred and indifference to suffering by propaganda and leadership from local chieftains whose ultimate direction and power came from Belgrade. What followed was not so unusual: it had happened in Europe just a few decades before, when – all across the continent and under the warrant of war – ordinary people committed quite extraordinary crimes.
93 Glenny, The Fall of Yugoslavia, London: Penguin, 2007, pp. 139-141, 142, 144-145.
71
“There is no doubt that in Bosnia especially there was a history upon which Serb propaganda could call – a history of past sufferings that lay buried just beneath the misleadingly placid surface of post-war Yugoslav life. But the decision to arouse that memory, to manipulate and to exploit it for political ends, was made by men: one man in particular. As Slobodan Milošević disingenuously conceded to a journalist during the Dayton talks [in 1995], he had never expected the wars in his country to last so long. That is doubtless true. But those wars did not just break out from spontaneous ethnic combustion. Yugoslavia did not fall: it was pushed. It did not die: it was killed…”94
*
Perhaps the greatest evil engendered by the Yugoslav wars was the terrible image of Orthodoxy Christianity that it conveyed to the world. Of course, as we have seen, the official Serbian Church had ceased to be truly Orthodox already in the 1960s. But this was not known to the world: they looked at the externals and said “this is Orthodoxy” – and were horrified by what they saw. The Lord accused the Israelites of profaning His name among the nations (Romans 2.24; Ezekiel 36.22). The same accusation could be levelled against the Serbs, including the Serbian Church.
Under Milošević, even the Church cooperated willingly in the betrayal of Serbia and Orthodoxy through spreading the Gospel of hate. “Thus many of [Vuk] Drašković’s most inflammatory articles,” writes Norman Cigar, “appeared first in Glas Crkve, an official Church journal. The Church subsequently also co-published his collected works, which were promoted in Glas Crkve with testimonials in the accompanying ads, proclaiming his books to be ‘literature which gives birth to the great spiritual movement of renewal and rebirth among the Serbs’.” Again, shortly before the outbreak of war in Bosnia, “an article in Pravoslavlje, an official Church publication, seemed to encourage the Serbs to view conflict in positive terms and took a clear stand against what it condemned as pacifism and defeatism. Stressing that the Serbs were engaged in a veritable struggle between good and evil, the author of the article argued that ‘such partisans of peace help the evil forces that are opposed to God (and by the same token to humanity), and they are the champions of treason and defeat. In our present Armageddon, they are on the side of the destructive Gog and Magog… The basis for such a practice and theory of peace most often is cowardly egoism’ [emphasis in the original]. Summing up his exhortations, he portrayed war as a religious experience for the Serbs, assuring his audience that ‘self-sacrificing struggle for the purpose of bringing about this [state of] righteousness is a highly creative impulse and a contribution to the fulfilment of God’s and mankind’s goals against evil and oppression as part of the universal plan of salvation.’”95
94 Judt, op. cit., p. 685. 95 Cigar, Genocide in Bosnia, Texas A & M University Press, 1995, pp. 31-32.
72 The Church actively supported the worst war-mongerers – and not only in words. Thus Željko Ražnatović (Arkan), “whose gunmen were later accused of some of the worst war crimes in Bosnia-Herzegovina, received initial help ‘above all’, as he acknowledged subsequently, from the Serbian Orthodox Church in organizing, financing, and arming his militia…
"Notwithstanding general condemnations of violence by Patriarch Pavle, the Serbian Orthodox Church continued to lend its mantle of respectability to even the most extreme nationalist elements. Arkan provided bodyguards for the Serbian Orthodox metropolitan Amfilohije of Montenegro, who has reportedly used them to intimidate dissidents. In July, 1993, on the occasion of the city of Belgrade's holy day, Arkan marched prominently beside Patriarch Pavle in solemn procession through the city streets. In that same month, Patriarch Pavle himself led an official delegation to Bosnia, where he presided over widely publicized religious ceremonies with the participation of the top Bosnian Serb government and military leaders."96
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen writes: “Orthodox leaders supported the Serbs’ eliminationist assaults against Muslims during the 1990s, even opening their churches to the perpetrators for planning and organizing local eliminationist campaigns. The Orthodox Bishop Vasilije of Tuzla-Zvornik in Bosnia, an area of intensive killings and other brutalities, was one of Arkan’s more impassioned supporters. Several Orthodox bishops from Croatia and Bosnia presided over Arkan’s wedding in 1994, two years after he initiated the eliminationist assaults in Bosnia.”97
The tragedy of the Serbian Church and people lay in the fact that their only real claim to lordship over the non-Orthodox peoples of Yugoslavia, their possession of the true, Orthodox faith, was fatally undermined by their anti-Orthodox and anti- Christian behaviour. Even if they had been truly Orthodox from a dogmatic point of view – which, as we have seen, they are not – they had shown themselves very far from true Orthodoxy from a moral point of view. For their hatred of their neighbours and fellow-citizens, their desire to wreak horrific vengeance on whole peoples, shows that they did not understand, and did not wish to understand, the central tenet of Christian morality: love for enemies. It is the Christian’s love of his enemies that places him immeasurably higher from a moral point of view than the Muslim, who does not have this conception. But a Christian who hates rather than loves his enemies becomes like his enemies – but with much less excuse, since he, unlike them, knows the Law of God, - and is no better than a pagan in the words of Christ Himself.
With regard to their war against the Croats, the general feeling among the Serbs was that what was taking place was a repeat of 1941, when hundreds of thousands of Orthodox Serbs were martyred by Catholic Croats for refusing to renounce Orthodoxy. Now it cannot be denied that similarities existed between the present
96 Cigar, op. cit., pp. 36, 67-68. 97 Goldhagen, Worse than War, London: Abacus, 2012, p. 140.
73 and the past. Thus in 1991, as in 1941, the Vatican backed Croatia, being the first state to recognize its independence out of the wreckage of Yugoslavia. It was reported that the Catholic Church itself purchased weapons and ammunition that it sent to the Croats.98 And the Pope called the bloody murderer of Serbs in World War II, Cardinal Stepinac, "undoubtedly the most prominent martyr in Croatia's history".99
But did the evil of their enemies make the Serbs innocent victims or “martyrs” for Christ, as even some Greek Old Calendarist publications incautiously declared? The historical evidence is overwhelmingly against such a conclusion.
First, most independent journalists and historians agree that while atrocities were carried out on both sides, far more came from the Serb side, and the atrocities of the Croats and Muslims were largely retaliatory (which does not make them, excusable, of course). Secondly, and most importantly, while the Serbs in 1941 were truly Orthodox, they were far from being so in 1991. They had not repented of Communism, - in fact, they looked back on the Communist dictator Tito’s era as a golden age - and enthusiastically followed their Communist leadership. Moreover, they were ecumenists, and before 1996 there was no True Orthodox movement inside Serbia…
Thus in a letter to the Pope dated January 17, 1992 Patriarch Paul asked for "a true ecumenical dialogue between our two sister Churches".100
Again, a year later he wrote to the Pope: “We sincerely rejoice that this joint prayer… (with) representatives of other Christian churches and confessions in Europe, as well as representatives of Islam and other great religions,… will take place in Assisi, the homeland of that righteous one and true servant of God, whose spiritual legacy and teachings have made him an apostle of humility, repentance, peace and love. He has built a real bridge between Christians of the West and East. You may rest assured, Your Holiness, that on this day, as well as on every day given us by God, we are in communion with you in prayer for peace and the salvation of all. This is so, although the undersigned… is regretfully unable to be able personally and physically at the concelebration in Assisi. We ask you to do us a favour and receive our delegation as soon as possible in spite your enormous volume of work and all your great difficulties. This delegation will be instructed to cooperate with these organisations which you appoint for the preparation of our meeting with Your Holiness. If God is merciful, and the meeting takes place in the not so remote future, this will be the first meeting between the Pope of Rome and the Serbian Patriarch. We once more thank Your Holiness for the invitation, attention and love which you have shown us. We assure you that on the 9th and 10th of January, during the prayer in Assisi, we ‘with one mouth and one heart’ will offer up to the Throne of our Lord and Saviour, together with Your Holiness and all
98 Antonios Markou, "On the Serbian Question", Orthodox Tradition, vol. XI, № 4, 1994, p. 16. 99 "'World Orthodoxy's' Sister Church to canonize murderer of the Serbian Orthodox people", Orthodox Christian Witness, September 12/25, 1994, p. 2. 100 Florence Hamlish Levinsohn, Belgrade: Among the Serbs, Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1994, p. 238.
74 the Bishops and believers of your Holy Church, our sincere prayers for peace in the whole world and peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina.”101
Claims to be suffering martyrdom for the Orthodox faith at the hands of wicked Catholics and Muslims are hardly consistent with ecumenist betrayal of that same faith with those same enemies!...
Gradually, as the war in Bosnia turned against the Serbs, the Church began to change its attitude towards the government from enthusiastic support to criticism. Rather late in the day, and somewhat hypocritically, the Church even began to criticise others for being “servants of the communist ideology”. “Thus in 1993,” writes the Swiss Orthodox analyst Jean-François Meyer, “one could see the minister responsible for religious affairs in Belgrade accusing the Church of getting involved in political affairs and certain bishops of wanting to 'stir up the people against the government', while the patriarchate replied by describing the minister as a 'servant of the communist ideology'. At least one part of President Milošević's entourage continues to cultivate the anti-religious heritage of the communist regime, beginning with the president's wife herself, Mira Marković (ex-president of the 'Federation of communists - Movement for Yugoslavia', then founder in 1995 of a new party, the UYL, that is, the 'United Yugoslav Left'), who deplores the importance of religion in Serbia and considers that the country 'has already reverted spiritually to the Middle Ages'; the tendency of the regime to retrieve Serb nationalist symbols does not prevent the wife of the president from criticising the cult of Saint Sabbas, which is very important in the Serbian Orthodox tradition. Wishing to be a guarantor of the unity of all Serbs, the Serbian Church has again reasserted her opposition to the Belgrade regime when the latter tried to distance itself from the Bosnian Serbs so as to obtain a lifting of the embargo imposed by the international community. When the Serbs fled from Krajina in August, 1995, the leaders of the Serbian Church again published a solemn declaration sharply criticising the 'incapacity' of the 'neo-communist' Belgrade regime, which has led to 'a total impasse' and is preventing 'the spiritual, moral and political recovery' of the Serbian people."102
This gesture of defiance towards the communist government was a welcome change from the Serbian Church's servility and “sergianism” in relation to the communists over the previous forty years - but it did not last, as we shall see when we come to the last phase of the Yugoslav wars, in Kosovo in 1999…
“The Church, in its own way, also contributed to making force a morally acceptable means to use in Bosnia-Herzegovina in rejecting peaceful solutions. Shortly before the outbreak of violence there, for example, an article in Pravoslavlje, an official Church publication, seemed to encourage the Serbs to view conflict in positive terms and took a clear stand against what it condemned as pacifism and defeatism. Stressing that the Serbs were engaged in a veritable struggle between
101 Russkaia Mysl’ (Russian Thought), January 22, 1993. 102 Jean-François Meyer, Religions et Sécurité Internationale (Religions and International Security), Berne, Switzerland: Office Central de la Defense, 1995, pp. 24-25.
75 good and evil, the author of the article argued that ‘such [Serbian] partisans of peace help the evil forces that are opposed to God (and by the same token to humanity), and they are the champions of treason and defeat. In our present Armageddon, they are on the side of the destructive Gog and Magog… The basis for such a practice and theory of peace most often is cowardly egoism’ [emphasis in the original]. Summing up his exhortations, he portrayed war as a religious experience for the Serbs, assuring his audience that ‘self-sacrificing struggle for the purpose of bringing about this [state of] righteousness is a highly creative impulse and a contribution to the fulfilment of God’s and mankind’s goals against evil and oppression as part of the universal plan of salvation.’”103
Nor did the Church support the war-mongerers with words only. Thus the warlord Željko Ražnatović (Arkan), “whose gunmen were later accused of some of the worst war crimes in Bosnia-Herzegovina, received initial help ‘above all’, as he acknowledged subsequently, from the Serbian Orthodox Church in organizing, financing, and arming his militia…
"Notwithstanding general condemnations of violence by Patriarch Pavle, the Serbian Orthodox Church continued to lend its mantle of respectability to even the most extreme nationalist elements. Arkan provided bodyguards for the Serbian Orthodox metropolitan Amfilohije of Montenegro, who has reportedly used them to intimidate dissidents. In July, 1993, on the occasion of the city of Belgrade's holy day, Arkan marched prominently beside Patriarch Pavle in solemn procession through the city streets. In that same month, Patriarch Pavle himself led an official delegation to Bosnia, where he presided over widely publicized religious ceremonies with the participation of the top Bosnian Serb government and military leaders."104
The tragedy of the Serbian Church and people lay in the fact that their only real claim to lordship over the non-Orthodox peoples of Yugoslavia, their possession of the true, Orthodox faith, was fatally undermined by their anti-Orthodox and anti- Christian behaviour. Even if they had been truly Orthodox from a dogmatic point of view – which, as we have seen, they are not – they had shown themselves very far from true Orthodoxy from a moral point of view. For their hatred of their neighbours and fellow-citizens, their desire to wreak horrific vengeance on whole peoples, shows that they did not understand, and did not wish to understand, the central tenet of Christian morality: love for enemies. It is the Christian’s love of his enemies that places him immeasurably higher from a moral point of view than the Muslim, who does not have this conception. But a Christian who hates rather than loves his enemies becomes like his enemies – but with much less excuse, since he,
103 Cigar, Genocide in Bosnia, Texas A & M University Press, 1995, pp. 31-32. 104 Cigar, op. cit., pp. 36, 67-68. Goldhagen writes: “Orthodox leaders supported the Serbs’ eliminationist assaults against Muslims during the 1990s, even opening their churches to the perpetrators for planning and organizing local eliminationist campaigns. The Orthodox Bishop Vasilije of Tuzla-Zvornik in Bosnia, an area of intensive killings and other brutalities, was one of Arkan’s more impassioned supporters. Several Orthodox bishops from Croatia and Bosnia presided over Arkan’s wedding in 1994, two years after he initiated the eliminationist assaults in Bosnia” (op. cit., p. 140).
76 unlike them, knows the Law of God, - and is no better than a pagan in the words of Christ Himself.
77 83. THE PROGRESS OF ROCOR’S MISSION
In May, 1990, Bishop Lazarus of Tambov, who, as we have seen, had been secretly consecrated by ROCOR Bishop Barnabas of Cannes in 1982, was able to obtain a passport in order to go to New York, where his consecration was confirmed by the ROCOR Sobor. An important decision now lay before the assembled bishops: was the ministry of their sole bishop in Russia to remain in the catacombs for Catacomb Christians, or were they to bless the creation of above- ground parishes in direct and open competition with the MP? This question was to divide members of the Catacomb Church from recent converts from the MP…
In fact, the decision to create above-ground parishes had been virtually taken already, because on April 7 Metropolitan Vitaly had received from the MP the parish of St. Constantine the Great in Suzdal under Archimandrite Valentine (Rusantsov), who, according to his own account, had left his ruling bishop after refusing to spy on foreign tourists.105 Valentine was received by the metropolitan through a simple phone call, in spite of the fact that he had a very tarnished past. Many believed he had been a KGB agent, arguing that he could not have attained
105 As Fr. Valentine told the story: “In the Vladimir diocese I served as dean. I was a member of the diocesan administration, was for a time diocesan secretary and had responsibility for receiving guests in this diocese. And then I began to notice that I was being gradually, quietly removed. Perhaps this happened because I very much disliked prayers with people of other faiths. It’s one thing to drink tea with guests, and quite another… to pray together with them, while the guests, it has to be said, were of all kinds: both Buddhists, and Muslims, and Satanists. I did not like these ecumenical prayers, and I did not hide this dislike of mine. “And so at first they removed me from working with the guests, and then deprived me of the post of secretary, and then excluded me from the diocesan council. Once after my return from a trip abroad, the local hierarch Valentine (Mishchuk) summoned me and said: ‘Sit down and write a report for the whole year about what foreigners were with you, what you talked about with them, what questions they asked you and what answers you gave them.’ ‘Why is this necessary?’ ‘It’s just necessary,’ replied the bishop. ‘I don’t understand where I am, Vladyko – in the study of a hierarch or in the study of a KGB operative? No, I’ve never done this and never will do it. And remember that I am a priest and not a “stooge”.’ ‘Well if you’re not going to do it, I will transfer you to another parish.’ “And so the next day came the ukaz concerning my transfer to the out-of-the-way place Pokrov. I was upset, but after all I had to obey, it was a hierarch’s ukaz. But suddenly something unexpected happened – my parishioners rebelled against this decision, people began to send letters to the representatives of the authorities expressing their dissatisfaction with my transfer: our parishioners even hired buses to go to the capital and protest. “The patriarchate began to admonish them, suggested ‘a good batyushka’, Demetrius Netsvetaiev, who was constantly on trips abroad, in exchange. ‘We don’t need your batyushka,’ said the parishioners, ‘we know this kind, today he’ll spy on foreigners, tomorrow on the unbelievers of Suzdal, and then he’ll begin to reveal the secret of parishioners’ confessions.’ In general, our parishioners just didn’t accept Netsvetaiev. They didn’t even let him into the church. The whole town was aroused, and the parishioners came to me: ‘Fr. Valentine, what shall we do?’ At that point I told them that I had passed my childhood among the ‘Tikhonites’ [Catacomb Christians], and that there is a ‘Tikhonite Church’ existing in exile. If we write to their first-hierarch, Metropolitan Vitaly, and he accepts us – will you agree to be under his omophorion? The church people declared their agreement. However, this attempt to remove me did not pass without a trace, I was in hospital as a result of an attack of nerves. And so, at the Annunciation, I receive the news that our parish had been received into ROCA.” (“Vladyka Valentin raskazyvaiet” (Vladyka Valentine tells his story), Pravoslavnaia Rus’ (Orthodox Russia), № 17 (1446), September 1/14, 1991, pp. 9-10).
78 such a “cushy” post in the MP without being one.
Whether or not he had been an agent106, and whether or not, if he had, he had repented of that, Valentine soon proved himself to be a good administrator, actively receiving priests and parishes, and providing legal registration for them within the Suzdal diocese. However, some parishes distrusted him precisely for his success in this respect. The parishes in Voronezh and Chernigov had the disconcerting experience of being told that they would be refused registration unless they passed under the omophorion either of the local MP hierarch or of Valentine of Suzdal.107 Was Valentine simply using his contacts in the MP with skill, or was there, as many suspected, a more sinister reason for his success? In spite of these doubts, Valentine was able to gain the support of Bishop Gregory (Grabbe).108
The official beginning of ROCOR’s mission in Russia was marked by the concelebration of Archbishops Mark, Hilarion and Lazarus in Fr. Valentine’s parish in Suzdal on June 8/21, 1990.109 Valentine soon began to attract priests and parishes
106 The present writer put that question directly to Valentine in a Moscow flat in 1998. The answer was: “A monk does not justify himself…” 107 “Chernigovskomu prikhodu RIPTs-RPTsZ – 15 let” (15 Years of the Chernigov Parish of RTOC- ROCOR), http://karlovtchanin.com/inex.php?module=pages&act=print_page&pid=109&SSID. 108 Thus on September 17/30 he wrote to the Synod that Suzdal was “a base sent from God”. And he continued: “S.K. [probably Stefan Krasovitsky] writes to me on the question of the development of our mission in Russia: ‘A very great brake is the fact that Vladyka Lazarus has not the right, as he claims, to receive clergy from all round the country into our Church, but only in Tambov province. It would be necessary for him to have such a right. It is also necessary that Archimandrite Valentine should have such a right, and I hope he will return to us in the rank of a bishop. The point is that at present many priests are going both to Vladyka Lazarus and to Fr. Valentine. All the papers, as Vl. Lazarus says, he sends to America. While things are going from here to there, parishes can disperse, be closed in cooperation with the authorities, etc. “Fr. Germanus Ivanov-Trinadtsaty, after staying in Russia and getting to know the situation on the spot, writes that keeping Fr. Valentine in the rank of archimandrite without consecrating him while there were three of our bishops in Russia has elicited perplexity: ‘I see,’ he writes, ‘all the “faults” (in inverted commas) of Fr. Valentine, everything that makes him not the typical abroad cleric, but I can WITNESS that he himself sees this and is trying to change. He is precisely that person who has fallen on our heads from the sky, who can get things moving. He is capable of changing the situation in Russia radically in our favour. For this he needs a hierarchical mitre. “I personally have talked for quite a long time with Fr. Valentine and did not notice in him any of those faults about which Vl. Mark writes. Evidently, life and work in our Church in the course of the past months has not passed in vain for him. “Fr. Germanus also talked with great veneration about Vladyka Lazarus… but thinks that he is not capable of being a leader. He does not have that firm juridical position which, but a miracle of God, Fr. Valentine has and which we could use. If we want to carry out missionary work in Russia, there is simply no other way out for us.” (Tserkovnie Novosti (Church News), № 4 (105), May, 2002, p. 7). On October 13/26, 1990, Bishop Gregory wrote to Archbishop Anthony of San Francisco: “Vladyka Lazarus is a fine person, but too accustomed to the catacombs, while he does not have the right to live in Moscow. He is not capable of heading open work. I hope that you, Vladyko, as a member of the Synod will help poor Valentine.” (Wojciech Zalewski, “Vozvraschenie Russkoj Zarubezhnoi Tserkvi na Rodinu. Vzgliad Episkopa Grigoria (Grabbe). Iurii Pavlovich Grabbe’s (Bishop Grigorii) Vision of the Return of the Orthodox Church to the Homeland in the Post- Soviet Era” (MS, in English mainly).) 109 Fr. Stefan Krasovitsky, “Torzhestva v Suzdale” (Triumphs in Suzdal), Pravoslavnaia Rus’ (Orthodox Russia), № 15 (1420), August 1/14, 1990, p. 3.
79 from both the MP and the Catacomb Church. However, he also encountered opposition both from within Russia and from the ROCOR bishops outside it…
Valentine’s main opponent was the German Archbishop Mark, who, in July, 1990, wrote a letter to Metropolitan Vitaly describing Valentine as “in everything – his behaviour, his mentality – a typical product of the Soviet Patriarchate.” While slamming Valentine, Mark began interfering in Russian life, and ordained a priest in St. Petersburg. Thus a schism between ROCOR and the leaders of its Russian mission threatened: as early as July 5, 1990 Bishop Lazarus told the present writer that if Mark continued to interfere with his work in Russia, he would form an autonomous church organization on the basis of Patriarch Tikhon’s ukaz № 362 – a threat he carried out three years later.
On October 3/16, 1990, Bishop Gregory wrote to Bishop Barnabas seeking his support for the consecration of Archimandrite Valentine to the episcopate. He was not very learned, he said, but he was “bold” and “right-thinking”. Then, on October 26, he sought the support of Archbishop Anthony of San Francisco. Finally, at the end of October, “the Metropolitan, urged by Grabbe, approved the consecration of Valentine [to the episcopate], against the opposition of Archbishops Mark of Germany and Anthony of Los Angeles, and directed Archbishop Anthony of Geneva and Bishop Barnabas to consecrate Valentine. This took place in Brussels in February, 1991.” A few months earlier, in November, 1990, Bishop Benjamin (Rusalenko), a catacombnik, had been ordained Bishop of Gomel in Belorussia.
ROCOR’s mission now consisted of three bishops, and was called the “Free Russian Orthodox Church” (FROC). Its numbers had increased to some sixty parishes, while the MP suffered a sharp drop in popularity.110
Bishop Lazarus’ attitude towards the creation of above-ground parishes was described by Vitaly Shumilo: “Being placed before the alternative: to remain a secret catacomb hierarch or come out of hiding and lead Church construction in Russia, he chose the latter, although he did not agree to it immediately. Before taking this decision, Vladyka Lazarus in the same year of 1990 conducted a Conference of the catacomb clergy at which he took counsel with them on this question. And since almost everyone expressed their desire that he remain in a catacomb position, he agreed with their demand that he ordain a catacomb bishop for them. The candidate put forward in a conciliar manner was Hieromonk Benjamin (Rusalenko), who came from a family of born catacombniks and had been the spiritual son of the catacomb elder well-known in Belorussia, Hieromonk Theodore (Rafanovich (+1975). The catacombniks invited an official representative of ROCOR to the meeting and through him petitioned the Synod to ordain one more catacomb bishop for the TOC. The request was granted, and on November 28, 1990 Fr. Benjamin (Rusalenko) was ordained to look after the catacombniks by the ROCOR
110 V. Moss, "The Free Russian Orthodox Church", Report on the USSR, № 44, November 1, 1991; L. Byzov, S. Filatov, “Religia i politika v obshchestvennom soznanii sovetskogo naroda” (Religion and Politics in the Social Consciousness of the Soviet People), in Bessmertnij, A.R. & Filatov, S.B., Religia i Demokratia (Religion and Democracy), Moscow: Progress, 1993, p. 41, note 5.
80 Synod. He was appointed Bishop of Gomel, a vicar of Archbishop Lazarus…
“It seemed that all the conditions for the reestablishment in the Homeland of the TOC’s Church administration with the help of ROCOR had been fulfilled. However, at this point certain members of the ROCOR Synod began to act in a completely opposite direction, which led in the end to contradictions within the Russian dioceses and the disorganization of Church life. One of the serious mistakes of the ROCOR Synod was the decision to open on the territory of Russia, in parallel with the TOC, parishes of ROCOR consisting of clergy and laity who had come over from the Moscow Patriarchate.
“From the first day Vladyka Lazarus spoke against the creation in Russia of parallel parishes and dioceses of ROCOR, considering that in Russia there should be the TOC, and abroad – ROCOR. These two branches were united between themselves, but under different administrative centres. He was profoundly convinced that “the Church Abroad” within the bounds of the Fatherland was canonical nonsense. Vladyka Lazarus’ report to the ROCOR Synod in 1993 was devoted to this theme. In July, 1993 there was an expanded Conference of RTOC clergy under the presidency of Archbishop Lazarus in Odessa, which supported Archbishop Lazarus and addressed the ROCOR Synod explaining the necessity of re-establishing Church administration in the Homeland and the administrative self- administration of RTOC in accordance with the Holy Patriarch Tikhon’s decree no. 362, without breaking ecclesiastico-canonical unity with ROCOR.
“In the same year of 1993 the Odessa Diocesan Administration of the Russian True Orthodox Church was officially registered by Archbishop Lazarus. Later this was confirmed by the Hierarchical Council of ROCOR. In the Charter of the Odessa Diocese of RTOC it says: ‘The Russian True Orthodox Church is an independent part of the once united (before 1927) Local Russian Orthodox Church. The administrative-canonical separation of RTOC from other parts of the Russian Church is envisaged by decree no. 362 of the Holy Patriarch Tikhon dated November 7/20, 1920 and by the Epistle of the Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne Metropolitan Agathangelus dated June 5/18, 1922 on the self-government of dioceses. If several dioceses of the RTOC jurisdiction are formed, then a Holy Synod will be formed consisting of Ruling Hierarchs, and a First Hierarch will be elected who will be the constant President of the Holy Synod.’
“Archbishop Lazarus consistently and in a principled manner defended the idea of the restoration of ecclesiastical administration in the Homeland and the preservation of the TOC from being engulfed by ROCOR. This elicited the displeasure of certain representatives of ROCOR such as Archbishop Mark and Bishop Barnabas, and there arose a conflict between a part of the bishops of ROCOR and the bishops inside Russia. The result of the conflict was that Archbishop Lazarus was for a certain time retired and banned from serving. Although the wrongness and uncanonicity of the ROCOR Synod’s act was evident, nevertheless, fearing a deepening of disagreements and not wishing to deepen the conflict, the bishops and clergy inside Russia humbly accepted this Synodal decision and
81 submitted to it.”111
Another question discussed at the May, 1990 Sobor in New York was: what was the canonical status of the catacomb jurisdictions not under the leadership of Bishop Lazarus and ROCOR? Not unnaturally, Bishop Lazarus had a decisive influence on the decisions taken in this sphere.
These included the decision of the ROCOR Sobor on May 18 to annul its previous decision of December, 1977 recognizing Archbishop Anthony Galynsky- Mikhailovsky and his clergy. 112 “It cannot be recognized as correct because, in connection with newly revealed circumstances, the Episcopal ordination of Anthony (Galynsky-Mikhailovsky) is very dubious, the more so in that there are no written date confirming the canonicity of the ordination.” The priests ordained by him were “to regulate their canonical position by turning towards his Grace Bishop Lazarus of Tambov and Morshansk”.
The Sobor also decided to reject the canonicity of the Catacomb hierarchy deriving its apostolic succession from Bishop Seraphim (Pozdeyev) and Schema- Metropolitan Gennady (Sekach).113 In 2000, a book was published appearing to prove beyond doubt that Bishop Seraphim was no bishop, but an imposter…114 More recently, two “Sekachite” bishops were received by Metropolitan Agathangel of New York (ROCOR-A) by cheirothesia…
On August 2/15, 1990 another ukaz signed by Bishop Hilarion on behalf of ROCOR was distributed (but not published) which rejected the canonicity both of the “Seraphimo-Gennadiite” and of the “Galynskyite” branches of the Catacomb Church.115 The main accusation made by the ukaz against the two groups was their inability to prove their apostolic succession by producing ordination certificates, as required by the 33rd Apostolic Canon. This was, of course, a serious deficiency; and it was perfectly reasonable that ROCOR should first seek to check, and if necessary correct, their canonical status before entering into communion with them. But in
111 Shumilo, “Kratkaia Istoricheskaia Spravka on RIPTs” (A Short Historical Note on the RTOC), 2008. 112 On Archbishop Anthony, see “I Vrata Adovy ne Odoleiut Eia’ (materialy k istorii Rossijskoj Istinno-Pravoslavnoj Tserkvi)” (And the Gates of Hell shall not Prevail against Her) (Materials towards the History of the True Orthodox Church), Suzdal’skie Eparkhial’nie Vedomosti (Suzdal Diocesan News), № 7, March-May, 1999, pp. 35-40; Kto est’ kto v rossijskikh katakombakh (Who’s Who in the Russian Catacombs), St. Petersburg, 1999. 113 See Andreyev, Russia’s Catacomb Saints, Platina: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1982, chapter 40; V. Moss, "The True Orthodox Church of Russia", Religion in Communist Lands, Winter, 1991; Hierodeacon Jonah (Yashunsky), “Nashi Katakomby” (Our Catacombs), Vestnik RKhD (Herald of the Russian Christian Movement), 1992, № 166; Bishop John and Igumen Elijah, Tainij Skhimitropolit (A Secret Schema-Metropolitan), Moscow: "Bogorodichnij Tsentr", 1991; Kto est’ kto v rossijskikh katakombakh, pp. 53-60. 114 V.V. Alekseev, M.Yu. Nechaeva, Voskreschie Romanovy? (Resurrected Romanovs?), Yekaterinburg, 2000. 115 “Spravka iz Kantseliarii Arkhierejskago Sinoda” (Document from the Chancellery of the Hierarchical Synod), № 4/77/133, 2/15 August, 1990. See also Priest Oleg, "O mir vsego mira, blagosostoianii svyatykh Bozhiikh tserkvej i soedinenii vsekh, Gospodu pomolimsa" (For the peace of the whole world and the good estate of the holy Churches of God and the union of all, let us pray to the Lord), Pravoslavnaia Rus' (Orthodox Russia), № 24 (1453), December 15/28, 1991, pp. 11-12.
82 view of both groups’ favourable attitude towards ROCOR, it would seem to have been more reasonable and charitable to have talked with them directly, learned their history and their point of view on the problem, and discussed with them some way of correcting this deficiency without dismissing them outright. Just such a charitable, unifying attitude to the various Catacomb groups had been urged by Bishop Gregory (Grabbe), but was rejected by ROCOR. And so the possibility of correcting the canonical anomalies of these hierarchs in a peaceful manner and with their complete cooperation (for most of them had a high regard for ROCOR) was lost.116
The news that ROCOR had rejected them produced catastrophic effects in the lower clergy and laity of these Catacomb groups.117 The impression was created that ROCOR had come into Russia, not in order to work with the Catacomb Church for the triumph of True Orthodoxy, but in order to replace her, or at most to gather the remnants of the catacombs under her sole authority. Indeed, in one declaration explaining the reasons for the consecration of Bishop Lazarus, ROCOR stated that it was in order “to regulate the church life of the Catacomb Church”.118 Moreover, in the years to come the ROCOR Synod sometimes described itself as the central authority of the True Russian Church – in spite of the fact that this “central authority” was based, not in Russia, but thousands of miles away in New York!
One Catacomb group, the “Passportless”, so-called because of their refusal to bear Soviet passports as signifying the seal of the Antichrist119, was in a somewhat different category. Their leader, Hieromonk Gury (Pavlov) had been, by common consent, canonically ordained in 1928 by Catacomb Hieromartyr Bishop Nectary of Yaransk. About five thousand passportless in Eastern Russia and Siberia elected him as their candidate for the episcopate, and in the spring of 1990 he travelled for
116 ROCOR later came to believe that she had made a mistake in this matter. Thus Archbishop Hilarion, the sole signatory of the ukaz of August 2/15, 1990 wrote to the present writer: “The statement which I signed as Deputy Secretary of the Synod was based entirely on the information given to us by Archbishop Lazarus. He reported to the Synod on the different groups of the Catacombs and convinced the members of the Synod (or the Council – I don’t recall offhand which) that their canonicity was questionable and in some instances – their purity of doctrine as well (e.g. imyabozhniki [name-worshippers]). The Synod members hoped (naively) that this would convince the catacomb groups to rethink their position and seek from the Russian Church Abroad correction of their orders to guarantee apostolic succession. We now see that it was a mistake to issue the statement and to have based our understanding of the catacomb situation wholly on the information provided by Vl. Lazarus. I personally regret this whole matter very much and seek to have a better understanding of and a sincere openness towards the long-suffering confessors of the Russian Catacombs.” (Private email communication, July 15, 1998). 117 Thus the present writer remembers coming to a catacomb gathering in Moscow on the eve of the Feast of the Dormition, 1990. The priest entered, and instead of vesting himself for the vigil service, took off his cross in the presence of all the people, declaring: “According to ROCOR I am not a priest.” Then he went to Bishop Lazarus and was re-ordained. Meanwhile, his flock, abandoned by their shepherd and deprived of any pastoral guidance, scattered in different directions… 118 “Zaiavlenie Arkhierejskago Sinoda Russkoj Pravoslavnoj Tserkvi Zagranitsej” (Declaration of the Hierarchical Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad), Pravoslavnaia Rus’ (Orthodox Russia), № 18 (1423), 15/28 September, 1990, p. 6. 119 See V. Moss, “Pechat’ Antikhrista v Sovietskoj i Post-Sovietskoj Rossii” (The Seal of the Antichrist in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia), Suzdal’skie Eparkhial’nie Vedomosti (Suzdal Diocesan News), № 10, April-November, 2000, pp. 22-30.
83 this purpose to the Synod of ROCOR in New York (for which, of course, he had to compromise and take a passport). However, when Fr. Gury learned that Bishop Lazarus was to take part in his consecration, believing Lazarus to be a KGB agent, he refused the episcopate, broke with ROCOR and returned to Russia. After some negotiations with the Greek Old Calendarist Archbishop Chrysostom II of Athens, Fr. Gury turned to the Auxentiites and received consecration as Bishop of Kazan in Boston in July, 1991.120 He died in Kazan on Christmas Day, 1995/96.121
ROCOR’s relationship with the passportless revealed an important theological difference between the True Churches inside and outside Russia in their attitude to the State in Soviet in post-Soviet Russia. In view of the decades of geographical isolation between the Churches such a difference was perhaps not surprising. But it turned out to be perhaps the most important single factor leading to the failure of ROCOR’s mission in Russia.
The Church inside Russia, living under the threat of complete annihilation, was inclined to describe her situation in apocalyptic terms, thus: since 1917 we have entered the last period of Church history, the period of the Apocalypse; the True Church, like the woman clothed in the sun, has fled into the wilderness, and the earth (the catacombs) has swallowed her up; while the false church, the Moscow Patriarchate, is the whore sitting on the red beast (communism) (Revelation chapters 12-13 and 17). ROCOR had used very similar language to describe the situation in her All-Emigration Council of Belgrade in 1938; but in the post-war years, as news of the Catacomb Church became scarcer, on the one hand, and the Soviet beast became, by the standards of the 1930s, relatively gentler, on the other, this eschatological emphasis became less pronounced. This difference became a clear theological divergence in, for example, the correspondence between Metropolitan Vitaly and representatives of the passportless in the early 1990s. The metropolitan compared the Soviet Union to the Roman empire. St Paul had been proud of his Roman citizenship, he wrote, so what was wrong with having a Soviet passport and being called a Soviet citizen?122
The Passportless Christians were appalled by the comparison – as if Rome, the state in which Christ Himself was born and was registered in a census, and which later grew into the great Orthodox Christian empires of Byzantium, the New Rome, and Russia, the Third Rome, could be compared to the anti-state, the collective Antichrist established, not by God, but by Satan (Revelation 13.2), which had
120 In November, 1990 the present writer took a petition from Fr. Gury and representatives of the five thousand passportless to the Chrysostomite Synod in Athens, petitioning that he be made a bishop. Since the Synod was slow in replying, the passportless became impatient and turn to the Auxentiites. 121 See "A Biography of Archimandrite Gury", The True Vine, vol. 3, № 3 (1992); Vozdvizhenie (Exaltation), № 2 (15), February, 1996; Kto est’ kto v rossijskikh katakombakh, pp. 44-46; E.A. Petrova, "Perestroika Vavilonskoj Bashni – poslednij shans vselukavogo antikhrista" (The Reconstruction of the Tower of Babel – the last Chance of the All-Cunning Antichrist), Moscow, 1991, pp. 5-6 (MS); L. Sikorskaia, Tajnoj Tserkvi revnitel’. Episkop Gurij Kazanskij i ego somolitvenniki (Zealot for the Secret Church. Bishop Gurias of Kasan and his fellow worshippers), Moscow: Bratonezh, 2008, pp. 102-105. 122 Metropolitan Vitaly, “Otvet bespasportnomu” (Reply to a Passportless), Pravoslavnij Vestnik (Orthodox Herald), February-March, 1990; Petrova, op. cit.
84 destroyed the Russian empire!123 Rome, even in its pagan phase, had protected the Christians from the fury of the Jews: the Soviet Union was, in its early phase, the instrument of the Jews against the Christians. Rome, even in its pagan phase, guaranteed a framework of law and order within which the apostles could rapidly spread the faith from one end of the world to the other: the Soviet Union forced a population that was already Orthodox in its great majority to renounce their faith or hide it “in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth” (Hebrews 11.38)… Here we see a falling away of ROCOR from her own earlier teaching in 1933, when she had explicitly rejected the comparison between Soviet and Roman power: “In the present case no historical parallels and analogies are applicable to the Soviet regime. It would be inappropriate to compare it with the Roman authority, submission to which the Apostles Peter and Paul demanded of the Christians of their time…”124
Nevertheless, it is clear that God was with Bishop Lazarus and his embryonic church organization. An important witness to this was provided by the Chilean Martyr Jose Munoz and the Montreal Iveron Icon of the Mother of God, which was in his care. This icon appeared in 1982, and began streaming myrrh and working miracles in vast numbers. Until his martyric death in 1997 (when the icon also disappeared) Jose took the icon to almost all the parishes of the Russian diaspora, giving consolation to many. But he did not go to Russia, and so he decided to make a copy of the icon which could then be sent to Russia.
However, as Hieromonk (now Metropolitan) Agathangel writes, he “had to decide who the recipient of the new Icon should be. On the night of August 30 / September 12, 1993, in a vision, he saw his spiritual father, Archbishop Leonty of Chile – in radiance, attired in Archbishop’s vestment and holding a cross-staff. The Archbishop told him that the icon should be entrusted to the pillar of our Church. When Brother Joseph asked who this pillar was, Archbishop Leonty named Archbishop Lazarus. He also added that the new icon would be glorified by many miracles and that the truth of his words would be confirmed by the cover falling off the miraculous Iveron Icon. Upon awakening, Brother Joseph immediately went to see the Iveron Icon and, there, he saw its cover lying on the floor...”125 The icon copy was given to Archbishop Lazarus, and is now in the possession of the Russian True Orthodox Church led by Lazarus’ successor, Archbishop Tikhon of Omsk and Siberia.
123 Petrova, op. cit. 124 Encyclical Letter of the Council of Russian Bishops Abroad to the Russian Orthodox Flock, 23 March, 1933; translated in Living Orthodoxy, #131, September-October, 2001, p. 13. 125 The Montreal Myrrh-Streaming Icon and Brother Joseph, Montreal, Sofia: Brother Joseph Memorial Fund, 2008, p. 118.
85 83. ROMANIDES AND THE NATURE OF SIN
Man is a moral animal who can never completely deny or be reconciled with sin, even while committing it on a massive scale. Twentieth-century man drowned himself in blood, lust and blasphemy, and tried hard to exclude the idea of sin from his mind altogether. However, while hating the idea of sin, he has proved unable simply to abandon use categories altogether. Either some new system, like Lenin’s “revolutionary morality”, takes the place of “ordinary” morality and re-labels good as evil and evil as good. Or if real sin cannot be denied, it must be excused or redefined as something different from sin. Great systems such as Marxism, Darwinism and Freudianism are constructed in order to explain how we are supposedly not sinful at all: the real causes of “sin” are our biological inheritance, our childhood training, our nationality, our gender or our position in the class system. And if sin is not sin as traditionally understood, then it follows that the traditional methods of expiating sin are invalid or based on a misunderstanding.
But for those with a Christian upbringing, whose consciences have not been “seared with a hot iron” (I Timothy 4.2), the consciousness of mortal sin still represents a major obstacle on the way to the secular utopia; they need a deeper, a theological acquittal. Such an acquittal was forthcoming in the group of heresies known as: Romanideanism after the Greek priest Fr. John Romanides (1927-2001).
This divorced new calendarist accepted all the secular justifications of sin – Darwinism, Freudianism and Marxism, - but went further and attacked the dogmas of original sin and redemption. In the later part of his life he developed a whole system of theology that encompassed a whole range of fields beyond soteriology – all freed from the guilt of sin. In the 1970s Romanideanism was introduced into ROCOR by monks of the Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Boston – although Romanides’ name was scrupulously hidden from view, because it was known that he was a new calendarist and an ardent ecumenist. Receiving a rebuff in the form of the writings of Fr. Seraphim Rose, the heresy did not penetrate deeply into ROCOR and the Russian Church as a whole. But in Greece, the Balkans and the Greek diaspora, as well as among English speaking converts to Orthodoxy the world over, it has become an increasingly serious threat…
We may distinguish between three types of heretical ideas. The first is heresy in the classical sense, an attack on a specific teaching, such as the Divinity of Christ, the Procession of the Holy Spirit, or the Unity of the Church. A second type is constituted by the modern heresy of ecumenism, which does not so much attack any specific teaching of the faith, but rather adopts a new attitude to heresy in general, arguing that there is no such thing as One True Faith or One True Church, that the difference between truth and heresy is unimportant or even non-existent, that all denominations or religions are equally true (or untrue), or that, as one reviewer put it, “the greatest heresy is to believe that there is such a thing as heresy”. A third type consists in taking a true formula, declaring it to be the central truth of the faith, and then “restructuring” all the other dogmas around it – without specifically denying them, but nevertheless distorting them through the creation of this new dogmatic centre of gravity.
86
This third type of heresy was the path adopted by Romanides, and the large number of his disciples, including Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos), Protopresbyter George Metallinos, Christos Yannaras and others.
There are links between these different types of heresy. Thus it is likely that the Protestant loss of faith in the dogma of the Church led to the disintegration of the Western Christian world, which in turn led to the need to “recreate” the Church in the form of a kind of coalition of denominations, which in turn led to the need to create a kind of doctrinal “lowest common denominator”, which in turn led to the despising of the concept of the One Faith that is characteristic of the heresy of ecumenism. And then there are links between ecumenism and “Romanideanism”…
Romanides was a member of the State Church of Greece, an admirer of the Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras, a member of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches, a participant in many ecumenical conferences and a key supporter of the 1990 Chambésy union between the Ecumenical (World) Orthodox and the Monophysite heretics. However, while being actively engaged in the ecumenical movement in this way, and subordinate to hierarchs who prayed with and recognized both the eastern and the western heretics, Romanides constructed a theological system that virulently rejected not only Catholicism and Protestantism, but also certain traditional Orthodox teachings on the grounds that they were “Augustinian” and “scholastic” – that is, heretical. Romanides taught that the theology that was taught in Greece in the twentieth century was “of western and Russian origin. No relationship with Byzantium.”126 And so he saw his own work in very ambitious terms as a revolutionary return to the true Orthodox teaching from the heresy of contemporary Greek and Russian theology, from enslavement in the “Babylonian” captivity of Augustinian thought...
In order to justify this “mission”, Romanides constructed an historical narrative whereby almost all the dogmatic deviations of the West are laid at the door of St. Augustine of Hippo. From the time of Charlemagne, the leaven of Augustinianism gradually penetrated the whole of the Franco-German West. Then, after the establishment of the Franco-German papacy in 1046, it infected the rest of the West – with the significant exception of the supposedly enslaved West Romans of France and Italy. Then, with the discovery of Aristotle in the Middle Ages, this false leaven gave birth to scholasticism – an heretical mixture of the thought of Aristotle and Augustine. The Augustinian-Aristotelian-Aquinian “pseudomorphosis” of Holy Tradition first infected Russia from about the fifteenth century127, and from the Russian Church penetrated the Greek Church after the Greek War of Independence.
126 Romanides, in Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos), Empeiriki Dogmatiki tis Orthodoxou Katholikis Ekklesias kata tis Proforikes Paradoseis tou p. Ioannou Romanidi (The Empirical Theology of the Orthodox Catholic Church according to the Oral Traditions of Fr. John Romanides), Levadeia: Monastery of the Nativity of the Theotokos, 2011, volume 1, p. 343. 127 “The Russians looked on their Russian tradition as higher than the patristic and scholastic traditions. The hesychastic tradition, which is the basis of the Scriptural and patristic tradition, was overlooked.” (Vlachos, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 342). So much for the great flourishing of hesychasm in Russia from the time of St. Seraphim of Sarov, St. Paissy Velichkovsky and the Optina elders!
87
*
Romanides is the main exponent of the renovationist attitude towards sin. He has attacked the traditional concepts of sin and expiation from sin at three points: the doctrines of original sin, of the Sacrifice for sin on the Cross, and of Holy Baptism. His is a modernist theology for the modern age, an attempt to overcome that final barrier to all the utopian ideologies to which our age is so addicted – sin.
Nobody pretends that the doctrine of original sin is easy to understand: it is mysterious and to a certain degree counter-intuitive. But then so are several of the deepest and most central teachings of the Orthodox Faith. The temptation for the rationalist mind is to try and strip away the mystery and replace it with something that is clearer, more commonsensical. In the case of original sin, it is difficult for us to understand how sin can be passed down from Adam and Eve to all their descendants; it offends our sense of justice.
However, it is not personal responsibility for Adam’s personal sin that is inherited. For how can we be personally responsible for something that happened before we were even born? What is inherited by all those who have the same nature as Adam is a certain sinful pollution of human nature.
As St. Symeon the New Theologian writes: “Human nature is sinful from its very conception. God did not create man sinful, but pure and holy. But since the first- created Adam lost this garment of sanctity, not from any other sin than pride alone, and became corruptible and mortal, all people also who came from the seed of Adam are participants of the ancestral sin from their very conception and birth. He who has been born in this way, even though he has not yet performed any sin, is already sinful through this ancestral sin.”128
This is the teaching of the Orthodox Church. And that is why babies are baptized “for the remission of sins”, not because they have committed any personal sins – they are too young for that – but because they have inherited original sin. So a certain mystery remains: the mystery of inherited, collective guilt that is manifest in the fact that every human being comes into this world already polluted by sin.
Now the idea of collective guilt is accepted by many even of those outside the Church. Thus there are many in the contemporary generation of Germans who feel guilt for the sins of the Nazis even though they were not born at that time. The Fathers of the Russian Church Abroad – St. John Maximovich and Archbishop Averky (Taushev) - taught that all Russians are responsible for the sin of allowing the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II. The sin of a single man can be felt to taint his whole family or even his whole nation. But the idea that the sin of the father of mankind could have tainted the whole of the human race is rejected by Romanides and the Romanideans.
128 St. Symeon, Homily 37, 3.
88 Of course, this rejection is not new. The British monk Pelagius (ca. 354-420) was perhaps the first openly to question original sin. And although the ideas of Pelagius are not identical to those of Romanides, there is much in the old polemic between Pelagius and his main opponent, St. Augustine of Hippo, that is relevant to an evaluation of this neo-Pelagian teaching. Thus St. Augustine defends the idea of collective guilt as follows: “Why did Ham sin and yet vengeance was declared against his son Canaan? Why was the son of Solomon punished [for Solomon’s sin] by the breaking up of the kingdom? Why was the sin of Ahab, king of Israel, visited upon his posterity? Now we read in the sacred books, ‘Returning the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them’ (Jeremiah 32.18) and ‘Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation’ (Exodus 20.5)?... Are these statements false? Who would say this but the most open enemy of the divine words?”129
However, there are other passages of Holy Scripture that appear to deny the idea of collective or inherited guilt. Thus: “Parents shall not die for their children, nor children for their parents” (Deuteronomy 2.16). Moreover, in some cases there may be hidden reasons that explain the apparent injustice of children suffering for their parents. Thus St. John Chrysostom, commenting on Canaan’s suffering for his father Ham’s sin, writes: “Seeing their children bearing punishment proves a more grievous form of chastisement for the fathers than being subject to it themselves. Accordingly, this incident occurred so that Ham should endure greater anguish on account of his natural affection, so that God’s blessing should continue without impairment and so that his son in being the subject of the curse should atone for his own sins. You see, even if in the present instance he bears the curse on account of his father’s sin, nevertheless it was likely that he was atoning for his own failings…”130
Again, Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich wrote to a “Mrs. J.”: “You complain about the bad fate of your cousin. Her suffering, you say, is unexplainable. Her husband, an officer, contracted a vile disease and died in a mental institution. She caught the disease from her husband and now she is in a mental institution as well. You praise her as a good and honourable woman and you marvel, how could the all-knowing God allow such a marriage to even happen, and then for such an innocent creature to suffer so much? If your cousin is indeed so innocent and honourable as you believe, then her suffering has befallen her, of course, without her own sin. Then you have to look for a cause in the sin of her parents. It is said for the Most High that He is ‘visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and fourth generation’ (Exodus 34.7). I know you will say that which is usually said – why should children suffer for the sins of the parents? I will ask you also – how else would the Lord God scare the people from sinning except by visiting their children with the punishment for the sin?” 131 As he writes in another place: “All men from the first to the last are made from the same
129 St. Augustine, Against Julian, 6.25.82. 130 St. John Chrysosom, Homilies on Genesis, 29.21. 131 Velimirovich, in Fr. Milorad Loncar (ed.), Missionary Letters of Saint Nikolai Velimirovich, Grayslake, IL.: New Gracanica Monastery, 2009, part 2, Letter 177, p. 215.
89 piece of clay, therefore they all, from the first to the last, form one body and one life. Each is responsible for all, and each is influencing all. If one link of this body sins, the whole body must suffer. If Adam sinned, you and I must suffer for it…”132
However, the Romanideans reply to this: “We do not deny that Adam’s descendants suffer for his sin. But we cannot accept that they are guilty of his sin. Rather, they inherit, not the sin itself, but its punishment.” This sounds plausible at first, and yet it does not go to the heart of the matter. For there is a distinction between personal sin and the sinfulness of nature or “the law of sin” (Romans 7.23). This is the same as the distinction between sin as the act of a human person, and sin as the state or condition or law of human nature. Personal sin cannot be transferred to another human being. But the sinfulness of nature can.
Archbishop Theophan of Poltava points out that St. Paul “clearly distinguishes in his teaching on original sin between two points: παραπτωμα or transgression, and αμαρτια or sin. By the first he understood the personal transgression by our forefathers of the will of God that they should not eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, by the second – the law of sinful disorder that entered human nature as the consequence of this transgression. When he is talking about the inheritance of the original sin, he has in mind not παραπτωμα or transgression, for which only they are responsible, but αμαρτια, that is, the law of sinful disorder which afflicted human nature as a consequence of the fall into sin of our forefathers. And ημαρτον - ‘sinned’ in Romans 5.12 must therefore be understood not in the active voice, in the sense: ‘committed sin’, but in the middle-passive voice, in the sense: αμαρτωλοι in 5.19, that is, ‘became sinners’ or ‘turned out to be sinners’, since human nature fell in Adam.”133
We find the same distinction in St. Maximus the Confessor: “There then arose sin, the first and worthy of reproach, that is, the falling away of the will from good to evil. Through the first there arose the second – the change in nature from incorruption to corruption, which cannot elicit reproach. For two sins arise in [our] forefather as a consequence of the transgression of the Divine commandment: one worthy of reproach, and the second having as its cause the first and unable to elicit reproach.”134
Thus the original sin of Adam, in the sense of his personal transgression, the original sin which no other person shares or is guilty of, has engendered sinful, corrupt, diseased, mortal human nature, the law of sin, which we all share because we have all inherited it, but of which we are not guilty since we cannot be held personally responsible for it. And if this seems to introduce two original sins, such in fact is the teaching of the Holy Fathers. We have inherited the law of sin, in the most basic way: through sexual reproduction. For “in sins,” says David, - that is, in a nature corrupted by original sin, - “did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 50.5).
132 Velimirovich, “The Religious Spirit of the Slavs”, Sabrana Dela (Collected Works)), vol. 3, p. 124. 133 Archbishop Theophan, “The Patristic Teaching on Original Sin”, in Russkoe Pravoslavie, № 3 (20), 2000, p. 22. 134 St. Maximus the Confessor, Quaestiones ad Thalassium, 42.
90 This famous verse does not mean that sexual intercourse is evil per se, but that it is the channel through which original sin passes down the generations. It follows that even newborn babies, even unborn embryos, are sinners in this sense. For “even from the womb, sinners are estranged” (Psalm 57.3). And as Job says: “Who shall be pure from uncleanness? Not even one, even if his life should be but one day upon the earth” (Job 14.4).
St. Ambrose of Milan writes, commenting on the Lord’s washing of Peter’s feet: “Peter was clean, but his feet must be washed, since he had the sin inherited from the first man, at the time when the serpent felled him and misled him into error. Thus Peter’s feet were washed to remove the hereditary sin.” 135 Again, St. Anastasius of Sinai writes: “In Adam we became co-inheritors of the curse, not as if we disobeyed that divine commandment with him but because he became mortal and transmitted sin through his seed. We became mortals from a mortal…”136 Again, St. Gennadius Scholarius, Patriarch of Constantinople, writes: “Everyone in the following of Adam has died, because they have all inherited their nature from him. But some have died because they themselves have sinned, while others have died only because of Adam’s condemnation – for example, children.”137
Christ was born from a virgin who had been cleansed from all sin by the Holy Spirit in order to break the cycle of sin begetting sin. As St. Gregory Palamas writes: “If the conception of God had been from seed, He would not have been a new man, nor the Author of new life which will never grow old. If He were from the old stock and had inherited its sin, He would not have been able to bear within Himself the fullness of the incorruptible Godhead or to make His Flesh an inexhaustible Source of sanctification, able to wash away even the defilement of our First Parents by its abundant power, and sufficient to sanctify all who came after them.”138
We conclude that children can indeed inherit sin from their parents, not simply in the sense that they inherit the punishment for their parents’ sin, but also in the sense that they inherit sin itself – although this inherited sin is not the personal sin of their parents, but the sinful nature that they inherit from them. This takes place on the level of the family, of the nation, and of mankind as a whole. Thus just as the sin of a father can poison the life of his children, and the sin of a Lenin or a Hitler can poison the lives of generations of Russians or Germans, so the sin of Adam and Eve has poisoned the lives of all their generations after them.
This is possible because, while human persons are multiple and distinct from each other, human nature is one. For, as St. Basil the Great writes, what we inherit
135 St. Ambrose, De Mysteriis, 32. St. Ambrose goes on: “Our personal sins are removed by baptism.” In the rite of baptism as practiced by the saint in Milan, there was a washing of the feet performed after the full immersion. However, the consensus of the Fathers is that both original sin and personal sin are removed in the threefold immersion of baptism. 136 St. Anastasius, quoted in Romanides, The Ancestral Sin, Ridgewood, NJ: Zephyr, 2002, p. 34, note 64. 137 St. Gennadius, in K. Staab (ed.) Pauline Commentary from the Greek Church: Collected and Edited Catena, Munster in Westfalen, 1933, 15:362. 138 St. Gregory Palamas, Homily 14, 5; in Christopher Veniamin, The Homilies of Saint Gregory Palamas, South Canaan, PA: St. Tikhon’s Seminary Press, 2002, volume 1, p. 159.
91 from Adam “is not the personal sin of Adam, but the original human being himself”, who “exists in us by necessity”.139 That is why St. Gregory Palamas calls Adam’s sin “our original disobedience to God”, “our ancestral sin in Paradise”.140 It follows, as St. Athanasius the Great writes, that “when Adam transgressed, his sin reached unto all men…”141 And this, as St. Cyril of Alexandria writes, “not because they sinned along with Adam, for they did not then exist, but because they had the same nature as Adam, which fell under the law of sin”. 142
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But Romanides’ radicalism goes further than his denial of the inheritance of sin: it extends to his understanding of sin as such. Thus even Adam’s sin is not deemed by him to be sin in the usual sense. “Many understand the fall now as an ethical fall, whereas when St. Symeon the New Theologian speaks about the fall, he does not have in mind an ethical fall… Symeon the New Theologian is an ascetic. He teaches asceticism and not ethics. He has in mind that men do not have noetic prayer. That is what he means…
“In the Augustinian tradition sin has appeared under an ethical form, whereas in the Fathers of the Church it has the form of illness and the eradication of sin is presented under the form of therapy. When we have illness, we have therapy. Sin is an illness of man and not simply a disorder of his when he does not obey God like a subordinate. For sin is not an act and transgression of the commandments of God, as happens with a transgression of the laws of the State, etc. There exist laws, a transgressor transgresses the law and must be punished by the law. Augustine understood sin in this way, that is, that God gave commands, man transgressed the command of God and consequently was punished.”143
This is nonsense. First of all, the contrast Romanides draws between ethics and asceticism is artificial and false. Sin is the primary category of ethics, and asceticism is the science and art of the struggle against sin. So the sin of Adam and Eve was both an ethical and an ascetic fall. Ascetics train themselves to guard themselves against sinful thoughts coming to them from the world, the flesh and the devil. Eve failed to guard herself and therefore sinned. As St. Paul says, “the woman being deceived was in the transgression” (I Timothy 2.15) – and transgression (παραβασις) is an ethical category…
Secondly, the darkening of the mind and the loss of noetic prayer are the consequences of the original sin, not the sin itself. Romanides defines the fall as “the identification of the energies of the mind [νους] with the energies of the logical faculty [της λογικης]. When the mind was darkened, [it] was identified in energy with the logical faculty and the passions.”144 Maybe. But this is the consequence of
139 St. Basil, quoted in Demetrios Tzami, I Protologia tou M. Vasileiou, Thessaloniki, 1970, p. 135. 140 St. Gregory Palamas, Homily 31, col. 388C. 141 St. Athanasius of Alexandria, Four Discourses against the Arians, I, 12. 142 St. Cyril, Commentary on Romans, P.G. 74: 788-789; in Romanides, The Ancestral Sin, p. 168. 143 Romanides, in Vlachos, Empeiriki Dogmatiki, volume 2, pp. 186, 187-188. 144 Romanides, in Vlachos, op. cit., volume 2, p. 190.
92 the fall, not the fall itself. Nor does St. Symeon the New Theologian teach anything different. As we have seen, his teaching on original sin is completely traditional - what Romanides calls “Augustinian”!
Thirdly, while sin can be called illness, and the process of removing sin – therapy, this in no way implies that the illness is not the illness of sin. While there are obvious analogies with physical illness, sin is more than a physical illness. Whereas an ordinary physical disease is morally neutral, so to speak, the disease of original sin is far from being such: it is a sinful condition, which therefore requires, not simply treatment, but expiation through repentance and sacrifice - which cannot be identified with any changes in the relationship between the mind and the logical faculty.
For, as Alan Jacobs writes, “Many of us would agree that sin, like the more communicable diseases, transfers to other people; few of us have strong immunity to its ravages. But we would also agree that the affliction of disease is not moral in character. Although it is possible to act in such a way that one becomes more prone to illness, surely there is no sin in being ill.”145
Fourthly, it is nonsense to say that “sin is not an act and transgression of the commandments of God”. Both the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Fathers understand personal sin as precisely a transgression of the commandments of God. “The strength of sin is the law” (I Corinthians 15.56), and “where no law is, there is no transgression” (Romans 4.15). Therefore sin is precisely a transgression of the law or the commandment of God – in this case, the law that Adam and Eve were not to eat of the fruit of the tree of life.
As for the idea that “sin is an illness of man and not simply a disorder of his when he does not obey God like a subordinate”, does Romanides not think that man is God’s subordinate?! Of course, man in the unfallen state is not merely a subordinate: he is also God’s son. But even the sinless son is subordinate to his father, as Adam was to God in Paradise, and as Christ Himself will be to the Father at the Second Coming (I Corinthians 15.28).
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According to Romanides, what is passed down from Adam to his descendants is not sin, but death. And death is not considered to be a punishment for sin, but God’s mercy. “God did not impose death on man as a punishment for any inherited guilt. Rather, God allowed death by reason of His goodness and His love, so that in this way sin and evil in man should not become immortal.”146
This is half true. What is true is that God did not create death, and it is not God but the devil who is the cause of the entrance of death into the world. Moreover, death is a mercy insofar as it stops the continuation of sin, and allows sinful human
145 Jacobs, Original Sin: A Cultural History, New York: HarperOne, 2008, p. xiii. 146 Romanides, in Vlachos, op. cit., volume 2, p. 193.
93 nature to be dissolved into its elements and resurrected in a sinless form at the General Resurrection from the dead. But none of this entails that death is not also a punishment. That death is both punishment and mercy is indicated by St. Athanasius the Great: “By punishing us with death, the Lawgiver cut off the spread of sin. And yet through that very punishment He also demonstrated His love for us. He bound sin and death together when He gave the law, placing the sinner under punishment of death. And yet He ordered things in such a way that the punishment might in itself serve the goal of salvation. For death brings about separation from this life and brings evil works to an end. It sets us free from labour, sweat and pain, and ends the suffering of the body. Thus the Judge mixes His love for us with punishment.”147
So what we inherit from Adam and Eve, according to Romanides, is not sin in any shape or form, but only death, including the process of corruption and ageing that leads to death. It follows that for him every human being is born in complete innocence, and only becomes sinful later. “The Fathers emphasize that every man is born as was Adam and Eve. And every man goes through the same fall. The darkening of the mind happens to everyone. In the embryo, where the mind [nous] of man exists, it is not yet darkened. Every man suffers the fall of Adam and Eve by reason of the environment.”148
However, Romanides here contradicts the teaching of the Fathers, who assert that every man is not born as was Adam and Eve. On the contrary, Adam and Eve were born in innocence, but their descendants in sin - “I was conceived in iniquity” (Psalm 50.5). Nor is it true that the embryo is not yet darkened, for “even from the womb, sinners are estranged” (Psalm 57.3)… As St. Symeon the New Theologian writes: “Human nature is sinful from its very conception”. Again, Nicholas Cabasilas writes: “We have not seen even one day pure from sin, nor have we ever breathed apart from wickedness, but, as the psalmist says, ‘we have gone astray from the womb, we err from our birth’ (Psalm 58.4).”149 And St. Gregory Palamas, writes: “Before Christ we all shared the same ancestral curse and condemnation poured out on all of us from our single Forefather, as if it had sprung from the root of the human race and was the common lot of our nature. Each person’s individual action attracted either reproof or praise from God, but no one could do anything about the shared curse and condemnation, or the evil inheritance that had been passed down to him and through him would pass to his descendants.”150
Since Romanides regards every human being as pure when he first comes into the world, he is forced to see the consequent fall of every man as coming, not from inside his nature, but from outside, from his environment. “The fall of the child comes from the environment, from parents, from uncles, from friends, etc. If the child is in the midst of a good environment, this child can grow without a problem, with noetic prayer. The child has less of a problem than the adults. He learns quickly.
147 St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word, 6.1. 148 Romanides, in Vlachos, op. cit., volume 2, p. 197. 149 Cabasilas, The Life in Christ, II, 7; Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1974, p. 77. 150 St. Gregory Palamas, Homily 5: On the Meeting of our Lord, God and Saviour Jesus Christ, in Veniamin, op. cit., p. 52.
94 The child is destroyed by the environment…”151
Only one thing from within human nature contributes to man’s fall, according to Romanides: the process of ageing and corruption. For this engenders the fear of death, which in turn engenders the multitude of passions. This was Romanides’ revolutionary thesis in his first major work, The Ancestral Sin (1957), but became less prominent in his later work.152 There he writes: “Because of the sins that spring forth from the fear of death ‘the whole world lieth in wickedness’. Through falsehood and fear, Satan, in various degrees, motivates sin.”153 Again he writes: “All human unrest is rooted in inherited psychological and bodily infirmities, that is, in the soul’s separation from grace and in the body’s corruptibility, from which springs all selfishness. Any perceived threat automatically triggers fear and uneasiness. Fear does not allow a man to be perfected in love… The fountain of man’s personal sins is the power of death that is in the hands of the devil and in man’s own willing submission to him.”154
Now there is an important element of truth in this thesis, which is valuable and should not be denied. But before discussing this element of truth, let us cite his thesis in full: “When we take into account the fact that man was created to become perfect in freedom and love as God is perfect, that is, to love God and his neighbour in the same unselfish way that God loves the world, it becomes apparent that the death of the soul, that is, the loss of divine grace, and the corruption of the body have rendered such a life of perfection impossible. In the first place, the deprivation of divine grace impairs the mental powers of the newborn infant; thus, the mind of man has a tendency toward evil from the beginning. This tendency grows strong when the ruling force of corruption becomes perceptible in the body. Through the power of death and the devil, sin that reigns in man gives rise to fear and anxiety and to the general instinct of self-preservation or survival. Thus, Satan manipulates man’s fear and his desire for self-satisfaction, raising up sin in him, in other words, transgression against the divine will regarding unselfish love, and provoking man to stray from his original destiny. Since weakness is caused in the flesh by death, Satan moves man to countless passion and leads him to devious thoughts, actions, and selfish relations with God as well as with his fellow man. Sin reigns both in death, and in the mortal body because ‘the sting of death is sin’.
“Because of death, man must first attend to the necessities of life in order to stay alive. In this struggle, self-interests are unavoidable. Thus, man is unable to live in accordance with his original destiny of unselfish love. This state of subjection under the reign of death is the root of man’s weaknesses in which he becomes entangled in sin at the urging of the demons and by his own consent. Resting in the hands of the devil, the power of the fear of death is the root from which self-aggrandizement, egotism, hatred, envy, and other similar passions spring up.”155
151 Romanides, in Vlachos, op. cit., volume 2, p. 197. 152 It was so revolutionary that two of his examiners, including the famous theologian Panagiotes Trembelas rejected it. 153 Romanides, The Ancestral Sin, p. 77. 154 Romanides, The Ancestral Sin, pp. 116, 117. 155 Romanides, The Ancestral Sin, pp. 162-163.
95
In another work, Romanides writes: “Because [a man] lives constantly under the fear of death, [he] continuously seeks bodily and psychological security, and thus becomes individualistically inclined and utilitarian in attitude. Sin… is rooted in the disease of death.”156
But this is an exaggeration: the fear of death is not the root of all evil. Many pagan vices have nothing to do with the fear of death. When the warrior risks his life in order to rape and plunder, is his motivation the fear of death? No, it is lust and greed and hatred – which are stronger than the fear of death that threatens rapists and plunderers. As for the more subtle but still more serious sins, such as pride, these are much more primordial than the fear of death. The devil did not rebel against God out of fear of death, but simply out of pride.
There is no doubt that the fear of death, which is natural to man in his corrupted state, provides an incentive to sin. Nevertheless, this fear is not sin in itself, which is proved by the fact that Christ, having assumed a corruptible but sinless body, allowed Himself to feel the fear of death in the Garden of Gethsemane. The fear of death is an innocent passion in itself, otherwise Christ, Who is completely sinless, would not have allowed Himself to feel it. Personal sin begins only when out of fear of death we turn away from God’s commandments. Christ feared death in the Garden, but He did not allow this fear to turn Him away from the feat of dying for the salvation of the world, but trampled on His fear, showing Himself to be perfect in love. The holy martyrs also conquered the fear of death in their martyric exploits. But the exploit was not in the fact that they did not fear death, but in that they did not allow this fear to turn them away from the confession of Christ.
The root of all evil is the desire to live in defiance of God and His law, which is pride. That was the motivation of Eve when she took of the forbidden fruit. She feared neither God nor the death that God prophesied would take place if she disobeyed Him.
If we look for a cause of her pride in her own nature or in her environment, we look in vain. For sin, as Dostoyevsky powerfully demonstrated in Notes from Underground, is ultimately irrational. If sin were not irrational, but the determined effect of a definite cause, it would not be sin. Therefore if all the blame for Eve’s sin could be placed on the devil, it would not be her sin, but the devil’s. And if the blame could be placed on her nature alone, again it would not be her sin, but simply an inevitable product of her nature, like the behaviour of animals. But her nature was not fallen and not purely animalian, and could be led in the right direction by the image of God in her – freewill and reason. The mystery and the tragedy of sin – both before the fall and after the fall – lies in the fact that, whatever incitements to sin exist in our nature or in our environment, they do not explain the sin, and therefore do not excuse it. The much-maligned St. Augustine was surely right in attributing the cause of the fall to pride, and in not seeking any cause of that pride in anything beyond itself.
156 Romanides, “The Ecclesiology of St. Ignatius of Antioch”.
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Romanides continues: “In addition to the fact that man ‘subjects himself to anything in order to avoid dying’, he constantly fears that his life is without meaning. Thus, he strives to demonstrate to himself and to others that it has worth. He loves flatterers and hates his detractors. He seeks his own and envies the success of others. He loves those who love him and hates those who hate him. He seeks security and happiness in wealth, glory, bodily pleasures, and he may even imagine that his destiny is a self-seeking eudaemonistic and passionless enjoyment of the presence of God regardless of whether or not he has true, active, unselfish love for others. Fear and anxiety render man an individualist. And when he identifies himself with a communal or social ideology it, too, is out of individualistic, self- seeking motives because he perceives his self-satisfaction and eudaemonia as his destiny. Indeed, it is possible for him to be moved by ideological principles of vague love for mankind despite the fact that mortal hatred for his neighbour nests in his heart. These are the works of the ‘flesh’ under the sway of death and Satan.”157
In support of his thesis Romanides quotes from St. John Chrysostom on the phrase “sold under sin” (Romans 7.14): “Because with death, he is saying, there entered in a horde of passions. For when the body became mortal, it was necessary for it also to receive concupiscence, anger, pain, and all the other passion which required much wisdom to prevent them from inundating us and drowning our reason in the depth of sin. For in themselves they were not sin, but in their uncontrolled excess this is what they work.”158
But Chrysostom does not so much support Romanides’ thesis here as limit and correct it. He limits it by referring only to what we may call physical passions, such as concupiscence, anger and pain: there is no reference to pride. He corrects it by indicating that these passions are not in themselves sinful. They may incite sin by attempting to inundate our reason. But it is our reason that sins or refrains from sin by giving in to, or resisting, passion.
The physical passions are fallen, a corruption of the original unfallen nature of man. Nevertheless, God allowed their introduction into our nature in order to counteract the effects of death. Thus concupiscence was allowed to enter in order that man should want to reproduce himself, and be able to do so in his new, corrupt body. Fear was introduced in order that he should learn what is dangerous for his existence; pain for the same reason; and anger in order that he should fight against all such dangers.
Since these passions are useful and good for our continued existence in the conditions of the fall and death, the saint does not call them sinful as such, even though they can lead to sin and are the product, in their present form, of sin. Nor are they the direct product of death, but rather a form of resistance to death. So Chrysostom does not support Romanides’ thesis that death is the direct cause of sin.
157 Romanides, The Ancestral Sin, pp. 163-164. 158 St. John Chrysostom, quoted in Romanides, The Ancestral Sin, p. 167, note 45.
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More in favour of Romanides’ thesis are the words of St. Cyril of Alexandria: “Because he [Adam] fell under sin and slipped into corruptibility, pleasures and filthiness assaulted the nature of the flesh, and in our members was unveiled a savage law. Our nature, then, became diseased by sin through the disobedience of one, that is, of Adam. Thus all were made sinners, not by being transgressors with Adam, something which they never were, but by being of his nature and falling under the law of sin… Human nature fell ill in Adam and subject to corruptibility through disobedience, and, therefore, the passions entered in.”159
However, even here it is not said that death and corruptibility are the cause of our nature’s sickness, but the other way round: our nature’s sickness is the cause of death and corruptibility, and the cause of that sickness is sin (“our nature… became diseased by sin”), which is, of course, a perfectly Orthodox thought. So the only difference between St. Cyril and St. John Chrysostom is that while Cyril prefers to speak about our nature falling under the law of sin, Chrysostom prefers to speak about the introduction of passions (concupiscence, anger, pain) which, if not checked by our reason, lead to sinful acts, but which are not sinful in themselves. This difference, as Romanides himself admits, is only a matter of terminology.160
Romanides tries to encapsulate the argument that death is the cause of sin by asserting that “death is a kind of parasite in which sin dwells”.161 This is an elegant phrase, but it is not immediately clear what it means. He comes close to a clarification a little later: “Because of the action of the devil through the death of the soul, that is, the loss of divine grace, and the infirmity of the flesh, men are born with a powerful inclination toward sin. And all, whether in knowledge or in ignorance, violate the will of God. All are born under captivity to the devil, death, and sin. Moreover, as a result, they fail to attain to their original destiny, that is, to moral perfection, immortality, and theosis, and are bereft of the glory of God.”162
As it stands, this is perfectly acceptable – distinctly more so than his earlier statements. For his earlier statements stressed the fear of death, physical death, as the cause of sin, which is patently not true for many sins; whereas here he places the emphasis on the much broader and deeper category, “the death of the soul, the loss of divine grace”. Nevertheless, this passage still begs the question: what is the cause of the death of the soul? Is it not sin? And whose sin could this be, if not Adam’s, insofar as we are already born in the condition of spiritual death before we have committed any personal sin? But Romanides reverses the true relationship between sin and death. “Instead of the wages of sin being death,” writes Patrick Pummill, “it is turned upside down and the wages of death becomes sin. No doubt, death fuels the fire of sin, but the inner fallenness/corruption we inherit from Adam is the root of human sin”.163
159 St. Cyril, Commentary on Romans, P.G. 74: 788-789, in Romanides, The Ancestral Sin, p. 168. 160 Romanides, The Ancestral Sin, p. 167, note 45. 161 Romanides, The Ancestral Sin, p. 164. 162 Romanides, The Ancestral Sin, p. 165. 163 Pummill, personal communication.
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St. Augustine expressed essentially the same thought, against a very similar error of the Pelagians, as follows: “People speak in this way, who wish to wrest men from the apostle’s words into their own thought. For where the apostle says, ‘By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so passed upon all men’, they wish the meaning to be not that sin passed over, but death… [But] all die in the sin, they do not sin in the death.”164
The Council of Orange (529) also condemned the Romanidean thesis: “If anyone asserts that Adam’s transgression injured him alone and not his descendants, or declares that certainly death of the body only, which is the punishment of sin, but not sin also, which is the death of the soul, passed through one man into the whole human race, he will do an injustice to God, contradicting the Apostle who says: ‘As through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, so also death passed into all men, in whom all have sinned’” (canon 2).
The fact that original sin taints even children is the reason for the practice of infant baptism. And this practice in turn confirms the traditional doctrine of original sin. Thus the Council of Carthage in 252 under St. Cyprian decreed “not to forbid the baptism of an infant who, scarcely born, has sinned in nothing apart from that which proceeds from the flesh of Adam. He has received the contagion of the ancient death through his very birth, and he comes, therefore, the more easily to the reception of the remission of sins in that it is not his own but the sins of another that are remitted”… Still more relevant here is Canon 110 of the Council of Carthage in 419: “He who denies the need for young children and those just born from their mother’s womb to be baptized, or who says that although they are baptized for the remission of sins they inherit nothing from the forefathers’ sin that would necessitate the bath of regeneration [from which it would follow that the form of baptism for the remission of sins would be used on them not in a true, but in a false sense], let him be anathema. For the word of the apostle: ‘By one man sin came into the world and death entered all men by sin, for in him all have sinned’ (Romans 5.12), must be understood in no other way than it has always been understood by the Catholic Church, which has been poured out and spread everywhere. For in accordance with this rule of faith children, too, who are themselves not yet able to commit any sin, are truly baptized for the remission of sins, that through regeneration they may be cleansed of everything that they have acquired from the old birth.”165
It follows that the teaching of Romanides on original sin falls under the anathema of the Orthodox Church…
164 St. Augustine, Contra duas Epistolas Pelagianorum, IV, 4.7. 165 This Canon was confirmed by the Sixth and Seventh Ecumenical Councils. Cf. Canons 114, 115 and 116 of the same Council.
99 85. AMERICA, ISRAEL AND RUSSIA
One of the most convoluted and critical relationships in the modern world is the triangular one between America, Russia and Israel… We have seen how America, so seemingly omnipotent after 1991, lorded it in Russia both politically and economically as long as Yeltsin was in power. Moreover, she appeared on the brink of exercising a similar dominion in the Middle East; for the coalition’s victory over Iraq, the region’s most powerful state, whose leader, Saddam Hussein, had admired Stalin and been close to the Soviet Union, seemed to change everything.
As Peter Mansfield writes, “the devastation of Iraq was proof – if proof were needed – that the collapse of Kremlin power had left the United States as the unassailable global force. The struggle for the region had lasted about forty years – or a similar period to the Anglo-French interregnum which preceded it. But with the end of the East-West conflict, those Middle East leaders long seen as Russian clients rushed to realign with Washington before they befell the fate of their fellow dictators in Eastern Europe. Those who refused to submit to the American yoke – Libya, Iraq and Iran – were punished with UN or US sanctions. The Soviet satellite in South Yemen, the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, was wiped from the map altogether and swallowed by its North Yemen neighbour.
“The vacuum left by the Soviet Union impelled Washington to a new activism in the region. For the next decade, the key official decisions affecting the Middle East would be taken outside the region either in western capitals or at the UN headquarters in New York. In his victory address to Congress in March 1991, President George Bush unveiled a four-point plan to bring his new world order to the Middle East. The United States, he said, would strengthen its military ties to the Gulf, rid Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction, end the Arab-Israeli conflict on the basis of land for peace and embark on a drive for ‘economic freedom’ and ‘human rights’.
“Buttressing what amounted to a programme for reformatting the region was the most powerful show of foreign armoury the Middle East had seen since the height of the British Empire. Bush had claimed that Washington’s mobilization of half a million troops to the Gulf ‘did not mean stationing US ground forces in the Arabian peninsula’ for the long term, but there was no rush to decamp. One decade after its Gulf War victory, the US still kept 25,000 troops in the region 10,000 of them based in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Stashes of hardware were stockpiled in other Gulf emirates ready to equip an army ten times the size. In addition, the Pentagon positioned an armada in the Persian Gulf comprising two aircraft-carrier groups armed with 15 warships and 350 fighter jets. Several thousand more US troops and a squadron of US fighter planes were stationed in south-eastern Turkey at Incirlik base, which for the next decade was to be one of the most strategically important footholds for the US in the Middle East. Incirlik lay in striking distance not only of Iran and Syria, but also the oil- and gas-rich former Soviet republics. In addition, Washington oversaw the supply of billions of dollars in military aid and arms to Israel, Egypt, Turkey and the Gulf states. In short, the United States had the Middle East encircled.
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“Initially, the prospects for Pax Americana looked good. In the absence of superpower rivalry, regional conflicts were widely predicted to crumble away. North Africa’s Cold War rivals, Algeria and Morocco, embarked on a United Nations-administered peace process to end a 25-year conflict over control of the former Spanish colony of Western Sahara (with the expectation that Morocco’s sandwall dividing the territory would wither as fast as the Berlin Wall). Arab and Israeli leaders took their seats around a negotiating table in Madrid. And across the Middle East, cafés bubbled with talk of the onward march of democracy, state accountability and human rights. But Middle Easterners quickly discovered that the readjustment from a bipolar to a unipolar world would not inaugurate the promised utopia. And from 1995 onwards, the history of the Middle East is of a clear pattern of uncoordinated but manifest dissent at US hegemony – from defiance in Iraq and resistance in Palestine to the wildfire spread of militant Islam across the Sunni world…”166
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Israel in the 1990s was changing as a result of two foreign influences – Chicago- school economics and a large influx of Jews from the former Soviet Union. The Gentile influence was more or less comprehensible to the savvy Israelis. But they had more difficulty, at first, in understanding who these Russian Jews were.
As Misha Glenny explains, the parties and summits of some of these Russian Jews “read like a Who’s Who of Russian business. The problem was that nobody in Israeli intelligence knew Who exactly was Who. And Who was Not. Maybe.
“Testifying to the House Committee on Banking in 1999, the former Director of the CIA, James Woolsey, illuminated this conundrum when he asked the Congressmen to consider the following hypothetical situation: ‘If you should chance to strike up a conversation with an articulate, English-speaking Russian in, say, the restaurant of one of the luxury hotels along Lake Geneva, and he is wearing a $3,000 suit and a pair of Gucci loaders, and he tells you that he is an executive of a Russian trading company and wants to talk to you about a joint venture, then there are four possibilities. He may be what he says he is. He may be a Russian intelligence officer working under commercial cover. He may be part of a Russian organized-crime group. But the really interesting possibility is that he may be all three – and that none of those three institutions have any problems with the arrangement.’
“A staggering number of Russians took out Israeli citizenship in the first half of the 1990s, among them prominent members of Yeltsin’s inner circle, known as the Seven Stars, like Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky. Then there were budding industrial magnates like the Ukrainian Vladimir Rabinovich and the Russian Mikhail Chorny, who were under scrutiny in Western intelligence agencies. And there were some others who had been barred from entering Britain and the US, like Semyon Mogilevich.
166 Mansfield, A History of the Middle East, London: Penguin, 2001, pp. 339-340.
101
There was even a scattering of gentiles, like Sergei Mikhailov, the boss of Solntsevo, who managed to wangle himself citizenship. ‘Mikhailov had as much to do with Judaism as I have with ballet!’ guffawed the ursine documentary-maker Alexander Gentelev, ‘but he got his citizenship – no problem.’ It has since been revoked and the corrupt Israeli officials responsible for granting it have been prosecuted.
“None of these Russians had criminal records, except for misdemeanours during the Soviet period. All had the outward appearance of successful businessmen with track records which, on paper, bespoke dynamism and guts. Why would Israel want to turn them away?
“For their part, the oligarchs and organized-crime bosses started colonizing Israel for a number of reasons. It was an ideal place to invest or launder money. Israel’s banking system was designed to encourage aliyah, the immigration of Jews from around the world, and that meant encouraging their money to boot. Furthermore, Israel had embraced the zeitgeist of international financial deregulation and considerably eased controls on the import and export of capital. And, like most other economies around the world in the 1990s, it had no anti-money-laundering legislation. Laundering money derived from criminal activities anywhere else in the world was an entirely legitimate business.
“Israeli police have estimated that these Russians laundered between $5 and $10 billion through Israeli banks in the fifteen years following the collapse of communism. This is a significant sum for a small country like Israel. But it is less than 1 per cent of the huge capital flight from Russia during the 1990s and it pales beside comparable countries such as Switzerland ($40 billion) or the perennial champion of the Mediterranean league, the Republic of Cyprus, which as early as the end of 1994 was processing $3 billion of Russian capital a month.
“The main reason for Israel’s popularity was the simplest – many of these iffy businessmen were Jews, and in Israel they were not treated like dirt, but welcomed as valuable and respected additions to the family.
“A disproportionate number of the most influential Russian oligarchs and gangsters were Jewish. Before the massive wave of immigration to Israel, Jews made up only about 2.5 per cent of the population of Russia and Ukraine. But they were hugely influential in the vanguard of gangster capitalism during the 1990s. A cursory search of the Internet will reveal countless racist sites fuelling the theory that this pillage of Russian assets during the decade was born of the World Jewish Conspiracy once so beloved of the Nazis and (when it suited him) of Stalin. By contrast, many liberal commentators simply overlook the issue of Jewish involvement in Russia’s and Ukraine’s chaotic transition, presumably to dodge accusations of anti-Semitism. In fact, by avoiding any mention of the elephant in the living room, they facilitate its portrayal by anti-Semites as a jackal.
102 “Although the Soviet Union was renowned for its antipathy towards most national identities that threatened the idealized image of Homo Sovieticus, it did construct one specific barrier for Jews: the glass ceiling. In virtually all the central Party and state offices, in almost all industrial branches and in most places of learning, Jews were systematically prevented from reaching the top. There were exceptions to this rule – Lazar Kaganovich was one of Stalin’s unloved Politburo colleagues, and, in the 1980s, Evgeni Primakov emerged as an extremely influential political figure, having prophetically discarded his name given at birth, Yonah Finkelshtein. But on the whole, if you were Jewish, the key promotion would elude you.
“In consequence, there were a lot of smart Jews who felt frustrated in their pursuit of intellectual challenges and entrepreneurial opportunities. Where better, then, to exercise these skills than in the world’s toughest market (which officially didn’t even exist!): the Soviet planned economy. Over seventy years, they honed their business skills in this grim totalitarian world where huge industrial behemoths would seek to produce goods without regard to the laws of supply and demand…
“This ability was not restricted to the Jews. It is no coincidence that among organized-crime bosses, the other two chronically over-represented nationalities in Russia were the Chechens and the Georgians, whose talent for overcoming the daily consumer misery of the Soviet Union was similarly the stuff of legend. The criminals and oligarchs emerged from communities that inhabited the twilight periphery of the Soviet Union – although usually denied access to the central institutions, they were not pariahs. Instead they were compelled to seek out the possibilities of social and economic activity in the nooks and crannies of the state. This experience was invaluable for many when negotiating the roller-coaster of postcommunist Russia.
“For the Jewish oligarchs and gang bosses, Israel was both a retreat and, by dint of its passport, a door to the outside world. They did not wish to draw attention to themselves, nor did they wish to become an embarrassment for the state. This was no mere sentiment – it was a policy, hammered out between the most influential Godfathers at a meeting in Tel Aviv’s Dan Panorama Hotel in 1995. The biggest names were there, including gentiles like Sergei Mikhailov, to ensure that they did not alienate the Israeli Government. ‘They decided that Israel is no place for assassinations or settling their difficulties by killing one another,’ explained Gentelev. ‘These people did not want to engage in much business here. It was a place where you could launder a bit of money; where you could rest; and where you could find shelter. And receive a passport with which you could travel the whole world.’
“The New Russians were already well settled in Israel by October 1995 when Bill Clinton’s advisers convinced him to sound a warning about the ‘dark side of globalisation’. Addressing the 50th Commemorative Assembly of the UN, the President called for a worldwide ‘assault on terrorism, organized crime, drug trafficking and nuclear smuggling.’ Clinton said that ‘no one is immune’, as he listed crimes like the Aun Shinrikyo ‘poison-gas attacks on the Japanese subway, suitcase
103 bombings in Israel and France, mafia gangs in Russia and the Oklahoma City bombing’ that had shaken America in April of that year.
‘Because of the concentrated Russian presence, Washington turned its gaze onto Israel and by the mid-1990s the long if arthritic arm of American law enforcement was knocking on Jerusalem’s door for information on a number of oligarchs and alleged criminals, like Mogilevich and Mikhailov. Encouraged by the State Department under Jon Winer, the Israeli police placed many of the most prominent Russians under surveillance in 1996. ‘There was suddenly a huge amount of interest in the oligarchs,’ explained Irit Bouton, now Chief of Intelligence in the Israeli police Special Operations. ‘It was like a baby boom in the world of crime.’
“But huge problems matched the huge interest as the police tried to assess and contain the burgeoning criminality of the new world order. There was the familiar issue of definition: what constituted criminal activity among the oligarchs and what did not? Moreover, the oligarchs and gangsters could draw on effectively limitless financial resources to defend themselves and their image. And they did so assiduously. ‘Don’t worry about these guys shooting you,’ an Israeli intelligence officer told me when I explained what I was writing about. ‘They aren’t that crude. They’ll just sue you to death.’
“Then there was the strong political pressure exercised on the Israeli police, both by their own politicians and foreign governments. Iosif Kobzon is renowned as the Frank Sinatra of the New Russia. A tremendously popular performer of schmaltzy songs in Russia, he also enjoys a rich political life: as an MP of the Russian Duma, and a backer or friend of many pro-Putin politicians and businessmen. In the early 1990s he was refused entry into the United States, but received an Israeli passport, despite a great deal of opposition. Moshe Shahal, a successful Tel Aviv lawyer, was then the Israeli Minister for National Security who established the Anti-Russian Organised Crime intelligence unit. He sighs when remembering the period. ‘Both in the Knesset and in Government, we came across difficulties in trying to implement the new security policy.’ On his instructions, for example, Kobzon was detained at Ben Gurion airport in January 1996 and refused entry into the country. But Shahal’s detective was overridden, the former Minister says, by Shimon Peres, then Foreign Minister. Shahal explains that the then Russian Ambassador had called Peres and warned of severe consequences for Israeli-Russian relations if Kobzon were denied entry into Israel. The authorities, seldom susceptible to influence from countries except the United State, allowed him in…”167
Russian Jews now constitute one-sixth of the Israeli population, and it is not only through the shady oligarchs and mafiosi that exert influence on the State. They form a distinct voting bloc which does not always see things the way other Israelis see them (in particular, in relation to the Palestinians). Therefore the relationship between the Jews and the Russians will – so important ever since 1917 – will likely remain critical a century later.
167 Glenny, op. cit.
104 *
The central, most intractable problem, as always, in the Middle East has been the conflict between Israel and its Palestinian subjects. In 1967, when Israel occupied the West Bank, there was never any question but that this land would be incorporated into the Israeli State forever. The fact that it was not formally annexed was simply a sop to world opinion – after all, how could any Israeli leader ever give up Judaea and Samaria, not to speak of East Jerusalem? A proof of this unbending resolve was the continual, bit-by-bit take-over of Palestinian land, followed by the building of permanent settlements there, which made any “two-state solution” – that is, two independent states, one Israeli and the other Palestinian side-by-side on the present territory of Israel – further away than ever. United Nation resolutions and Western condemnation were ignored – and continue to be ignored to the present day. America continues to support the two-state solution, but also continues to support Israel both financially and diplomatically, vetoing every UN resolution against her.
This policy has incurred the hatred of the whole of the Muslim world both for Israel and for its protector, America, and has cost both states – and especially America – a great deal. So why do successive administrations, both Republican and Democrat, continue with it? The answer patently does not lie in the excuse that Israel is the only democratic state in the region – as we have seen, Israel is not a real democracy. Nor is it any excuse to say that Israel was an outpost of the West against Soviet penetration of the Middle East – the Cold War is over, and America has won it. The answer lies in something deeper and more mysterious…
The relationship between Israel and America was (and is) strange and unique, without parallel in world history. The most powerful state in history, at the very peak of its power, is tied hand and foot to the interests of a tiny, distant state – a bond which not only does not serve its own interests, but directly harms them. For apart from having to spend billions of dollars every year to defend Israel from its numerous enemies, America thereby makes enemies of those states when war breaks out between them and Israel, as it did in 1967 and 1973, with lower-level hostility at all other times. This enormously complicates the politics of oil, which is vitally important to the economic survival of the whole of the western world. Besides, Israel through its vociferous and powerful Jewish lobby has a huge – and almost always deleterious – influence on the internal politics of the United States.
How has this extraordinary situation come about? We have seen part of the explanation in the “Christian Zionism” of the Evangelicals of the American right (chapter 41). But the deeper cause lies in Zionism itself and its religious underpinning in the fanatically antichristian Talmud.
In accordance with the notorious Israeli Law of Return (discussed in chapter 12), all Jews throughout the world have the right to claim Israeli citizenship with all its attendant privileges. This would seem to be a generous measure in order to protect, and provide a refuge for, Jews of the diaspora who are being persecuted, as they were under Hitler. But Hitler has long been dead, and Jews long ago ceased to be the persecuted and have become instead the persecutors – of the Palestinian Arabs
105 in their own state, who are given far fewer rights in the land of their birth and constant residence than diaspora Jews who have set foot in Israel no more than a few hours.
Moreover, the Law of Return creates obligations for the Jews of the diaspora – at least, in the minds of leading Jews. These obligations are heavy and essentially unlawful; for they consist not only in the duty – imposed not only on Zionist Jews, but on Jews of all faiths or none - to help the State of Israel in any way possible, but also, and crucially, to place the interests of Israel above those of the state in which the diaspora Jew lives and of which he is a citizen.168 Hence the very common sight of New York Jews protesting, demonstrating and manipulating the American government to “do its duty” for Israel and against its enemies – with various threats for disobedience including, worst of all, the career-destroying threat of being labelled “anti-semitic”…
As long as Israel rules America, and continues to oppress its Palestinian population, there is not only no hope of peace in the Middle East: the probability increases that eventually the coalition of Muslim countries ranged against it will be joined by a major military power – probably Russia, possibly also China - that will tip the military balance against Israel, forcing the more direct intervention of the United States and eliciting World War III. Those who reject this probability rest their argument essentially on faith – on belief in the evident miracle of Israeli history and therefore in God’s continued protection of Israel indefinitely and come what may. So let us examine this faith-based defence of Israel’s invulnerability, invoking not so much ordinary political calculations as the only kind of evidence that can be ultimately persuasive in an argument about faith – the Word of God.
*
Let us begin by conceding one of the theses that the Zionists insist on: that the preservation of the people of the Jews through all their wanderings and tribulations, crowned by the re-establishment of the State of Israel after two thousand years, is an undoubted miracle...
That the re-establishment of the State of Israel is precisely a miracle was admitted even by that very secular and non-nationalist Jew, Sir Isaiah Berlin. In 1953 he wrote that the existence of the State of Israel overturns all materialist theories of history “because it shows the power of ideas, and not merely of economic and social pressures. It upsets materialist theories of history according to which environment, or economic factors, or the collision of classes is mainly responsible for what happens. It upsets the various doctrines in accordance with which Israel could not have arisen at all; the doctrines which the German Marxists and Russian Bundists used to adduce in order to prove the impossibility of a Jewish State, and all the various doctrines about the inevitable assimilation of the Jews, advanced by both Jews and Gentiles on the basis of some set of cut and dried premises, or historical
168 For an extensively documented proof of this thesis, see Alfred M. Lilienthal, The Zionist Connection, New York: Dodd, Mead & Col, 1978, chapter 23.
106 theory, or sociological law or system. Nor did the empiricists in the foreign offices of the Great Powers do much better. Very few of the chancelleries of Europe or America seriously believed in the possibility of the rise of even a short-lived ‘independent State of Israel’. Very few believed that it would ever have the fighting strength, the unity of spirit which would enable it to triumph over so many obstacles. A great many of the prophets were in the grip of various obsolete theories of how nations rise and fall, or simply of powerful prejudice and emotion; and on the whole they tended to discount too much the sheer power of human idealism and human will-power.
“Israel is not a large-scale experiment. It occupies a very small portion of the earth’s surface; the number of persons comprising its population is relatively small. But its career confutes a number of deterministic theories of human behavior, those offered both by materialism and by the fashionable brands of anti-materialism. And that, I will not deny, is a source of great satisfaction to those who have always believed such theories to be false in principle, but have never before, perhaps, found evidence quite so vivid and quite so convincing of their hollowness. Israel remains a living witness to the triumph of human idealism and will-power over the allegedly inexorable law of human evolution. And this seems to me to be to the eternal credit of the entire human race…”169
In other words, the existence of the State of Israel is a miracle. And yet Berlin is wrong to locate this miracle in the human spirit. The existence of the modern State of Israel is a miracle of God, a claim that we can substantiate now by reference to the true Prophets of Israel in the Old Testament. However, if we continue to study these prophets, we shall see that the miracle will not last forever, that the modern State of Israel is not unconditionally protected by God, and that it will in fact be destroyed. But this destruction, this death, will be followed by a resurrection and a real return of the Jews to their homeland – not in the kingdom of this world, but in the Kingdom that is not of this world, the Kingdom that is ruled by the true King of the Jews, Jesus Christ…
And if it be asked: “why this excursion into prophecy and eschatology when this work is supposed to be a work of history?” the answer will be: because the miraculous emergence of the State of Israel on the stage of history in our time, and the central part it is already playing in international politics, points to a certain eschatological mystery. But if we ignore this mystery, and think only in the categories of atheist history, then we risk missing – even radically distorting – the deepest meaning of history, the real relationship between religion and politics that has been the central theme of this book… For God is an actor in history; in fact He is the Alpha and Omega of history; and to try and write history without God is, in Macbeth’s words, to write “a tale full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”…
*
169 Berlin, “The Origins of Israel”, in The Power of Ideas, London: Chatto & Windus, 2000, p. 161.
107 Now there are several prophecies that speak of the return of the Jews to Israel after a long “captivity” (e.g. Jeremiah 3.16-18; Zephaniah 3.10-13, 18-20; Joel 3; Zechariah 12-14). It is tempting to allegorize these events as referring, not to the physical land of Israel, but to the Church, in accordance with the exegetical principle that “Israel” refers to “the Israel of God” (Galatians 6.16) – that is, the Church. However, a close examination of these texts makes it impossible to understand them in any other way than as referring to some future event involving the gathering of the Jews from many foreign lands back into the physical land of Israel, where they undergo, first, a crushing military defeat from a northern power, and then a spiritual revival.170
And it looks very much as if this revival consists in conversion to Christ, the true King of Israel. Thus the Prophet Ezekiel describes how the Jews will be gathered back into the land of Israel, and there converted and baptized: “For I will take you from the nations, and gather you from all the countries, and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water upon you [baptism], and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses… And you shall be My people, and I will be your God” (36.24-25, 28). Then comes the famous vision of the dry bones (ch. 37), which is an allegorical description of the resurrection of the Jews to true faith when they appeared to be completely devoid of it. Then comes the invasion of Israel by Gog and Magog led by “the prince of Rosh” (ch. 38), and the description of how the Jews will spend seven months clearing up after the destruction of the invaders (ch. 39). And then the Prophet says: “All the nations shall know that the house of Israel was led captive because of their sins, because they rebelled against Me, and I turned My face from them, and delivered them into the hands of their enemies, and they all fell by the sword. According to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions did I deal with them, and I turned My face from them. Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Now will I turn back captivity in Jacob, and will have mercy on the house of Israel, and will be jealous for the sake of My holy name” (39.23-25).
Another important text is the last three chapters of Zechariah, which describe a series of events taking place first of all in Israel, and then on a worldwide scale, in the last days. Although much is unclear here, this much is evident: that there will be a formidable coalition of nations against Israel, which will be destroyed. At this time – whether before, during or after the war is again not clear – the Jews will repent profoundly of their apostasy from Christ, the True Messiah and King of Israel. “I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and compassion; and they shall look upon Me Whom they have pierced” [this is the Hebrew quoted in John 19.37, where it is clearly referred to the Crucifixion; the Greek is: “because they have mocked Me”], and they shall make lamentation for Him, as for a beloved Friend, and they shall grieve intensely, as for a First-Born Son” (12.10). The false prophets and shepherds will be cast out. Nevertheless, two out of three in the land will die (13.8). As for the city itself, it “will be taken, the houses plundered, the women defiled, and half of the city will go forth into exile; but the rest of My people will not be utterly cut off from the city”. (14.2) But of the third of the population that comes through the fiery trial, the Lord will say: “He shall call
170 David Baron, Zechariah, Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel Publications, 1988, chapter 20.
108 upon My name, and I will hear him, and I will say, ‘This is My people’, and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God’. (13.9) And on that day His feet shall stand upon the Mount of Olives” (14.4), which will be split in two. There will be an earthquake as in the time of King Uzziah, “and the Lord my God will come, and all the saints with Him” (14.6). In that day there will be no light, but towards evening there will be light (14.7). “And the Lord shall be King of all the earth” (14.9), and “He will strike all the nations, as many as made war against Jerusalem. Their flesh shall be eaten away as they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall pour out of their sockets, and their tongue shall melt away in their mouth” (14.12). And then “everyone that survives of all the nations that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord of Hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. And if any of the families of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of Hosts, there will be no rain upon them. And if the family of Egypt do not go up and present themselves, then upon them shall come the plague with which the Lord afflicts the nations that do not go up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. This will be the sin of Egypt, and the sin of all the nations, as many as do not come up to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles” (14.16-19).
Apocalyptic although these events undoubtedly are, they clearly are not describing the very end of the world or the general resurrection, but rather a terrible war (the melting of the eyes in the soldiers’ sockets suggests a nuclear one) followed by a great revival of the faith after the war. For even after the appearance of Christ on the Mount of Olives, there is no mention of any general judgement or resurrection, still less of entrance into a Heavenly Kingdom, but rather of the continuation of life on this corruptible earth. In particular, we see the celebration on earth of a new feast by most, but not all of the nations on the earth.
So what could this new, Christianized Feast of Tabernacles be celebrating? We suggest that it celebrates first of all the “ingathering” of the Jews into the Church that was prophesied by St. Paul in Romans 9 to 11, and which he called “life from the dead”: “For if their [the Jews’] being cast away is the reconciling of the world [the Gentiles’ conversion], what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?...” (Romans 11.15). Secondly, it refers also the ingathering of “the fullness of the Gentiles”: For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved.” (Romans 11.25-27). Thus the Feast of Tabernacles will indeed be the feast of the "ingathering" of the whole Church, when the fullness both of the Gentiles and of the penitent Jews, will enter the Church. After the horrors of Armageddon and world war, the people of God will be granted a period of rest and joy, in which they will celebrate the feast in preparation for the final battle against the Antichrist and in anticipation of the more complete victory that will take place at the Second Coming of Christ and the General Resurrection.
The Lord may have been referring to this joyful event when He said to the impenitent Jews: “Behold, your house is forsaken and desolate. For I tell you, you will not see Me again until you say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord” (Matthew 23.38-39). For “Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord” is
109 the verse sung at the climax of the Feast of Tabernacles. It is as if the Lord were saying: "You will not see Me with the eyes of faith until you are converted and participate with the whole of the New Testament Church in the Christian fulfillment of the Feast of Tabernacles."
St. John of Kronstadt has the same interpretation. The verses Matthew 23.38-39, he says, “mean: I will cease to be your Messiah until you recognize Me as such. In the meantime I will reveal My Face to the Gentiles, who have not heard about Me. The holy Apostle Paul in his epistle to the Romans (11.25) announces that ‘the hardening has taken place in Israel in part until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in’. And this, as is evident from the Revelation of St. John the Theologian, will take place in the sixth period of the last ages, when terrible times will come accompanied by great astronomical signs and unusual physical phenomena. Then the whole of the true Israel, in the number determined in the Apocalypse, will be saved, that is, will believe in Christ as their Messiah and God. The remaining Jews will become still more hardened and will recognize the Antichrist, as their messiah, king and god.”171
Thus the Feast of Tabernacles celebrates a kind of “resurrection before the Resurrection”, an ingathering of the last good fruits of both the Jews and the Gentiles, a period of rest for the Church before her last battle with the Antichrist, her crossing the river of the Last Judgement, and her ascent to the Heavenly Jerusalem, where she puts on the tabernacle of the Resurrection Body.
L. A. Tikhomirov agrees with this interpretation, linking it with certain verses from the Book of Revelation: “Is this conversion of the Jews that salvation of ‘all Israel’ that the Apostle Paul foretold? In the Apocalypse it is said that the saved will come ‘of the synagogue of Satan, who say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie’. But not the whole of the ‘synagogue’ will come, but only ‘of the synagogue’, that is, a part of it. But even here, where the Apostle Paul says that ‘the whole of Israel will be saved’, he means only a part: ‘for they are not all Israel, which are of Israel… They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed’ (Romans 9.6, 8).
“The opinion is widespread among us that the conversion of the Jews will take place at the very appearance of the Saviour, when they shall cry out: ‘Blessed is He That cometh in the name of the Lord’. But this is not evident from the Apocalypse. But if the Philadelphian conversion will bring ‘all Israel’ that is to be saved to Christ, then this will, of course, be a great event, fully explaining the rejoicing of the Heavens. Israel is a chosen people with whom it will not be possible to find a comparison when he begins to do the work of God. The Jews will, of course, multiply the forces of Christianity for the resistance against the Antichrist. ‘If the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world,’ says the Apostle Paul, ‘what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?’ (Romans 11.15).”172
171 St. John of Kronstadt, The Beginning and End of the Earthly World, St. Petersburg, 1904, Moscow, 2004. 172 Tikhomirov, Religioznie-Filosofskie Osnovy Istorii (The Religious-Philosophical Foundations of History), Moscow, 1997, p. 570.
110
Another New Testament confirmation of the OT prophecies is to be found in Revelation (3.8): “Behold, says the Lord to the Angel of the Church of Philadelphia, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, who say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and make obeisance before they feet, and to know that I have loved thee.”
St. Mark comments on this: “[St. John] with complete clarity speaks about the conversion of the God-fighting people to the Church of Christ, when she, few in numbers and powerless from an external point of view, but powerful with an inner strength and faithfulness to her Lord (Revelation 3.8) will draw to herself the ‘remnant’ of the God-fighting tribe.
“Gazing with the eye of faith at what the Lord has done before our eyes, and applying the ear of our heart and mind to the events of our days, comparing what we have seen and heard with the declarations of the Word of God, I cannot but feel that a great, wonderful and joyous mystery of God’s economy is coming towards us: the Judaizing haters and persecutors of the Church of God, who are striving to subdue and annihilate her, by the wise permission of Providence will draw her to purification and strengthening, so as ‘to present her as a glorious Church, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but so that she should be holy and blameless’ (Ephesians 6.27).
“And in His time, known only to the One Lord of time, this… ‘synagogue of Satan’ will bow before the pure Bride of Christ, conquered by her holiness and blamelessness and, perhaps, frightened by the image of the Antichrist…”
Another important witness is Revelation 7.4: “And I heard the number of those who were sealed; and there were sealed a hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.” “This sealing,” writes Archbishop Averky, “will begin with the Israelites, who before the end of the world will be converted to Christ, as St. Paul predicts (Romans 9.27, 11.26).”173
And so the carnal Israel will return to the spiritual Israel, the world’s first autocracy to the original Theocracy, to Christ the King of Israel. In this way history will complete a perfect revolution…
However, a discussion of the destiny of Israel would be incomplete without at least a mention of the destiny of that other country with which Israel’s is so closely entwined - Russia. For most of the last thousand years Russia has been the leading national expression of the spiritual Israel, the Church of Christ. But in 1917 Russia fell – and the main agents of her fall were precisely the Jews, who rose to power as Orthodox Russia fell from it. At the time of writing, it looks as if Putin’s neo-Soviet Russia may well be that Gog and Magog from the extreme north that destroys the
173 Archbishop Averky, Rukovodstvo k izucheniu Sviaschennago Pisania Novago Zaveta (Guide to the Study of the Sacred Scriptures of the New Testament), Jordanville, N.Y. Holy Trinity Monastery, 1987, pp. 406-407.
111 State of Israel before being destroyed herself “on the mountains of Israel”. If so, then, as the prophecies also appear to indicate, they will serve each for the other’s resurrection from the dead. St. Seraphim of Sarov prophesied that at the end of the world there would be only two important nations: the Russians and the Jews, and that the Antichrist would be a Jew born in Russia. How fitting, then, if the Russian nation which has suffered most from the antichristian Jews in the terrible Russian- Jewish revolution, should finally convert them to Christianity, so that the former bitter enemies, reconciled in the Body of Christ, “the Israel of God” (Galatians 6.16), should fight together against the Russian-Jewish Antichrist!
112 86. FROC: THE FOREIGN BISHOPS INTERVENE
The boundaries of the three bishops’ dioceses of ROCOR’s mission in Russia, the Free Russian Orthodox Church (FROC), were not clearly delineated at this stage. As Archbishop Lazarus explained: “The Hierarchical Synod decreed equal rights for us three Russian hierarchs. If someone from the patriarchate wants to join Vladyka Valentine – please. If he wants to join Vladyka Benjamin or me – please. So far the division [of dioceses] is only conditional – more exactly, Russia is in the position of a missionary region. Each of us can receive parishes in any part of the country. For the time being it is difficult to define the boundaries of dioceses.”174
In November, 1991 Bishop Valentine was asked about Archbishop Mark’s role. The reply was carefully weighed: “When the situation in Russia was still in an embryonic stage, Archbishop Mark with the agreement of the first-hierarch of ROCOR made various attempts to build church life in Russia. One of Archbishop Mark’s experiments was the ‘special German deanery’ headed by Fr. Ambrose (Sievers). Now this is changing, insofar as the situation in the FROC has been sufficiently normalized. From now on not one hierarch will interfere in Russian affairs – except, it goes without saying, the three hierarchs of the FROC.”175
But Mark had no intention of ceasing to interfere. The “Special German deanery” he placed under the Monk Ambrose (von Sievers), a Nazi sympathizer who later founded his own Synod, and in general acted as if Russia were an extension of the German diocese. Many suspected Mark’s protégé, if not Mark himself, of being the real Soviet mole within the FROC.
Mark, according to Bishop Valentine, was also stirring up divisions between the Russian bishops; and from the middle of 1991 this disunity was becoming a major problem.
“Lazarus,” according to Zalewski, “did not answer Valentine’s letters and even broke off contact with the Office of the Metropolitan in New York. While in August that year Valentine expanded the number of his parishes and obtained their official registration, Lazarus’ activities showed no tangible results. Lazarus refused to attend the Sobor in New York to settle his differences with Valentine. Grabbe (letter to Archbishop Anthony of Geneva 23 August / 5 September, 1991) indicates that by this refusal Lazarus breaks church laws which is an especially serious offence ‘in the conditions of our struggle for existence’.”176
Still more serious was the anti-canonical interference of foreign clergy – not only Mark - inside Russia. Bishops and priests visiting Russia from abroad often showed an extraordinary inability to distinguish between the true Church and the false.
174 “Vladyka Lazar otvechaiet na voprosy redaktsii” (Vladyka Lazarus replies to the questions of the editors), Pravoslavnaia Rus’ (Orthodox Russia), № 22 (1451), November 15/28, 1991, p. 6. 175 “Vladyka Valentin vernulsa iz Ameriki” (Vladyka Valentine has returned from America), Pravoslavnaia Rus’ (Orthodox Russia), № 3 (1456), February 1/14, 1992, p. 14. 176 Zalewski, op. cit., p. 5.
113 Thus Archbishop Laurus, the future Metropolitan, on visiting Sanino, a village in Vladimir region in which there existed a ROCOR priest, chose instead to stay with the local MP priest! Another bishop shared some holy relics with – the MP Metropolitan Philaret of Minsk (KGB agent “Ostrovsky”)!
Again, at a time when the MP, with the help of the local authorities and OMON forces, was seizing back churches that had gone over to the FROC by force, Archbishop Mark was calling for official negotiations with the MP177, publicly calling Lazarus and Benjamin poor administrators, and urging believers in a publicly distributed letter “to distance yourselves from Bishop Valentine of the Suzdal and Vladimir diocese of the Free Russian Orthodox Church”, whom he described as “a wolf in sheep’s clothing”. Instead, he told them to turn to Fr. Sergius Perekrestov (a priest who was later defrocked for adultery before leaving the FROC). A priest of the Moscow Patriarchate interpreted this letter to mean that ROCOR had “turned its back on the Suzdal diocese of the FROC”.178
On October 2, 1992, in a letter to Protopriest Michael Artsimovich, Archbishop Mark again demonstrated that he respected neither the Russian bishops nor their flock: “We are receiving by no means the best representatives of the Russian Church. Basically, these are people who know little or nothing about the Church Abroad. And in those cases in which someone possesses some information, it must be doubtful that he is in general in a condition to understand it in view of his own mendacity and the mendacity of his own situation. In receiving priests from the Patriarchate, we receive with them a whole series of inadequacies and vices of the MP itself… The real Catacomb Church no longer exists. It in fact disappeared in the 1940s or the beginning of the 1950s… Only individual people have been preserved from it, and in essence everything that has arisen since is only pitiful reflections, and people take their desires for reality. Those who poured into this stream in the 1950s and later were themselves infected with Soviet falsehood, and they partly – and involuntarily - participate in it themselves, that is, they enter the category of what we call ‘homo sovieticus’… In Russia, consequently, there cannot be a Russian Church because it is all based on Soviet man… I think it is more expedient to seek allies for ourselves among those elements that are pure or striving for canonical purity both in the depths of the Moscow Patriarchate and in the other Local Churches – especially in Serbia or even Greece…We will yet be able to deliver ourselves from that impurity which we have now received from the Moscow Patriarchate, and again start on the path of pure Orthodoxy… It is evident that we must… try and undertake the russification of Soviet man and the Soviet church…”179
Archbishop Mark’s remarks about the russification of Soviet man did not go down well in Russia – especially coming from an ethnic German who was strongly suspected of having been a Stasi agent. And his rejection of the very existence of the Catacomb Church especially angered the catacombniks. In a letter to Metropolitan
177 Priamoj Put’ (The Straight Path), January, 1992, p. 5; Nezavisimaia gazeta (The Independent Newspaper), January 18, 1992. 178 Priamoj Put’ (The Straight Path), January, 1992, pp. 3-4; March, 1992, pp. 3-4. 179 Archbishop Mark, in Suzdal’skij Palomnik (The Suzdal Pilgrim), №№ 18-20, pp. 108, 109.
114 Vitaly dated December 25, 1992, Bishop Valentine complained that Archbishop Mark’s attacks against him had been distributed, not only to members of the Synod, but also to laypeople and even in churches of the Moscow Patriarchate.
And he went on: “On the basis of the above positions I have the right to confirm that after my consecration to the episcopate his Eminence Vladyka Mark did everything to cause a quarrel between me and their Eminences Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin…
“It is interesting that when their Eminences Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin, by virtue of the Apostolic canons and their pastoral conscience, adopted, with me, a principled position on the question of his Eminence Archbishop Mark’s claims to administer Russian parishes, the latter simply dismissed the two hierarchs as being incapable of administration… Then Archbishop Mark … chose a different tactic. He wrote a letter to Kaliningrad, calling me ‘a wolf in sheep’s clothing’, and this letter was read out from the ambon in the churches of the Moscow patriarchate.
“Yesterday I was told that his Eminence Archbishop Mark sent a fax to the Synod insistently recommending that his Eminence Barnabas not be recalled from Moscow until a church trial had been carried out on Valentine. What trial, for what? For everything that I have done, for all my labours? Does not putting me on trial mean they want to put you, too, on trial? Does this not mean that it striking me with their fist they get at you with their elbow?”180
The reference to Bishop Barnabas is explained as follows. In February, 1992 he had been sent to Moscow as superior of the community of SS. Martha and Mary in Moscow, which was designated the Synodal podvorye. 181 Bishop Barnabas immediately established contacts with the KGB-supported fascist organisation Pamiat’. Then, in May, Pamiat’ organized a “car race” in honour of the names-day of Tsar Nicholas II. Members of Pamiat’ and Cossacks in 20 cars went through the central streets of Moscow. Bishop Barnabas and the priests Alexis Averianov and Oleg Steniaev, together with the MP priest Victor, served moliebens along the way. “In the course of one of the moliebens Protopriest Alexis Averianov, the spiritual father of the SS. Martha and Mary community and of the National-Patriotic Front Pamiat’, called on those assembled ‘to take your place in the ranks of the national- patriotic and ecclesiastical movement’. The leader of Pamiat’, Demetrius Vasiliev, declared that ‘there was no schism in the Russian church’…”182 As a result of this, the owner of the Mary-Martha Convent, which had been Barnabas’ headquarters, took fright and removed it from ROCOR…
On August 3, Bishop Barnabas organized “a conference of the clergy with the aim of organizing the Moscow diocesan organization of our Church. The conference was attended by more than ten clergy from Moscow and other parts of Russia. In
180 Suzdal’skij Palomnik (The Suzdal Pilgrim), №№ 18-20, pp. 63-64. 181 According to Mrs. Anastasia Shatilova, it was Barnabas himself who asked for this jurisdiction (Church News, July, 2003, vol. 14, № 66 (#120), p. 4). 182 Priamoj Put’ (The Straight Path), May, 1992.
115 his speech before the participants Vladyka pointed out the necessity of creating a diocesan administration which would unite all the parishes of the FROC in Moscow and Moscow region, and also those parishes in other regions of Russia which wanted to unite with this diocesan administration.”183
Barnabas went on to receive clerics who had been banned by the Russian bishops, especially Valentine (whom he accused of homosexuality), and ordained priests in their dioceses without asking them. The appointment of a foreign bishop with almost unlimited powers in Russia was a direct encroachment on the canonical rights of the Russian bishops was becoming increasingly scandalous. According to the holy canons (8th of the 3rd Ecumenical Council, 9th of Antioch, 64th and 67th of Carthage), no bishop can encroach on the territory of another bishop or perform any sacramental action in it without his permission. Also at the August conference, “a diocesan council was elected, containing three members of the National Patriotic Front, Pamyat’, as representatives of the laity.”184
On November 7, 1992, Metropolitan Vitaly and the ROCOR acted to distance themselves from the activities of Bishop Barnabas, sending Bishop Hilarion and Fr. Victor Potapov to Moscow to express the official position of ROCOR at a press conference; which duly took place on November 13. However, in February, 1993, at a meeting of the Synod in New York, it was decided to reject this press-conference as “provocative” and to praise one of the pro-fascist priests, Fr. Alexis Averianov, for his “fruitful work with Pamiat’”, bestowing on him an award for his “stand for righteousness”. Moreover, no action was taken against Bishop Barnabas, while Fr. Victor was forbidden to undertake any ecclesiastical or public activity in Russia.185
Bishop Gregory desperately tried to support the Russian bishops against Barnabas, but almost the entire foreign episcopate was now working to support Barnabas and undermine Valentine.
Thus on 29 December, 1992, Archbishop Anthony of Geneva wrote to Bishop Gregory: “There is no unity among the episcopate… You support Bishop Valentine, I – Bishop Barnabas… For the time being I am withdrawing from Russian affairs… The metropolitan contradicts himself and easily falls under others’ influence, as, for example, [Fr. Victor] Potapov and others. Thanks to him we are in a muddle… May God not allow the episcopate to be increased there [in Russia] in order that there should be more dirt and quarrels. There is no [good] man there, and none with us either… Act, holy Vladyko, but do not make mistakes.”
This from the man who in the 1970s and 80s had done more than any other to divide ROCOR and weaken its confessing stance against the MP and World
183 Pravoslavnaia Rus’ (Orthodox Russia), № 17 (1470), September 1/14, 1992, p. 12. 184 Sergius Bychkov, “Voskresenie mifa” (The Resurrection of a Myth), Moskovskie Novosti (Moscow News), March 7, 1993; “Ukazanie Protoiereiu Viktoru Potapovu” (Instruction to Protopriest Victor Potapov), February 4/17, 1993 (no. 11/35/39). The official publications of ROCOR shed little light on this about-turn, saying only that the Synod “reviewed and changed certain of its decisions of December 12, 1992” (Tserkovnaia Zhizn’ (Church Life), №№ 1-2, January-February, 1993, p. 3). 185 Pravoslavnaia Rus’ (Orthodox Russia), № 18 (1471), September 15/28, 1992, p. 11.
116 Orthodoxy…
On January 12, 1993, Bishop Gregory replied that regardless of whether Valentine was nice or not, “he has 43 parishes and care for parishioners is crucial.” 186
In 1993 Archimandrite Adrian and a very large parish in Noginsk applied to come under the omophorion of Bishop Valentine, and was accepted by him on January 19. At the same time the MP circulated an accusation - signed by a woman but with no other indication of time, place or names of witnesses of the supposed crime - that Archimandrite Adrian had raped one altar boy and had had improper relations with another. This accusation turned out to be completely fabricated – the “raped” altar boy wrote a letter of apology to Fr. Adrian and the letter was accepted by the prosecutor in the criminal court. Both youngsters were then sued for stealing icons…
In spite of this, Bishop Barnabas convened a “Church Court of the Moscow Diocesan Administration”, and without any kind of investigation or trial, banned the archimandrite, although he belonged to a different diocese, on the grounds of immorality. (The two priests in this court, Protopriest Alexis Averianov and Archimandrite Ioasaph (Shibaev) had already been unlawfully received by Bishop Barnabas into his jurisdiction, although they had been banned (whether justly or not is not the question here) by Archbishop Lazarus.) Now Archimandrite Adrian, who later joined the Ukrainian church, did turn out to be a less than strictly moral priest. Nevertheless, this in no way justified Bishop Barnabas’ uncanonical actions. Moreover, as the Russian newspapers pointed out, Bishop Barnabas seemed to be partially supporting the patriarchate in the struggle for this parish – in which, as Bishop Gregory (Grabbe) pointed out, the KGB appeared also to be operating.187
186 Zalewski, op. cit., p. 5. 187 Emergency report to the ROCOR Synod, May 16/29, 1993, Suzdal’skij Palomnik (The Suzdal Pilgrim), 18-20, 1994, p. 92. In a later report to the Synod (June 9/22, 1993, Suzdal’skij Palomnik (The Suzdal Pilgrim), №№ 18-10, 1994, pp. 94-95), Bishop Gregory, after enumerating Bishop Barnabas’ transgressions, appealed that he be brought to trial. He wrote that according to Protocol № 5 of the Sobor, “’Bishop Barnabas spoke about disturbances in his relationships with Archbishop Lazarus and [Bishop] Benjamin’… He complained to the Sobor about a priest of Archbishop Lazarus because he did not allow him to serve in his church without the permission of the Archbishop. The President of ROCOR then explained to Bishop Barnabas that insofar as the given parish was in the jurisdiction of Archbishop Lazarus, the priest had been completely right. I personally possess an inquiry from the priest of Archbishop Lazarus which confirms his reply to Bishop Barnabas. On meeting the priest in the Mary-Martha convent, Bishop Barnabas ‘demanded that I go under his omophorion. I refrained from going over, at which Bishop Barnabas said: ‘You are a rebellious batiushka’. Having spoken about ‘disturbances in his relationships with Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin’, Bishop Barnabas goes on to criticize Archbishop Lazarus. He recognized that he has ‘too hastily’ banned Archimandrite Adrian, the unlawfulness of which the President had immediately pointed out. To the question of Archbishop Mark concerning the reception by Bishop Barnabas of the priest Peter Astakhov, who had been banned by Bishop Valentine for living with a woman, Bishop Barnabas, as is recorded in the protocol, replied that he ‘had to receive Fr. Peter, since the authorities wanted to seize his church’. Then Bishop Barnabas proclaimed a list of parishes of Archbishop Lazarus which, as he said, wanted to go over to him. The unlawful actions of Bishop Barnabas in relation to other dioceses are listed further on in the same protocol. There it says: “Another written report of Bishop Valentine was read, which expressed a complaint against Bishop Barnabas for his
117
Incited by Barnabas, several ROCOR bishops wanted to proceed with defrocking Bishop Valentine; but instead he was retired on grounds of ill-health – an uncanonical decision since neither had Bishop Valentine petitioned for retirement nor had the ROCOR bishops investigated his state of health. Bishop Barnabas also attacked Archbishop Lazarus as an incompetent old man, and Bishop Benjamin as a collective farm worker in bast shoes!
Worse was to come. Bishop Barnabas wrote (on official Synod notepaper) to Metropolitan Vladimir (Romanyuk) of the uncanonical Ukrainian Autocephalous Church seeking to enter into communion with him, and followed this up by visiting him in Kiev. The whole affair was exposed when Metropolitan Vitaly received an invitation from the “Patriarch” to visit Kiev in order to make the inter-communion official.188 Of course, the MP seized on this to discredit the whole of ROCOR!
“In the shortest time [Barnabas] introduced the most complete chaos into the life of the Free Church189, which was beginning to be reborn. This representative of the Synod began, above the heads of the Diocesan Bishops of the Free Church in Russia, and in violation of the basic canonical rules, to receive into his jurisdiction clerics who had been banned from serving by them, to carry out ordinations in their dioceses without their knowledge, and finally was not ashamed to demand, at the Council in 1993, that he should be given rights to administer all the parishes of the Free Church in Russia!190 This request was not granted by the Council, the more so in that it learned that ‘the empowered representative of the Synod of the Russian Church Abroad in Moscow’, on writing-paper of the Hierarchical Synod, wrote a petition to ‘the Locum Tenens of the Kievan Patriarchal Throne’, Metropolitan Vladimir (Romanyuk), in which it said that ‘the treacherous Muscovite scribblers hired by the Moscow Patriarchate are trying to trample into the mud the authority of the Russian Church Abroad. In this connection: we beseech you, Your Eminence, through the Kievan Patriarchate headed by you, to give our ecclesiastical activity a juridical base and receive us into brotherly communion.’ Extraordinary as it may seem, the Council did not consider it necessary to defrock its representative, and it was put to him that he should set off for the Holy Land for a mere three months without right of serving – which, however, he did not carry out. This shameful letter was widely distributed by the Moscow Patriarchate, while the ‘Patriarchal Locum Tenens’, delighted by this prospect, invited the First-Hierarch of the Church
links with Pamyat’ and for his receiving clergy without release documents. The actions of Bishop Barnabas introduce disturbance into the parishes of the Russian Church and place its existence under threat.” (in Tserkovnie Novosti (Church News), № 8 (100), November, 2001, pp. 3-4). 188 According to the Ukrainian publication Ohliadach (Observer), even after Bishop Barnabas was banned from Russia by the ROCOR Synod, he continued his links with the Ukrainians. “On an unofficial level, relations have continued to the present. With the secret blessing of Archbishop Barnabas, Archimandrite Joasaph (Shibaiev), dean of the Russian parishes of ROCOR, went under the jurisdiction of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kievan Patriarchate” (quoted in Church News, July, 2003, vol. 14, № 66 (#120), p. 3). 189 “Such disturbance and division of the flock as the atheists and the MP could only dream about” (Bishop Valentine in Suzdal’skij Palomnik (The Suzdal Pilgrim), №№ 18-20, 1994, p. 5). (V.M.) 190 Protocol no. 8, April 30 / May 13, 1993.
118 Abroad to visit Kiev in written form. This letter was also widely distributed.”191
*
On April 14/27, 1993 Archbishop Lazarus sent a report to the Synod detailing the many canonical violations committed against the Russian bishops, and in particular against himself, to which the leadership of ROCOR had not reacted in spite of many appeals. He then declared his “temporary administrative separation” from the Synod until the Synod restored canonical order. But, he insisted, he was not breaking communion with ROCOR.192 As a result of this, without consulting either him or his diocese, a session of the ROCOR Synod meeting in Cleveland, Ohio retired him, and transferred the administration of his parishes to Metropolitan Vitaly.
In May, during its Council in Lesna, the Synod effectively retired Bishop Valentine also – it goes without saying, against his will and without canonical justification. As Metropolitan Vitaly wrote to him: “The Hierarchical Council has become acquainted with your administrative successes. However, your health in such a difficult situation makes it necessary for us to retire you because of illness until your full recovery. This means that if you are physically able, you can serve, since you are in no way banned from church serving, but you are simply freed from administrative cares”.
During the Council a letter was read from a group of Catacomb Christians expressing disagreement with the actions of Archbishop Lazarus and asking that Bishop Barnabas be placed in charge of all the Russian parishes. Bishop Barnabas also received support from a parish in Voronezh, which asked that the Council confirm in its epistle the reasons not allowing ROCOR to enter into communion with the MP. At the same time, however, Archbishop Mark told the bishops that in five years his German diocese would no longer exist, and that more and more people considered the confrontational approach to the MP wrong. He was opposed by Metropolitan Vitaly, Archbishop Anthony of Los Angeles and Bishop Gregory. However, Archbishop Mark brought this issue up more than once (in Protocols 3 and 7), which shows where he himself was moving…193
On May 16/29, after sharply criticizing the Synod’s unjust actions against Bishop Valentine, Bishop Gregory reported to the Synod: “Our responsibility before God demands from us the annulment of this conciliar resolution, and if there are accusers who have material which has not yet been shown us in documentary form, then Bishop Valentine must be returned to his see and the affair must be either cut
191 Istoki Rossijskoj Pravoslavnoj Svobodnoj Tserkvi (The Sources of the Free Russian Orthodox Church), Suzdal, 1997, pp. 19-20. 192 “Dukhovnie dokumenty po istorii Katakombnoj Tserkvi. Doklad Arkhiepiskopa Lazaria Tambovskogo Arkhierejskomu Soboru RPTsZ, 14/27 aprelia, 1993 g.” (Spiritual documents on the history of the Catacomb Church. The Report of Archbishop Lazarus of Tambov to the Hierarchcial Council of ROCOR, April 14/27, 1993”, http://catacomb.org.ua/modules.php?name=Pages&go=print_page&pid=919. 193 http://www/russia-talk.com/otkliki/ot-117.htm .
119 short or again reviewed by the Council, but now in agreement with the canons that we have in the Church. For this would clearly be necessary to convene a Council, and for a start a judgement must be made about it in the Synod…
“As a consequence of this Archbishop Lazarus has already left us. And Bishop Valentine’s patience is already being tried. If he, too, will not bear the temptation, what will we be left with? Will his flock in such a situation want to leave with him? Will not it also rebel?
“For clarity’s sake I must begin with an examination of certain matters brought up at the expanded session of the Synod which took place in Munich.
“A certain tension was noticeable there in spite of the external calmness. It turned out that behind the scenes a suspicious attitude towards Bishop Valentine had arisen. Already after the closing of the Synod I learned that several members of the Synod had been shown a document containing accusations of transgressions of the laws of morality against Bishop Valentine. The President of the Synod did not have this document during the sessions but only at the end. It was then that I, too, received a copy of the denunciation from Archbishop Mark, who was given it by Bishop Barnabas, who evidently did not know how to deal with such objects according to the Church canons. I involuntarily ascribed the unexpected appearance of such a document amidst the members of the Synod to the action of some communist secret agents and to the inexperience of Bishop Barnabas in such matters.
“The caution of the Church authorities in relation to similar accusations in the time of troubles after the persecutions was ascribed to the 74th Apostolic canon, the 2nd canon of the 1st Ecumenical Council and especially to the 6th canon of the 2nd Ecumenical Council. At that time the heretics were multiplying their intrigues against the Orthodox hierarchs. The above-mentioned canons indicate that accusations hurled by less than two or three witnesses – who were, besides, faithful children of the Church and accusers worthy of trust – were in no way to be accepted…
“Did they apply such justice and caution when they judged Bishop Valentine, and were ready without any investigation to ... defrock him for receiving Archimandrite Adrian? And were the accusations hurled at the latter really seriously examined?
“Beginning with the processing, contrary to the canons, of the accusations against Bishop Valentine on the basis of the single complaint of a person known to none of us194, the Sobor was already planning to defrock him without any kind of
194 Bishop Valentine’s accuser turned out to be Alexander R. Shtilmark, an assistant of the Pamyat’ leader, Demetrius Vasiliev. His motivation was clear. Later, several of Shtilmark’s relatives witnessed to his mental unbalance. And his sister, Maria Stilmark asserted (personal communication, March, 2006) that her brother denies ever having sent a complaint to the Synod! In spite of this, and Bishop Valentine’s repeated protestations of his innocence (which appear not to have reached Metropolitan Vitaly) ROCOR, in the persons of Archbishop Mark and Bishop Hilarion
120 due process, until the argument of his illness turned up. But here, too, they failed to consider that this required his own petition and a check to ascertain the seriousness of his illness. The intention was very simple: just get rid of a too active Bishop. They didn’t think of the fate of his parishes, which exist on his registration. Without him they would lose it.
“While we, in the absence of the accused and, contrary to the canons, without his knowledge, were deciding the fate of the Suzdal diocese, Vladyka Valentine received three more parishes. Now he has 63. Taking into account Archimandrite Adrian with his almost 10,000 people, we are talking about approximately twenty thousand souls.
“The question arises: in whose interests is it to destroy what the papers there call the centre of the Church Abroad in Russia?
“The success of Bishop Valentine’s mission has brought thousands of those being saved into our Church, but now this flock is condemned to widowhood and the temptation of having no head only because he turned out not to be suitable to some of our Bishops…”195
It was in this highly charged atmosphere, with their bishop forcibly and uncanonically retired and the registration of all their parishes hanging by a thread, that the annual diocesan conference of the Suzdal diocese took place from June 9/22 to 11/24. It was also attended by priests representing Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin. Hieromonk Agathangel (Pashkovsky) read out a letter from Archbishop Lazarus in which he declared that although he had considered the actions of ROCOR in Russia to be uncanonical, he had tolerated them out of brotherly love, but was now forced to speak out against them, for they were inflicting harm on the Church. First, ROCOR did not have the right to form its own parishes in Russia insofar as the Catacomb Church, which had preserved the succession of grace of the Mother Church, continued to exist on her territory. Therefore it was necessary only to strengthen the catacomb communities and expand them through an influx of new believers. Secondly, the hierarchs of ROCOR had been acting in a spirit far from brotherly love, for they had been treating their brothers, the hierarchs of the FROC, as second-class Vladykas: they received clergy who had been banned by the Russian Vladykas, brought clergy of other dioceses to trial, removed bans placed by the Russian hierarchs without their knowledge or agreement, and annulled other decisions of theirs (for example, Metropolitan Vitaly forbade an inspection to be carried out in the parish of Fr. Sergius Perekrestov of St. Petersburg). Thirdly, the ROCOR hierarchs were far from Russia and did not understand the situation, so they could not rightly administer the Russian parishes. Thus the Synod removed the title ‘Administering the affairs of the FROC’ from all the hierarchs except Bishop Barnabas, which forced the dioceses to re-register with the authorities - although, while a new registration was being carried out, the
continued to drag this matter out for another two years (Reports of Bishop Gregory (Grabbe), Suzdal’skij Palomnik (The Suzdal Pilgrim), №№ 18-20, 1994, pp. 123, 126). (V.M.) 195 Suzdal’skij Palomnik (The Suzdal Pilgrim), №№ 18-20, 1994, pp. 89-90.
121 parishes could lose their right to ownership of the churches and other property. Moreover re-registration was almost impossible, insofar as it required the agreement of an expert consultative committee attached to the Supreme Soviet, which contained hierarchs of the Moscow Patriarchate. Fourthly, the ROCOR hierarchs had been inconsistent in their actions, which aroused the suspicion that their actions were directed, not by the Holy Spirit, but by forces foreign to the Church.196 Archbishop Lazarus concluded by calling for the formation of a True Orthodox Catacomb Church that was administratively separate from, but in communion with, ROCOR, on the basis of Patriarch Tikhon’s ukaz № 362, which had never been annulled.
The Conference’s Address and Resolutions accused the Synod of inactivity and of not defending the parishes in Russia from persecution by the MP, and of “not hurrying to exchange their titles of bishops of distant regions and cities with non- Russian names for the names of Russian regions and cities…
“The Hierarchy Abroad remains unreachable. In this unreachableness, alas, many have begun to find a similarity with the unreachableness for believers of the hierarchy of the MP. The one certain factor influencing the majority of the hierarchs of ROCOR in their relationship to their suffering fellow-countrymen in Russia is intense distrust. Suspicion and mistrustfulness have become the spring that moves the hierarchs of ROCOR. We would like to know in accordance with what rules and canons the Hierarchical Council intended to deprive the Russian hierarchs, Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Valentine, of their sees… Did the Hierarchical Council ask the much-suffering Russian people whether their conscience allows them to take upon themselves the sin of Judas and betray their spiritual Archpastor? We cannot keep silence, peacefully surveying the destructive activity of the hierarchs of the Church Abroad in Russia… and we are forced to govern ourselves in accordance with the Decree of the Holy Hierarch Tikhon, Patriarch and Confessor of All Russia, the Sacred Synod and the Higher Ecclesiastical Council on the independence of those parts of the Russian Church deprived for one reason or another of the possibility of communicating with her central authorities… If the Hierarchical Synod of ROCOR were to adopt new and uncanonical decisions that are incomprehensible for Russian [Rossijskikh] Orthodox Christians, we reserve for ourselves the right correspondingly to adopt decisions that will aid the regeneration of Russian Orthodoxy and its salvation…
“In view of the uncanonicity of certain resolutions of the Hierarchical Council of ROCOR that took place in the convent of Lesna in France, and the session of the Hierarchical Synod that preceded it in Cleveland (USA), in relation to the Russian
196 There were objective grounds for such a suspicion. Thus the protocols of this Council for June 9/22 record: “Hieromonk Vladimir, superior of the Borisovsk church, says that three months before the Session of the Hierarchical Council, his relative said that he should abandon the Suzdal Diocese since they were going to retire Bishop Valentine at the Session of the Sobor in France. She knew this from a party worker linked with the KGB. And three years later he learned that this question had indeed been discussed. He is interested to know how it happened that the KGB realized its intention in real life?” (Suzdal’skij Palomnik (The Suzdal Pilgrim), № 23, 1995, p. 54; letter to the author by Hieromonk Vladimir (Ovchinnikov), June 23 / July 6, 1993).
122 parishes and events in Russia and the completely distorted presentation of them, we ask the First Hierarch of ROCOR to convene an emergency Council and rescind the resolutions that are contrary to the Canons and Decrees of the Holy Church. If our request is rejected, then the whole responsibility for the consequences lies upon those who have adopted anti-canonical bans that violate the Apostolic Rules and the Rules of the Holy Church… Desiring the speediest overcoming of the isolation of the hierarchs of ROCOR from the Russian [Rossijskoj] flock and their return to the Homeland…”
After quoting these words, Archbishop Anthony of Los Angeles wrote, in a letter to Metropolitan Vitaly: “All the documents of the congress: the Agenda, the Resolutions, the Address to the Synod and the Protocols serve as vivid accusations first of all against Bishop Valentine, but also against all the participants in the congress who signed the Address and Resolutions…
“How is one to describe this, which is only a few extracts from the whole? This is uncommon ignorance, and madness, and untruth, and rebellion, and murmuring, and open threats of a schism, and an unjust comparison of the Church Abroad with the MP, and the taking on themselves of the role of a higher arbiter over the Hierarchical Council. In the unprecedented demand that the resolutions of the Council be rescinded it is not indicated precisely which resolutions are meant.
“Moreover, the threat of separation from the Church Abroad if the unnamed demands are not met, besides the mad demand that the dioceses abroad be liquidated, constitutes a real threat…”197
The tone of the conference documents was indeed strong: but it could well be argued that the very serious situation warranted it, and that hierarchs such as Archbishop Anthony, instead of complaining about “rebellion” and “a real threat”, should have acted to avert the threat…
At the end of the conference it was decided that the Suzdal diocese would follow Archbishop Lazarus’ example in separating administratively from ROCOR while remaining in communion in prayer with it. Bishop Valentine expressed the hope that this would be only a temporary measure, and he called on Metropolitan Vitaly to convene an extraordinary Council to remove the anticanonical resolutions of the Council in Lesna and the Synod meeting in Cleveland…198
Meanwhile, a meeting of the clergy Archbishop Lazarus’ diocese in Odessa on July 17 confirmed that they were “on the verge of a break” with ROCOR. They reiterated their belief that the bans on Archbishop Lazarus were uncanonical and called on the hierarchs of ROCOR to review them in a spirit of brotherly love and mutual understanding.
197 Letter of Archbishop Anthony of Los Angeles, no heading, no date; original in the archive of Archbishop Anthony (Orlov) of San Francisco. 198 Suzdal’skij Palomnik (The Suzdal Pilgrim), №№ 18-20, 1994, p. 121; letter to the author by Hieromonk Vladimir, op. cit.
123
On November 2, 1993 (i.e. over eighteen months since the scandals erupted), the Synod decided to withdraw Bishop Barnabas from Russia and to place all his parishes in the jurisdiction of Metropolitan Vitaly.199 Later, on July 8, 1994, Bishop Barnabas was forbidden from travelling to Russia for five years.200 All the parishes of ROCOR in Siberia, Ukraine and Belarus were entrusted to Bishop Benjamin.201
By the beginning of 1994 the Russian bishops had received no reaction whatsoever from the Synod to any of their letters and requests. This was probably under the influence especially of Archbishop Mark, who told the Hierarchical Council that “Valentine is a tank that will crush us under its weight.”202
On March 8/21, 1994, in a conference taking place in Suzdal, Bishop Valentine said: “On June 10/23, 1993 in Suzdal there took place a diocesan congress in which resolutions were taken and an Address was sent to the Synod indicating the transgressions, by the above-mentioned Hierarchs, of the Apostolic Canons and decrees of the Fathers of the Church, of the Ecumenical and Local Councils. At the same time they asked that his Grace Bishop Barnabas be recalled, and that Archbishop Mark should ask forgiveness of the clergy and the Russian people for his humiliation of their honour and dignity. If our request were ignored, the whole weight of responsibility would lie on the transgressors of the Church canons. But so far there has been no reply.
“We sent the Resolution of the clergy, monastics and laypeople warning that if there continued to be transgressions of the Apostolic Canons and Conciliar Resolutions on the part of the Hierarchs, with the connivance of the Hierarchical Synod, the whole responsibility would lie as a heavy burden on the transgressors. The Synod did not reply.
“Together with his Eminence Archbishop Lazarus and the members of the Diocesan Councils I sent an address to the Synod in which their attention was drawn to the wily intrigues on the part of those who wished us ill, and asked that the situation be somehow corrected, placing our hopes on Christian love and unity of mind, which help to overcome human infirmities. But in the same address we laid out in very clear fashion our determination that if the Hierarchical Synod did not put an end to the deliberate transgressions, we would be forced to exist independently, in accordance with the holy Patriarch Tikhon’s ukaz № 362 of November 7/20, 1920, in the interests of the purity of Orthodoxy and the salvation of our Russian flock. The reply consisted in Vladyka Metropolitan threatening a ban.
199 However, the metropolitan did not intend to visit his Russian dioceses. Indeed, as Metropolitan Valentine told the present writer, he refused many such requests on the grounds that he might be killed. Valentine saw in this refusal of the metropolitan to visit his Russian flock one of the main reasons for the collapse of the ROCOR mission. 200 Tserkovnaia Zhizn’ (Church Life), №№ 3-4, May-August, 1994, p. 5). 201 Tserkovnaia Zhizn’ (Church Life), № 5-6, September-December, 1993, pp. 7, 9. 202 Church News, vol. 12, № 1 (83), January-February, 2000, p. 5.
124 “I sent a letter to Metropolitan Vitaly in which I besought him earnestly to confirm my status before the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation, so that the Suzdal Diocesan Administration should not lose its registration. This time the reply was swift, only not to the Diocesan Administration, but to the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation under the signature of Bishop Barnabas, saying that the Russian Hierarchs were no longer Administering the affairs of the FROC, and that this duty was laid upon him. As a result I and the member of my Diocesan Council began visiting office after office, a process that lasted many months.
“It is difficult for you to imagine how much labour we had to expend, how many written bureaucratic demands we had to fulfill, in order to get our Regulations re- registered. If I had not undertaken this, all the churches would automatically have been taken out of registration and then, believe me, the Moscow Patriarchate would not have let go such a ‘juicy morsel’.”203
After more speeches in the same vein, including one from Archbishop Lazarus, the Congress decided: 1. To form a Temporary Higher Church Administration (THCA) of the Russian Orthodox Church, which, without claiming to be the highest Church authority in Russia, would have as its final aim the convening of a Free All- Russian Local Council that would have such authority. 2. To elect and consecrate new bishops. 3. To declare their gratitude to ROCOR and Metropolitan Vitaly, whose name would continue to be commemorated in Divine services, since they wished to remain in communion of prayer with him. 4. To express the hope that the Hierarchical Synod would recognize the THCA and the consecrations performed by it.
One of the members of the Congress, Elena Fadeyevna Shipunova declared: “It is now completely obvious that the subjection of the Russian dioceses to the Synod Abroad contradicts the second point of Ukaz № 362. The Russian Church is faced directly with the necessity of moving to independent administration in accordance with this Ukaz. After the sergianist schism Metropolitan Cyril of Kazan called for such a move, considering Ukaz № 362 as the only possible basis of Church organization. Incidentally, Metropolitan Cyril also indicated to Metropolitan Sergius Stragorodsky that he had to follow Ukaz № 362 instead of usurping ecclesiastical power. Metropolitan Cyril and the other bishop-confessors tried to organize the administration of the Russian Church on the basis of this Ukaz, but they couldn’t do this openly. Now for the first time the Russian Church has the opportunity to do this. We could say that this is an historical moment. The Temporary Higher Church Administration that has been created is the first legal one in Russia since the time of the sergianist schism. The Centre of Church power ceased its existence after the death of Metropolitan Peter more than half a century ago, but we have not yet arrived at the Second All-Russian Council which has the power to re-establish Central Church power.”204
On March 9/22 the THCA, which now contained three new bishops: Theodore of
203 Suzdal’skij Palomnik (The Suzdal Pilgrim), №№ 18-20, 1994, pp. 159-160. 204 Suzdal’skij Palomnik (The Suzdal Pilgrim), №№ 18-20, pp. 168-169.
125 Borisovsk, Seraphim of Sukhumi and Agathangel of Simferopol, together with many clergy, monastics and laity, informed Metropolitan Vitaly and the Synod of ROCOR of their decision. On March 23 / April 5 the Synod of ROCOR rejected this declaration and the new consecrations, and decided to break communion in prayer with the newly formed Autonomous Church, but without imposing any bans.205
In this decision the ROCOR Synod called itself the “Central Church authority” of the Russian Church, which contradicted both its own Fundamental Statute and the simple historical fact that, as the FROC bishops pointed out, since the death of Metropolitan Peter in 1937 the Russian Church had had no “Central Church authority”.206
Nor was this the only indication that ROCOR was beginning to change its perception of herself… In their May, 1993 Council in Lesna, the ROCOR hierarchs decided that the Church in Russia was now free and changed the commemoration “For the Orthodox episcopate of the persecuted Church of Russia” to “For the Orthodox episcopate of the Church of Russia”.207 It was strange that, at a moment when their own bishops inside Russia were being persecuted, the impression should be given that persecution had ceased – unless they considered that they had no persecuted bishops inside Russia and that the phrase referred to the MP…
As Protopriest Benjamin Zhukov wrote: “What Church were they talking about? A lack of precision was revealed, and confusion was created between ‘the persecuted Russian Church’ of the Tikhonites, Josephites and all the catacombniks, on the one hand, and the MP on the other. It was as if there few who understood what was going on. After all, the MP with the aid of OMON had already begun to take away the churches in Russia that had passed over to us, and our Church had begun to be persecuted by the MP. Therefore the Metropolitan and a series of church-servers never changed the former formula, witnessing to the fact that for them the Russian Church was not the MP.”208
During the ROCOR Sobor, Bishop Barnabas criticised all the bishops in Russia and asked the Sobor to give him alone administration of all the parishes in Russia.209 Then, in order to strengthen ROCOR’s hand in the coming struggle with the FROC, Archimandrite Evtikhy (Kurochkin) was consecrated Bishop of Ishim and Siberia on July 11/24. 210 He turned out to be a fierce enemy of the other Russian bishops…
205 Tserkovnaia Zhizn’ (Church Life), №№ 1-2, January-April, 1994, pp. 14-16; Suzdal’skij Palomnik (The Suzdal Pilgrim), №№ 18-20, 1994, pp. 196-198. 206 Suzdal’skij Palomnik (The Suzdal Pilgrim), №№ 18-20, 1994, pp. 198, 200-201. 207 http://www.russia-talk.com/otkliki/ot-117.htm. 208 Zhukov, “Poslanie nastoiatelia khrama RPZTs v Parizhe” (Epistle of the Rector of the ROCOR Church in Paris), in Otkliki na deiania Arkhierejskogo Sobor RPTsZ 2000 goda i na prochie posleduischie za nim sobytia (Reactions to the Acts of the Hierarchical Council of the ROCOR in 2000 and to other events that followed it), part 2, Paris, 2001, p. 85). Of course, the FROC bishops also retained the old formula… 209 Protocol 5; Tserkovnie Novosti (Church News), № 4 (105), May, 2002, p. 4. 210 Tserkovnaia Zhizn’ (Church News), №№ 3-4, May-August, 1994, pp. 60-65. Bishop Evtikhy had left the MP in the early 1990s for four reasons: (i) the sexual demands made by the MP’s Metropolitan Theodosius of Omsk to the wives of clergy and parishioners, (ii) his refusal to demand the return of
126
Bishop Gregory, who had not been admitted to the sessions of the ROCOR Synod, fully approved of the actions of the Russian Hierarchs in a letter to Bishop Valentine dated March 24 / April 6. And on the same day he wrote the following to Metropolitan Vitaly: “We have brought the goal of the possible regeneration of the Church in Russia to the most undesirable possible end. Tormented by envy and malice, certain of our bishops have influenced the whole course of our church politics in Russia. As a consequence of this, our Synod has not understood the meaning of the mission of our existence abroad.
“As I warned the Synod in my last report, we have done absolutely everything possible to force the Russian bishops to separate from us administratively. They have had to proceed from Resolution № 362 of Patriarch Tikhon of November 7/20, 1920 in order to avoid the final destruction of the just-begun regeneration of our Church in our Fatherland. But our Synod, having nothing before its eyes except punitive tactics, proceeds only on the basis of a normalized church life. Whereas the Patriarch’s Resolution had in mind the preservation of the Church’s structure in completely unprecedented historical and ecclesiastical circumstances.
“The ukaz was composed for various cases, including means for the re- establishment of the Church’s Administration even in conditions of its abolition (see article 9) and ‘the extreme disorganization of Church life’. This task is placed before every surviving hierarch, on condition that he is truly Orthodox.
“The Russian Hierarchs felt themselves to be in this position when, for two years running, their inquiries and requests to provide support against the oppression of the Moscow Patriarchate were met with complete silence on the part of our Synod.
“Seeing the canonical chaos produced in their dioceses by Bishop Barnabas, and the Synod’s silent collusion with him, the Russian Hierarchs came to the conclusion that there was no other way of avoiding the complete destruction of the whole enterprise but their being led by the Patriarch’s Resolution № 362.
“Our Synod unlawfully retired Bishop Valentine for his reception of a huge parish in Noginsk,.. but did not react to the fact that Bishop Barnabas had in a treacherous manner disgraced the Synod, in whose name he petitioned to be received into communion with the Ukrainian self-consecrators!
“I don’t know whether the full text of Resolution № 362 has been read at the Synod. I myself formerly paid little attention to it, but now, having read it, I see that the Russian Hierarchs have every right to cite it, and this fact will come to the surface in the polemic that will inevitably take place now. I fear that by its decisions the Synod has already opened the path to this undesirable polemic, and it threatens
church buildings from the authorities, (iii) his refusal to give catechism lessons before baptism, and (iv) his ban on baptising by full immersion (Roman Lunkin, “Rossijskie zarubezhniki mezhdu dvukh ognej” (The Russians Abroad between two fires), http://www.starlightsite.co.uk/keston/russia/articles/nov2005/01Kurochkin.html.
127 to create a schism not only in Russia, but also with us here…
“There are things which it is impossible to stop, and it is also impossible to escape the accomplished fact. If our Synod does not now correctly evaluate the historical moment that has taken place, then its already profoundly undermined prestige (especially in Russia) will be finally and ingloriously destroyed.
“All the years of the existence of the Church Abroad we have enjoyed respect for nothing else than our uncompromising faithfulness to the canons. They hated us, but they did not dare not to respect us. But now we have shown the whole Orthodox world that the canons are for us an empty sound, and we have become a laughing-stock in the eyes of all those who have even the least relationship to Church affairs.
“You yourself, at the Synod in Lesna, allowed yourself to say that for us, the participants in it, it was now not the time to examine the canons, but we had to act quickly. You, who are at the helm of the ship of the Church, triumphantly, before the whole Sobor, declared to us that we should now hasten to sail without a rudder and without sails. At that time your words greatly disturbed me, but I, knowing your irritability with me for insisting on the necessity of living according to the canons, nevertheless hoped that all was not lost yet and that our Bishops would somehow shake off the whole of this nightmare of recent years.
“Think, Vladyko, of the tens of thousands of Orthodox people both abroad and in Russia who have been deceived by us. Do not calm yourself with the thought that if guilt lies somewhere, then it lies equally on all of our hierarchs. The main guilt will lie on you as the leader of our Sobor…”211
Unfortunately, however, Metropolitan Vitaly was beginning to show the same kind of condescending and contemptuous attitude to the Russian flock as Archbishop Mark had been demonstrating for some time. Thus in one letter to Bishop Valentine, after rebuking him for receiving Archimandrite Adrian, he wrote: “We understand that, living in the Soviet Union for these 70 years of atheist rule, such a deep seal of Sovietism and of departure from right thinking has penetrated into the world-view of the Russian people that you, too, were involuntarily caught up by the spirit of this wave…”212 Even such an attitude would have been tolerable if the metropolitan had decided to govern the Church in accordance with the holy canons. But at the Lesna Council in 1993 he had told a priest to tell Bishop Gregory not to keep referring to the canons!213
Some FROC priests – notably Protopriest Lev Lebedev of Kursk – while fully agreeing that the ROCOR bishops had committed uncanonical acts on Russian soil, nevertheless believed that the actions of the FROC bishops had been hasty and were justified only in the case that ROCOR had fallen away from Orthodoxy, which, as
211 Bishop Gregory, Pis’ma (Letters), Moscow, 1998, pp. 123-125. 212 Suzdal’skij Palomnik (The Suzdal Pilgrim), №№ 18-20, 1994, p. 149. 213 Bishop Gregory, Doklady (Reports), Moscow, 1999, p. 85.
128 everyone agreed, had not yet taken place. In a letter to Bishop Gregory dated April 4, 1994, and approved by Metropolitan Vitaly, Fr. Lev maintained that no personal reasons could justify legal separation from the authority of the supervising Metropolitan. He claimed that the only legal church authority in Russia was now ROCOR, which, since it remained faithful to Orthodoxy, had the right to administer all groups that did not want to remain in the falsehood of the MP. Fr. Lev was suspicious of Bishop Valentine because he, unlike all others, had managed to obtain church buildings and registration from the authorities. And he hinted that since the authorities granted rights only to “their own”, Bishop Valentine was in fact one of “their own”.214
In a letter dated April 26, Bishop Gregory accused Fr. Lev of allowing his personal dislike of Valentine to interfere with his judgement. Fr. Lev in his turn accused Bishop Gregory of allowing “personal offence and desire” to dictate his letter to the metropolitan of April 6, 1994. Bishop Gregory argued that ROCOR’s two founding documents, the ukaz № 362 and the Polozhenie of ROCOR, did not allow for the Church outside Russia to rule the Church inside Russia. ROCOR could help the Church inside Russia, but not rule it:-
“For decades we living abroad have commemorated ‘the Orthodox Episcopate of the Persecuted Church of Russia’. But in our last Sobor we removed from the litanies and the prayer for the salvation of Russia the word ‘persecuted’, witnessing thereby that we already officially consider that the persecutions on the Russian Church have ceased.
“And indeed, our parishes in Russia are now harried in places, but basically they have complete freedom of action, in particular if they lay no claim to any old church, which the Moscow Patriarchate then tries to snatch. However it does not always succeed in this. Thus the huge Theophany cathedral in Noginsk (with all the buildings attached to it) according to the court’s decision remained with our diocese…
“In other words, we can say that if there is willingness on our side we now have every opportunity of setting in order the complete regeneration of the Russian Orthodox Church in our Fatherland.
“The very first paragraph of the ‘Statute on the Russian Church Abroad’ says: ’The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad is an indivisible part of the Russian Local Church TEMPORARILY self-governing on conciliar principles UNTIL THE REMOVAL OF THE ATHEIST POWER in Russia in accordance with the resolution of the holy Patriarch Tikhon, the Holy Synod and the Higher Ecclesiastical Council of the Russian Church of November 7/20, 1920 № 362 (emphasis mine, B. G.).
“If we now lead the Russian Hierarch to want to break their administrative links with the Church Abroad, then will not our flock abroad finally ask us: what ‘Episcopate of the Russian Church’ are we still praying for in our churches? But if
214 Zalewski, op. cit., p. 7.
129 we took these words out of the litanies, then we would only be officially declaring that we are no longer a part of the Russian Church.
“Will we not then enter upon a very dubious canonical path of autonomous existence, but now without a Patriarchal blessing and outside the Russian Church, a part of which we have always confessed ourselves to be? Will not such a step lead us to a condition of schism in the Church Abroad itself, and, God forbid, to the danger of becoming a sect?…
“It is necessary for us to pay very careful attention to and get to know the mood revealed in our clergy in the Suzdal diocese, so as on our part to evaluate the mood in which our decisions about the Church in Russia could be received by them.
“But will we not see then that it is one thing when the Church Abroad gives help to the Russian Church through the restoration in it of a canonical hierarchy, but something else entirely when we lay claims to rule the WHOLE of Russia from abroad, which was in no way envisaged by even one paragraph of the ‘Statute of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad’, nor by one of our later resolutions?”215
215 Suzdal’skij Palomnik (The Suzdal Pilgrim), №№ 18-20, 1994, pp. 128-129, 130.
130 87. THE ROCOR-CYPRIANITE UNIA
In July, 1994 ROCOR entered into communion with the Greek Old Calendarist Cyprianites and officially accepted their ecclesiology. This was not a unanimous decision. At the 1993 Council, when the subject was first discussed, Archbishop Anthony of Los Angeles, Bishop Gregory (Grabbe) and Bishop Cyril of Seattle spoke against the union, which would contradict ROCOR’s decision of 1978 not to enter into union with any of the Greek Old Calendarist Synods until they had attained unity amongst themselves. However, Archbishops Laurus and Mark said that it was awkward to refuse communion with Cyprian when they were already in communion with the Romanian Old Calendarists, with whom Cyprian was in communion. In the summer of 1993 a commission was set up consisting of Archbishop Laurus, Bishop Metrophanes and Bishop Daniel which prepared the way for the eventual decision to unite with Cyprian at the 1994 Council.
However, at the Council Bishop Daniel continued to express doubts, and Bishop Benjamin of the Kuban refused to sign the union together with Bishop Ambrose of Vevey. And there were rumours that Metropolitan Vitaly and Archbishop Anthony of Los Angeles had signed only under pressure. Archbishop Lazarus also had his doubts, especially after a concelebration between Metropolitan Vitaly and Cyprian in Slatioara, Romania, during which the chalice was knocked over.216
The Cyprianites continued to go their own way supported only by the Romanian and Bulgarian Old Calendarists and (from 1994 until the early 2000s) ROCOR. However, ROCOR’s Bishop Gregory Grabbe criticised ROCOR’s union with Cyprian, writing: “It is strange to hear from a bishop who affirms his Orthodoxy the thought that the Church can ‘be divided’. The Holy Fathers taught that it always was, is and will be the one Bride of Christ.” In general Bishop Gregory considered that Cyprian “and his episcopate confesses their own, and by no means Orthodox teaching on the possibility of the grace-filled action of the Holy Spirit in churches that have clearly become heretical”. And recalling ROCOR’s 1983 anathema against the branch theory of the Church, Bishop Gregory concluded: “In truth, not having looked into the matter seriously and forgetting about this anathematization which was affirmed earlier, our Council, however terrible it may be to acknowledge it, has fallen under its own anathema.”217
Metropolitan Cyprian died in 2013 without having repented of his heretical ecclesiology. In March, 2014, however, the Greek TOC under Archbishop Kallinikos entered into union with Cyprian’s followers, and all bans on “blessed” (makaristos) Cyprian were removed. All the ordinations of his Synod were also accepted…218
By 1992 the Romanians had two million believers, four bishops, eighty parishes, nine large monasteries and many smaller ones, making them by far the largest True
216 Fr. Alexander Pavpertov and Alexander Tarakhanov, Facebook conversation, March 23, 2016. 217 Grabbe, Works, vol. 4, p. 225. 218 Bishop Photius of Marathon, personal communication, 2014.
131 Orthodox jurisdiction in the world. Moreover, in their leader, Metropolitan Glycherius, who died on June 15/28, 1985, they have one of the most saintly figures in twentieth-century Church history. In 1997, in response to numerous visions, his relics were uncovered and found “to be dissolved to bones, but full of fragrance”.219
However, the Romanians always had a stricter ecclesiology than the Cyprianites, chrismating new calendarists. So the question arises: why did they remain in communion with Cyprian and not with the other Greek Old Calendarists, to whom they were closer in terms of ecclesiology? The answer seems to have been that when the Callistite hierarchs made contact with the Romanians in the late 1970s, it was Cyprian who gave them help at a time of communist oppression. And for this they continued to be grateful.220
After the decision Bishop Gregory (Grabbe) wrote that the Cyprianites “confess their own and by no means Orthodox teaching on the possibility of the grace-filled action of the Holy Spirit in churches that have clearly become heretical”. Moreover he declared: “In passing this Resolution on communion with the group of Metropolitan Cyprian, our Council has unfortunately also forgotten about the text of the Resolution accepted earlier under the presidency of Metropolitan Philaret, which anathematized the ecumenical heresy…
In fact, by not looking into the matter seriously and forgetting about the anathematizing of the new calendarist ecumenists that was confirmed earlier (and perhaps not having decided to rescind this resolution), our Council, however terrible it may be to admit it, has fallen under its own anathema… Do we have to think that our Hierarchical Council has entered on the path of betraying the patristic traditions, or only that out of a misunderstanding it has allowed a mistake which it is not yet too late to correct at the November session in France?”221
However, the mistake was not corrected when the bishops met again in Lesna monastery in November, 1994. Instead, the decision was made to initiate negotiations with the MP. Archbishop Anthony of Los Angeles commented on this to the present writer: “ROCOR is going to hell…”222
*
In the second half of the 1990s a fightback by the zealots in ROCOR was discernible, and especially from the first-hierarch, Metropolitan Vitaly, who in his Nativity epistle for 1995/96 contradicted the Cyprianite ecclesiology he had signed up to, saying that he personally believed that the Moscow Patriarchate did not have
219 Orthodox Tradition, vol. XV, № 1, 1998, p. 45. 220 Archimandrite Cyprian, Secretary of the Romanian Synod, personal communication, August, 1994. 221 Bishop Gregory, “The Dubious Ecclesiology of Metropolitan Cyprian’s Group”, Church News, no. 5, September-October, 1994, pp. 2-4; “Arkhierejskij Sobor RPTsZ 1994 goda: Istoria Priniatia Russkoj Zarubezhnoj Tserkoviu Yereticheskoj Ekkleziologii Mitropolita Kipriana”, Sviataia Rus’ (Holy Russia), 2003; Vernost’ (Faithfulness), 98, December, 2007. 222 Personal communication with the present writer, Lesna, November/December, 1994.
132 the grace of sacraments.223 And in December, 1996, he wrote flatly that the Moscow Patriarchate was "the Church of the evil-doers, the Church of the Antichrist", which "has completely sealed its irrevocable falling away from the body of the Church of Christ".224 In June, 1998, under pressure from believers inside Russia, Metropolitan Vitaly recovered somewhat, and in defiance of his liberal bishops outside Russia declared that the MP was “a pseudo-patriarchate with a pseudo-patriarch at its head… The Moscow Patriarchate has lost Apostolic Succession, which is to say, it has lost the Grace of Christ. We have not the slightest intention of taking part in a Bishops’ council, or Sobor, jointly with the Moscow Patriarchate.”225 Finally, the whole Synod reissued the 1983 anathema against ecumenism.
One of those who supported the metropolitan here was Archpriest Lev Lebedev of Kursk: “How right was Archbishop Seraphim of Brussels when he wrote with regards to the MP in 1994: ‘It is by our existence independently of the MP that we will benefit Orthodoxy, as well as the MP. As long as we exist, no matter how small a lot we are, the MP will always have to be mindful of us. We serve as the saving deterrent for its blunders. If we disappear and merge with them, the hands of the MP will be completely untied.’”
While considering that the MP was graceless, Fr. Lev was not in favour of the metropolitan’s making a public declaration to that effect, nor was he in favour of breaking relations with the Cyprianites, with whom, as we have seen, he retained friendly relations.
In 1998 Fr. Lev was due to address the Hierarchical Council of ROCOR in New York. However, he was mysteriously taken ill and died in his hotel room before he could deliver his report, which contained a scathing exposé of Archbishop Mark of Germany. He also wrote: “One cannot but admit that the apostate, heretical and criminal majority of the MP hierarchy corresponds entirely to the state of society as a whole; it is one of the ‘moles’ or ‘worms’ greedily devouring whatever it can still find to devour in the rotting corpse. Under these circumstances what can the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad have in common with the Moscow ‘Patriarchate’? Nothing! Hence it follows that any kind of ‘dialogue’ or ‘conference’ with the MP with the aim of clarifying ‘what divides us and what unites us’ is either an abysmal failure to understand the essence of things or a betrayal of God’s truth and the Church. What divides us is everything! And what unites us is nothing, except perhaps the outward forms of church buildings, clerical vestments and the order of services (but in all respects even here). Therefore it is necessary to realize clearly and confirm officially that now the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia is not a part of the Church of Russia, but the only lawful Russian Church in all its fullness! ‘Recognition’ of the MP by ROCOR would provide the MP with the appearance of legitimacy in the eyes of the entire world. But this cannot be allowed to happen… And if one’s soul suffers pain for the Russian- speaking population of Russia, then it is only through constant and firm reproof of
223 Pravoslavnij Vestnik (The Orthodox Herald), January-February, 1996. 224 Letter to Archbishop Mark of Germany and Great Britain, November 29 / December 12, 1996. 225 Vitaly, “Letter to a Priest”, Vertograd-Inform, № 1, November, 1998, #2, p. 17 (English edition).
133 the MP, and not through making advances towards it, that it is possible to save those in Russia who still seek salvation and are capable of accepting it. It is therefore essential to return to the uncompromising attitude towards the MP which was taken by ROCOR from the beginning. And it is quite wrong, under the pretext of ‘the good of the Church’ and ‘operational efficiency’, to undermine the authority of the Primate of ROCOR, who is capable of distinguishing truth from falsehood and of ‘discerning the spirits’. Recently ROCOR has been afflicted by a whole series of disasters one after the other. The murder of the guardian of the miraculous myrrh-streaming Iveron icon was especially terrible. But it is after the very indecisive resolutions of the Hierarchical Council of ROCOR in 1993 and 1994 and the subsequent steps taken by some of our hierarchs towards rapprochement with the MP that these disasters began, one after the other – disasters which bear witness to the withdrawal of God’s beneficence towards our Church, because of its deviation from the truth. How many more disasters do the supporters of fraternization with the criminal and heretical MP wish to bring down upon us?”
While impressing by their missionary zeal, the Cyprianites showed no signs of correcting their ecclesiological errors. Thus in an "Informatory Epistle" published in 1998 Metropolitan Cyprian wrote in criticism of a resolution of the True Orthodox Synod under Archbishop Chrysostomos of Athens: "3 (c) The right to issue an anathema does not belong to ecclesiastical administrative bodies which have a temporary synodal structure, but which do not possess all the canonical prerequisites to represent the Church fully, validly, and suitably for the proclamation of an anathema - a right and 'dignity' which is 'granted' only to the choir of the Apostles 'and those who have truly become their successors in the strictest sense, full of Grace and power... 5 (a) The extremely serious implication of an anathema, coupled, first, with the absence, in our day, of a synodal body endowed with all of the aforementioned canonical prerequisites or proclaiming an anathema and, secondly, with the immense confusion that prevails, on account of ecumenism, in the ranks of the local Orthodox Churches, constitute, today, a major restraint on, and an insurmountable impediment to, such a momentous and, at the same time, historic action."
Since Metropolitan Cyprian considered that the right to anathematize belonged only to the Apostles "and those who have truly become their successors in the strictest sense", and that there was no synodal body in the world today “endowed with all of the aforementioned canonical prerequisites or proclaiming an anathema”, it followed that for him there was no Church in the world competent to bind and to loose "in the strict sense"…
So had the Church ceased to exist “in the strict sense”? For how can the Church exist when it is deprived of the power to bind and to loose? Or more likely, had Cyprian ceased to be Orthodox?
The zealot cause was given a significant boost by the revelation of the incorrupt relics of Metropolitan Philaret, the hierarch who had anathematized both ecumenism and its Cyprianite variant in 1983… Metropolitan Philaret reposed on the feast of the Archangel Michael, 1985. Nearly thirteen years passed, and it was
134 arranged that his remains should be transferred from the burial-vault under the altar of the cemetery Dormition church of the Holy Trinity monastery in Jordanville into a new burial-vault behind the monastery’s main church. In connection with this, it was decided, in preparation for the transfer, to carry out an opening of the tomb.
On November 10, 1998 Archbishop Lavr of Syracuse and Holy Trinity, who was later, in 2007, to lead ROCOR into union with the MP, served a pannikhida in the burial vault; the coffin of Metropolitan Philaret was placed in the middle of the room and opened. The relics of the metropolitan were found to be completely incorrupt, they were of a light colour; the skin, beard and hair were completely preserved. His vestments, Gospel, and the paper with the prayer of absolution were in a state of complete preservation. Even the white cloth that covered his body from above had preserved its blinding whiteness, which greatly amazed the undertaker who was present at the opening of the coffin – he said that this cloth should have become completely black after three years in the coffin… The metal buckles of the Gospel in the coffin fell into dust on being touched – they had rusted completely; this witnessed to the fact that it was very damp in the tomb; and in such dampness nothing except these buckles suffered any damage!
In truth this was a manifest miracle of God. However, the reaction of Archbishop Lavr to this manifest miracle was unexpected: he ordered that the coffin with the relics be again closed… On the day of the reburial of the relics, November 21, Lavr again showed his determination not to allow the incorruption of the relics to be made public. He refused to allow the opening of the coffin, and very strictly forbade making photocopies from the shots that had already been taken of the incorrupt relics of the saint or even to show them to anyone.226
Since that time, there have been other witnesses to the holiness of Metropolitan Philaret and the correctness of his confession of faith against the MP; and by the end of the first decade the three main jurisdictions of the Russian Church that refused to follow Lavr and ROCOR into the MP had officially glorified him…
226 Senina, op. cit.
135
88. ORTHODOXY IN THE THIRD WORLD
The Cyprianite “bloc” of Old Calendarist Churches continued to prosper into the new millennium. In 2003 the Bulgarian Church had one bishop, 18 priests, 6 deacons, 23 parishes, one convent with 45 nuns and one monastery with 16 monks. At the same time the Romanian Church had six bishops, 160 priests, 26 deacons, 290 monks, 510 nuns, 130 parishes and 49 monastic communities (42 were founded after the fall of communism in 1989).
Meanwhile, Metropolitan Cyprian himself was establishing Greek missions in several parts of the world. The most striking growth was in Central Africa, where the flock was served by Bishop Ambrose of Methone. The following is his brief account of Orthodoxy in Africa since the 1920s:
“While the existence of the vast majority of African Christians of various denominations is the result of missionary efforts on the part of Europeans and Americans starting from the late 19th Century, it is remarkable that Orthodoxy has largely been established there through the seeking and efforts of the Africans themselves, often aided in this pursuit by the Greek merchants who established themselves in sub-Saharan Africa starting in the 1920’s. It is three remarkable figures of Eastern Africa who in the late 1920’s placed the foundations for the establishment of the true Church in black Africa – and we say establishment, not re- establishment, as Ethiopia, until its fall into Monophysitism, had been for centuries the only Christian outpost south of what was once the completely Christianised North Africa; these were: Father Obadiah Bassajikatalo and Fr. Reuben (later bishop Christopher) Spartas in Uganda, and Father (later bishop) George Gathuna in Kenya. Through a process we can only regard as the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, these three friends, against all odds, and even against the active discouragement of the ecumenist Patriarch of Alexandria, Meletios Metaxakis, and in face of the persecution on the part of the British colonial authorities, came to understand that the Truth of Christ was only to be found in Orthodoxy, though it was only after the cessation of hostilities in 1945 that they, and the considerable communities they had already created, were finally able formally to be united with the Patriarchate of Alexandria, which had recently assumed – in transgression of the canonical tradition of centuries - the jurisdiction over all Africa. In describing the mission of Orthodoxy in Africa, it would be unjust not to mention the names of several Greek clergymen who devoted their lives, in conditions of great hardship, to bringing the word of truth to their African brethren; in particular, we should mention Archimandrite Chrysostomos Papasarantopoulos, who was active in Uganda and Kenya, and sowed the first seeds of Orthodoxy in Central Congo, where he died, Archimandrite Hariton Pnevmatikakis, who continued his work, and also left his bones in Congo, Archimandrite Athanasios Anthidis, who worked for many years in Kenya, and Father Kosmas Grigoriatis, the apostle of Katanga. In a brief overview of this sort, it is difficult to decide how much detail should be included in what is an extremely complex history; perhaps therefore, some general observations which apply to all areas of the African missions, would be more useful
136 before coming to the role of the Traditionalist Orthodox Churches in Africa.
“Anyone who, like the present author, has worked for some time with the African missions, will have been constantly astonished by how naturally the African embraces Orthodoxy, and most particularly the Orthodox liturgical life; the dignity and majesty of the celebration of the Divine Liturgy by an African priest rivals any pious Russian Batiushka. The beauty of the chants in the churches (though they themselves may be little more than thatched mud-huts) is often very moving, as is the simplicity and attention of the faithful, who will listen with great interest to a sermon far beyond the attention-span of the European listener. Even more astonishing to us is the asceticism of those who will come often two or three days’ walk to be present in church, while in the ‘West’ a few miles’ drive is too much for many people on Sunday mornings. In particular I am often deeply moved by extraordinary self-denial of our clergy, to whom we are unable to pay any salary, and yet serve their area with great diligence, usually covering several hundred kilometers on foot several times each year in order to bring the word of the Gospel to [the] furthest part of their wide-spread ‘parishes’. In this work each priest is aided by a team of catechists, who both prepare his service beforehand and complete it afterwards.
“What are the impediments that our missionaries must face, apart from the obvious ones of absolute poverty and absence of transport? These are on the one hand social customs unacceptable to Christianity, particularly polygamy, and , amongst some tribes, the loose sexual mores which have led to the enormous spread of aids on the continent, and on the other an attachment to an ancestral mindset of superstition - and I advisedly use the word the superstition rather than traditional religion, both because it is not a regular system of belief, and because it often remains as a background fear despite the Christian faith which should have wholly taken its place. Here we have a matter of pastoral application: clearly it is simply not permissible for a Christian to possess idols, so we insist on the collection and destruction of the idols and fetishes of such families as are preparing for baptism. But a man who has taken several wives, with each of whom he has children, clearly has a responsibility for their welfare, and cannot simply abandon them. Here we must find a way of settling the question without compromising the Christian principle of monogamy nor shutting the door to those who desire to enter. There are a number of pastoral solutions [to] this quandary. Another impediment which perhaps may seem strange to a European is that bread and wine are both unknown, except as foreign products, in most countries of central Africa where neither wheat not grapes grow. Thus the very central act of our worship, the Eucharist, becomes hard to comprehend. Both bread and wine have to be imported at considerable expense, and taken, with no little difficulty, to where they are needed. As the official languages of most countries are not well understood outside the towns, another problem, probably more acute than that involved with most European tongues, is that of translating the theological and liturgical terms into local languages that lack the corresponding vocabulary. Here both imported words and neologisms are inevitable. In other areas, the missionary is more fortunate than in Europe; for instance, abortion is looked upon with horror everywhere in Africa, and homosexuality is something inconcievable. Also, poverty brings with it a
137 greater generosity of spirit, a hospitality, and a joie-de-vivre that have largely evaporated from our selfish and self-sufficient life.
“The Patriarchate of Alexandria was slow, and even in some cases unwilling, to take up the burden of mission to the black African; and often the tacit acceptance of racist colonial principles have been apparent in their activities, for instance in South Africa, where, despite their pleas, no blacks were accepted into the Church until some while after the fall of apartheid – the result was that a large group there was accepted by the Coptic Church. This has led to great frustration and friction. But also a number of Africans have begun to comprehend the dangers of the [the] ecumenist heresy, seeing their pastors involved in all sorts of joint activities with the very heterodox groups they left in order to become Orthodox. Thus, starting in the 1980, a number of persons begun to approach the “Old Calendarists” of Greece, and ask their aid. It would be tedious to enumerate these various cases, and so I would like just to describe here what is the present state of the missions which I have to tend. Firstly in Kenya, we have ten parishes, with seven priests and three deacons, and also the first Orthodox Convent in black Africa, now numbering nine nuns. We hope that soon a men’s monastery will also be constructed – the land for it has already been purchased. In Uganda, we have a smaller mission with four priests and one deacon; the mission chief being also a doctor, a medical outreach (a nurses’ school and several clinics) form part of the church work. In Uganda too, the land has been purchased for the beginning of a convent, where the first nun is already in place. In Congo (the Democratic Republic) we have our largest mission, divided into three deaneries, and counting over forty thousand faithful; there are twenty-two priests and six deacons, and two primary schools function under our auspices. In Congo (Brazzaville) we have a small mission with two priests and one deacon, counting at present a large parish in the capital, and an orphanage-school nearby. In South Africa a men’s monastery functions, with a wide missionary outreach both in the neighbourhood, and elsewhere in Africa; indeed, we hope that soon a seminary will be functioning there. In all these missions, the following languages are used: English, French, Lingala, Tshiluba, Kikongo, Luganda, Teso, Kikuyu, Meru, Tsipedi, Tswana and Swahili. Just this fact is enough to give some idea of the complication, as we have printed a quantity of liturgical books in most of these languages. We hope in time to add more video-material to our Synodal website in order to give a fuller idea of our missions to those who are interested. I would also like to add that we are hoping to undertake a completely new organization of the African churches on a local basis; this plan is still being elaborated.
“We ask the prayers of all for the progress of the preaching of True Orthodoxy on the African Continent, and also for the finding of the materials means to meet the enormous needs the exist, even on the simplest level – bicycles for the priests, vestments, liturgical vessels, medical expenses, help for widows of clergy and so forth. May the Apostles of Africa Mark, Matthew and Simon strengthen all those who labour to continue their work in that much-suffering continent.”227
227 Bishop Ambrose of Methone, personal communication, June 19, 2006.
138 The Cyprianites were not the only Old Calendarists at work on the mission field in Africa. ROCOR also had a mission there – as also in Haiti in the Caribbean…
*
A worker on the Central African mission-field who made a surprisingly successful contribution to Orthodox mission in a quite different part of the world, Albania, was the present newcalendarist Archbishop Anastasios of Tirana and all Albania.
The ban on religion in Albania was lifted in December, 1990. “Diplomatic relations were restored with the Soviet Union (1990) and the United States (1991), but in 1992 the economy collapsed, with unemployment at 70 per cent and inflation at 150 per cent. Foreign donations were required to feed the population.”228
Philip Jenkins writes: “Albania… recovered only slowly from the horrendous communist tyranny of Enver Hoxha, a self-proclaimed Stalinist who had a deep animus against religion of all kinds. In 1967 he declared Albania the world’s first wholly atheist state, and persecutions were wide-ranging and ferocious. Catholics and Muslims were targeted for harsh treatment. In its way, then, postcommunist Albania needed a thoroughgoing spiritual reconstruction no less than Bosnia.
“The most impressive leader of this process has been Anastasios, the archbishop of Tirana and the primate of the Autocephalous Albanian Orthodox Church. (He is by origin an ethnic Greek.) When he took office in 1992 he faced a nightmare situation. His see had been vacant since 1973, and virtually all its institutions formally closed. Albanian Orthodoxy survived in a diasporic existence, with its overseas capital in Boston. The country’s Orthodox Church, claiming the loyalty of perhaps 15 percent of the population, faced extinction.
“First and foremost, Anastasios is a polymath scholar, with interests in history, linguistics, and comparative religion, but it is difficult to imagine any religious leader accomplishing so much practical real-world good in such a short time. In 20 years he reorganized several hundred parishes, a process that often demanded whole new buildings. Monasteries flourish once more. The archbishop restored the theological academy and seminary and ordained hundreds of new priests. A whole range of Orthodox media now operate, including newspapers and radio stations.
“The church’s social outreach and charitable works have been spectacular. The results include new schools and medical clinics, which serve people without regard to religious affiliation. When the wars in former Yugoslavia drove thousands of refugees into Albania, the Orthodox Church took the lead in humanitarian efforts, with Muslims the main beneficiaries…”229
228 Rhys Friffiths, “National Gallery Albania”, History Today, , June, 2017, p. 85. 229 Jenkins, “Revival in the Balkans”, The Christian Century, June 27, 2014, http://www.christiancentury.org/article/2014-06/revival-balkans.
139
140 89. THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX AUTONOMOUS CHURCH
The FROC still sought reconciliation with ROCOR, and so the two senior bishops, Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Valentine, went to the Lesna Sobor of ROCOR in November, 1994. There, according to Bishop Valentine, “there took place mutual repentance and forgiveness between ROCOR and FROC”.230 He may have been referring here to the first and second points of the "Act" that was presented to the two Russian bishops for their signatures, which certainly implied that blame was not to be attached to one side exclusively. Needless to say, ROCOR since then has always denied the mutual nature of this act…
The "Act" greatly troubled the two bishops, because they saw that it involved changes that were very detrimental for the life of the FROC. However, Archbishop Lazarus wanted to sign nevertheless, and Bishop Valentine, though unwilling to sign, did not want to create a schism among the Russian bishops by not following the lead of his senior, Archbishop Lazarus. But he did obtain from Bishop Hilarion an assurance that if he wanted to amend any points in the Act, he could do so and his amendments would be included in the final published document. However, he was urged to sign now "in the name of brotherly love". So he signed, after which he promptly had a heart attack, and was whisked away to a hospital in Paris, where he was in intensive care for a week.
According to Bishop Andrew (Maklakov), while Valentine was in hospital, he was visited by Bishop Hilarion, who persuaded him, ill and groggy though he still was, to sign a document transferring ownership of the Suzdal churches to the ROCOR Synod. Understanding the mistake he had made, Bishop Valentine rushed back to Suzdal, where it was agreed to rename the “Free Russian Orthodox Church” as “The Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church”, and re-register the property of the Church in this new name. In this way the plan to transfer the property of the Church inside Russia into the hands of the Church outside Russia was foiled…231
On December 1, 1994 the Lesna Council confirmed Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Valentine as the ruling bishops of their dioceses. An ukaz to this effect was sent by Metropolitan Vitaly to Bishop Valentine on December 8.
In January, 1995 there took place the fifth congress of the bishops, monastics and laity of the Suzdal Diocese to discuss the results of the Lesna Sobor. Opening the congress, Bishop Valentine said: “On returning home to the diocese, I have not begun to hide anything or to lay it on thick. Equally, I have not begun to soften those circumstances in which we found ourselves at the Hierarchical Council. I have expounded everything as in confession and offered everyone to make their judgement on the given question. My brothers and co-bishops, and also the
230 Valentine, Nativity Epistle, 1994/1995. 231 Maklakov, “Tserkovnij Pogrom XXI Veka” (Church Coup of the 21st Century, part 2, Vernost’, April, 2012, no. 171. http://metanthonymemorial.org/VernostNo171.html.
141 members of the Diocesan council, on getting to know the state of affairs and having carefully read the Act, have unambiguously and categorically rejected it, which has served as the reason for convening the Congress of clergy, monastics and laity of the Suzdal Diocese and for reaching a decision on the future functioning of the THCA and of our Orthodox existence as a whole. The Church Administrative district (THCA) that has been created cannot pass under the jurisdiction of the Synod Abroad and cannot be dissolved by it. We are more than convinced that we no longer have to wait long for the time when the two parts, ROCOR and the FROC, will unite into one and will work together to prepare the All-Russian Council to re-establish the unity that has been lost and a worthy leadership of the Church of God”.
This message sent out mixed signals: on the one hand, that the Act in its existing form was unacceptable and that the Church inside Russia was no longer prepared to be administered from outside Russia, and on the other hand that the Church inside Russia did not want to break eucharistic communion with the Church outside Russia. When the discussion was passed to the hall, the Act was widely and strongly criticized by the parish clergy, as was the ROCOR Synod’s proposed redefining of diocesan boundaries. The latter was of particular concern to them because it would necessitate the re-registration of very many parishes. Since they had achieved registration only with the greatest difficulty in the first place, they did not of course welcome this prospect. But more importantly, it would very probably mean that they would be refused any registration, since the Moscow Patriarchate representatives in the ministry of Justice would insist that changing names and diocesan boundaries was unacceptable. This in turn would very likely mean that their churches would be handed over to the Moscow Patriarchate.
It was therefore proposed that ROCOR be respectfully asked to amend the Act in a number of points, and a corresponding epistle to the Hierarchical Synod of ROCOR was drawn up. Here is the original Act of November 29, 1994, together with the changes proposed by the FROC’s letter of January 27, 1995 (in italics):
“We, the Hierarchical Synod of ROCOR, under the presidency of the First- Hierarch, His Eminence Metropolitan Vitaly of Eastern America and New York, and the Most Reverend Hierarchs: Archbishop Lazarus of Odessa and Tambov and Bishop Valentine of Suzdal and Vladimir, taking upon ourselves full responsibility before God and the All-Russian flock, and following the commandments of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, in the name of peace and love, for the sake of the salvation of our souls and the souls of our flock, declare the following:
“1. We recognize our mutual responsibility for the disturbances that have arisen in the Russian [Rossijskoj] Church, but we consider that certain hasty actions of the Hierarchical Synod cannot serve as justification for a schism in the Russian Church and the establishment of the Temporary Higher Church Administration.” Comment by the FROC bishops: We definitely do not agree with the definition of the actions of the Russian hierarchs as a schism, for these actions were a forced measure aimed at guarding the canonical rights of the Bishop in his diocese, and the created Temporary Higher Church Administration was formed, not in spite of, but in accordance with the will and ukaz no. 362
142 of the holy Patriarch Tikhon, at a time when the Hierarchical Synod of ROCOR left the Russian hierarchs without any communications, directives, holy Antimins or holy Chrismation. If we recognize our mutual responsibility for the disturbances that have arisen in the Russian Church, then it is our right to recognize certain hasty actions of the Hierarchical Sobor and Synod as uncanonical and as inflicting direct harm on the work of restoring true Orthodoxy in Russia, which has served as the terminus a quo for our conditional administrative separation and the formation of the Temporary Higher Church Administration. The concrete intra-ecclesiastical situation has dictated such a course of action on our part, but at the same time we have admitted that administrative independence must in no way automatically lead to canonical and eucharistic independence. Such communion has not been broken by us, in spite of the one-sided decision of the Hierarchical Synod of ROCOR.
“2. We ask each other’s forgiveness, so that from now on we should not reproach anybody for the actions which lead to the division and the founding of the THCA.” Comment of the FROC bishops: It is not a matter of reproaches but of the essence of the actions of both sides, which have led to administrative division and the founding of the THCA. By examining each concrete action, we would be able mutually to understand the depth of the causes, and proceeding from that, calmly and without detriment, remove their consequences in the present.
“3. We consider the organization of the THCA to be an unlawful act and abolish it.” Comment of the FROC bishops: The very formulation of this point seems to us to be faulty in view of the final aim of our joint efforts.
“4. We consider the consecration of the three hierarchs: Theodore, Seraphim and Agathangel, which was carried out by their Graces Lazarus and Valentine, to be unlawful. Their candidacies should be presented in the order that is obligatory for all candidates for hierarchical rank accepted in ROCOR, and, if they turn out to be worthy, then, after their confession of faith and acceptance of the hierarchical oath, they will be confirmed in the hierarchical rank.” Comment of the FROC bishops: We do not agree at all that the episcopal consecrations performed by us were not lawful. The obligatory order for all candidates for hierarchical rank accepted in ROCOR could not be a guide for us in our actions since at that time we were administratively independent of ROCOR. If we approach this demand from a strictly formal point of view, then the Hierarchical Synod should have asked us concerning our agreement or disagreement with the new consecrations, especially the consecration of his Grace Bishop Eutyches – which was not done. In spite of your limitation of our rights, we have recognized these consecrations and are far from the thought of demanding a confession of faith and acceptance of the hierarchical oath a second time, specially for us.
“5. In the same way, all the other actions carried out by Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Valentine and the THCA organized by them which exceeded the authority of the diocesan bishops, but belonged only to the province of the Hierarchical Sobor and Hierarchical Synod of ROCOR, are to be considered to be invalid.” Comment of the FROC bishops: Until the moment that we ceased to be members of ROCOR, and the THCA was formed, all our actions and suggestions were presented for discussion and confirmation by these higher church instances. Having conditionally separated from
143 ROCOR in administrative matters, we were entitled to carry out these actions.
“6. Archbishop Lazarus is reinstated in the rights of a ruling hierarch with the title ‘Archbishop of Odessa and Tambov’”. Comment of the FROC bishops: The formulation of this point admits of an ambiguous interpretation and is therefore on principle unacceptable for us. Judging objectively, his Grace Archbishop Lazarus did not lose his rights as a ruling bishop, in spite of the ukaz of the Hierarchical Synod concerning his retirement. The ukaz seems to us to be canonically ill-founded, and therefore lacking force and unrealized. We suggest the formulation: ‘In view of the erroneous actions of the Hierarchical Synod of ROCOR, Archbishop Lazarus is not to be considered as having been retired and is recognized as having the rights of the ruling hierarch of his diocese with the title (Archbishop of Tambov and Odessa).
“7. Bishop Valentine will be restored to his rights as the ruling hierarch of Suzdal and Vladimir after the removal of the accusations against him on the basis of an investigation by a Spiritual Court appointed by the present Hierarchical Sobor.” Comment of the FROC bishops: The given point is excluded, in agreement with the Ukaz of the Hierarchical Synod. [This refers to the ukaz dated November 18 / December 1, 1994, quoted above, which reinstated Vladyka Valentine as Bishop of Suzdal and Vladimir.]
“8. To bring order into ecclesiastical matters on the territory of Russia a Hierarchical Conference of the Russian Hierarchs is to be organized which does not encroach on the fullness of ecclesiastical power, but which is in unquestioning submission to the Hierarchical Sobor and the Hierarchical Synod of ROCOR. One of the members of the Hierarchical Conference will be a member of the Synod, in accordance with the decision of the Hierarchical Sobor.” Comment of the FROC bishops: It is suggested that this formulation be changed, and consequently also the meaning of the eighth point: ‘The THCA does not encroach on the fullness of ecclesiastical power. In certain exceptional situations it recognizes its spiritual and administrative submission to the Hierarchical Sobor of the ROCOR. One of the members of the Hierarchical Conference will be a temporary, regular member of the Synod, in accordance with the decision of the Hierarchical Sobor of ROCOR and the Hierarchical Conference of the Russian Bishops.
“9. After the signing of the Act it will be published in all the organs of the church press, and in particular in those publications in which their Graces Lazarus and Valentine published material against the Hierarchical Sobor and Hierarchical Synod of the ROCOR.” Comment of the FROC bishops: The formulation should be changed as follows: After the signing of the Act it will be published in all the organs of the church press, and in particular in those publications in which their Graces Lazarus and Valentine published material explaining certain hasty actions of the Hierarchical Synod and Sobor of ROCOR.”232
However, two hierarchs present at this meeting – Bishop Evtikhy and Bishop Benjamin - interpreted this proposal as a rebellion against the authority of ROCOR
232 Suzdal’skij Palomnik (Suzdal Pilgrim), № 22, 1995, pp. 26-27.
144 which the senior bishops Lazarus and Valentine had only recently reaffirmed. As Evtikhy put it several years later: “The unfortunate monk Valentine Rusantsov, in signing the Act of reconciliation with the Council of ROCOR, had, as time showed, something quite different in his thought and intentions: to hide this Act from his flock, never to carry it out, and then to overthrow it.”233 But such an accusation is manifestly unjust. For: (i) Valentine did not hide the Act from his flock, but discussed it with them openly and extensively (in fact, it was the ROCOR flock that never got to saw the Act), and (ii) if he and his fellow-bishops had seemed to reject it before the beginning of the Congress, this was, nevertheless, not their final decision, which was not to reject it outright but to seek amendments. This was only reasonable considering that it was precisely the Russian flock that would suffer all the evil consequences of the Act’s ill-thought-out propositions.
Then a priest asked Bishop Evtikhy which had a higher authority for him: the Apostolic Canons and the decisions of the Russian Council of 1917-18 and of his Holiness Patriarch Tikhon - or those of the ROCOR Synod? Bishop Evtikhy replied: “The resolutions of living hierarchs are preferable to those of dead ones. Even if the resolutions of the ROCOR Synod were uncanonical, for me this would have no significance, I would be bound to carry them out”. This reply elicited uproar in the hall, and Bishop Evtikhy left, taking with him a recording of the proceedings.
Shortly before this Congress, the ROCOR Synod had sent a respectfully worded invitation to Bishops Theodore, Agathangel and Seraphim to come to New York for the February 22 meeting of the Synod and “for the formalities of re-establishing concelebration”.234
It is significant that the Synod had also invited Bishop Evtikhy, who was not a member of the Synod – but not Archbishop Lazarus, who was a member of the Synod, as agreed at the Lesna Sobor.
On the next day after the arrival of Bishops Theodore and Agathangel in New York, in Bishop Agathangel’s words, “we were handed a ‘Decree of the Hierarchical Synod of the Synod of ROCOR’, in which their Graces Lazarus and Valentine, and also Bishops Theodore, Seraphim and I, were declared to be banned from serving. For Vladyka Theodore and me this was like a bolt from the blue… We were told that the reason for this decision was our supposed non-fulfillment of the conciliar Act, which had been signed by, among the other Hierarchs, their Graces Lazarus and Valentine. The point was that the conference of Russian Bishops which had been formed in agreement with this same Act had asked for several formulations in the Act to be changed, so as not to introduce disturbance into the ranks of the believers by the categorical nature of certain points. This was a request, not a demand. But, however hard we tried, we could not convince the Synod that none of the Russian Bishops was insisting and that we were all ready to accept the Act in the form in which it had been composed. We met with no understanding on the
233 “Obraschenie Episkopa Evtikhia Ishimskogo i Sibirskogo” (Address of Bishop Eutyches of Ishim and Siberia), Otkliki, op. cit., part 3, p. 60. 234 Suzdal’skij Palomnik (Suzdal Pilgrim), № 23, 1995, pp. 32-33.
145 part of the members of the Synod. Vladyka Theodore and I affirmed in writing that we accepted the text of the Act in the form in which it had been composed and asked for a postponement in the carrying out of the ‘Decree’ until the position of all the absent Russian Bishops on this question could be clarified. In general we agreed to make any compromises if only the ‘Decree’ were not put into effect, because in essence it meant only one thing – the final break between the Russian parishes and ROCOR.
“We gradually came to understand that it was not any canonical transgression of the Russian Bishops (there was none), nor any disagreement with the text of the conciliar Act, nor, still less, any mythical ‘avaricious aims’ that was the reason for the composition of this document, which, without any trial or investigation, banned the five Hierarchs from serving.235 It was the Hierarchical Conference of the Russian Bishops, which had been established by the Council that took place in Lesna monastery, that was the real reason giving birth to the ‘Decree’. The Sobor of Hierarchs, moved in those days by ‘Paschal joy’ (as Metropolitan Vitaly repeated several times), finally came to create an organ of administration in Russia which, if not independent, but subject to the Synod, was nevertheless an organ of administration. When the ‘Paschal joy’ had passed, the Synodal Bishops suddenly realized: they had themselves reduced their own power, insofar as, with their agreement, Hierarchs could meet in vast Russia and discuss vital problems. Before that, the Church Abroad had not allowed itself to behave like that. And it was this, unfortunately, that the foreign Archpastors could not bear. On receiving for confirmation the protocols of the first session of the Hierarchical Conference with concrete proposals to improve Church life in Russia, the foreign Bishops were completely nonplussed. Therefore a reason that did not in fact exist was thought up – the supposed non-fulfillment of the Act.
“The members of the Synod, exceeding their authority, since such decisions are in the competence of the Sobor, decided, by means of canonical bans, to confirm their sole authority over the whole of Russia – both historical Russia and Russia abroad. The very foundations of the Church Abroad as a part of the Russian Church living abroad were trampled on, and the Synod on its own initiative ascribed to itself the rights and prerogatives of the Local Russian Church.
“It did not even ponder the fact that, in banning at one time five Hierarchs, it was depriving more than 150 parishes – that is many thousands of Orthodox people – of archpastoral care. Cancelling the labour of many years of Hierarchs, priests and conscious, pious laymen in our Fatherland.
“In Russia a very real war is now being waged for human souls; every day is full of work. Depriving Orthodox Christians of their pastors without any objective reason witnesses to the haughtiness and lack of love towards our country and its
235 This Decree, dated February 22, also stated that the Odessa-Tambov and Suzdal-Vladimir dioceses were declared “widowed” (a term used only if the ruling bishop has died) and were to be submitted temporarily to Metropolitan Vitaly. See Suzdal’skij Palomnik (The Suzdal Pilgrim), № 23, 1995, p. 31; Tserkovnie Novosti (Church News), № 1A (43), February, 1995, p. 3. (V.M).
146 people on the part of the members of the Synod Abroad. We, the Orthodox from Russia, are called ‘common people’ by Metropolitan Vitaly (thank you, Vladyko Metropolitan!).
“Vladyka Theodore and I were promised that, in exchange for our treachery, we would be confirmed in our hierarchical rank. And it was even proclaimed that we would be appointed to foreign sees. For us personally, who were born and brought up in Russia, this was very painful to hear…”236
Bishop Gregory Grabbe wrote: “The very fact that Bishops Theodore and Agathangel were summoned without the slightest qualification to a session of the Synod witnesses to the recognition of their hierarchical consecrations. This is especially obvious if we remember the joyful declarations of the President of the Council [in Lesna in December, 1994] concerning the decrees that had previously been accepted opening the way to a peaceful resolution of all the problems of the Church Administration in Russia. Bishops Theodore and Agathangel came to the session of the Synod on the basis of precisely this understanding of their status. However, completely unexpected for us, the Synod raised the question, not even of whether their episcopate should be doubted, but of banning them from serving with the threat of defrocking five out of the seven Russian Bishops, which, if the Bishops from Russia had entered the ranks of the Church Abroad should have been carried out in the definite legal procedure laid out in the Statute of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. But we should not forget that one of the especially important legal principles of the above-mentioned Statute was that all its rules had in mind only the affairs of the Church Abroad, but by no means the affairs of the Church in Russia…”237
On February 24 the ROCOR Synod issued an epistle which for the first time contained a semblance of canonical justification in the form of a list of canons supposedly transgressed by the five Russian bishops. Unfortunately, they clearly had no relevance to the matter in hand. Thus what relevance could the 57th Canon of the Council of Carthage – “On the Donatists and the children baptized by the Donatists” – have to the bishops of the Free Russian Orthodox Church?!
The Synodal Epistle said that “on returning to Russia, Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Valentine committed an unheard-of oath-breaking: not carrying out individual points of the Act they had signed, they subjected all its points to criticism and began to spread lies concerning the circumstances of its signing”. This was a lie, and on February 28, Bishop Gregory (Grabbe) wrote to Bishop Valentine: “I cannot fail to express my great sorrow with regard to the recent Church events. Moreover, I wish to say to you that I was glad to get to know Vladykas Theodore and Agathangel better. They think well and in an Orthodox manner. It is amazing that our foreign Bishops should not have valued them and should have treated them so crudely in spite of all the acts and the whole unifying tendency which was just expressed by Metropolitan Vitaly at the last Sobor. The whole tragedy lies in the
236 “Witness” of February 28, 1995, Suzdal’skij Palomnik (Suzdal Pilgrim), № 23, 1995, pp. 35-36. 237 Grabbe, “On Recent Events in Church Life in Russia and Abroad”.
147 fact that even the latter wanted to construct everything solely on foreign forces that do not have the information necessary to decide problems which are strange and unfamiliar to them. Therefore they do not want to offer this [task] to the new forces that have arisen in Russia.
“As a result, we are presented with the complete liquidation of these healthy forces. This is a great victory of the dark forces of our Soviet enemies of Orthodoxy in the persons of the Moscow Patriarchate.
“I am glad that you will not give in to them, and I pray God that He help you to carry on the Orthodox cause, apparently without the apostate forces of Orthodox Abroad…”238
ROCOR’s action, which transgressed Canons 27, 28 and 96 of the Council of Carthage, was the last straw for the FROC bishops. In March, 1995 the THCA was rehabilitated under the leadership of Archbishop Valentine, and on March 14 the THCA resolved to denounce the Act signed by the Russian Bishops at the Hierarchical Council in France in November, 1994; to declare the bans on the Russian bishops as contrary to the holy canons and therefore not to be obeyed; to consider the actions of Bishop Eutyches and his report to the Synod of ROCOR of January 30 to be an intentional and slanderous provocation; to consider the ROCOR Synod’s attempt to declare the dioceses of the Russian bishops “widowed” as absurd, and their attempt to fill these sees while their bishops are still alive as a transgression of 16th Canon of the First-and-Second Council of Constantinople.239
However, Archbishop Lazarus left the March session of the THCA in an unexpected way, saying: “My seedlings are dying” (rassada propadaiet)240 and then returned, “repenting”, to ROCOR with his vicar, Bishop Agathangel.241 ROCOR restored Lazarus to the status of a ruling bishop, not immediately, but only eighteen months later, in October, 1996. However, in accordance with a resolution of the Hierarchical Synod of ROCOR in 1996, the Hierarchical Conference of the Russian Bishops inside Russia was stripped of what little power it had. Its representation in ROCOR was annulled, and not one of the Russian bishops entered into the ROCOR Synod.
Lazarus’ controversial “repentance” split his flock in the Ukraine. Thus Hieromonk (later Bishop) Hilarion (Goncharenko), in a petition for transfer from ROCOR to the FROC, wrote: “Vladyka Lazarus together with the Synod Abroad has cunningly and finally destroyed the whole Church in the Ukraine. My former friends and brothers in the Lord have… turned to me with tearful sobs and the painful question: 'What are we to do now in the stormy and destructive situation that has been created?’”242
238 Tserkovnie Novosti (Church News), № 1A (43), February, 1995, p. 5. 239 Suzdal’skij Palomnik (Suzdal Pilgrim), № 23, 1995, p. 34. 240 Igumen Theophan (Areskin), http://suzdalite.livejournal.com/35173.html . 241 Tserkovnaia Zhizn' (Church News), №№ 3-4, May-August, 1995, pp. 3-4. 242 Suzdal’skij Blagovest’ (Suzdal Bell-Ringing), № 3, January-February, 1997, p. 3.
148 The mission of ROCOR to Russia – that is, the mission as still administered from New York - was now effectively dead as a unified, large-scale operation. And opinion polls reflected this change: after the sharp rise in popularity of ROCOR at the beginning of the 1990s, and drop in the popularity of the MP243, by the middle of the 1990s the MP had recovered its position. Such a reversal cannot be attributed to any change for the better in the MP, which, as we have seen, continued to be as corrupt and heretical as ever, but rather to the suicidal civil war of the ROCOR hierarchs. As if to accentuate the failure of ROCOR, fires destroyed the cathedrals of Metropolitan Vitaly and Archbishop Anthony of Los Angeles. And in October, 1997, one of her greatest holy objects, the myrrh-streaming “Montreal” Iveron icon went missing and its guardian, the highly respected Chilean Orthodox, Jose Munoz- Cortes was murdered…244
The fall of the ROCOR mission to Russia was accompanied by some deviations in the faith. Thus Bishop Agathangel (Pashkovsky) wrote: “…the Grace of the Holy Spirit, the Grace of the Sacraments, resides also with the Catholics, Monophysites, and in part, with Old Believers and Protestants who have not violated the formula in performing the sacraments (baptism). The Orthodox Church does not re-baptize those who come from these heresies, but receives them through repentance. Catholics and Monophysites are not chrismated a second time. The Sacrament of Marriage is also accepted. In the Moscow Patriarchate, there are six Sacraments which have been preserved and are recognized as valid – baptism, chrismation, the priesthood, marriage, unction, repentance.”245
In May, 1995, summoning his last strength, Bishop Gregory went to Suzdal, received communion from Bishop Valentine and publicly for the last time expressed his support for the FROC. In October, he died - no ROCOR bishop was present at his burial…
On September 10, 1996 the Hierarchical Council of ROCOR defrocked Bishop Valentine, citing his supposed violation of the “Act” on January 26 and a few irrelevant canons.246
In 1999, the Synod of the FROC (now renamed the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church (ROAC)) passed a resolution “concerning the hierarchs and representatives of the clergy of the Moscow Patriarchate who received their rank through the mediation of the authorities and organs of State Security. In relation to such it was decided that every year on the Sunday of Orthodoxy ANATHEMA
243 V. Moss, "The Free Russian Orthodox Church", Report on the USSR, № 44, November 1, 1991; L. Byzov, S. Filatov, op. cit., p. 41, note 5. 244 Bishop Ambrose of Methone reported that a few days before his death Jose told him that he had left the icon in Canada (personal communication, November 17, 2005). 245 Vestnik IPTs (Messenger of the True Orthodox Church), No. 2, 1994, pg. 30. In 2014 Agathangel signed a much stricter confession of faith when he entered into communion with the True Orthodox Church under Archbishop Kallinikos. There is no record of his having repented of his former views… 246 Orthodox Life, vol. 47, № 3, May-June, 1997, pp. 42-43; Suzdal’skij Blagovest’ (Suzdal Good News), № 3, January-February, 1997, p. 3.
149 should be proclaimed, using the following text: ‘If any bishops, making use of secular bosses, have seized power in the Church of God and enslaved Her, let those and those who aid them and those who communicate with them without paying heed to the reproaches of the Law of God, be ANATHEMA.”247
247 Suzdal’skie Eparkhial’nie Vedomosti (Suzdal Diocesan News ), № 7, March-May, 1999, p. 7. Cf. “Rossijskaia Pravoslavnaia Tserkov’, 1990-2000” (The Russian Orthodox Church, 1990-2000), Vertograd-Inform, №№ 7-8 (64-65), July-August, 2000, pp. 22-39.
150 90. THE GREEKS DIVIDE AGAIN
The year 1995 was truly an annus horribilis for the True Church. Apart from the major schism between the followers of Vitaly and Valentine in the Russian Church, there were no less than three schisms in the Greek Church.
In 1995 five Matthewite bishops in Greece separated from the Matthewite Archbishop Andreas on the grounds of “iconoclasm”, that is, rejecting the icon of the Holy Trinity in which the Father is depicted as an old man.248 Soon these five bishops were reduced to two. Then these two – Gregory of Messenia and Chrysostom of Thessalonica - divided. Then Gregory consecrated four bishops on his own.
On January 7, 1995 following the death of the former Archbishop Auxentius in November, 1994, Metropolitan Maximus of Cephalonia (who had been defrocked in 1985 for participating in the consecration of Dorotheus Tsakos) was made archbishop of the “Auxentiite” faction of the True Orthodox Christians. He asked ROCOR for the same official documents that had been sent to Metropolitans Acacius and Gabriel in 1987 concerning the suspension of Fathers Panteleimon and Isaac of Holy Transfiguration, Monastery, Boston. As a result, becoming convinced of their guilt, he separated from them and the three bishops (Ephraim of Boston, Macarius of Toronto and Photius of Paris) whom Auxentius had consecrated for them.249
In May, 1996, Maximus, without the knowledge of the other bishops, but with the collaboration of Demetrius Biffe, a clergyman of the new calendarists, who made his appearance as Bishop of Kandano, consecrated the following new hierarchs: 1) Auxentius Marines of Aegina, 2) Pancratius Xouloges of Nemea) and 3) Ephraim Papadopoulos of Serres. Also, Demetrius Biffe was named Archbishop of Crete, and together they formed a new Synod.
Meanwhile, the former colleagues of Maximus - Ephraim of Boston, Macarius of Toronto and Photius of France, together with Athanasius of Larissa, formed a separate Synod under the name of “The Holy Orthodox Church in North America” (HOCNA).250
A third schism – this time among the Florinites - was prepared by a series of events…251 First, in 1993 the two American Bishops Paisius and Vincent, having made an unsuccessful attempt to join the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, turned back to
248 For more on this controversy, see V. Moss, “The Icon of the Holy Trinity”, http://www.romanitas.ru/eng/THE%20ICON%20OF%20THE%20HOLY%20TRINITY.htm. 249 http://www.hocna.info/ChronologyEvents.shtml. 250 http://www.hocna.info/ChronologyEvents.shtml. 251 The major sources used in this account of the schism are all unpublished: Bishop Photius of Marathon, Chronicle of the Schism of 1995; Bishop Macarius of Petra, 1973-2003: Thirty Years of Ecclesiastical Developments: Trials-Captivity-Deliverance (in Greek); and Hieromonk Nectarius (Yashunsky), Kratkaia istoria svyaschennoj bor’by starostil’nikov Gretsii, 1986-1995 gg. (A Short History of the Sacred Struggle of the Old Calendarists of Greece, 1986-1995 (in Russian).
151 the Florinite Synod – but not “through the front door”, that is, the Archbishop, but “through the back door,” that is, the “Gerontian” fraction within the Synod.
Secondly, as a result of the confusion created by Paisius and Vincent, their fellow-hierarch in America, Peter of Astoria, concelebrated with ROCOR. This was followed by an interview given by his nephew and the Chancellor of the Astoria diocese, Archimandrite Paul (Stratigeas), to a New York newspaper, Ethniko Kentro, in which he praised the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. This ecumenist act gave further ammunition to the Gerontian faction, since Bishop Peter and his nephew Fr. Paul belonged to the supporters of Archbishop Chrysostom.
The Gerontian fraction was further strengthened at about this time by the support of Metropolitan Anthony of Megara, who had been given assistance when in America by Paisius and Vincent… This had the important result that when, in September, 1994, a scandal broke out in the newspapers relating to homosexual behaviour by Metropolitan Euthymius of Thessalonica, the Gerontians were able effectively to block the working of the Synodal Court appointed by Archbishop Chrysostom to try Euthymius.
At this point, however, the Gerontians suffered a major blow: their leader, Metropolitan Gerontius, died in November, 1994. Euthymius now lost his major supporter in the Synod. But in partial compensation, control of the powerful corporation ‘The General Fund of the Church of the True Orthodox Christians of Greece’ passed to Metropolitan Callinicus (Khaniotes) of Thaumakou, who was a supporter of Euthymius.
With the death of Gerontius, the election of a new bishop for his see of the Piraeus was required. Bishop Vincent was interested, but he had a rival in Archimandrite Niphon (Anastasopoulos) of the Monastery of the Protection in Keratea. At the beginning of 1995 the Synod appointed Vincent as the locum tenens of the diocese, but the election was put off for a time…
We come now to the last meeting of the Synod before the schism. Since the Gerontian faction had repeatedly prevented the working of the Synodal Court to try Euthymius, Archbishop Chrysostom decided that the trial would take place without fail during the coming session, with the participation of whatever bishops were present, even if there were fewer than twelve. This frightened Euthymius, who saw the sword of Damocles descending upon his head…
As for the election of a new bishop for the Piraeus, this was postponed by the archbishop, although the correlation of forces at that time favoured Vincent. This displeased Paisius, who wanted Vincent, his favourite, to become Metropolitan of the Piraeus, and saw his hopes slipping away…
Having control of the General Fund, to which the offices of the Synod in Canningos 32 belonged, Euthymius and Paisius now led the Gerontian faction to “continue the cut-off session of the Holy Synod” under the presidency of Metropolitan Callinicus of Thaumakou and Phthiotis. To this end they – that is, the
152 six bishops: Callinicus of Phthiotis, Euthymius of Thessalonica, Stephen of Chios, Justin of Euripus, Paisius of America and Vincent of Aulon - sent a telegram to Archbishop Chrysostom, calling him the leader of “Calliopian faction” and telling him that they were removing him from the presidency of the Holy Synod! The telegram, consisting of one enormous sentence, read as follows: “After your repeated anti-synodical actions, and your refusal to allow an expert canonist and professor of inter-Orthodox renown252 to take part in the hearing of the affair of Metropolitan Euthymius of Thessalonica in order to avoid excesses in attempts to slander honourable hierarchs and the promotion of the tactic of expelling hierarchs who are fighters [for the faith], like the blessed Bishop Callistus, and the seizure of the whole ecclesiastical administration by the three coup d’état hierarchs who are your closest collaborators and advisers [Calliopius of Pentapolis, Callinicus of Achaia and Matthew of Oinoe are meant], and to avoid the deliberate reintroduction of the matter of [Paisius’ and Vincent’s joining] Jerusalem, which has already been reviewed by the Synod, as well as the rehabilitation of the Bishop of Astoria, who has abandoned the confession of the synodical hierarchs253, we have decided, in accordance with the divine and sacred canons (those that have been so badly violated by you and your evilly-motivated collaborators), to break off communion with you and with them, not recognizing your right to preside over the remainder of your [sic] Holy Synod which sits at Canningos 32.”
It goes without saying that this telegram, as the “Callinicites” themselves later recognized, did not begin to be a canonical deposition of Archbishop Chrysostom. And it is clear, both from the text of the telegram and its timing, that its real motivation (their supposed motivation was the allegedly dictatorial behaviour of the archbishop, his convening synodal sessions and cancelling them at will, and not carrying out resolutions passed by the Synod as a whole but displeasing to the “Callistite” minority (i.e. Calliopius of Pentapolis, Callinicus of Achaia and Matthew of Oinoe)) – was the desire to protect Euthymius from a canonical trial. This action was very reminiscent of that of the leaders of HOCNA in 1986, when they left ROCOR just before the trial of Archimandrite Panteleimon.
(This similarity between the Callinicites and HOCNA is not coincidental. In 1999 the two Synods tried to unite. Naturally, the Callinicites overlooked the moral charges against HOCNA, while HOCNA agreed that Auxentius’ depositions of Callinicus and Euthymius were “an internal matter that should be dealt with by our Sacred Synod and need not appear on the common statement.” However, the proposed union broke down over the Callinicites’ insistence that they should have the right to examine the consecrations performed by Auxentius since 1985 “upon the petition of the ordinands”. HOCNA, believing itself to be the lawful successor
252 Mr. Christakis, Professor of Canon Law at the University of Athens. The Callinicites, while avoiding a church trial, liked to quote the opinions of new calendarist lawyers from outside the Church who expressed themselves in support of Euthymius. Another was Mr. Nicholas Athanasopoulos. However, the latter, according to Eleutherotypia for May 13, 2005, had been expelled from the Areopagus for “serious sins”. 253 No decision had yet been made about Peter of Astoria. He had been invited to the last session of the Synod, but did not come. The Synod then decided to send two bishops to visit him and ask him why he had not come to the last session (Bishop Photius of Marathon, personal communication).
153 of Auxentius’ Synod, could not accept to place themselves in the position of petitioners…254 However, the two Synods continued to gravitate towards each other, and in 2012 united.)
The Callinicites’ claim that Euthymius had been subjected to an unjust witch- hunt was not at all convincing. The present writer has seen a book composed of seventy-five signed testimonies against Euthmyius. Even if many or even most of these testimonies were forged or “bought”, as the Callinicites claimed, the very large number of testimonies surely constituted a powerful prima facie reason for convening a trial255 in which their validity or otherwise could be determined, and the question of Euthymius’s guilt or innocence could be finally resolved. Besides, a Synodical trial was the only way to resolve what had become a nation-wide scandal that was harming the Church terribly.
On July 18 the Holy Synod, meeting in the church of St. Demetrius in Aigaleo (since its offices had been stolen), invited the rebels to defend themselves (protocol № 435). Having received no reply, on July 25 six bishops: Archbishop Chrysostom and Metropolitans Maximus of Demetriades, Callinicus of Achaia, Matthew of Oinoe, Calliopius of Pentapolis and Callinicus of the Dodecanese defrocked the six rebel bishops. Two days later, Metropolitan Peter of Astoria arrived at the Synod and signed the decisions of July 25. Metropolitans Athanasius of Acharnae and Anthony of Megara did not take part in the trial, considering it uncanonical. Anthony remained neutral to the end of his life, while Athanasius, after many changes, returned to the Chrysostomite Synod in 2004. On the next day, the Chrysostomite Synod met again to pass judgement on the former Metropolitan Euthymius, excommunicating him for his moral transgressions.
On August 25, 1995 twenty-seven Athonite elders and hieromonks wrote to both sides: “… We have come to the firm conclusion that there is no difference here in questions of the Faith, and all this is an administrative disagreement… It is evident that both sides are equally responsible for the division that has taken place. Therefore we support neither of the two groups, but remain neutral… and humbly suggest the following to you in order to overcome this division:
”Rescind all resolutions on both sides that took place after the division,… in particular on the one side the resolution to remove the archiepiscopate of the Archbishop,… and on the other the clearly uncanonical defrockings and bans.
“After the rescinding of the above resolutions… [they should have] a general session of all the Synodal Bishops at which, after mutual repentance and
254 Letter of Metropolitan Ephraim of Boston, Metropolitan Macarius of Toronto and Bishop Moses of Roslindale to the Callinicites, December 1/14, 1999, protocol number 1704. 255 The sixth canon of the Second Ecumenical Council declares: “But if any brings against a bishop his own, that is, a private complaint, whether in a claim on some property or in some injustice that he has suffered from him; in such accusations neither the person of the accuser, not his faith, should be taken into account. It is fitting that the conscience of a bishop be free in every way, and that he who has declared himself offended [by the bishop] should receive justice, of whatever faith he might be.”
154 forgiveness, they set about resolving the unresolved questions…
“In conclusion we should like to note that now whatever group does not offer a willing hand of unity to the other will in the final analysis bear responsibility for the strengthening of the division before God and history.”256
On November 12, 1995, the Callinicites wrote to the Chrysostomites, suggesting reconciliation.
Not receiving a reply within forty days, Metropolitan Callinicus wrote again in January, beginning with the words: “Your Beatitude, give that which cannot be given and forgive the unforgivable, and this for a full revelation of the truth: that we are completely responsible for the separation.”
This was a very promising start…
However, immediately after this confession of guilt, he began to accuse the Chrysostomites of not extending a helping hand to them, and said that if “we are to blame for the creation of the separation, the continuation of the break-up makes you infinitely more to blame, especially after our sincere public declaration of our feelings for conciliation and union.” Then he appeared to retract his confession of guilt, claiming that they, the Callinicites, were only “said” to be the cause of the problem: “Christ and His Church – clergy and laity – ask for justice, not only for us, who are said to be the ‘creators’ of the crisis, but more so for you, who formed the basic presuppositions of the separation and completely reject your brothers’ offering to cure this evil.” Then, having previously asserted that he and his fellows were “completely” responsible for the schism, Callinicus went on to claim that it was not only they, but also the Chrysostomites, who conspired: “Your Beatitude, let’s not deceive ourselves: you conspired, and we conspired, not yesterday or the day before, but for a long time.” Finally, he ended with the threat that if Archbishop Chrysostom rejected this offer of reconciliation, the responsibility for the schism would be on his Synod.
Metropolitan Callinicus here wrote as if the schism were merely a personal quarrel that had not resulted in an ecclesiastical schism and formal defrockings, but could be resolved by a mutual agreement to overlook everything that had happened! But the Chrysostomite Synod was by no means obliged to restore the defrocked bishops. Having confessed that they were guilty of schism, it was hardly fitting for the Callinicites to accuse the Chrysostomites of something even worse if they did not simply ignore it!
The Callinicite Archimandrite (now Bishop) Nectarius (Yashunsky) expressed moral outrage at the fact that the Chrysostomites expressed joy at the Church being cleansed of “unworthy brethren”, which allowed them “to open a new page” in the life of the Church. But the Chrysostomite Synod – and all True Orthodox Christians everywhere - had good reason to rejoice that the Church had been cleansed of a
256 Phoni ex Agiou Orous (Voice from the Holy Mountain), p. 8.
155 most serious moral offender, Euthymius, the cause of a major schism in the Church of Thessalonica and the reason why many had left the Church and others refrained from entering. Of course, they would have rejoiced even more if he had repented, or submitted to a canonical trial. But long experience had shown that he was not going to do neither of these.
The Chrysostomite bishops could also rejoice at the departure of Paisius and Vincent, whose ecumenist sympathies had been obvious for some time, and whose relations with their fellow-bishop in America, Peter had been poor.257 They did not rejoice about the fall of the other bishops, who were of better reputation, and with whom they would no doubt have been happy to be reunited on the basis of “forget and forgive” (as we shall see, they were in fact reunited with all except one of them). But what they – rightly – could never agree to was to accept all the Callinicite bishops en masse, which is what the Callinicite bishops insisted on.
A general reunion of “Chrysostomites” and “Callinicites” without preconditions or the attaching of any blame to anyone would have been as short-lived and hypocritical as the “Auxentiite-Gerontian-Callistite” union of 1985. One further misdemeanour of Euthymius would have destroyed it just as surely as one further misdemeanour of Auxentius (in relation to Tsakos) destroyed the union of 1995. Better a division, regrettable as it may be, than an attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable. This was essentially the reason why Acacius and Gabriel did not follow Chrysostom into the new Synod he led from 1986. They saw that the conditions for genuine synodal government of the Church simply did not exist while certain powerful but evil bishops remained within it. Gabriel died in isolation, but Acacius joined the Chrysostomites in 2003…
In May, 2003 almost the whole episcopate and clergy of the Callinicites officially withdrew their repentance for the creation of the schism of 1995, even declaring: “We are grateful [!!!] to those daring bishops who declared the ‘Archbishop’ and the unrepentant triad excommunicated, saving the Church from more adventures and humiliation.” 258 This statement actually confirmed the wisdom of the Chrysostomites in not immediately giving in to the Callinicite offer of reconciliation in 1995. Clearly the Callinicites’ stated acceptance of “complete responsibility” for the schism had been insincere and a ploy, a means of extracting concessions which they could not obtain in any other way….
*
In any case, the “Callinicites” began to divide almost immediately. In the Piraeus Stephen, Paisius and Vincent formed one group, and in Thessalonica Callinicus, Euthymius, Athanasius and Justin formed another. On December 28, 1995 the latter
257 In 1995, in his monastery in Anthousa, Petros turned to Euthymius and said about Paisius and Vincent: “I know so many things about them! You, Euthymius, are a saint by comparison with them!” Euthymius, trying to hide his embarrassment with a joke, said: “Then you will have to make an icon of me.” It goes without saying that Peter was in no way praising Euthymius, but only saying that Paisius and Vincent were even worse that he (Bishop Photius, Chronicle). 258 Point 9, “Decree of the Panhellenic Clergy Meeting of the GOC of Greece”, 2003.
156 group passed judgement on the ecumenist activities of Paisius and Vincent and declared them “fallen from the faith”, without, however, defrocking them. But then, at the beginning of 1996, Athanasius and Justin left Callinicus and Euthymius and joined Stephen, Anthony, Paisius and Vincent to form yet another Synod.
In April, 1996 Callinicus and Euthymius bought the fourth floor of Canningos 32, and consecrated new bishops: Macarius (Kavvakides), who was later elected archbishop of their new synod, Anthimus (Karamitros) and Christopher (Angelopoulos), who had been defrocked for immorality by the Patriarch of Jerusalem before being received into the Church by Auxentius. Meanwhile, the other bishops under the presidency of Athanasius occupied the third floor of the same building and in October consecrated two new bishops for America – the Russian Archimandrite Anthony (Grabbe), who had been defrocked for immorality by Metropolitan Vitaly, and Plotinus (Argitelis). This group proceeded to defrock Callinicus and Euthymius, but revoked their sentence the following day.
In January, 1997 Metropolitan Peter of Astoria died; and in February - Anthony of Megara. The latter was buried by Vincent, but the 40-day pannikhida was performed by the Chrysostomite Synod. In the same month, Archimandrite Niphon, who appeared to be a fervent supporter of Archbishop Chrysostom259, approached Metropolitan Callinicus of the Twelve Islands in Athens and asked him to join with Athanasius of Acharnae (who was not then a member of the Synod) to consecrate him to the episcopate. Callinicus refused. But Niphon would realise his ambition later… In May, Vincent, “weeping and groaning”, handed over the seal of the Metropolia of Piraeus and Salamis to Archbishop Chrysostom and returned to America. Then Paisius, Vincent, Nectarius (formerly Plotinus) and Anthony separated from Athanasius, Stephen and Justin and formed their own synod. In September Stephen and Justin returned to the Holy Synod under Archbishop Chrysostom…
In January, 1998 Athanasius of Acharnae returned to the Chrysostomite Synod. In the same month Calliopius of Pentapolis died. In this period many priests were returning to the Chrysostomite Synod.
In February, 1998 Archimandrite Paul (Stratigeas), former Chancellor of the Astoria diocese, was elected and consecrated as the new Metropolitan of America. This elicited some protests and unease because of his ecumenist tendencies in the past - of which, however, he had repented publicly. In April Paisius and Vincent gave an interview in America eulogizing the Ecumenical Patriarch. When Callinicus and Euthymius, as was only to be expected, reacted negatively to this, Paisius and Vincent apostasised to the Ecumenical Patriarch, who rebaptised Paisius (as having been baptised in the Old Calendar Church), and chrismated Vincent! They were not joined by Nectarius and Anthony, who went their own separate ways.
259 In the Lamia region, where he had some spiritual children, he used to preach faithfulness to the Chrysostomite Synod because “the sin of Callinicus Khaniotes and Euthymius Orphanos cannot be washed out even by the blood of martyrdom”, and “if his Beatitude [Archbishop Chrysostom] were to receive Euthymius and Callinicus back, I would cease to commemorate the Archbishop and would commemorate every Orthodox episcopate” (Bishop Photius, Chronicle).
157
In June, 1998 the “General Fund” returned into the hands of the Chrysostomite Synod, together with the offices of the Synod on the third floor of Canningos 32. Confusion was now created by the fact that the two rival Synods calling themselves “The Church of the True Orthodox Christians of Greece” occupied two floors of the same building. In the summer of 1996, the Chrysostomite Synod had obtained a decision in the Lower Court in Athens recognising the religious organization “The Church of the True Orthodox Christians of Greece” as a juridical person with the right to own property. And they had forbidden any other group to use that name under threat of court action.
The reason for this, as Bishop Photius explains, was simply to avoid confusion. The Callinicites “use the same name, the same building on the same street and postmen, [so] the faithful and the authorities are confused. [Archbishop Macarius, the new leader of the Callinicites since 2003] wants that confusion. We [do] not. If he has the right to use the name, let him keep it and we shall find a similar name for the title of our Church. If we have that right, then the Macariites have to choose another name. And we believe that we have the right because we have [a] legal person with that title.”260
However, the Callinicites saw a much more sinister motive in the Chrysostomite action. Thus Archimandrite Nectarius quoted the words of the Chrysostomite Synod in 1996 that “from now on nobody else has the right to use this name. Otherwise our Church will be forced to seek to defend itself in the courts”261, and chose to see hidden in the last words, “seek to defend itself in the courts” “a greater meaning than may appear at first sight, for the Chrysostomites were thinking of no more and no less than entering the Greek state on equal terms with the new calendarists and becoming, so to speak, ‘a second state church’. With this end, [writes Bishop Macarius of Petra,] ‘on June 4, 1998 a delegation of the above- mentioned Synod [consisting of Archbishop Chrysostom, Metropolitan Callinicus of Achaia and two archimandrites], inspired by a false Protestant theory of group freedom of conscience, according to which those having the same faith have the right, on uniting with each other, to express it in common services, employing the protection of the government, renounced the Orthodox world-view that the Church of the True Orthodox Christians of Greece is a Local One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Christ, and proclaimed that the Church of the Old Calendarists is a religious community! And they asked for the State’s ‘lawful protection’ in liquidating all the True Orthodox Christians who do not belong to them!! (op. cit., p. 8). One involuntarily thinks of Sergius Stragorodsky and his legalization of his Synod with the consequent liquidation of those not belonging to him (however, one must give the Greeks their due – here they were not talking about physical ‘liquidation’).”
260 Bishop Photius, private communication, September 28, 2004. 261 Ekklesia G.O.X. Ellados (Church of the True Orthodox Christians of Greece), № 8, p. 56; Bishop Macarius of Petra, To Katantima tis ipo ton Khrysostomon Kiousin proderevomenis Synodou (The Plight of the Synod under Chrysostom Kiousis), Thessalonica, 1999, p. 12.
158 Both Bishop Macarius’ incoherent and incomprehensible reference to a “Protestant theory of group freedom” (what theory?!) and Fr. Nectarius’ reference to Sergius Stragorodsky are quite out of place here. The registration of a legal name with the authorities was not sinful in itself. The Greek State, though not truly Orthodox, cannot be compared to the Soviet Union; legalization with the Greek authorities is not ipso facto a sin against Orthodoxy in the way that legalization with the militant atheist Soviet authorities was because of the anathema lying on the Soviet state. Nor, as Archimandrite Nectarius (if not Bishop Macarius) graciously concedes, were the Chrysostomites aiming at the physical liquidation of the Callinicites! The Chrysostomites could justly be criticised only if either they used the legal status they acquired with the State to persecute the Callinicites in a real way (as opposed to simply protecting their property from them by legal means), or the constitution of the corporation was uncanonical….
Archimandrite Niphon declared that “the making of the True Orthodox Church of Greece into a corporation [sic!] generally overthrows the basic dogmas, abolishes the canons, violates Holy Tradition and, in a word, turns everything upside down for the sake of receiving [the status of] a juridical person”?262 But this was surely a wild exaggeration and distortion. Moreover, to call it a “Protestant heresy” was unjust even to the Protestants since, as far as the present writer knows, the Protestant doctrine of “the invisible Church of all believers” does not assert the identity of the Church with any visible organization or legal corporation! The very fact that the constitution of the corporation said that the Church of Christ was founded on the Day of Pentecost by the Lord Jesus Christ, whereas the corporation itself was founded on such-and-such a day and month and year by 20 people, and could be “liquidated” by a quorum of members, shows that no identification of the Church with the legal corporation was intended. Besides, in every jurisdiction of the True Orthodox Christians almost every church and monastery has some kind of legal corporation. Why should these be “lawful, canonical and allowed by the Church”, in Bishop Macarius’ words, while the Chrysostomite legal corporation constitutes “a Protestant ecclesiological heresy that appeared after the proclamation of liberty of conscience by the United States in 1787 and especially after the French revolution of 1789…”?!263
The Callinicites also saw a sinister heresy in the “Constitutional Charter” which the Chrysostomites, after prolonged consultation that produced few objections, established in September, 1998. The most important points in the Charter, a legal document registered with the civil authorities of Greece, were: (a) all property, monastic or parish, was concentrated in the hands of the Synod; (b) monasteries were denied the right to own property; (c) hieromonks were prohibited from serving in parishes without special permission from their ruling hierarchs, even when the parish was opened by the monastery; and (d) between Synodal sessions the Archbishop was given the right to make decisions on his own, although the Synod had the right to agree or disagree with his decisions at the next meeting.264
262 Bishop Macarius, To Katantima, op. cit., pp. 30-31. 263 Bishop Macarius, To Katantima, op. cit., p. 9. 264 Basil Lourie, “The Split in the Genuine Orthodox Church”, Vertograd, March, 1999, p. 10.
159
Point (a) went against the prevailing tradition in Greece, where parishes and monasteries are allowed to own their property independent of their bishop. However, it is not contrary to the holy canons, which decree that “the Bishop have authority over the property of the Church” (Apostolic Canon 41). But point (d) was indeed alarming; it suggested a concentration of power in the hands of the first- hierarch that transgressed Apostolic Canon 34.
Priests who criticized the Charter, including the present-day Bishop Philaret (Klimakitis) of Pallini and Western Europe, suffered persecution and uncanonical bans.
The leader in the attack on the Charter was Archimandrite Niphon, who, as we have seen, was seeking a way to join the Callinicites and receive consecration there. He was supported in the background by the Callinicite Bishop Macarius and the Athonite Elder Augustine, a former lawyer.
Niphon had another motive: the Synod had refused him permission to found a metochion under his sole control in the Chicago area, and the Charter confirmed that the foundation of such monastic communities required the permission of the Synod and the local bishop.265 Niphon stormed against the Synod’s supposedly “tyrannical teachings” which had the result that “the ruling Holy Monastery could not found free metochia as before”. But as Archbishop Chrysostom justly wrote: “Where do you know that this is written in the Sacred Canons? On the contrary, do you not know that the Sacred Canons demand permission to be obtained for the establishment of a monastic institution? Are you in disagreement with the Sacred Canons?”266
He was; and in November, 1998 Niphon left the Synod with Metropolitans Athanasius of Acharnae and Callinicus of the Twelve Islands and 23 parishes and monasteries.267 In January, 1999 the Holy Synod rescinded the “Constitutional Charter”, not because it considered it uncanonical, but in order to make it easier for Niphon to return to the Church. But he did not, and in July officially joined the Callinicites (Callinicus of the Twelve Islands remained on his own). In September, he was consecrated metropolitan of the Piraeus, and Arethas - metropolitan of Crete. At the present time the Callinicites (now renamed “Macariites” because of their new archbishop, Macarius) have about sixteen priests in Russia and one in Romania.
On September 25, 1998 the Holy Synod led by Archbishop Chrysostomos
265 Katastatikon “Ekklesias Gnision Orthodoxon Khristianon Ellados” (Constitution of the “Church of the True Orthodox Christians of Greece”), Article 10. 266 Encyclical of Archbishop Chrysostom, December 22, 1998, Athens, 1999. 267 Callinicus had been propounding heretical Apollinarian views on the Incarnation. When caught out by one of his own priests, and beginning to realise his mistake, he said that he would repent of his error if the other bishops repented of certain supposedly heretical things that they had said. But the Synod refused to accept this “deal” (Bishop Photius of Marathon, personal communication, July 22, 2005).
160 anathematized ecumenism: “To those who say, following what the new-fangled ecumenists teach, that the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, being the Church of the first-born and constituting the Body of Christ in accordance with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit on Holy Pentecost, has departed from the world insofar as it has been cut up into many branches, each of which contains a part of the revealed truth and the grace of the mysteries, because of which it has to be rebuilt by us men through the union of all the branches into one tree, that is to say, through the assimilation of all the heresies and schisms from the true Orthodox Church into one whole, and consequently of all of them with the other religions, to the formation of a single pan-religion, which will in this way constitute the ‘Church’ of the Antichrist, ANATHEMA.” Also anathematized were Patriarch Joachim III of Constantinople, Meletius Metaxakis and Chrysostomos Papadopoulos (all Freemasons), “the first workers of the cacodoxies of Ecumenism”.268
268 Ekklesia ton GOX Ellados, November-December, 1998, p. 451.
161 91. THE SERGIANIST CONQUEST OF JERUSALEM
Having effectively rejected much of the Catacomb Church, as well as most of her own organisation inside Russia, ROCOR began inexorably to fall towards the “black hole” of the Moscow Patriarchate. In December, 1996 Archbishop Mark had a meeting with Patriarch Alexis in Moscow which scandalized Russian Orthodox faithful in many countries. And shortly after he issued a joint declaration with Archbishop Theophan of the MP in Germany which effectively recognised the MP as a True Church with which ROCOR had to unite as soon as possible. Metropolitan Vitaly then said about Archbishop Mark that he had “lost the gift of discernment”…
In 1997 the MP took de facto control of ROCOR’s monasteries and properties in the Holy Land… The story began when Patriarch Alexis declared his desire to visit the monasteries and to serve at the tomb of Archimandrite Antonin, the famous nineteenth-century builder of the Russian Church’s churches in the Holy Land. To allow him to do this would have meant violating the ROCOR Synod’s ukaz of April 19, 1994, according to which “the clergy of the Moscow Patriarchate are not allowed to carry out any kind of Divine services (that is: put on an epitrachelion, perform a litiya or prayer service, etc.) on the territory of our monasteries.” Moreover, the patriarch’s intentions were clearly not peaceful or religious, for before his visit he announced that he was going to the Holy Land to take possession of the properties of ROCOR! In spite of that, the Synod of Bishops ordered, in its meeting in New York on May 13, that the chief heresiarch of modern times should be allowed into the holy places under ROCOR’s jurisdiction and treated “with honour and respect”.
However, ROCOR’s leaders in the Holy Land, Bishop Barnabas of Cannes, Archimandrite Bartholomew and Abbess Juliana of the Eleon monastery, decided to remain faithful to the still-unrepealed ukaz of April 19, 1994, and refused admittance to the KGB patriarch and his suite. For this the ROCOR Synod expelled them from the Holy Land. Then, on July 13, Metropolitan Vitaly, under heavy pressure from Archbishop Mark, apologized both to Patriarch Diodorus of Jerusalem, and to the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat (an MGB agent who trained in Moscow)269! With the aid of the Palestinians, Patriarch Alexis took the Hebron monastery by force in an operation that was reminiscent of the similar operations carried out by him with the aid of OMON troops against ROCOR parishes in Vladivostok, Ryazan and other places. (Abbess Juliana suffered concussion. This was in fact the second time that she had been violently expelled from a monastery in the Holy Land by the MP, the first time being in 1948.) Finally, on July 29, the 70th anniversary of Metropolitan Sergius’ declaration, the ROCOR Synod expelled Bishop Barnabas of Cannes, Archimandrite Bartholomew and Abbess Juliana from the Holy Land.270 Even mute nature was sorrowful: Abraham’s Oak at Hebron died one year after its seizure by the MP… Later it turned out that on February 5, 1997 the monastery had been secretly transferred to the MP through the head of the MP’s Russian ecclesiastical mission in Jerusalem, Vasily Vasnev …271
269 See materials in Russkoe Pravoslavie (Russian Orthodoxy), № 3 (7), 1997. 270 Pravoslavnaia Rus’, № 16 (1589), August 15/28, 1997. 271 El Mascobbiyeh (Hebron); Abbess Juliana, in “Paroles d’un detraque et reponse de Mere Juliana”
162
The critics of Abbess Juliana pointed to the fact that access to the Holy Places was guaranteed by law for all pilgrims. Actually, while the Oak of Abraham, situated on the grounds of the Hebron monastery, was clearly a Holy Place, the Eleon and Gethsemane monasteries were situated close to, but not precisely on, the sites of the Lord’s Ascension, Agony in the Garden and Arrest. However, assuming that the monasteries were situated on a Holy Place, let us consider the force of this argument.
Protopriest Benjamin Zhukov wrote: “Such a law exists in Israel. But nobody can say with certainty that such a law is also in force on the territory of the Palestinian Autonomy. And even if it is, in view of the special military situation there (as far as Hebron is concerned, the conflicts between the Palestinians and the Jews have led, in the last two months, to tens of deaths and hundreds of people wounded), one can say that the functioning of the law is not the norm in the Palestinian Autonomy. The best proof of this is the fact that there are differences between the various Palestinian levels of authority in evaluating the lawless actions of the Palestinian police in Hebron...
“If such a law exists in the Palestinian Autonomy, then in Hebron, in the given instance, it became quite inapplicable for us. Arafat considers that we occupy the territory unlawfully. How can we act in accordance with the law concerning the reception of visitors if we are not considered to be the owners of this place? Thus Arafat himself removes from us the basis for fulfilling the law. But we become still less responsible before this law (I repeat, if this law is in force) if the visitor who is planning to come is in the eyes of the authorities the lawful owner. Consequently, the first violators of the law are the authorities themselves, who are placing us in a position outside the law. But what fulfillment of the law is required of us here? The concept of hospitality has very little to do with this...
“As regards the attitude of the Jews to this law in the given case, it is known that, not long before the projected visit to the Holy Land of Alexis II, one of the important officials of the Israeli Ministry of Religious Affairs, Uri Mor, visited our monastery on Eleon with the aim of finding out what the attitude to the visit of the Moscow Patriarch was there. Our nuns replied that the arrival of the Patriarch, supposedly for the 150th anniversary of the Mission, was nothing other than a Soviet show; the 150th anniversary was an excuse, since the 100th anniversary of the Mission was celebrated triumphantly in Jerusalem in 1958 under the leadership of Archbishop Alexander of Berlin, in the presence of officials of the Jordanian state and, of course, of representatives of the Greek Patriarchate (officially the Mission goes back to its establishment by the Turkish government in 1858). To this Uri Mor replied: ‘You can protest as you like.’ And then he said: ‘I see that your approach is different from that in Gethsemane... If you don’t want to receive him, that is your business!’ And he added: ‘Israel will never change the status quo on its territories.’
(A Deranged Person’s Words and Mother Juliana’s Reply), [email protected], June 22, 2004.
163 “Patriarch Diodorus’ attitude to this question is also characteristic. When his emissary accompanying Alexis II was rejected, Patriarch Diodorus received the nuns of the Eleon monastery and expressed to them his principled censure. And, demonstrating his power, he said that he could enter Eleon, if he wanted, with the help of the Jewish police, but he would not do this. And he dismissed them in peace, after asking: ‘Whose side is Hebron on?’272
“Let us add that the Catholic monastery of the Carmelites admits nobody, and nobody has laid claims against it. As S. Chertok, a journalist living in Jerusalem, has clearly written (Russkaia Mysl’, № 4179, 19-25 June, 1997): ‘In Israel access to the holy places is truly free. However, in closed institutions this is done at established or agreed hours, and, of course, without resorting to force. This rule particularly applies to monasteries where order is defined by a strict rule.’”273
Even if the law concerning the free access of pilgrims to the holy places were clearer and more strictly applied, it could still not have applied to Patriarch Alexis for the simple reason that he was not a pilgrim. Having announced publicly before his visit that he was going to the Holy Land to take possession of the properties of ROCOR, he took the Hebron monastery by force. In other words, he acted like a thief - and no law, secular or sacred, can compel one to accept a self-declared thief onto one’s property… But even if such an impious law existed, it would be necessary to ignore it for the sake of piety, of the Law of God. Would the great confessors of the faith in the Holy Land - Saints Theodosius the Great, Euthymius the Great and Sabbas the Sanctified - have allowed the heresiarchs of their time to carry out services in their monasteries? It is inconceivable.
The strongest argument advanced by the critics of Abbess Juliana was the fact that ROCOR in the Holy Land commemorated Patriarch Diodorus of Jerusalem, and was therefore bound to receive his friends and guests. Thus according to Protopriest George Larin, who later became Archbishop Mark’s deputy in the Holy Land, “we do not even have the right to perform Divine services in our churches in the Holy Land without the blessing of his Beatitude Diodorus, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and… we perform the Divine Liturgy on antimins sanctified by his Beatitude, … we pray for him and commemorate him in the litanies before our First-Hierarch... When hierarchs and priests and deacons arrive on pilgrimage in the Holy Land, they do not have the right (according to the canons of the Orthodox Church) to perform Divine services even in our churches without the Patriarch of Jerusalem’s special permission, which is why we go from the airport first to his Beatitude for a blessing!”274
At the same time Fr. George admitted that Patriarch Diodorus “concelebrates with the Patriarch of Moscow and does not wish to concelebrate with our hierarchs”. A strange and clearly uncanonical situation, in which the ROCOR
272 It should be pointed out that Patriarch Diodorus’ twenty-year reign as patriarch (he died in 2000) was characterized by extreme corruption, both financial and sexual. See Grigorios Skalokairinos, “On the Sidelines at the Jerusalem Patriarchate”, Kathimerini, July 23, 2001. (V.M.) 273 Zhukov, Letter of July 19, 1997 to Alexander Ivanovich Musatov. 274 Larin, Letter of August 18/31, 1997 to Fr. Stefan Krasovitsky.
164 monastics in the Holy Land already had their own first-hierarch, but were forced to have another one - who served with their chief enemy but not with them! Who was it Who said that one cannot serve two masters?...
At this point, some words should be said about the very particular position of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Though a part of World Orthodoxy, as we have seen, Jerusalem, together with its satellite Church of Mount Sinai, has always been on its conservative “wing”, is lukewarm about ecumenism, and is the only Greek- speaking Church not to have accepted the new calendar. The reason for this is obvious. The church of the Holy Sepulchre is divided between the Orthodox and several heterodox Christian churches, and there is rivalry also at several other holy sites. The Orthodox patriarchate has long stood on guard for the status quo (it will be recalled that a dispute over the Holy Places was the spark that led to the Crimean War), and therefore fears any disruption in the status quo that ecumenism might bring. Thus Patriarch Diodorus of Jerusalem criticized the ecumenical movement, and in 1989 left the World Council of Churches, although it appears that he did not break off all contact with the ecumenical organizations.
However, there are strong forces working in favour of ecumenism. The Jerusalem Patriarchate is financially dependent on the Ecumenical Patriarchate. And this dependence becomes stronger as its Palestinian flock, wearied by the constant pressure of the supposedly secular and democratic Israeli authorities on Christians in the Holy Land275, chooses to emigrate in ever-increasing numbers. This same pressure on the Church hierarchy compels it to seek out friends among the heterodox both within and outside Israel. And so the friendship of the patriarchate for ROCOR makes less sense from a political point of view and is increasingly seen as dispensable by its hierarchs. Thus Metropolitan Timothy of Lydda declared: “The Russian monastery of Hebron has been returned to its legal owner [i.e. Alexis of Moscow]”, emphasizing that “the time has come to overcome the divisions now that the Church in Russia is free. There is only one Russian Orthodox Church and one cannot recognize as such the tiny grouping which separated from it a long time ago for whatever reasons.”276
The question for ROCOR, meanwhile, was: what was the purpose of her presence in Jerusalem? To have a quiet life undisturbed by any conflicts with her neighbours? In that case, she would have done best to give up her ineffectual pose of pseudo-independence and join either the Patriarchate of Jerusalem or the MP’s Mission in Jerusalem. Or was it to inherit the Kingdom of heaven through a good confession of faith, even to the shedding of blood if necessary? In that case, she should have broken communion with the Patriarch of Jerusalem (for, as St. John Chrysostom says, “he who is in communion with an excommunicate is himself excommunicated”) and firmly resist all attempts of KGB agents in cassocks to “have cups of tea” and “serve Divine services” in her monasteries. To take the latter, zealot course would undoubtedly have led to confrontation, and possibly to
275 See William Dalrymple, From the Holy Mountain, London: HarperCollins, 2005, part V. 276 Service Orthodoxe de Presse, 221, September-October, 1997, p. 16. Patriarch Diodorus was reported to have distanced himself from that remark.
165 expulsion from the Holy Land itself (which is what Abbess Juliana in fact suffered). But it would have attracted the Grace of God and encouraged many other covert opponents of ecumenism in the Holy Land and elsewhere. After all, as the Apostle Paul put it: “If God is with us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8.31).
One bishop critical of Abbess Juliana wrote: “Obviously, it was a question of drawing a line at some point: Alexey evidently could not be received as though he were a patriarch, but the other extreme, closing the gates in the face of the delegation is another extreme, which, elsewhere might indeed be appropriate, but in the context was provocative to the local authorities, both civil and ecclesiastical. Diplomacy has little place in matters of principle, but neither, I feel, does provocation...”
These comments betray a lack of understanding of the situation in which Abbess Juliana and her fellow zealots were placed. First, she had been ordered to receive him “with honour and respect”, which precluded treating him as though he were not a patriarch. True, the Synod had given her a speech to the patriarch in which it was written: “We welcome you not as the Patriarch of all Russia, but as a guest of Patriarch Diodorus of Jerusalem”. But, as Abbess Juliana wrote, “standing in front of the television cameras I would have been shamed in front of the whole world!!!... This seemed to me absurd. Every welcome is already a welcome, and holding in my hands the paper, the reporters could have put into my mouth completely different words. And in essence I would have had to go up to receive his blessing.”277
Again, a highly respected protopriest from Russia, while criticizing the Synod for going too far in one direction, criticized Abbess Juliana for going too far in the other, saying that she should have let Alexis in, but “drily, officially”. However, even if she had received him “drily” and “officially”, could she, a frail woman who did not have the support even of all her nuns, have prevented him from serving at the tomb of Archimandrite Antonin once he and his vast entourage had crossed the threshold of the convent? If she had tried to do so, the scandal may have been even greater, and she might well have been simply pushed aside, just as she was pushed aside at Hebron a little later.
In any case, if the KGB Agent “Patriarch” had been allowed into the citadel of ROCOR in Jerusalem, the real relationship of ROCOR to him would have been completely misrepresented and the whole world would have known who the real master was, not only on Eleon, but in the Russian Church as a whole.
The most shocking aspect of the whole affair was the letter of apology to the Muslims. Protopriest Benjamin Zhukov made some illuminating comments on the diplomatic significance of the metropolitan’s letter to Arafat: “In the letter to Arafat there is not a word about the unlawful seizure of property, about the inhumane beating of the monastics, about the crying violation of international law, as was expressed by Archbishop Laurus in his protest. Nothing of the kind! In this address, eight days after the lawless actions of the Moscow Patriarchate with the help of the Palestinian
277 Letter of Abbess Juliana to Metropolitan Vitaly, July 4/17, 1997.
166 OMON, under the guise of a ‘diplomatic note’ with the aim of receiving Hebron back again, there took place a complete ‘whitewash’ and ‘justification’ of all the criminals in the affair of the seizure of Hebron. Perhaps, in fact, in such circumstances Hebron will be returned to our Church: the Moscow Patriarchate would make off, as Khrushchev once made off in Cuba, having got a long way in! Perhaps... but would it not be better to sacrifice Hebron (we may even say that we do not have the strength to keep it), rather than to sacrifice our faithful monks, whose exploit we did not defend in this lamentable letter. We have similarly failed to value the exploit of those who trusted us and who have been beaten up by the OMON in our homeland... This was a diplomatic failure for the whole world to see!”
There can be no doubt that Metropolitan Vitaly was forced to make this apology by Archbishop Mark, who was not sent to the Holy Land in July at the bidding of the Synod, but came of his own will, having supposedly heard about the events “from the newspapers”. Many suspect - and there is certainly much evidence pointing in that direction - that the events in Hebron and Jerusalem were actually planned by the Moscow Patriarch with Archbishop Mark at their secret meeting in December, 1996.
Archbishop Mark’s position in relation to Moscow was set out in an article in which he began by affirming that the events in the Holy Land should not stop attempts to overcome the schism with the Moscow Patriarchate - which, however, was a “division”, not a “schism”. Then he reviewed the main obstacles to union in a perfunctory and misleading way. Finally, he called for an All-Emigration Council to review relations with the patriarchate and to consider the question: “Is eucharistic communion possible with complete autonomy?”278 This showed where his thought was moving - towards making ROCOR a “completely autonomous” Church in communion with the patriarchate, like the Orthodox Church of America!
It also became clear that Archbishop Mark was planning to hand over the remaining ROCOR properties to the MP. For his close assistant in this affair, Protopriest Victor Potapov, said in an interview: “We declare outright that we consider the Church Abroad to be an inalienable part of Russian Orthodoxy and that we would like to give over to Russia everything that we have available, and in particular also here in the Holy Land.”279
In 2000, Patriarch Alexis, during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, presented documents laying claim to the Hebron monastery to the Palestinian authorities, who accepted them. In 2005, he awarded Ambassador Hairi al Oridi with “The Order of the Holy and Right-Believing Prince Daniel” for his contribution to the development of relations between Russia and Palestine.” The Ambassador had taken an active role in preparing for the two visits of Patriarch Alexis to the Holy Land…280
278 Vestnik Germanskoj Eparkhii, № 4, 1997. See also his letter to the Synod of January 30 / February 12, 1998, http://www.stetson.edu/~psteeves/relnews/archbishopmark1202.html. 279 Nezavisimaia Gazeta - Religii, July 24, 1997. 280 www.mospat.ru , October 31, 2005.
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As for the Jerusalem Patriarchate, by the end of the millennium there was no question that it had thrown its lot in completely with the ecumenists. Thus in a Joint Statement with the Antiochian Patriarchate, the Monophysites, the Papists and the Protestants in the summer of 1999 it declared: “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us… Oriental Orthodox [Monophysites], Orthodox, Catholic and Evangelical… We renew our commitment to strive to be [the] One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, according to the will of the Lord Jesus, ‘so that they may be one’ (John 17.11)… by opening our hearts and minds to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, so that we encounter each other cooperatively, with respect, and with kindness. In Him, we are one…”281
*
On February 18 / March 2, 2000, the ROCOR Synod issued a statement that was clearly closely linked to the events in Jerusalem:-
“The leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate has now officially declared that it looks upon the property of the Russian Church Abroad as its own, for only it, and no other, is the ‘sole legal heir to the property of the pre- Revolutionary Church,’ which, consequently, ‘is being held by the schismatics abroad illegally,’ and that such a decision ‘is accepted by the Orthodox believing people of Russia with joy and profound gratitude.’
“This statement compels us, the hierarchs abroad, to address the Russian Orthodox people directly. It is essential that we clarify the essential question that has emerged over the last decade - the question of succession with regard to the Russian Orthodox Church and historical Russia.
“On the eve of the fall of the Communist regime it seemed possible that the previous cause of the ecclesiastical division - the atheistic government - was already falling away, and that the rest of our problems would be resolved in a fraternal dialogue. The Council of Bishops repeatedly referred to this idea in its epistles, and in actual fact strove to open paths to this fellowship. In this, however, great difficulties were encountered, and later-as far as we are able to judge, due to the active interference of the authorities in Russia early in 1997 - our attempts at clarification were broken off (the seizure of the monastery in Hebron). Difficulties manifested themselves, firstly, in a totally different attitude toward questions essential to the Church, and our differences in this regard have not been resolved to the present day.
“A) The question of the sainthood of the new martyrs and the Tsar-Martyr, the anointed of God, who were slain by the atheistic authorities. From our point of
281 “Final Statement of the Seventh Assembly of the Middle East Council of Churches, in Dr. Fred Strickert, The Washington Report: On Middle East Affairs: Christianity and the Middle East, July/August, 1999, pp. 84-85.
168 view, they fulfilled the principal mission of the Church of Russia in the 20th century.
“B) The policy of collaboration with the atheistic authorities begun by Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) against that part of the Church “disloyal” to the Communist overlords, which brought about the destruction of the former. From our point of view, to defend this policy is to demean the struggle of the New Martyrs.
“C) The ecumenical activity of the Orthodox in the World Council of Churches. From our point of view, this crosses the boundaries set by the holy canons and the Tradition of the holy fathers, infringing upon the very truth of Orthodoxy.
“Relations toward the post-Communist leadership of the Russian Federation. From our point of view, they are introducing a non-Christian policy designed to break down the Russian people and destroy Russia. And this false spirit is in nowise offset by the gilding of domes and the restoration of church buildings in which these very leaders are praised Attempts at “dialogue” on these differences on various levels did not lead to the hoped-for results. We acknowledge that in this certain of our representatives are partly to blame, for in their haste to make the Truth clear they insufficiently understood the complex conditions of the turmoil in Russia. In the tumultuous sea of the last decade in Russia it was incredibly difficult to make our Russian brethren hear the Truth of the Russian Church by which we live-in unbroken succession and without the intrusion of malicious powers into our ecclesiastical life. We were mistaken in our response to the situation in Russia and in our search for reliable allies, being somewhat lacking in patience and love for those opposed to us - which soon even became viewed as arrogance in the eyes of the Russian people. Yet what we wished for was something quite different.
“Over all the preceding decades, we had preserved spiritual fellowship with those who did not submit to militant atheism, preserving Orthodoxy; and our hearts were open to them, in whatever part of the Church of Russia they were to he found. This fellowship was in part also in accordance with the canons of the Church, so that when times of greater liberty came, these ties, this presence in Russia, were also revealed. This happened because there was preserved, and continued secretly to live, that part of the Church of Russia which did not accept the ‘Declaration of Loyalty’ (1927) imposed by the militant atheists, wherewith Metropolitan Sergius tried to bind both the conscience of all Orthodox people in Russia as well as our conscience (demanding that each clergyman abroad personally sign an oath of ‘loyalty to the Soviet authorities’).
“As the years passed, the word ‘schism’ began to be applied to us and others who were viewed as ‘disloyal’; this term continues to distort the eccelesial crux of the question to this day. We have never accepted this term, and we do not wish to apply it to others. This question is extremely painful, and must, from our point of view, be resolved in some other way.
169 “As early as 1923, the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad resolved: ‘Having as our immediate objective the nurturing of the Russian Orthodox flock abroad, the Council of Bishops, the Synod, the hierarchs and priests, within the limitations of their powers, must show all possible cooperation in meeting various spiritual needs when asked to do so by the ecclesiastical organizations which remain in Russia or by individual Christians.’ In particular, it was stipulated: ‘Representatives of the dioceses located outside the boundaries of Russia, acting together, express the voice of the free Russian Church abroad; but no individual person, nor even the Council of the bishops of these dioceses, represents itself as an authority which has the rights which the whole Church of Russia possesses in all its fullness, in the person of its lawful hierarchy.’
“The concept of the whole Church of Russia and a lawful hierarchy, according to canon law, does not exclude the diaspora, but naturally embraces the totality of the Church of Russia in the light of the Pan-Russian Council of i917-1918. It is impossible to restore this integrity by a process of rejection and exclusion that have their origin with the militant atheists, who tried to set the Orthodox people against one another, and for this purpose concocted the ‘Living Church’ and other obstacles. We consider that the interpretation of historical and ecclesiastical judgment must be a joint task over which the Russian people-all of us-must labor with great patience, first of all with love for the Truth. Otherwise, there is the danger that we will fall to disentangle ourselves from the snares, or may fall into them again.
“We reject the word ‘schism,’ not only as one which distorts the crux of the problem, but also, as a lie against the whole Church of Russia concocted by the enemies of Christ during the most terrible period of persecutions. We have never accepted this lie concerning the Church just as we have not accepted the lie concerning the Church contained in the ‘Declaration,’ in which, to please the regime of that time, patristic doctrine and interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures were trampled underfoot. For this reason, our fathers declared in 1927: ‘The portion of the Church of Russia abroad considers itself an inseparable, spiritually united branch of the great Church of Russia. It does not separate itself from its Mother Church, and does not consider itself autocephalous. As before, it considers its head to be the patriarchal locum tenens Metropolitan Peter of Krutitsa, and commemorates him [as such] during the divine services.’ At that time, we discovered that the lawful first hierarch of the Church of Russia had rebuked his deputy, Metropolitan Sergius, from exile, for ‘exceeding his authority’, and commanded him to “return” to the correct ecclesiastical path; but he was not obeyed. In fact, even while Metropolitan Peter was alive, Metropolitan Sergius usurped, first his diocese (which, according to the canons, is strictly forbidden), and later his very position as locum tenens. These actions constituted not only a personal catastrophe, but also a universal catastrophe for our Church.
“We never left the Church, even though there have been those who began to separate and drive us out with the word ‘schism’ from those most terrible of days even to the present-failing to grasp the main point, and still not being aware of it. It is impossible to resolve contemporary ecclesiastical questions by simply usurping
170 the title ‘sole lawful ecclesiastical leadership,’ trampling the tragic truth of the Church in Russia underfoot. Our readiness, even over the last decades, to help the believing people in Russia (as far as our weak powers permitted) in various ways (literature, bearing witness concerning the persecution of the Church, protests) has not changed. It has led to our receiving believers under our omophorion, and, for various reasons, a small number of clergymen in addition to those who already had had a secret existence for some time. In addition to the above- mentioned reasons, others were added which entailed at the time intolerable violations of the canons of the Church, and these were still uncorrected in 1989-1991. Then a tempest arose over the ‘opening’ of parishes of the Church Abroad in Russia. We did not try actively to open parishes and foist ourselves on them from abroad, but merely ‘accepted’ those Russian people who had learned more about the history of the Church and its life and yearned for ecclesial communion with us, despite the barriers of a propaganda inherited from past times. This little portion, for which our shortcomings did not overshadow the Truth and which, for this reason, decided to unite themselves in Russia to our prayers, has been subjected to persecutions, while our Church is slandered in all the official church publications.
“Yet the same leadership: of the Moscow Patriarchate, which on the new stage of gradual liberation has exacerbated the situation by its own interpretation of events and has so bitterly fought against the ‘parallel structure,’ has itself, since the end of World War II, continuing to carry out the demands of the authorities then in power, created its own structures where its was only possible in the diaspora, and in Israel, in 1948, totally drove away our monastics when establishing itself. At that time this was, for us, although grievous, at least understandable-we saw the Church’s lack of freedom and the enslavement of officially sanctioned ecclesiastical structures in Russia, which were fettered by the authorities and chained to the authorities. These latter years have witnessed a new wave of forcible seizures by the Moscow Patriarchate of churches and monasteries from the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad in various countries, or attempts to seize them - with the help of the secular authorities (foreign and Russian), wherever such is possible - in Italy, Israel, Germany, Denmark, Canada. Now it is finally confirmed, even by the mouth of the primate of the Moscow Patriarchate, Alexis II, and representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department of External Affairs, that they have no desire for unification with us on the proposed position of Truth. They prefer to resolve the indicated points of disagreement and the question of the history of the Church of Russia simply by eliminating the Church Abroad, by crushing it. In other words, the present leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate prefers to continue the policies of Metropolitan Sergius – only in a new form, at a new level.
“Thus, when we pose the question of succession, we have in mind not only property title to the churches abroad. Regarding this question, it is well known that the Soviet regime refused them, as it did ‘ecclesial obscurantism’ in general, when in the 1930’s it announced its ‘five-year plan for atheism.’ It is precisely the Russian emigration which was able to save these churches from confiscation by foreign states and from destruction, carefully restoring them with its own means as Russia Abroad, which is open with all its heart both to the Russian past (tsarist Russia) and a Russia of the future. Therefore, this is in actuality our joint heritage-the heritage of
171 the whole Russian people, and without fail it will be such as a result of the restoration of the one Church of Russia, which stands in the Truth. However, to our distress, the past decade has shown that the leaders of the Moscow Patriarchate are avoiding true union, are not ready for it, for this would mean that they would have to give an honest account to the people and listen to its voice. This is also the reason why they are violently seizing churches that have not been preserved by their efforts, taking no account of the outlay of expenses, even though in Russia itself thousands of desolate churches need to be saved.
“It is obvious that the principal objective of this is the smothering of our Church, and not the nurturing of the flock abroad, for here they do not in the least fear the terrible scandalizing of that flock. Who among the emigrants will enter those churches which have been wrested away by violence and wickedness? One cannot fail to see that they are attempting to eliminate us as a vexing and incorruptible witness to the loth century history of Russia. The main succession which we preserve and which our ‘opponents’ in the Moscow Patriarchate are trying to uproot in our person, is historical and spiritual. After the militantly atheist Revolution, it was our Russian Church Abroad which became the linchpin of that small portion of the Russian nation which did not recognize the Revolution and chose as its path the preservation of loyalty to our Orthodox state. This stubborn stand for the Truth, despite its apparent ‘unreality,’ pressure from the Bolsheviks, from pro-Soviet hierarchs, and the surrounding democratic world, was realized among us as a ‘struggle for Russianism in the midst of universal apostasy’ - in the hope that for this God would have mercy on Russia and give our people a last chance to restore its historic aspect. This was the primary purpose of the Russian diaspora. It is for this that we have been praying in our churches for eighty years: ‘For the suffering land of Russia’ and ‘That He may deliver its people from the bitter tyranny of the atheist authorities.’ This refers also to the post-Communist regime of the Russian Federation, which considers itself the successor not so much of historical Russia (this is declared only rarely, and in words only) as the successor of the Bolshevik regime. The entire legal system of the Russian Federation is founded on the Soviet legal system, and not on the pre- Revolutionary laws. The present democratically elected officials in Russia have preserved the majority of Bolshevism’s atheistic symbols (the five- pointed star, etc.), monuments, street and city names, ignoring the people’s original intent: that the Communist heritage be overturned, that the national tragedy of Russia in the loth century be reassessed, that there be repentance. At the same time, a new, anti-Christian ideology has taken root in the Russian land. And so as to weaken the people’s opposition to this, there is being waged an intentional, conscious, calculated demoralization of the people themselves by cutting them off from their true, historic and spiritual roots. And all of this is going on with the permission, consent and even blessing of the leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate which, in order to preserve its own power structures, is prepared to collaborate with any regime whatever, and to participate actively in ecumenism, not only with non-Orthodox Christians, but even with non-Christian political powers. ‘By our joint efforts we will build a new, democratic society,’ declared the head of the Moscow Patriarchate, Alexis II, in 1991, in an address made to rabbis in New York, where he preached peace for all ‘in an atmosphere of friendship, creative cooperation and the brotherhood of the children of the One
172 God, the Father of all, the God of your fathers and ours.’ How a similar irenic activity answers to our fate is evident in the fact that not long ago, while in Israel for the feast of the Nativity of Christ, the primate of the Moscow Patriarchate performed three morally incompatible activities: he prayed to the God we have in common, Christ the incarnate Son of God, then reached an agreement with the Moslems concerning the seizure of one of our monasteries, and finally praised the destroyer Yeltsin for ‘laboring for the good of Russia’ and for his ‘efforts in restoring the morality of our people.’
“We are convinced that the intensifying persecution against the Russian Church Abroad throughout the world is one of the steps being taken toward the establishment of a new world order. Furthermore, peoples deprived of them own spiritual and cultural originality, and Christian principles are being perverted and undermined. Anti-Christian powers are achieving their objectives by employing various methods, among which is the inciting of certain nations and confessions against others, and often of a certain part of a nation against another, always encouraging within the local Orthodox Churches those groups which are deemed useful at a given moment, and denigrating those who oppose them. Is this not what is taking place right now in the midst of Russian Orthodoxy? Is it not obvious that there are powers which are striving to reduce the Church of Russia to an ideological instrument-both the authorities of the Russian Confederation and the ‘mighty of this world’ who stand behind them-for the control of the Russian people’? How can we fail to remember the image of the harlot church seated upon the beast, which is described in the Book of Revelation? And if the Book of Revelation tells us: ‘Power was given him over all kindred, and tongues, and nations. And all who dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. If any man have an ear, let him hear’ (Revelation 13: 7-9), then it would seem that over the past decade it has been entirely possible to discuss and clarify in a ‘dialogue’ in what way one ought to understand, following a true, patristic interpretation of the Sacred Scripture (which every consecrated bishop is obligated by oath to keep holy), that ‘there is no power but of God’ (Romans 13:1-5). By this it may be possible to set aright the perversion of the Orthodox Faith, terrible in its consequences, which is to be found in documents being published in the name of the Moscow Patriarchate as in the name of the Church of Russia itself. Encroachment upon the sense of Holy Tradition hinders spiritual healing. Our appeal continues to be ignored… the Truth of the Church is not being proclaimed; false teaching is not being condemned.
“We know that a significant part of the people and clergy of Russia are aware of the danger of the situation, which is being manifested in many different forms. Still, the neo-Renovationists, the ecumenists, and their opponents within the “right- leaning” circles of the Moscow Patriarchate, who call themselves “true catacomb Christians” despite all their irreconcilable differences, not to mention the very leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate, are united in spreading the selfsame slander against our Church. We know that our being situated outside Russia can seem ‘unpatriotic’ to some-as is proclaimed in the publications of the Moscow Patriarchate. Yet those who attack us for this should read St. Athanasius the Great’s ‘Apology for My Flight,’ and the canons of St. Peter of Alexandria, to avoid
173 unchurchly, secular reasoning and to understand how the Holy Church has actually treated similar questions. We see in this fate of part of the Russian people, sent into the West by the Providence of God, a call to understand the universal scale of the impending apocalyptic period. We do not place our hope in foreign authorities when we appeal to them, pointing out the principles of Justice (as the holy Apostle Paul once appealed to his Roman citizenship so as to avoid violence united with iniquity) when we demand the cessation of the iniquity inflicted upon the ‘little flock’ of Christ, our little Church. Justice is appealed to - as we avail ourselves of a traffic light on a road - so as to insure elementary order for all, among whom one may also consider the émigrés who once saved themselves from annihilation. We place our trust in the One Holy Trinity, Whom we confess, and on the wisdom of our people, who for a thousand years have confessed the unity of the Trinity amid all the vicissitudes of history. We hope that, taught by its new bitter experience, it will have learned a lesson from the 20th century through which it has just lived. The fate of Russia is in the hands of God and the hands of the Russian people, if they desire to remain the people of God.
“We, descendants of the various generations of émigrés, who find ourselves exiles in a foreign land by dint of the bitter dregs which our people drained in the beginning, as well as many of the other peoples of the world (whose children have since come to us for the salvation of Christ), hope to hold out until that day when, through the supplications of our holy new-martyrs, Russia will be moved by prayer to carry out its final mission-to bear witness before the world concerning the Truth of ‘Orthodoxy and the Orthodox form of government. As far as our scant powers permit, we will always bear witness to this for those who have ears to hear and eyes to see. Our goal, however modest, is not to allow anyone to drown this Truth in the ocean of impending apostasy.
“Forgive us, compatriots who are dear to us in Christ, for our mistakes. And do not discard the Truth itself with our shortcomings and weaknesses. We call upon you to be aware of the universal scale of the present Church problems, to reunite with us in common prayer, and to deepen in our native land the struggle of being Russian amid the conditions of apostasy-despite the policies of those worldly and ecclesiastical authorities who do not value Russia’s universal spiritual vocation. Why is our existence disturbing to those who call us ‘a tiny handful of schismatics?’ Saint Mark of Ephesus demonstrated that the Truth is not measured by the number of ruling hierarchs. All of Orthodoxy can be defended by a single, solitary ‘schismatic.’ The holy apostles, the holy fathers and teachers of the Church, the holy martyrs, call upon us, for the sake of Truth, to withdraw from falsehood, from the imminent kingdom of the Antichrist, and to struggle in love for Christ, that we may be written ‘in the Book of Life of the Lamb, Who was slain from the foundation of the world. If any man have an ear, let him hear.’”
This may be the last ROCOR statement that we can count as fully Orthodox. However, its defensive tone in relation to the sergianist heretics already hints at the future betrayal and fall. From now on ROCOR would descend rapidly into the abyss…
174 92. THE FALL OF YUGOSLAVIA: (2) THE KOSOVAN WAR
Milošević’s wars against the Croats and Bosnian Muslims did not directly affect Kosovo. But few doubted that the Kosovans’ turn would come – unless Milošević fell from power. Indeed, after the Bosnian War and the Dayton Accords of 1995, there was some hope that communism would finally be driven out of Serbia, as it had in every other European country, even Albania.
Demonstrations began in 1996 and continued into January, 1997. On January 4, Belgrade “was brought to a halt when more than 100,000 anti-government protesters took place. Eight days later, 400,000 Serbs packed the streets, demanding reform…”282
However, Milošević reasserted his grip over Serbian society – to the great cost of the Serbs. Thus the owner and editor of the Belgrade Dnevni Telegraf, Slavko Ćuruvija, wrote an open letter to Milošević in October, 1998, in which he said: “Everything that the Serbs have created in this century has been thoughtlessly wasted… The nation has developed a complex as a vanquished, genocidal aggressor as well as being the last bastion of European communism. The merit and worth of Serbian institutions have been destroyed in a systematic manner. You have brought a university and a local farmers’ collective to the same level, equated the Academy of Arts and Sciences with a nursing home, you have degraded the church, the legislature, the media, parliament and the government… Nowhere in today’s Europe are criminals and the state wedded in such a harmonious marriage as here in Serbia. Organised gangs control the circulation of key goods and services. Paramilitary formations still operate. Street violence and murders are a daily occurrence and the state has in practice abandoned its responsibility for the safety of its citizens and their property… A psychosis of a permanent state of emergency has been imposed on society, in addition to the fear generated by omnipotent police and your henchmen, who boast that they can order executions of the people they dislike. Absolute obedience is demanded from the population. Hysterical, choreographed outpourings of support are set up after every victory that contributes to our decline. Your excellency, your country, your people and your compatriots have been living for years in a state of fear, of psychosis, with nothing but death, misery, terror and despair around them… Hungry and humiliated, your citizens have exhausted their spirits and have no strength to make even verbal protests. Our letter to you is our modest contribution to the struggle against fear...”
The next day an Information Law was passed. Ćuruvija was tried and fined $100,000. In April, 1999, two masked assassins fired eleven shots into him at close range, while his wife was beaten up with clubs…
*
282 Martin Gilbert, Challenge to Civilization: A History of the Twentieth Century, 1952-1999, London: HarperCollins, 1999, p. 834.
175 The 1990s were characterized by great unrest among the Albanian population, and the beginning of an underground movement for an independent Kosovo. “On 24 May 1992,” writes Noel Malcolm, “Kosovo-wide elections were held, using private houses as polling-stations under the noses of the Serbian authorities, to create a new republican assembly and government.” Most members of this assembly came from the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), whose leader, Dr. Ibrahim Rugova became elected president of the Kosovan “republic”. 283
The Serbs treated all Albanian activism as “terrorism”. But in truth it is more accurate to say that the Albanians rather than the Serbs who were the victims of terrorism. And even though, towards the end of the 1990s, some real Albanian terrorism in the form of KLA activity did emerge, what state (unless it is a communist one) deals with terrorists on its own territory by persecuting the whole population, the innocent with the guilty, women with men, children with adults?
For “every aspect of life in Kosovo has been affected,” wrote Malcolm in 1998. “Using a combination of emergency measures, administrative fiats and laws authorizing the dismissal of anyone who had taken part in a one-day protest strike, the Serb authorities have sacked the overwhelming majority of those Albanians who had any form of state employment in 1990. Most Albanian doctors and health workers were also dismissed from the hospitals; deaths from diseases such as measles and polio have increased, with the decline in the numbers of Albanians receiving vaccinations. Approximately 6,000 school-teachers were sacked in 1990 for having taken part in protests, and the rest were dismissed when they refused to comply with a new Serbian curriculum which largely eliminated the teaching of Albanian literature and history. In some places the Albanian teachers were allowed to continue to take classes (without state pay) in the school buildings, but strict physical segregation was introduced – with, for example, separate lavatories for Albanian and Serb children – and equipment or materials, including in one case the window-glass, was removed from the areas they used. For both health-care and education the Albanians have organized their own ‘parallel’ system of clinics and schools, mainly in private premises; the doctors and teachers are paid by the ‘Republic’ (in practice, by the LDK) out of an income tax of three per cent levied, on a voluntary basis, in the diaspora. In this way teaching is arranged for more than 400,000 children; the teachers and organizers are, however, frequently subjected to arrest, intimidation and beatings by the Serb police.
“Arbitrary arrest and police violence have become routine. Serbian law allows the arrest and summary imprisonment for up to two months of anyone who has committed a ‘verbal crime’ such as insulting the ‘patriotic feelings’ of Serbian citizens. It also permits a procedure known as ‘informative talks’, under which a person can be summoned to a police station and questioned for up to three days: in 1994 15,000 people in Kosovo were questioned in this way, usually without being told the reason for the summons. Serbian law does not, of course, permit the beating up of people in police custody; but many graphic testimonies exist of severe beatings with truncheons, the application of electric shocks to the genitals, and so
283 Malcolm, Kosovo, London: Papermac, 1998, pp. 347, 348.
176 on. Also widely violated in Kosovo are the official rules for the lawful search of people’s houses: homes are frequently raided without explanation, and goods and money confiscated (i.e. stolen) by the police. In 1994 alone the Council for the Defence of Human Rights and Freedoms in Kosovo recorded 2, 157 physical assaults by the police, 3,553 raids on private dwellings and 2,963 arbitrary arrests.
“Such methods were already being applied before the outbreak of the war in the former Yugoslavia in the summer of 1991. At first the war had little direct effect on conditions in Kosovo apart from increasing the reluctance of young Albanians to do their military service in the Yugoslav – now, in practice, Serbian – army. The most important effect of the outbreak of the war was on the thinking of Albanian political circles in Kosovo: it was the declarations of independence of Slovenia and Croatia in June 1991 that led the LDK to change its aims from republican status within Yugoslavia to full sovereignty and independence. But in terms of practical life, the only group that felt immediately affected by the Serbian-Croatian war was the small population of so-called ‘Kosovo Croats’, the Catholic Slavs who lived in Janjevo and a small group of villages to the south of that town. More than half of the Janjevo Catholics fled to Croatia (mainly to Zagreb) by the end of 1991, and the inhabitants of villages such as Letnica followed in 1992…”284
After the end of the war in Bosnia in 1995, there was only one direction in which the still-unspent energy of Serbian revanchism could turn – southwards, to Kosovo... But the Serbs needed an excuse in order to unleash the full weight of their army on the province. Such an excuse was armed resistance by the Albanians. But the peaceful policy of their unofficial leader Rugova restrained the Albanians from taking that fatal step. And yet, as Norman Cigar wrote in 1995, “many Serbian hard-liners no doubt seek to spark just such a reaction so that the state will have a rationale to launch full-scale repression. As the leader of one of the most extreme parties, Jović – whose militia had been marauding in Kosovo – admitted, his objective was specifically to provoke such an Albanian reaction. He stated: ‘The issue of the occupation of Kosovo and Metohija cannot be solved except by inducing the Shiptars [a pejorative Serbian term for the Albanians] to start an uprising.’”285
The rationale the Serbs were looking for appeared in the next year with the first news of a shadowy Albanian guerrilla force, the KLA. “At this early stage, however, Rugova’s own attitude to the KLA was quite uncomprehending: when the first KLA attacks on Serb policemen had taken place in 1996 and 1997 he had become convinced that the whole thing was a chimera, invented by Serb agents provocateurs. It would be well into 1998 before he changed his mind.”286
Meanwhile, his popularity slipped. “Among the general Albanian population Rugova’s personal standing remained high; at unofficial elections for the self-styled Kosovo government on 22 March, 1998, he was returned unopposed as President.
284 Malcolm, Kosovo, pp. 349-350. 285 Cigar, op. cit., p. 195. 286 Malcolm, Kosovo, p. xxix.
177 But among the political class the growing dissatisfaction with his policy was evident, with several prominent defections from his party; and the reason why he was elected unopposed was that opposition parties boycotted the election, arguing that it was inappropriate at such a time of political crisis.
“What had caused that crisis was a huge escalation in the use of military force by the Serbian authorities. Attacks by the KLA on the Serbian police and other targets had continued during the winter of 1997-8, but on a very limited scale: in the two years up to mid-January 1998, the KLA claimed to have killed five policemen, five other Serbian officials and eleven Albanian ‘collaborators’ with the Serbian regime. Other European countries had experienced similar small-scale campaigns of politically motivated violence, and had dealt with them using normal police methods. But the response of the Serbian authorities in this case was hugely disproportionate; and it was the nature of this response which, more than anything else, pushed Kosovo into war…
“By means of random shootings and artillery bombardments the Serb forces emptied village after village of their inhabitants; the houses were then looted and burnt, and in many cases livestock were killed and crops destroyed in the fields. Over a period of six months, from April to September 1998, more than 300 Albanian villages were devastated in this way; aid agencies estimated that between 250,000 and 300,000 people were driven from their homes. The majority moved to the major towns, while some left Kosovo altogether and others (up to 50,000) sought refuge on hillsides. From the nature of the systematic destruction of houses and livelihoods, it was clear that the main purpose of this entire campaign was not military but demographic: nothing less than the permanent uprooting of a significant proportion of the rural population of Kosovo…”287
In October, there was an agreement between the US and Milošević, and “the next two months did see a major reduction in the fighting. Many Serb units were withdrawn at the end of October, and thousands of Albanians were able to return to the burnt-out shells of their homes (which, in some cases, were found to have been booby-trapped with grenades by the Serb forces as they left). The Verification Mission began to operate, though the number of ‘Verifiers’ fell far below the total of 1,800 agreed in October: there were only 600 of them in Kosovo by the end of the year. During the last week of December, however, the Serb military forces launched a new offensive against KLA positions near the north-eastern town of Podujevo; the battle group used in this attack then remained in place, in further breach of the October agreement, and during the next few weeks an additional force of 15,000 Serbian troops assembled at staging-posts just outside the Kosovan border. Western monitors concluded that the Serbs were preparing for a new spring offensive against the KLA – which, for its part, had also been re-arming and training since October. However, other evidence suggested that the Serbian authorities were preparing a campaign of destruction and expulsion against the local Albanian population that would be even more far-reaching than the scorched earth policy of the previous summer: in January and February, for example, it was reported that
287 Malcolm, Kosovo, pp. xxix-xxx, xxxii.
178 they were seizing official documents and land-ownership registers from Albanian villages, and removing Serbian Orthodox icons and artefacts from museums in Kosovo for ‘sake keeping’ in Belgrade…”288
A last attempt by the West to negotiate peace at Rambouillet failed, and “on 24 March, after the failure of one more attempt at negotiation by Holbrooke and a final rejection of the Rambouillet proposals by the Serbian parliament, NATO forces began their campaign of air strikes against strategic targets inside Yugoslavia…
“During the first few days of the air-strike campaign, while NATO confined itself to the use of cruise missiles and high-altitude bombing, the Serbian forces inside Kosovo embarked on a massive campaign of destruction, burning down houses and using tanks and artillery to reduce entire villages to rubble. At first their actions were concentrated in three areas: in the north-eastern corner of Kosovo (securing a wide corridor for the introduction of more forces into the province), in the Drenica region (where the KLA had its main strongholds), and in a broad stretch of south- western Kosovo, near the Albanian border. The significance of this third target soon became obvious: the strategy was to clear a path for the mass expulsion of the Kosovo Albanian population. Two days after the air strikes began, the first waves of deported people began flooding over the southern borders of Kosovo, into Albania and Macedonia. Most had similar stories to tell, of a coordinated operation of ‘ethnic cleansing’ on a hitherto unprecedented scale. Armed men had arrive at their houses – sometimes special police, sometimes paramilitary gangsters, in many cases accompanied by local Serbs – and had ordered them to leave within minutes. An atmosphere of terror was created by random killings of civilians in the streets; some houses were set on fire as the population was leaving, and the rest would be first looted and then demolished when they had gone. As they left the village they would be funneled through a cordon of troops, who would rob them of their money and possessions. Finally they would be told which route to take to the border. In many cases, however, not all the inhabitants were allowed to leave: in a development chillingly reminiscent of the seizure of Srebrenica in 1995, men were separated from their families and taken away by Serb forces. By the third week of April the US government was reporting that it had satellite images of many newly dug mass graves; the American diplomat with special responsibility for war crimes issues, David Scheffer, calculated that up to 100,000 men were unaccounted for. Some of these, no doubt, had managed to flee to the hills, where pockets of heavily outgunned KLA fighters were putting up a limited resistance.
“The scale of this cleansing operation, and the coordination it displayed between Serbian military and police forces, indicated a high degree of planning, This was clearly not a spontaneous response to the NATO bombardment – though the air strikes may well have given Milošević a welcome opportunity to accelerate and extend the actions he had already planned. The main way in which this campaign of expulsion went beyond the ethnic cleansing of the previous year was in its application to the major towns: the inhabitants of cities such as Prishtina and Mitrovica, whose lives had been largely untouched by the 1998 campaign, were
288 Malcolm, Kosovo, p. xxxiv.
179 now subjected to the same methods of intimidation and deportation. Thousands of people were forced to board trains at Prishtina, which then took them to the Macedonian border; they were packed so tightly into the wagons that several elderly people died during the journey. By 20 April 1999 it was calculated that nearly 600,000 refugees had left Kosovo in the previous four weeks: 355,000 were in Albania, 127,500 in Macedonia, 72,500 in Montenegro and 32,000 in Bosnia. This was in addition to an estimated 100,000 who had left during 1998. And inside Kosovo, according to NATO spokesmen, there were five large pockets of ‘displaced’ Albanians, representing a total of 850,000 people.”289
On March 23, the Synod of the Serbian Church declared: “In the name of God, we demand and beseech that all conflict in Kosovo and Metohija immediately cease, and that the problems there be resolved exclusively by peaceful and political means. The way of non-violence and co-operation is the only way blessed by God in agreement with human and Divine moral law and experience. Deeply concerned about the threatened Serbian cradle of Kosovo and Metohija and for all those who live there, and especially by the terrible threats of the world’s armed forces to bomb our Homeland, we would remind the responsible leaders of the international organisations that evil in Kosovo or anywhere else cannot be uprooted by even greater and more immoral evil: the bombing of one small but honourable European people. We cannot believe that the international organisations have become so incapable of devising ways for negotiation and human agreement that they must resort to ways which are dark and demeaning to human and national honour, ways which employ great violence in order to prevent a lesser evil and violence…”290
Leaving aside the hypocrisy involved in the Synod’s calling for peace when it had for so long been calling for war, the statement must be commended at least for calling the actions of the Serbs in Kosovo “evil”. But in its main import it was both factually and morally wrong. According to NATO figures, “by the end of May, 1.5 million people, i.e. 90% of the population of Kosovo, had been expelled from their homes. Some 225,000 Kosovar men were believed to be missing. At least 5000 Kosovars had been executed.”291 Can such barbarism be considered a “lesser evil” than a war undertaken to defend the victims and restrain the aggressors? Whatever one’s judgement on NATO’s actions from a political point of view, from a moral point of view, its aims were surely better than those of the Serbs.
Pro-Serbian commentators argued that the West was the victim of anti-Serb propaganda. The present writer watched many programmes on the Serbian wars on British television in the course of the war. No anti-Serb bias was evident in them.
289 Malcolm, Kosovo, pp. xxxviii-xxxix. 290 Translated in The Shepherd (Brookwood, Surrey), vol. XIX, № 8, April, 1999, pp. 18-19. 291 “NATO’s role in relation to the conflict in Kosovo”, http://www.nato.int/kosovo/history.htm. Daniel Jonah Goldhagen writes: “The Serbs forcibly expelled 1.5 million people, almost all Kosovars, from the country. The Serbs also selectively slaughtered approximately 10,000 mainly military-age men, which diminished the Kosovars’ capacity to resist [the] Serbian onslaught. Serbs burned and destroyed at least 1,200 Kosovar residential areas, including 500 villages, and tens of thousands of homes, in the ultimately failed attempt to obliterate the Kosovar presence” (Worse than War: Genocide, Eliminationism, and the Ongoing Onslaught on Humanity, London: Abacus, 2012, p. 46).
180 Detailed and generally accurate documentaries were shown on the sufferings of the Serbs at the hands of the Croats in 1941 and on the significance of Kosovo for the Serbs. Serb representatives were invited to express their point of view in all debates on the Serbian wars. On the other hand, Russia’s NTV station seemed to be the only media outlet in Serbia or Russia that reported “ethnic cleansing” in Kosovo.292
The war ended on June 10, 1999 with the victory of NATO over the Serbs. On the same day, “the UN Security Council passed a resolution (UNSCR 1244) welcoming the acceptance by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia of the principles on a political solution to the Kosovo crisis, including an immediate end to violence and a rapid withdrawal of its military, police and paramilitary forces. The Resolution, adopted by a vote of 14 in favour, none against and one abstention (China), announced the Security Council's decision to deploy international civil and security presences in Kosovo, under United Nations auspices.
“Acting under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, the Security Council also decided that the political solution to the crisis would be based on the general principles adopted on 6 May by the Foreign Ministers of the Group of Seven industrialized countries and the Russian Federation - the Group of 8 - and the principles contained in the paper presented in Belgrade by the President of Finland and the Special Representative of the Russian Federation which was accepted by the Government of the Federal Republic on 3 June. Both documents were included as annexes to the Resolution.
“The principles included, among others, an immediate and verifiable end to violence and repression in Kosovo; the withdrawal of the military, police and paramilitary forces of the Federal Republic; deployment of effective international and security presences, with substantial NATO participation in the security presence and unified command and control; establishment of an interim administration; the safe and free return of all refugees; a political process providing for substantial self-government, as well as the demilitarization of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA); and a comprehensive approach to the economic development of the crisis region…”293
“Within twenty-four hours of entering Kosovo, British and German troops found mass graves of victims of ‘ethnic cleansing’ at Kacanik, Glagovac, Kusaj, Mali Krusa and Korenica. Shocking scenes of these were shown on television. Within a week a further fifty mass murder sites had been located. Even while the war was being fought the International War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague had indicted Milosevic as a war criminal. When, or whether, he would be brought to justice was an open question.
“The twentieth century had begun with collective international military action against China. That year, Germany, Britain and the United States had each taken part in the punitive action. At the end of the twentieth century, each was among the
292 Anna Blundy, “Russian Viewers finally see case for Nato”, The Times (London), April 7, 1999, p. 2. 293 “NATO’s role in relation to the conflict in Kosovo”, http://www.nato.int/kosovo/history.htm.
181 nations participating in the air-strikes against Serbia. Just as in 1900 China had submitted to the dictates of ‘The Powers’, with heightened protection of foreign traders and missionaries at Peking and elsewhere, so Serbia in 1999 was in a similar position. She agreed to an international force in Kosovo, the return of the refugees and the autonomous region within which Belgrade could exert no authority. The returning Kosovar-Albanian refugees set about rebuilding their homes…”294
*
Kosovo is now, in 2017, an independent country in the eyes of most other countries – but not in the eyes of Serbia, Russia and some others. Everything is possible, and it is not excluded that Kosovo will again become part of Serbia one day. However, for the Serbs to continue with their revanchist dreams even now, after the crushing and completely decisive defeat of 1999, must be considered not only politically and militarily foolish, but also, from a religious point of view, evident refusal to accept the judgement of God and to repent in the face of His manifest wrath. The judgement of God is against all evildoers, and only stubborn prejudice or atheism can fail to see God’s judgement on Serbia in their loss of Kosovo. St. Savva prophesied that the Serbs would lose territory if they betrayed the faith, and so it has turned out. If we look over the last 150 years of Serbian policy in Kosovo, and in particular the cruel policy of ethnic cleansing of Albanians, then we must conclude not only that the policy has been a massive failure (the population of Kosovo is now over 98% Albanian), but also that it has been immoral.
The Serbs have failed to heed the warning of their most recent saint, Bishop Nikolai Velimirović, against perpetuating racial hatred: “We sin if we see it as an obligation to hate those whom our relatives hate. This hatred passes into us like a family disease.”295
Nor have they heeded the implicit warning of the Serbian lay prophet of the nineteenth century, Mitar Tabarić (1829-1899): "On our borders and over them a new nation will appear. They will grow like grass after a deluge, they will be good and honest, and they will answer our hatred with reason. They will take care of each other like brothers. And we, because of our madness we shall think that we know everything and that we can do anything, and we shall baptize them with some new fate of ours, but all that will be in vain. Because they will believe only in themselves and in nobody else. Big trouble will come of it, because this nation will be brave. Many summers this trouble will last, and nobody will be able to stop it, because that nation will grow like grass…”
This is not to say, of course, that all the evil has been on one side, nor that the Serbs do not have legitimate grievances. Since 1999 Orthodox churches have been destroyed by Albanians in Kosovo (over a hundred on March 17, 2004 alone), and grievous crimes have been committed against local Serbs. Moreover, some of the bombs dropped by NATO were uranium-tipped, causing numerous cancers…
294 Gilbert, op. cit., p. 907. 295 Velimirović, Okhridski Prolog, Shabats-Valjevo, 2009, June 9, p. 476.
182 However, if we weigh these considerations against 150 years of Serbian persecution of Albanians there can be no question: the balance of evil is overwhelmingly on the Serbian side…
Some Serbs (and other Orthodox) appear to think that since Orthodoxy is the true faith, and since Kosovo once belonged to Serbia, the Serbs have an inalienable right to possess it to all eternity, and to employ whatever methods are necessary in order to keep it in their possession, including mass murder and ethnic cleansing. But this attitude is materialist, and closer to Judaism or Islam than to true Christianity. Money, goods, lands – these are all material things that will perish with the rest of the material world, when “both the earth and the works that are in it shall be burnt up” (II Peter 3.10). Christians look for “new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells” (II Peter 3.13). Until then, they try not to amass material possessions, but try and emulate the early Christians, who “joyfully accepted the plundering of your goods, knowing that you have a better and an enduring possession for yourselves in heaven” (Hebrews 10.34).
Of course, there are holy objects that the Orthodox will seek to preserve and defend from desecration. Serbs regard the whole of Kosovo as one such holy object, since it has been sanctified by the blood of the martyrs of Kosovo – St. Lazar and his army. But is the land of Kosovo preserved from desecration by acts of murder, pillage and rape such as the Serbs have committed against the Albanians? Is it not the case rather that what the martyrs of Kosovo sanctified by their blood, more recent generations of Serbs have defiled and desecrated?
Having the true faith imposes obligations, not privileges, in relation to unbelievers. This was so even in the Old Testament. For example: “Ye shall neither mistreat a stranger nor oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 22.21). And again: "Would you kill those you have taken captive? Set bread and water before them they may eat and drink and return." (II Kings 6:22) God rewarded such generosity: after Israel's kindness to a captured invading foe, "marauding bands of Arameans did not come again into the land of Israel." In the New Testament our obligations are much greater: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify Your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5.16). But if the unbelievers see, not light but darkness, not love but hatred, not the freedom of the Spirit but satanic oppression and violence, how can they come to the true faith and glorify God? Is it not the case here that “the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you?” (Ezekiel 16.27)?
Have the Serbs learned from their crushing defeat in 1999? The evidence is ambiguous. On the one hand, since the war an increase in religiosity has been discernible in the Serbian nation: a poll carried out in 2002 by the Ministry for religious affairs of the republic of Serbia indicated that 95% of the population (excluding Kosovo) considered itself to be believing and only 0.5% - atheist. Out of a population of 7,498,001, 6,371,548, or 85%, called themselves Orthodox. On the other hand, the official church appears to have learned nothing. Thus on November 29, 1999 Patriarch Paul took part in a festival organized by the communists celebrating the day of the foundation of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
183 in 1945. He was strongly criticized for this by Bishop Artemije, who called it “the feast of the annihilation of the monarchy of the Serbian people”, and called for “the reestablishment of the monarchy in Serbia and the return of its lawful rights to the House of the Karageorgieviches, of which they were deprived by the decision of the godless communist authorities.”296
As the Milošević regime began to fall apart, the patriarch again returned to an anticommunist position. But by this time it was clear that he was no different from his ally, the Moscow patriarch, in always following the dominant political currents, which is the essence of sergianism. And also in relation to ecumenism, the patriarch could only be described as the opposite of a confessor, declaring that the Christians and the Muslims had the same God, while allowing his bishops, especially Laurence of Sabać, to take prominent roles in the World Council of Churches. And yet, now that True Orthodoxy has a foothold in Serbia, we must hope, the Serbs will at last see their error, and begin to fight the heretical West and Islam, not physically but spiritually, not by returning evil for evil, but by confessing both the truth and the love of Orthodox Christianity in word and deed. For, as Tim Judah writes, “Milošević had spun the Serbs’ dreams of the Empire of Heaven and clothed himself in the glory of the Kosovo myth. Unlike Lazarus, however, he chose a kingdom on earth, which is not the kingdom of Lazarus’s truth and justice.”297
Bishop Artemije also took the initiative (at least for a time) in denouncing the patriarchate’s ecumenism. Thus together with about three hundred clergy and monastics he wrote to the Synod: “We ask ourselves: how long will our Holy Synod of Bishops be silent while facing the fact that one Bishop of the SOC (Bishop Irenaeus Bulović of Bačka) organized a reception of the Cardinal of Vienna in 1996 in his cathedral church as if someone more important than the Serbian Patriarch was coming. He took the Cardinal to the Holy Sanctuary and allowed him to kiss the Holy Table. During the liturgy he also exchanged the kiss of peace with the same Cardinal. One other Bishop (Laurence of Sabać) has often taken part in common prayers with ecumenists, pseudo-Christians, pagans and sectarians.
“Do we, Orthodox monks, not have the right to ask a question and require an explanation, which is the last degree of tolerance for our eternal salvation because we do not want to lose our soul by being led by such bishops?
“That is why we require an official explanation about the validity of attitudes which we have hitherto expressed.
“Another question is: Was it necessary to receive the money from the WCC for the new Theology School building in Belgrade so that heretics might teach their heresy to our students of Theology, while our professors of the School force the students to take the blessings from the Protestants and take part in their lectures.”
296 “Episkop ofitsial’noj serbskoj tserkvi oblichaet svoego patriarkha” (Bishop of the Official Serbian Church Reproaches His Patriarch), Vertograd-Inform, № 1 (58), January, 2000, p. 13. 297 Judah, The Serbs, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997, p. 309.
184 But Patriarch Paul remained unmoved, the movement produced no concrete results, and Serbian hierarchs have continued to the present day to pray with heretics, especially with Catholics and even with Jews...
However, towards the end of the century there was the beginning of a return to True Orthodoxy in Serbia – the only possible foundation of true national revival. In 1995, three Serbian monks from the zealot monastery of Esphigmenou on Mount Athos returned to their native land and started a small True Orthodox Church in communion with the True Orthodox Church of Greece.298 This Church now (in 2017) has two bishops and several priests and three monastic communities.
*
One of the most striking statistics of the twentieth century concerns the proportion of civilian deaths in war. As Barbara Ehrenreich writes, “in World War I, 15 percent of the fatalities were civilians, with that proportion rising to 65 percent in World War II. In the ‘low-intensity’ wars of the late twentieth century – the wars of Ivory Coast, Somalia, Sudan, Liberia, East Timor, and the former Yugoslavia – civilians constitute 90 percent of the dead.”299
Now any such statistic covers a multitude of processes, and is therefore susceptible to a multiplicity of causal explanations, each of which has a certain plausibility and explains part of the reality. But at the risk of over-simplification, we may with some confidence draw the following general conclusion from these figures: the inhibitions that earlier generations felt on the killing of civilians in war have been severely weakened. And one of the main reasons for that has been the modern cult of the nation, or nationalism, and the feeling this engenders that our enemy in war is not a leader, or a state, but a whole nation…
One of the clearest examples of this is the wars in the former Yugoslavia.
It was inevitable that Yugoslavia should fall apart after Tito’s death. Every Communist federation is an enemy of God, an artificial creation held together by violence and lies. The only possible condition for preserving Yugoslavia intact and undivided would have been for the Serbs to take advantage of their leadership position and the weakening of the communist ideology in order to convert their fellow Yugoslavs in the other republics to the Orthodox Faith. But that was impossible for the simple reason that, as we have seen, the Serbs themselves had fallen away from the true faith, and showed no signs of being conscious of that fact and returning to God through repentance. So the only rational path for the Serbian leaders in the 1980s was to allow the republics to separate from each other in a peaceful and orderly way, each republic being allowed to choose its own path freely and without coercion in the manner of, for example, the peaceful break-up of Czechoslovakia between Czechia and Slovakia, or (in general) that of the Soviet Union under Gorbachev...
298 “The True Orthodox Church of Serbia”, Vertograd (English edition), № 9, July, 1999, p. 3. 299 Ehrenreich, Blood Rites, London: Virago, 1998, p. 227.
185
But Milošević chose another course: the path of Great Serb Nationalism, and the forcible prevention, first of non-Serbian Communist Parties, and then of the non- Serbian Republics themselves, from liberating themselves from Serbian and Communist domination. Yugoslavia was the first state that chose to make the transition out of Communism, not to Democracy (and still less Orthodox Autocracy), but to another, closely related form of Despotism, a kind of “Orthodox Fascism” sponsored by atheist ex-Communists. However, the bloody failure of this choice may have at any rate have one good outcome: it may serve as an important warning for other Communist states that have been tempted to make the same transition, such as China and Russia in the early 2000s, just as the Spanish Civil War served as a warning and prophetic forerunner of the Second World War… If the Russians in particular fail to heed this warning from their fellow Slavic Orthodox, then we can expect a still more bloody outcome, perhaps on a global scale. For, as the Greek Old Calendarist prophet and wonderworker, Bishop Matthew of Bresthena, said: “The Third World War will begin in Yugoslavia…”
The Serbs remained impenitent right to the end of the twentieth century, seemingly blind to their responsibility for the catastrophe that had overtaken them. Neither State nor Church saw the supposedly Orthodox Serbs’ loyalty to their Communist past as the real cause of their woes. Thus as late as November 29, 1999, in spite of the massive defeat just suffered in Kosovo, Patriarch Pavle took part in a festival organised by the communists celebrating the day of the foundation of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1945. He was strongly criticised for this by Bishop Artemije, who called it “the feast of the annihilation of the monarchy of the Serbian people”, and called for “the reestablishment of the monarchy in Serbia and the return of its lawful rights to the House of the Karageorgieviches, of which they were deprived by the decision of the godless communist authorities.”300
Milošević was finally overthrown in October, 2000.301 A few hours later, Zoran Djindjic, the main organizer of the coup, who subsequently became the first genuinely democratic Prime Minister of Serbia until his assassination in March, 2003, said of Milošević: “He built a web of wickedness. He manipulated us for thirteen years. He starved the whole country with his madness for war, and turned the rest of the world against us…
“Under a bad leadership Serbs are capable of committing the most terrible atrocities; under good leaders we can do great deeds. It’s like a field – if it’s not cared for, the weeds will take over. But if you tend it, water and feed the seeds, you will reap a bountiful harvest. Serbs are lazy, we lack discipline and have no capacity
300 “Episkop ofitsial’noj serbskoj tserkvi oblichaet svoego patriarkha” (Bishop of the Official Serbian Church Reproaches His Patriarch), Vertograd-Inform, № 1 (58), January, 2000, p. 13. 301 Having finally been driven from office, Milošević died in jail in The Hague in 2006. As David Halberstam wrote, he “had managed to retain the view of many a totalitarian figure before him. He believed that if democracies were slow to act, it was a sign of weakness; if they were affluent, then they were also decadent. In addition, because their politicians and their citizens feared paying the price of war, they could be bullied. He once told the German foreign minister, Joschka Fischer: ‘I can stand death – lots of it – but you can’t.’” (Halberstam, in Kasparov, op. cit., p. 67)
186 for self-criticism. Our primary flaw is that we believe we are stronger and better than anyone else.”302
As the Serbian pop star Rambo Amadeus put it:
Ko to kze, ko to laze, Srbija je mala? Nije mala, nije mala, tri put ratovala! (Who says, who lies, that Serbia is small? It’s not small, it’s not small, it has fought three wars!)303
302 Djindjic, in Åsne Seierstad, With their Backs to the Wall. Portraits from Serbia, London: Virago, 2005, pp. 4-5. 303 Seierstad, op. cit., p. 340.
187 93. ROCOR AND THE SERBS
In 1999, the ROCOR Synod issued the following appeal: “The present condition of our Sister Church of Serbia and the much suffering Serbian people is becoming ever more difficult. Employing the evil of slander and violence, NATO is attempting to excise Kosovo, the very heart of Serbia. And bombs are exploding near Belgrade itself. This appeal directs the Archpastors to call the clergy and flock to pray, not only in church but also at home for the salvation of the land of Serbia and its faithful people, to whom we are bound by bonds of consanguinity.” The Appeal then instructed ROCOR priests to pray at the Liturgy “for the suffering Orthodox people of Serbia”, and in molebens - “for His Holiness Paul, Patriarch of Serbia, for the Archpastors, clergy and flock of Serbia”.304
What was striking about this appeal was the fullness of the recognition of “our Sister Church of Serbia” – at a time when the Serbian Church was increasing its ecumenical activity. Logically, of course, this implied that not only the Serbian Church, but all the Local Churches of World Orthodoxy, with whom the Serbs were in full communion, were “Sister Churches” of ROCOR – together, perhaps, with those non-Orthodox churches, such as the Catholic, with whom the Serbs declared themselves to have “brotherly” relations. And yet all these Churches had been anathematised by ROCOR in 1983 for their participation in the pan-heresy of ecumenism – which anathema had been reaffirmed as recently as May, 1998.305
What did this mean? That the ROCOR Synod was simply stupid in not realising the incompatibility of its “Appeal” with its own recent condemnation of ecumenism? Or that it was deliberately deceiving the faithful by pretending to condemn and separate itself from heresy, while actually entering secretly – or now, perhaps, not so secretly - into communion with it?
Secondly, ROCOR was accusing NATO of “slander and violence”. What slander? Surely ROCOR did not believe the communist propaganda machine? Surely it did not deny the ever-mounting evidence of atrocities and “ethnic cleansing” on the part of the Serbs?!
As for violence, the violence of NATO was, of course, regrettable, but much less than the violence of the Serbs against their own citizens. Why did ROCOR – unlike Patriarch Paul – not say a word about that evil? Why was ROCOR reversing the political as well as the ecclesiastical position it had maintained for most of this century – that is, of support for NATO against the communist regimes of Eastern Europe and Asia? The clue here appeared to be a word that figures prominently in the “Appeal”: “consanguinity”. Everything, it appears, was forgiven to the Serbs because they had Slavic blood in common with the Russians.
Another reason was indicated in ROCOR’s epistle of July 13, 2001: “Concerning
304 Translated in The Shepherd, vol. XIX, № 8, April, 1999, pp. 20, 21. 305 Pravoslavnaia Rus’ (Orthodox Russia), № 9, 1998. See “ROCOR changes text which anathematized ecumenism”, Church News, vol. 12, № 4 (86), April, 2000, pp. 3-4.
188 our relationship to the Serbian Orthodox Church, we declare that the relationship of our Church with her is special, being conditioned by our historical closeness to the Serbian Church, which accepted the Russian Church Abroad and a multitude of Russian refugees under her loving roof and cared for us as our own Mother. Now the Serbian Church herself is suffering a heavy trial from the attack of global forces on Kosovo and other parts of Serbia. We, at such a difficult time, cannot turn our backs to Her.”306
And yet, only two weeks before, on July 31, 1999 Metropolitan Vitaly had issued an ukaz directing ROCOR clergy not to concelebrate with the Serbs because of their participation in the WCC…
Archbishop Mark was so perturbed by this ukaz that he wrote to Archbishop Anthony of San Francisco on August 7 saying that “we are now in danger of completely losing our connection with universal Orthodoxy… I cannot take part in this according to my conscience. Should I retire?”307
ROCOR might have been spared many troubles if he had…
306 Tserkovnie Novosti (Church News), № 4 (95), June-July, 2001, p. 5. In answer to this argument we may quote the words of the ROCOR Hieromonk Joseph of Moscow in a letter to Metropolitan Vitaly about the Serbian Patriarchate: “Now I would like to return to the last telephone conversation I had with you. This concerns Vladyka Mark's serving with the Serbs. At that time you said that some hierarchs of ROCOR, such as Archbishop John (Maximovich) and Archbishop Nicon (Rklitsky) allowed this. That is understandable. You know, they were raised and looked after by pastors of the Serbian Church. We, too, love the Serbian Church and the Serbian people - the Serbian Church in the person of Patriarch Barnabas once sheltered the persecuted Russian émigré hierarchs. But times change and life does not stand still. It is already 30 years since Vladyka John died, and almost 20 since Vladyka Nicon. The Serbian Patriarch Barnabas and those Serbian hierarchs who feared nobody and offered hospitality to the persecuted Russian Church died a long time ago. The contemporary Serbian episcopate is very far from what it was in the 1930s. You know, almost the same thing has happened with the Serbian Church as happened with the Russian Church. Their episcopate has also been appointed by communist authorities, and they have also gradually departed from the purity of Orthodoxy. This is what the well-known Serbian theologian, Archimandrite Justin (Popovich), who could in no way be accused of not loving his own Serbian Church or of not being Orthodox, wrote about this: ‘... The atheist dictatorship has so far elected two patriarchs... And in this way it has cynically trampled on the holy rights of the Church, and thereby also on the holy dogmas.’ I think that Fr. Justin had a better view of the negative processes taking place in the Serbian Church than Vladyka Mark. The first-hierarchs of the Serbian Church take an active part in the WCC; they pray with all kinds of heretics and people of other religions; they support the anti-Orthodox initiatives of the Patriarch of Constantinople. And must we close our eyes to all this just because in the 1930s Patriarch Barnabas helped our Russian hierarchs - or because Vladyka Mark studied in the Serbian Theological University? This is simply not serious. If we're going to reason like that, and take our memories of the past as our guiding principle in our present actions, without taking into account present realities, then we can come to sheer absurdity and will not avoid serious mistakes. In that case we must have eucharistic communion with the Patriarch of Constantinople because ten centuries ago Rus' received Orthodoxy from Byzantium. “If our relationship to the Serbian Church and people is one of unhypocritical love and gratitude, then especially now, in this difficult time for Serbia, we must help them to come to understand and see those departures from Orthodoxy which are being carried out by the Serbian hierarchy, and for which, perhaps, the Right Hand of God is sending them these horrific military trials which are taking place there. This will be the gratitude of the Russian Church to the Serbian people for the hospitality they received from it in the 1930s.” 307 Archbishop Mark, http://www.listok.com/sobor72.htm.
189
Then, in 2000, the Serbian Patriarch broke all links with ROCOR… The official reason for this was reported by a MP publication: “By a decision of the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church of December 28, 1998, a podvorye of the Moscow Patriarchate was formed in the city of Bari, Italy, for the spiritual nourishment of the local Russian-speaking community and the numerous pilgrims who visit this city to venerate the honourable relics of the holy hierarch and wonderworker Nicholas, as well as for the support of working contacts with religious, state and social circles in Italy. The co-worker of the Department of external ecclesiastical relations, the priest Vladimir Kuchumov, was appointed as superior.
“From the beginning of the activity of the podvorye, it became known that in the lower church of the former Russian home for receiving pilgrims, which is partly used, in accordance with an agreement, by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (ROCOR), there was serving a clergyman of the Serbian Orthodox Church.
“His Holiness Patriarch Alexis II of Moscow and All Russia wrote to His Holiness Patriarch Paul of Serbia, asking him to clarify the situation that had been created, which violated the canonical structure of the Orthodox Church, insofar as the pastoral service of a clergyman of the Serbian Patriarchate was taking place in a schismatic ecclesiastical structure having no communion with any Local Orthodox Church.
“His Holiness Patriarch Pavle of Serbia sent a return letter to His Holiness Patriarch Alexis II of Moscow and All Russia, in which he expressed the position of the Sacred Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church in relation to the schismatics. In particular he declared the following:
“’… The Sacred Hierarchical Synod of our Holy Church has forbidden their Graces, the Diocesan Bishops, to give any kind of canonical permission to priests to depart for the jurisdiction of the above-mentioned ‘church’. We hope that they will stick to this.
“’We are sorry that such a thing could have taken place, and we hope that this incident will in no way spoil the age-old good brotherly relations that have existed throughout the course of our united history.
“’In this hope, we beseech Your Holiness and the Most Holy Russian Orthodox Church, which is so dear to us, [to forgive] our oversight, which took place in the city of Bari, and not to consider it to be a sin. We assure you that such an unpleasant incident will not be repeated.
“’Your Holiness knows the brotherly and Christian relations that the Serbian Orthodox Church and people had towards Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky) of Kiev and the bishops, monks and Russian people who came to us in flight from the violence of the communists in 1918. This brotherly relationship continued only until, after the fall of the communists, the representatives of the Russian Church Abroad started to spread their priesthood onto the territory of Russia, thereby
190 violating the canonical authority of the Russian patriarchate. The Sacred Synod has more than once directed its protests to the leadership of the Russian Church Abroad in America and demanded that it cease from such actions since they are anticanonical and worthy of every condemnation.’”308
The communion of certain ROCOR hierarchs with the Serbs had always been presented as proof that ROCOR was still in communion with World Orthodoxy. Now, however, a choice had to be made: either full integration into World Orthodoxy through submission to the MP, or a complete breaking of all ties with it and a return to the confessing stance of Metropolitan Philaret.
308 Information Bulletin of the Department of External Ecclesiastical Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, № 3, 2000, pp. 51-52.
191 94. THE EVIL EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
In 1999, ten years since perestroika began to expose the secret corruption of the MP, the situation was back to “normal” – that is, homosexuality among the leading metropolitans 309 and drunkenness among the priests 310 , combined with tight cooperation with the leading elites in government and the mafia.311
The MP was also completely dependent on the State financially. “Pravoslavnaia Gazeta [The Orthodox Newspaper], the official publication of the Yekaterinburg diocese of the Moscow Patriarchate, characterizes this situation as follows: ‘In 1917 all the property of the Orthodox Church was nationalized and de facto passed into the ownership of the state. In the last decade previously nationalized things have begun to be handed over to believers. But, as it turns out, not a single church is today owned by the Russian Orthodox Church. The churches are handed over only for use…”312
Homosexuality, “the sin of Metropolitan Nikodem”, as it is known in the MP, is very useful to the KGB. Preobrazhensky writes that for the last 70 years the KGB has been actively promoting homosexuals to the episcopate. “Even Patriarch Sergius is said to have been one of them. The homosexual bishops were in constant fear of being unmasked, and it made them easily managed by the KGB.” In 1999, after persistent complaints by his clergy, the homosexual Bishop Nikon of Yekaterinburg was forced to retire to the Pskov Caves monastery. However, within three years he was back in Moscow as dean of one of the richest parishes. “The influential homosexual lobby of the Moscow Patriarchate saved Bishop Nikon.”313
In 1998 the MP blessed a book compiled by Metropolitan Juvenaly of Krutitsa and Kolomna, entitled A Man of the Church, consisting of fulsome tributes to the notorious Metropolitan Nikodem of Leningrad by several of his fellow-hierarchs. The Archbishop of Tver even wrote: “At present many are capable of accusing the former [clergy] of supposed collaboration with the KGB, including Vladyka Nikodem. But there was no other way out: the Church had to live somehow. Therefore there came into being a special mode of acting in order not to permit a total destruction of the Church…”314
In view of this failure to repent, it is not surprising that the MP’s position in the
309 Bychkov, “The Synod against a Council”, Moskovskii komsomolets, August 20, 1999, quoted by Joseph Legrande, “Re: [paradosis] Re: Solovki (WAS: Dealing with Heresy)”, [email protected] , 31 August, 2002. 310 “Dukhoventstvo stradaIet alkogolizmom chasche, chem drugie gruppy naselenia, utverzhdaiut psikhiatry” (The clergy suffer from alcoholism more than other groups of the population, say psychiatrists), portal-credo.ru, news, December 8, 2005. 311 This continues to the present day, with tragic consequences. Thus Archimandrite German (Khapugin) of Davydova Pustyn, near Moscow, “a very active businessman and quite rich”, was murdered in 2005 (Jeremy Page, “Mafia secret of murdered abbot”, The Times, July 29, 2005, p. 35). 312 Preobrazhensky, KGB v russkoj emigratsii, op. cit., p. 53. 313 Preobrazhensky, “Ecumenism and Intellignce”. 314 Protopriest Michael Ardov, “A ‘Man of the Church in a Blue Cover”, Church News, August- September, 1998, vol. 10, № 7 (14), pp. 7-8.
192 Ukraine continued to deteriorate. As the new millennium dawned, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, supported by the secular authorities and Ukrainian nationalists, declared that the Ukraine was his canonical territory, and that the unification of the Kievan metropolia to the MP in 1686 had been uncanonical. In August, 2000, under strong pressure from the MP, he renounced this position.315 But then in November he reached an agreement with the UOAC and the UOAC-KP, but excluding the UOC-MP, on the formation of a united local church that would provide for “a cessation of mutual accusations” and a halt to the process of transfer of parishes from one jurisdiction to the other. A commission would oversee the organisational work, and this Commission would then present its conclusions to himself, after which he would determine “the canonical questions and the status of bishops and clergy” of both churches. This united church was approved of by the Ukrainian authorities, and deputies calculated that if such a church came into being and was recognized by Constantinople, a majority of believers in the UOC would join it. 316 The invasion of the Patriarchate of Constantinople into the canonical territory of the Russian Church exacerbated their already strained relations (because of the quarrel over Estonia, in particular). The already tense situation was exacerbated by the Uniate Cardinal Husar calling on all the Ukrainian Orthodox to unite in “One Orthodox Ukrainian National Church” with the Byzantine rite but in submission to the Pope. In June, 2001 the Pope met leaders of all the Ukrainian churches in Kiev with the exception of the UOC-MP.317 By the latest count the UOC-MP had 9047 communities in the Ukraine (an increase of 557 on the previous year), the UOAC-CP had 2781 (an increase of 290), the UAOC had 1015, the Uniates had 3317 and the Latin-rite Catholics – 807.318
In this period an extraordinary increase in highly dubious miracles took place. For example, “as described in the newspaper Radonezh № 4 for 1999, in the Holy Entrance of the Mother of God monastery in Ivanovo diocese, in one of the cells myrrh-gushing takes place from any icons that are brought into it. By February more than 1000 such cases had been registered, and by April – more than 1600! That is, hundreds of times more that the number of myrrh-gushing, glorified icons that have appeared in the whole history of Christianity!”319
While such occult manifestations multiplied, the grossest ecumenism continued to be practized – almost certainly because the FSB (KGB) still needed MP clergy to penetrate foreign confessions for espionage purposes.320 As we have seen, the anti- ecumenical protests of the early and mid-1990s were suppressed, the challenge of ROCOR was rebuffed, and the “Third Way” practized by the Bulgarian and Georgian Churches ignored. While anti-ecumenical elements still existed in the MP (as when Russkij Vestnik published a protest against the MP’s participation in the
315 Church News, October, 2000, vol. 12, № 7 (89), pp. 10-11. 316 http:// www.pravoslavie.ru/news/001113/glav.htm; Vertograd-Inform, № 12 (69), 2000, pp. 25-26. 317 Sobornost’, June, 2001; in Pravoslavnaia Rus’ (Orthodox Russia), № 12 (1681), June 15/28, 2001, p. 16. 318 NG-Religia, № 7, 2001; in Pravoslavnaia Rus’ (Orthodox Russia), № 11 (1680), June 1/14, 2001, p. 16. In Russia at the same time there were four bishops, 220 parishes, 215 priests, 230 nuns, a seminary and a college (Russkaia Mysl’ (Russian Thought), 31 May – 6 June, 2001). 319 Vertograd-Inform, № 4 (49), 1999. 320 Preobrazhensky, “Ecumenism and Intelligence”.
193 WCC by the Abbot and 150 monks of Valaam in 1998), along with renovationist, occultist, nationalist and communist elements, all were held together by the culture of obedience to the patriarch: all was permitted so long as no “schism” was created…
Some were impressed by the apparent hostility of the MP to the Roman Catholics’ proselytism of Russia. However, from the remarks of the leading hierarchs it became clear that the argument was simply over the Catholics’ supposed violation of a “mutual non-aggression pact”. Russia was the “canonical territory” of the MP, so the Catholics had no right there (as the patriarch put it: “Russia has historically been Orthodox for a thousand years, and therefore the Roman papacy has no right to make a conquest of it”): they should stick to their own “canonical territory”, the West.
That meant that the MP renounced any right to convert western heretics to Orthodoxy. As Metropolitan Cyril (Gundiaev), the future patriarch, put it: “In practice we forbid our priests to seek to convert people. Of course it happens that people arrive and say: ‘You know, I would like, simply out of my own convictions, to become Orthodox.’ ‘Well, please do.’ But there is no strategy to convert people.”321
As the liberal era of the 1990s came to an end, the resurrection of the spirit of Soviet patriotism became more and more evident. This spirit, which seeks to justify the Soviet past and rejects repentance for its sins, was illustrated most vividly in an article entitled “The Religion of Victory” in which a new Russian religio-political bloc, “For Victory!” presented its programme. The victory in question was the victory of the Soviet forces over Nazi Germany in 1945, whose blood was considered by the bloc to have “a mystical, sacred meaning”, being “the main emblem of the Russian historical consciousness”.
Similarly, an article on an MP web-site produced this astonishing blasphemy: “The ‘atheist’ USSR, trampling down death by death, resurrected and saved the world. Only because ‘godly’ and ‘ungodly’ soldiers died in their millions do we live today and the whole population of the world, the whole of humanity, is alive. It would be no exaggeration to think that that terrible and great war and great Victory in that Great war caused the first sociologically large-scale micro-resurrection, a reproduction by the peoples of the USSR of the exploit of Christ.
“May 9, 1945 became the most convincing witness of the fact that 2000 years ago Christ was resurrected. Therefore our Great Victory is the feast of feasts, it is Pascha…”322
The political aspect of the bloc’s programme was communist; but its nationalist and religious aspects were still more alarming. Yeltsin’s regime was accused of betraying ’45 and the “truly genius-quality” achievements of post-war Sovietism.
321 Gundiaev, interview conducted by Alexis Venediktov, March 22, 2001. 322 Yuri Krupnov, “The Victory is Pascha”, http://pravaya.ru/look/7580?print=1.
194
“However”, wrote Valentine Chikin, “the enemy [which is clearly the West] has not succeeded in destroying our Victory. Victory is that spiritual force which will help us to be regenerated. From Victory, as from a fruitful tree, will arise new technologies, will grow new schools, defence will be strengthened, a world-view will be worked out. A new communality embracing the whole nation will confirm the Victory of ’45 in the 21st century, too.
“Let us not forget: in the 40s a wonderful fusing together of Russian epochs took place. Of the pagan, with Prince Sviatoslav [‘the accursed’, as the Orthodox Church calls him], who defeated the Khazars. Of the Orthodox, in which the great Russian commanders and saints Alexander Nevsky and Dimitri Donskoj acted. Of the monarchist, with Peter, Suvorov and Kutuzov. In the smoke of the battles of the Fatherland war they combined with the brilliant ‘reds’ Zhukov, Vasilevsky and Rokossovsky, which Joseph Stalin so clearly and loudly proclaimed from the Mausoleum…
“Only the bloc ‘For Victory’ has the right to claim the breadth of the whole nation. The ideology of the bloc ‘For Victory!’ is the long awaited national idea… Victory is also that sacred word which overflows the Russian heart with pride and freedom.”
Alexander Prokhanov continued the theme: “Victory is not simply the national idea. Victory is a faith, the particular religious cast of mind of the Russians. Under the cupola of Victory both the Orthodox and the Muslim and the atheist and the passionately believing person will find himself a place. Of course, in order to reveal this faith, it needs its evangelists, such as John the Theologian. It needs its builders and organizers. In the consciousness of this religious philosophy there is a place for artists and sculptors, sociologists and political scientists, historians and politicians.
“We still have to finish building this great Russian faith – Victory! In it the miracle expected for centuries, which was handed down from the sorcerers from mouth to mouth, from Kievan Rus’ to the Moscow princedom, from the empire of the tsars to the red empire of the leaders (vozhdej). This is the hope of universal good, of universal love. The understanding that the world is ruled, not by the blind forces of matter, but by Justice and Divine righteousness….”323
This Soviet patriotism was supported by the former idol of ROCOR’s liberals, Fr. Demetrius Dudko. “Now the time has come,” he wrote, “to rehabilitate Stalin. And yet not him himself, but the concept of statehood. Today we can see for ourselves what a crime non-statehood is and what a blessing statehood is! No matter how many cry that in Soviet times many perished in the camps – how many are perishing now, without trials or investigations… If Stalin were here, there would be
323 V. Chikin, A. Prokhanov, “Religia Pobedy: Beseda” (The Religion of Victory: A Conversation), Zavtra (Tomorrow), № 32 (297), 1999, p. 2. Cf. Egor Kholmogorov, “Dve Pobedy” (Two Victories), Spetznaz Rossii (Russia’s Special Forces), № 5 (44), May, 2000, and my reply: V. Moss, “Imperia ili Anti-Imperia” (Empire or Anti-Empire), http://www.romanitas.ru/Actual/Impire.htm.
195 no such collapse…. Stalin, an atheist from the external point of view, was actually a believer, and this could be proved by facts if it were not for the spatial limitations of this article. It is not without reason that in the Russian Orthodox Church, when he died, ‘eternal memory’ was sung to him… The main thing is that Stalin looked after people in a fatherly manner. Stalin legitimately stands next to Suvorov!”324
“Ecclesiastical Stalinism” was the most horrific sign of the lack of repentance of the MP even now that it was free from Soviet oppression. That lack of repentance has continued and intensified in the first decade of the twenty-first century… Phenomena such as “ecclesiastical Stalinism” were the result, largely, of the return to power of the KGB, now renamed the FSB. For, as Preobrazhensky writes, “After the democratic reforms of the 1990s the KGB officers managed to get everything back. All the Directorates of the Soviet KGB are reunited now in today’s FSB, except two of them: the First, which managed intelligence, and the Ninth, which guarded the highest Communist bureaucrats. Both are formally independent, but keep close connections with the FSB… The former First Chief Directorate of the KGB is now called the Foreign Intelligence Service. It is successfully managing the operation ’ROCOR’”325 – that is, the absorption of ROCOR into the MP.326
Christopher Andrew and Vasily Mitrokhin confirm this assessment: “Ridiculed and reviled at the end of the Soviet era, the Russian intelligence community has since been remarkably successful at reinventing itself and recovering its political influence. The last three prime ministers of the Russian Federation during Boris Yeltsin’s presidency – Yevgeni Primakov, Sergei Stepashin and Vladimir Putin – were all former intelligence chiefs. Putin, who succeeded Yeltsin as President in 2000, is the only FCD [First Chief Directorate] officer ever to become Russian leader. According to the head of the SVR [Foreign Intelligence Service], Sergei Nikolayevich Lebedev, ‘The president’s understanding of intelligence activity and the opportunity to speak the same language to him makes our work considerably easier.’ No previous head of state in Russia, or perhaps anywhere else in the world, has ever surrounded himself with so many former intelligence officers. Putin also has more direct control of intelligence that any Russian leader since Stalin. According to Kirpichenko, ‘We are under the control of the President and his administration, because intelligence is directly subordinated to the President and only the President.’ But whereas Stalin’s intelligence chiefs usually told him simply what he wanted to hear, Kirpichenko claims that, ‘Now, we tell it like it is’.
“The mission statement of today’s FSB and SVR is markedly different from that of the KGB. At the beginning of the 1980s Andropov proudly declared that the KGB was playing its part in the onward march of world revolution. By contrast, the current ‘National Security Concept’ of the Russian Federation, adopted at the beginning of the new millennium, puts the emphasis instead on the defence of traditional Russian values: ‘Guaranteeing the Russian Federation’s national security
324 Dudko, “Mysli sviaschennika” (The Thoughts of a Priest), http://patriotica.narod.ru/history/dudko. 325 Preobrazhensky, “Ecumenism and Intelligence”. 326 Preobrazhensky, “Hostile Absorption of ROCOR”.
196 also includes defence of the cultural and spiritual-moral inheritance, historical traditions and norms of social life, preservation of the cultural property of all the peoples of Russia, formation of state policy in the sphere of the spiritual and moral education of the population…’ One of the distinguishing characteristics of the Soviet intelligence system from Cheka to KGB was its militant atheism. In March 2002, however, the FSB at last found God. A restored Russian Orthodox church in central Moscow was consecrated by Patriarch Aleksi II as the FSB’s parish church in order to minister to the previously neglected spiritual needs of its staff. The FSB Director, Nikolai Patrushev, and the Patriarch celebrated the mystical marriage of the Orthodox Church and the state security apparatus by a solemn exchange of gifts. Patrushev presented a symbolic golden key of the church and an icon of St. Aleksei, Moscow Metropolitan, to the Patriarch, who responded by giving the FSB Director the Mother God ‘Umilenie’ icon and an icon representing Patrushev’s own patron saint, St. Nikolai – the possession of which would formerly have been a sufficiently grave offence to cost any KGB officer his job. Though the FSB has not, of course, become the world’s first intelligence agency staffed only or mainly by Christian true believers, there have been a number of conversions to the Orthodox Church by Russian intelligence officers past and present – among them Nikolai Leonov, who half a century ago was the first to alert the Centre to the revolutionary potential of Fidel Castro. ‘Spirituality’ has become a common theme in FSB public relations materials. While head of FSB public relations in 1999-2001, Vasili Stavitsky published several volumes of poetry with a strong ‘spiritual’ content, among them Secrets of the Soul (1999); a book of ‘spiritual-patriotic’ poems for children entitled Light a Candle, Mamma (1999); and Constellation of Love: Selected Verse (2000). Many of Stavitsky’s poems have been set to music and recorded on CDs, which are reported to be popular at FSB functions.
“Despite their unprecedented emphasis on ‘spiritual security’, however, the FSB and SVR are politicized intelligence agencies which keep track of President Putin’s critics and opponents among the growing Russian diaspora abroad, as well as in Russia itself. During his first term in office, while affirming his commitment to democracy and human rights, Putin gradually succeeded in marginalizing most opposition and winning control over television channels and the main news media. The vigorous public debate of policy issues during the Yeltsin years has largely disappeared. What has gradually emerged is a new system of social control in which those who step too far out of line face intimidation by the FSB and the courts. The 2003 State Department annual report on human rights warned that a series of alleged espionage cases involving scientists, journalists and environmentalists ‘caused continuing concerns regarding the lack of due process and the influence of the FSB in court cases’. According to Lyudmilla Alekseyeva, the current head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, which has been campaigning for human rights in Russia since 1976, ‘The only thing these scientists, journalists and environmentalists are guilty of is talking to foreigners, which in the Soviet Union was an unpardonable offence.’ Though all this remains a far cry from the KGB’s obsession with even the most trivial forms of ideological subversion, the FSB has once again defined a role for itself as an instrument of social control…”327
327 Andrew and Mitrokhin, The KGB and the World. The Mitrokhin Archive II, London: Penguin, 2006,
197 95. THE MP’S “JUBILEE” COUNCIL
In August, 2000 the MP held a “Jubilee” Hierarchical Council which seemed at least partly aimed at removing some of the last obstacles towards ROCOR’s unification with it. These obstacles, as formulated by ROCOR during the decade 1990-2000 were: 1. Ecumenism, 2. Sergianism, and 3. The Glorification of the New Martyrs, especially the Royal New Martyrs.
1. Ecumenism
In the document on relations with the heterodox, which was composed by a small group of bishops and presented to the Council for approval on the first day, few concessions were made to the opponents of ecumenism, apart from the ritual declarations that “the Orthodox Church is the true Church of Christ, created by our Lord and Saviour Himself; it is the Church established by, and filled with, the Holy Spirit…” “The Church of Christ is one and unique…” “The so-called ‘branch theory’, which affirms the normality and even the providentiality of the existence of Christianity in the form of separate ‘branches’… is completely unacceptable.”
But, wrote Protopriest Michael Ardov (ROAC, Moscow), “the ‘patriarchal liberals’ will also not be upset, insofar as the heretics in the cited document are called ‘heterodox’, while the Monophysite communities are called the ‘Eastern Orthodox Churches’. And the ‘dialogues with the heterodox’ will be continued, and it is suggested that the World Council of Churches be not abandoned, but reformed…”328
Although there has been much talk about anti-ecumenism in the MP, it is significant that only one bishop, Barsanuphius of Vladivostok, voted against the document on relations with the heterodox (six Ukrainian bishops abstained).
The MP’s Fr. (now Metropolitan) Hilarion (Alfeyev) explained the origins of the document on ecumenism: “The subject of inter-Christian relations has been used by various groups (within the Church) as a bogey in partisan wars. In particular, it has been used to criticise Church leaders who, as is well known, have taken part in ecumenical activities over many years.” In Alfeyev’s opinion, “ecumenism has also been used by breakaway groups, such as the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and the Old Calendarists, to undermine people’s trust in the Church.” Therefore there was a need “for a clear document outlining the theological basis of the Russian Orthodox Church’s attitude towards heterodoxy, i.e. the question of why we need and whether we need dialogue with the non-Orthodox confessions, and if so which form this dialogue should take.” Alfeyev refused to answer the question whether the Council would discuss the matter of the participation of the MP in the WCC, but said that the patriarchate felt obliged to continue negotiations with Protestant and
pp. 490-492. 328 Ardov, “The ‘Jubilee Council’ has confirmed it: the Moscow Patriarchate has finally fallen away from Orthodoxy” (Report read at the 8th Congress of the clergy, monastics and laity of the Suzdal diocese of the Russian Orthodox [Autonomous] Church, November, 2000).
198 Catholic representatives in the WCC and to be a part of the ecumenical committee.329
After the Council, there was no let-up in the MP’s ecumenical activities. Thus on August 18, “Patriarch” Alexis prayed together with the Armenian “Patriarch”. And on April 21, 2005, he congratulated the new Pope Benedict XVI on his accession, and expressed the hope that he would strive to develop relations between the two churches. When asked how he evaluated Pope John Paul II’s ministry, he replied: “His Holiness’ teachings have not only strengthened Catholics throughout the world in their faith, but also borne witness to Christianity in the complex world of today.”330 After ROCOR joined the MP in 2007, the MP noticeably increased its ecumenical activities and its relationship with the Vatican continued to improve…
Deacon Nicholas Savchenko summed the MP’s degree of immersion in ecumenism as follows: “In an inter-confessional undertaking there are two degrees of participation. One case is participation with the authority of a simple observer, that is, of one who does not enter into the composition, but is only an observer from the side. It is another case when we are talking about fully-entitled membership in an ecumenical organization.
“Unfortunately, at the present time the ROC MP takes part in the activity of the WCC precisely as a fully-entitled member of the Council. It is precisely on this problem that I consider it important to concentrate attention. After all, it is the membership of the ROC MP in the WCC which most of all, willingly or unwillingly, encroaches upon the teaching of the faith itself and therefore continues to remain an obstacle to our [ROCOR’s] communion [with the MP]. It is possible to list a series of reasons why membership in the WCC is becoming such an obstacle.
“1. The first important reason consists in the fact that the ROC MP today remains in the composition of the highest leadership of the WCC and takes part in the leadership, planning and financing of the whole of the work of the WCC.
“Official representatives of ROC MP enter into the Central Committee of the WCC. The Central Committee is the organ of the Council’s administration. It defines the politics of the WCC, makes official declarations on the teaching of the faith and gives moral evaluations of various phenomena of contemporary life within the limits given to it by the church-members. The composition of the last CC of the WCC was elected at the WCC assembly in Harare in 1998. The official list of the members of the CC of the WCC witnesses that five members of the CC come from the MP, headed by Bishop Hilarion (Alfeyev). In all there are about 150 people in the CC, including 9 women priests, which we can see from the list of the members of the CC. The last session of the CC of the WCC with the participation of the representatives of the ROC MP took place at the end of August, 2003.
329 Church News, vol. 12, № 6 (88), July-August, 2000, p. 8. Alfeyev had already shown his ecumenist colours in his book, The Mystery of Faith (first published in Moscow in Russian in 1996, in English by Darton, Longman and Todd in 2002), which was strongly criticised from within the MP by Fr. Valentine Asmus. 330 Associated Press, April 21, 2005; Corriere della Sera, April 24, 2005.
199
“Besides participating in the CC, the representatives of the MP go into the make- up of the Executive Committee of the WCC, one of whose tasks is the direct leadership of the whole apparatus of the Council and the organization of all its undertakings. There are 24 people in the official list of the members of the Executive Committee of the WCC, including the MP’s representative Bishop Hilarion (Alfeev). Besides him, there are representatives of the Constantinopolitan Patriarchate, the Romanian Patriarchate and the American Autocephaly in the Executive Committee of the WCC. The last session of the Executive Committee with the participation of representatives of the MP took place at the end of August, 2003. At this last session a new ‘Committee for Prayer’ was formed. It was to occupy itself with the preparation of the text and rite of ecumenical prayers. There are 10 people in all in this committee, including a representative of the MP, Fr. Andrew Eliseev. Besides, the deputy president of the ‘Committee for Prayer’ is a Protestant woman priest. Because of this participation the ROC MP is inevitably responsible for all the decisions of the WCC that contradict the dogmatic and moral teaching of the Orthodox Church.
“2. The second reason for the incompatibility of membership of the WCC with the Church canons consists in the fact that the regulations of the Council presuppose the membership in it not of individual person-representatives, but precisely of the whole Local Church in all its fullness. Each Local Church in the WCC is considered in its complete fullness to be a member or a part of the heterodox community.
“In correspondence with the Basis of the WCC, it is a ‘commonwealth of Churches’. In this definition there is a significant difference from the original formulation offered by the commission on ‘Faith and Order’ in 1937, when the future WCC was offered as a ‘community of representatives of the Churches’. The difference is substantial. A community of the Churches themselves is not the same as a community of representatives of the Churches, as we said earlier. In the present case it turns out that the Orthodox Church is considered to be a part of a certain broader commonwealth under the name of the WCC. The legislative documents of the WCC even directly reject any other understanding of membership – after all, if it were not so, the Council would no longer be a Council of churches. And the declaration on entrance into the WCC is given in the name of a church, and not in the name of representatives. In the declaration the church asks that it itself be received into the composition of the WCC. The Council is not a simple association of churches. In the regulatory documents it is asserted that it is a ‘body’ having its own ‘ecclesiological meaning’, as is said about it directly in the heading of the Toronto declaration. The regulatory documents reject only the understanding of the Council as a ‘body’ in separation from the church-members. But in union with the church-members the Council is precisely a ‘body’ with its own ‘ecclesiological meaning’. And this ‘ecclesiological meaning’ of the WCC, by definition ‘cannot be based on any one conception of the Church’, as it says in point 3.3 of the Toronto declaration. That is, the Orthodox Church is considered in its fullness to belong to the ‘body’ with this ‘ecclesiological meaning’, which in accordance with the constitution cannot be Orthodox.
200
“Such an understanding of membership in the WCC as the membership of the whole Orthodox Church is contained in the documents on the part of the Local Churches. For example, we can cite the following quotation from the document ‘The Orthodox Church and the World Council of Churches’. This document was accepted at the session of the inter-Orthodoxy Consultation in 1991 in Chambésy. It says in point 4: ‘The Orthodox Churches participate in the life and activity of the WCC only on condition that the WCC is understood as a ‘Council of Churches’, and not as a council of separate people, groups, movements or religious organizations drawn into the aims and tasks of the WCC…’ (Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, 1992, № 1, p. 62).
“Such an understanding of the membership of the whole of the Orthodox Church in the WCC was earlier officially confirmed by the Pan-Orthodox Conferences. Thus the Pan-Orthodox Conference of 1968 formulated its relationship with the WCC in the following words: ‘To express the common consciousness of the Orthodox Church that it is an organic member of the WCC and her firm decision to bring her contribution to the progress of the whole work of the WCC through all the means at her disposal, theological and other.’ (Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, 1968, № 7, p. 51). The following, Third Pre-Conciliar Pan-Orthodox Conference confirmed this formulation in the same sense in the Russian translation. ‘The Orthodox Church is a complete and fully-entitled member of the WCC and by all the means at her disposal will aid the development and success of the whole work of the WCC’ (Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, 1987, № 7, p. 53). Although these formulations elicited disturbances at the time, nevertheless they have not been changed to the present day, insofar as only the Local Church herself can be a member of the WCC. Any other interpretation of membership is excluded. Either a Local Church is a member or part of the WCC, or it is not.
“From what has been said it turns out that membership in the WCC is not simply observation of the activity of the Council. Membership is precisely becoming a part of the ecumenical commonwealth. The ROC MP must not be a member of the WCC since this signifies becoming a member of the ecumenical movement.
“3. The third reason why membership in the WCC contradicts Orthodoxy is that membership inevitably signifies agreement with the constitutional principles of the WCC and its rules. For example, it says in the Constitution of the WCC (chapter 3) that the Council is created by the church-members to serve the ecumenical movement. Does this mean that the church-members must, or obliged in their fullness, to serve the ecumenical movement? It appears so. Further the Constitution of the WCC (chapter 3) describes the obligations of those entering the Council of churches in the following words: ‘In the search for communion in faith and life, preaching and service, the churches through the Council will… facilitate common service in every place and everywhere and… cultivate ecumenical consciousness’. From these words it follows directly that common preaching with the Protestants is becoming a constitutional obligation of the Orthodox Church. Obligations still more foreign to Orthodoxy are contained in the Rules of the WCC – a separate document that directly regulates the obligations of those entering into the Council of churches.
201 Chapter 2 of the Rules of the WCC is called ‘Responsibilities of membership’. The following lines are found in it. ‘Membership in the WCC means… devotion to the ecumenical movement as a constitutive element of the mission of the Church. It is presupposed that the church-members of the WCC… encourage ecumenical links and actions at all levels of their ecclesiastical life’. These words of the Rules of the WCC oblige the Orthodox Church to perceive the contemporary ecumenical movement with all its gross heresies and moral vices as a part of the life of the Orthodox Church.
“One more important constitutional document is the declaration ‘Towards a common understanding and vision of the WCC’. This document was accepted by the Central Committee of the WCC in 1997 with the participation of representatives of the Local Churches. It also contains views which are incompatible with the Orthodox teaching on the Church. In the first place this concerns how we are to understanding the term that is the cornerstone of the Basis of the WCC, that the Council is a ‘commonwealth of Churches’. In paragraphs 3.2 and 3.3 the meaning of the term ‘commonwealth’ is described in the following words: ‘The use of the term ‘commonwealth’ in the Basis really convinces that the Council is more than a simple functional association of churches… We can even say (using the words of the Resolution on ecumenism of the Second Vatican Council) that ‘real, albeit incomplete communion (koinonia) exists between them [the churches] already now’. From this quotation it follows directly that the church-members of the WCC are considered as entering into limited ecclesiastical communion with other members of the WCC with all their plagues and heresies. The document ‘Towards a common understanding and vision of the WCC’ in point 3.5.3 even directly extends this ecclesiastical communion to the whole Orthodox Church with all her people. The document says that this ecclesiastical communion in the Council ‘is not something abstract and immobile, it is also not limited by the official links between the leadership of the churches and their leaders or representatives. It is rather a dynamic, mutually acting reality which embraces the whole fullness of the church as the expression of the people of God’.
“The most important document of the WCC having a constitutional significance continues to remain the Toronto declaration – ‘The Church, the churches and the WCC’. On the basis of this document the Local Churches in the 1960s entered into the WCC. In it we also clearly see the principles that radically contradict Orthodoxy. Thus point 4.8 of the Toronto declaration declares: ‘The church- members enter into spiritual mutual relationships through which they strive to learn from each other and help each other, so that the Body of Christ may be built and the life of the Church renewed.’ Evidently, this principle of the ‘building of the Church of Christ’ contradicts the Orthodox teaching on the Church. However, it is precisely this, as we see here, that is inscribed in the foundation document of the WCC and can in no way be changed. Besides, the document in its conclusion says the following about the principles of the Toronto declaration, including the principle of the ‘building of the Body of Christ’: ‘Not one of these positive presuppositions which contain in themselves the basis of the World council are in conflict with the teachings of the church-members’.
202 “From what has been said we can draw the conclusion that membership in the WCC presupposes agreement with its constitutional principles, which contradict Orthodoxy. The ROC MP should not be a member of an organization whose constitutional principles contradict Orthodoxy… “331
2. Sergianism
The MP approved a “social document” which, among other things, recognised that “the Church must refuse to obey the State” “if the authorities force the Orthodox believers to renounce Christ and His Church”. 332 As we shall see, enormous significance was attached to this phrase by ROCOR. However, on the very same page we find: “But even the persecuted Church is called to bear the persecutions patiently, not refusing loyalty to the State that persecutes it”. We may infer from this that the MP still considers that its loyalty to the Soviet State was right and the resistance to it shown by the Catacomb Church was wrong. So, contrary to first appearances, the MP remained mired in sergianism. Sergianism as such was not mentioned in the document, much less repented of. This is consistent with the fact that the MP has never in its entire history since 1943 shown anything other than a determination to serve whatever appears to be the strongest forces in the contemporary world. Until the fall of communism, that meant the communists. With the fall of communism, the MP was not at first sure whom she had to obey, but gradually assumed the character of a “populist” church, trying to satisfy the various factions within it (including nominally Orthodox political leaders) while preserving an appearance of unity.
In this connection Frs. Vladimir Savitsky, Valentine (Salomakh) and Nicholas Savchenko write: “The politics of ‘populism’ which the MP is conducting today is a new distortion of true Christianity. Today this politics (and the ideology standing behind it) is a continuation and development of ‘sergianism’, a metamorphosis of the very same disease. Today it seems to us that we have to speak about this at the top of our voices. Other problems, such as the heresy of ecumenism and ‘sergianism’ in the strict sense, while undoubtedly important, are of secondary importance by comparison with the main aim of the MP, which is to be an ‘all- people’ Church, In fact, in the ‘people’ (understood in a broad sense, including unbelievers and ‘eclectics’) there always have been those who are for ecumenism and those who are against. Therefore we see that the MP is ready at the same time to participate in the disgusting sin of ecumenism and to renounce it and even condemn it. It is exactly the same with ‘sergianism’ (understood as the dependence of the Church on the secular authorities). The MP will at the same time in words affirm its independence (insofar as there are those who are for this independence) and listen to every word of the authorities and go behind them (not only because that is convenient, but also because it thus accepted in the ‘people’, and the
331 Savchenko, “Tserkov’ v Rossii i ‘Vsemirnij Soviet Tserkvej” (The Church in Russia and the World Council of Churches), Pravoslavnaia Rus’ (Orthodox Russia), № 2 (1743), January 15/28, 2004, pp. 10- 12. 332 Iubilejnij Arkhierejskij Sobor Russkoj pravoslavnoj tserkvi. Moskva 13-16 avgusta 2000 goda (The Jubilee Hierarchical Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, Moscow, 13-16 August, 2000), St. Petersburg, 2000, p. 159.
203 authorities are ‘elected by the people’). In a word, it is necessary to condemn the very practice and ideology of the transformation of the MP into a Church ‘of all the people’.”333
This analysis has been confirmed by events since the former KGB Colonel Putin came to power in January, 2000. The MP has appeared to be reverting to its submissive role in relation to an ever more Soviet-looking government, not protesting against the restoration of the red flag to the armed forces and approving the retention of the music of the Soviet national anthem.
There followed an official justification of Sergianism. Thus on July 18, 2002, the Moscow Synod ratified a document entitled “The relationships between the Russian Orthodox Church and the authorities in the 20s and 30s”, which declared: “The aim of normalising the relationship with the authorities cannot be interpreted as a betrayal of Church interests. It was adopted by the holy Patriarch Tikhon, and was also expressed in the so-called ‘Epistle of the Solovki Bishops’ in 1926, that is, one year before the publication of ‘The Epistle of the deputy patriarchal locum tenens and temporary patriarchal Synod’. The essence of the changes in the position of the hierarchy consisted in the fact that the Church, having refused to recognise the legitimacy of the new power established after the October revolution in 1917, as the power became stronger later, had to recognise it as a state power and establish bilateral relations with it. This position is not blameworthy; historically, the Church has more than once found herself in a situation in which it has had to cooperate with non-orthodox rulers (for instance, in the period of the Golden Horde or the Muslim Ottoman Empire).”334
However, Soviet power was very different from that of the Tatars or Ottomans, and “bilateral relations” with it, unlike with those powers, involved falling under the anathema of the Church. Moreover, if the Church at first refused to recognise Soviet power, but then (in 1927) began to recognise it, the question arises: which position was the correct one? There can be no question but that the position endorsed by the Russian Council of 1917-18 was the correct one, and that the sergianist Moscow Patriarchate, by renouncing that position, betrayed the truth – and continues to betray it to the present day through its symbiotic relationship with a government that openly declares itself the heir of the Soviet State.
On January 24, 2005 Metropolitan Cyril (Gundiaev) of Smolensk, head of the MP’s Department of Foreign Relations, confirmed that the MP does not condemn sergianism: “We recognize that the model of Church-State relations [in the Soviet period] did not correspond to tradition. But we are not condemning those who realized this model, because there was no other way of preserving the Church. The Church behaved in the only way she could at that time. There was another path into
333 Protopriest Vladimir Savitsky, Hieromonk Valentine (Salomakh) and Deacon Nicholas Savchenko, “Pis’mo iz Sankt-Peterburga” (Letter from St. Petersburg), Otkliki, op. cit., part 1, Paris, 2001, p. 92. 334 Moskovskij Tserkovnij Vestnik (Moscow Church Herald), №№ 14-15, pp. 243-244; quoted by Fr. Michael Ardov, http://portal-credo.ru/site/?act=english&id=13.
204 the catacombs, but there could be no catacombs in the Soviet space…”335 And yet the catacombs did exist “in the Soviet space” and produced a rich crop of sanctity…336
When Gundiaev became patriarch, his place as head of the Department for External Relations was taken by Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev), who made this startling revelation to the American ambassador in Russia, as revealed by Wikileaks: “A (or the) main role of the Russian Orthodox Church is in providing propaganda for the official politics of the government.”337
A clear example of how Sergianism continues to exist in practice is provided by the fact that the president of North Korea, Kim Chen Ir, though no friend of religion - in fact, religion is banned in North Korea – has nevertheless allow the MP to build a church to the Life-Giving Trinity in Pyonyang! Moreover, the beloved leader is devoting about $1,000,000.00 to its building! This is a country where millions of people are starving...
The question is: why should this avowed enemy of God be helping to build a church to the Life-Giving Trinity? Could it be that the black ryassas of Korean clergy could provide a good cover for exchanges between the beloved leader of the Korean masses and the beloved leader of the Russian masses? A clue is provided by the interesting fact that four students from North Korea have been studying in the Moscow theological seminary, and are now deacons in the MP, serving in the St. Nicholas cathedral in Vladivostok. And why have they come to Russia to study Orthodoxy? It seems they are quite frank in their reply to this question: they are in Russia at the command of their secular masters. "Orthodoxy comes to us with difficulty, but our great leader comrade Kim Chen Ir has taken the decision to build an Orthodox church in Pyonyang," declared Deacon Fyodor to journalists.
ROAC priest Fr. Michael Ardov has commented well on this: "This is the sin of dual faith, for which the Lord punishes more severely than for lack of faith. A Christian cannot at the same time bow down to the Lord and to the powers of darkness. In North Korea there reigns the cult of the family of the Kims, which is accompanied by barbaric rites. The bishop of Vladivostok Benjamin should not allow the North Korean double-faithers over the threshold of the church even under threat of his being banned from serving. It is in this that his episcopal duty lies, and not in fulfilling the commands of the bosses like a soldier. But he has prepared the latter, demonstrating sergianism in action. It is noteworthy that this same Bishop Benjamin, being a professor of the Moscow theological academy, is glorified as a strict zealot of Orthodoxy. His example shows why in principle there can be no good bishops in the Moscow Patriarchate..."338
335 Gundiaev, in Vertograd-Inform, № 504, February 2, 2005. 336 See V. Moss, The Russian Golgotha, Wildwood, Alberta: Monastery Press, 2006, volume 1: North- West Russia. 337 “Otkrovenie Tovarischa Alfeyeva” (A Revelation of Comrade Alfeyev), Nasha Strana (Buenos Aires), N 2907, January, 2010, p. 4. 338 Ardov, http://rocornews.livejournal.com/197515.html.
205 3. The New Martyrs
The major problems here from the patriarchate's point of view were the questions of the Royal Martyrs, on the one hand, and of the martyrs of the Catacomb Church who rejected Metropolitan Sergius, on the other. Non-royal martyrs killed before the schism with the Catacomb Church could be "safely" canonized. Thus in 1989, the MP canonized Patriarch Tikhon, and in 1992 it canonized three more martyrs and set up a commission to inquire into the martyrdom of the Royal Family, about which an MP publication wrote in 1998: “No less if not more dangerous as an ecclesiastical falsification is the MP’s Canonization Commission, headed by Metropolitan Juvenal (Poiarkov), which has suggested a compromise glorification of Tsar Nicholas Alexandrovich: ‘Yes, he was guilty of the tragedy on Khodynka field, he hobnobbed with Rasputin, he offended the workers, the country became backward. In general as a ruler of a state he was completely useless. Most important, he brought the country to revolution. But he suffered for Christ…’ Such a falsification will only continue that dirty stream of slander which the Christ-fighters began to pour out already long before 1917…”339
After nearly a decade of temporising, the MP finally, under pressure from its flock, glorified the Royal New Martyrs and many other martyrs of the Soviet yoke. Having unanimously rejected this canonization at their council in 1998, two years later they unanimously accepted it. The glorification of the Royal New Martyrs was a compromise decision, reflecting the very different attitudes towards them in the patriarchate. The Royal Martyrs were called “passion-bearers” rather than “martyrs”, and it was made clear that they were being glorified, not for the way in which they lived their lives, but for the meekness with which they faced their deaths. This allowed the anti-monarchists to feel that Nicholas was still the “bloody Nicholas” of Soviet mythology, and that it was “Citizen Romanov” rather than “Tsar Nicholas” who had been glorified - the man rather than the monarchical principle for which he stood.
As regards the other martyrs, Sergius Kanaev writes: “In the report of the President of the Synodal Commission for the canonisation of the saints, Metropolitan Juvenal (Poiarkov), the criterion of holiness adopted… for Orthodox Christians who had suffered during the savage persecutions was clearly and unambiguously declared to be submission ‘to the lawful leadership of the Church’, which was Metropolitan Sergius and his hierarchy. With such an approach, the holiness of the ‘sergianist martyrs’ was incontestable. The others were glorified or not glorified depending on the degree to which they ‘were in separation from the lawful leadership of the Church’. Concerning those who were not in agreement with the politics of Metropolitan Sergius, the following was said in the report: ‘In the actions of the “right” oppositionists, who are often called the “non- commemorators”, one cannot find evil-intentioned, exclusively personal motives. Their actions were conditioned by their understanding of what was for the good of the Church’. In my view, this is nothing other than blasphemy against the New Martyrs and a straight apology for sergianism. With such an approach the
339 Pravoslavie ili Smert’ (Orthodoxy or Death), № 8, 1998.
206 consciously sergianist Metropolitan Seraphim (Chichagov), for example, becomes a ‘saint’, while his ideological opponent Metropolitan Joseph of Petrograd, who was canonized by our Church, is not glorified. For us another fact is also important, that Metropolitan Seraphim was appointed by Sergius (Stragorodsky) in the place of Metropolitan Joseph, who had been ‘banned’ by him.”340
Other Catacomb martyrs were “glorified” by the MP because their holiness was impossible to hide. Thus the relics of Archbishop Victor of Vyatka were found to be incorrupt and now lie in a patriarchal cathedral – although he was the very first bishop officially to break with Sergius and called him and his church organization graceless! Again, the reputation of Metropolitan Cyril of Kazan was too great to be ignored, in spite of the fact that by the end of his life his position differed in no way from that of St. Victor or St. Joseph.
Some, seeing the glorification of the Catacomb martyrs by their opponents, remembered the Lord’s words: “Ye build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the sepulchres of the righteous, and say, ‘If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets’. Therefore ye bear witness against yourselves that ye are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up the measure of your fathers!” (Matthew 23.29-32).
This blasphemous canonisation of both the true and the false martyrs, thereby downgrading the exploit of the true martyrs, had been predicted by the ROCOR priest Fr. Oleg Oreshkin: "I think that some of those glorified will be from the sergianists so as to deceive the believers. 'Look,' they will say, 'he is a saint, a martyr, in the Heavenly Kingdom, and he recognized the declaration of Metropolitan Sergius, so you must be reconciled with it and its fruits.' This will be done not in order to glorify martyrdom for Christ's sake, but in order to confirm the sergianist politics."341
The main thing from the MP’s point of view was that their founder, Metropolitan Sergius, should be given equal status with the catacomb martyrs whom he persecuted. Thus in 1997 the patriarch said: “Through the host of martyrs the Church of Russia bore witness to her faith and sowed the seed of her future rebirth. Among the confessors of Christ we can in full measure name… his Holiness Patriarch Sergius.”342 And although By the time of the council of 2000, the MP still did not feel able to canonise Sergius – probably because it fears that it would prevent a union with ROCOR, neither did it canonise the leader of the Catacomb Church, Metropolitan Joseph of Petrograd. This suggested that a canonisation of the two leaders was in the offing, but depended on the success of the negotiations between the MP and ROCOR.
340 Kanaev, “Obraschenie k pervoierarkhu RPTsZ” (Address to the First Hierarch of the ROCOR), in Otkliki, op. cit., part 2, Paris, 2001, pp. 3-4 ; Iubilejnij Arkhierejskij Sobor (Jubilee Hierarchical Council), op. cit., pp. 43, 44. 341 "Ierei o. Oleg otvechaet na voprosy redaktsiii" (The Priest Fr. Oleg Replies to the Questions of the Editors), Pravoslavnaia Rus' (Orthodox Russia), № 23 (1452), December 1/14, 1991, p. 7. 342 Ridiger, in Fr. Peter Perekrestov, “The Schism in the Heart of Russia (Concerning Sergianism)”, Canadian Orthodox Herald, 1999, № 4.
207
The patriarch's lack of ecclesiastical principle and ecclesiological consistency in this question was pointed out by Fr. Peter Perekrestov: "In the introduction to one article ("In the Catacombs", Sovershenno Sekretno, № 7, 1991) Patriarch Alexis wrote the following: 'I believe that our martyrs and righteous ones, regardless of whether they followed Metropolitan Sergius or did not agree with his position, pray together for us.' At the same time, in the weekly, Nedelya, № 2, 1/92, the same Patriarch Alexis states that the Russian Church Abroad is a schismatic church, and adds: 'Equally uncanonical is the so-called "Catacomb" Church.' In other words, he recognizes the martyrs of the Catacomb Church, many of whom were betrayed to the godless authorities by Metropolitan Sergius's church organization…, and at the same time declares that these martyrs are schismatic and uncanonical!"343
For in the last resort, as Fr. Peter pointed out, for the MP this whole matter was not one of truth or falsehood, but of power: "It is not important to them whether a priest is involved in shady business dealings or purely church activities; whether he is a democrat or a monarchist; whether an ecumenist or a zealot; whether he wants to serve Vigil for six hours or one; whether the priest serves a panikhida for the victims who defended the White House or a moleben for those who sided with Yeltsin; whether the priest wants to baptize by immersion or by sprinkling; whether he serves in the catacombs or openly; whether he venerates the Royal Martyrs or not; whether he serves according to the New or Orthodox Calendar - it really doesn't matter. The main thing is to commemorate Patriarch Alexis. Let the Church Abroad have its autonomy, let it even speak out, express itself as in the past, but only under one condition: commemorate Patriarch Alexis. This is a form of Papism - let the priests be married, let them serve according to the Eastern rite - it makes no difference, what is important is that they commemorate the Pope of Rome."344
It is open to question whether the patriarchate's canonisation of even the true martyrs is pleasing to God. Thus when 50 patriarchal bishops uncovered the relics of Patriarch Tikhon in the Donskoj cemetery on April 5, 1992, witnesses reported that "it was even possible to recognise the face of the Patriarch from his incorrupt visage, and his mantia and mitre were also preserved in complete incorruption. Witnesses also speak about a beautiful fragrance and an unusual feeling of reverential peace at that moment. But then, as some patriarchal clerics confirm, on contact with the air the relics crumbled, or - as the Catacomb Christians remark - the relics were not given into the hands of the Moscow Patriarchate. Then they buried them in plaster - a blasphemous act from an Orthodox point of view..."345
The MP council’s documents were well characterised by the ROCOR clergy of Kursk as follows: “Everywhere there is the same well-known style: pleasing the ‘right’ and the ‘left’, the Orthodox and the ecumenists, ‘yours’ and ‘ours’, without the slightest attempt at definiteness, but with, on the other hand, a careful
343 Perekrestov, "Why Now?" Orthodox Life, vol. 44, № 6, November-December, 1994, p. 44. 344 Perekrestov, “Why Now?” op. cit., p. 43. 345 Eugene Polyakov, personal communication, April 5, 1992.
208 preservation of the whole weight of the sins of the past and present.”346 The “Jubilee Sobor” was final proof that the MP had not repented and could not repent unless its higher echelons were removed and the whole church apparatus was thoroughly purged.
346 “Obraschenie kurskogo dukhovenstva k mitropolitu Vitaliu” (Address of the Kursk Clergy to Metropolitan Vitaly), Otkliki, op. cit., part 3, p. 80.
209 96. “THE SECOND OCTOBER REVOLUTION”
In October, 2000, the Hierarchical Council of ROCOR took place in New York. In almost all its acts it represented a reaction to, and to a very large extent an approval of, the acts of the Moscow council. There were three conciliar epistles addressed: the first to the Serbian Patriarch Paul, the second “To the Beloved Children of the Church in the Homeland and in the Diaspora” and the third “To the Supporters of the Old Rites”.
The first of these epistles, dated October 26, declared that ROCOR and the Serbs were “brothers by blood and by faith” and that “we have always valued the eucharistic communion between our sister-Churches and the desire to preserve the consolation of this communion to the end of time”. And towards the end of the Epistle we read: “We beseech your Holiness not to estrange us from liturgical communion with you”.
It should be remembered that this was written only two years after ROCOR had officially reissued its anathema on ecumenism, and only a few months after the Serbian Patriarch himself had said that there was no communion between his Church and ROCOR, calling ROCOR a “church” only in inverted commas! Moreover, as recently as September, 2000, the official publication of the Serbian Church, Pravoslav’e, had reported that, at the invitation of the patriarchate there had arrived in Belgrade a Catholic delegation, which had made a joint declaration witnessing to the fact that Serbian hierarchs had been praying together with the Catholics for the last three weeks!347 So, having justly anathematised the Serbs as heretics, and having witnessed the continuation of their heretical activity, ROCOR was now begging to be brought back into communion with the heretics!
Why? The reason became clear later in the Epistle: “A miracle has taken place, the prayers of the host of Russian New Martyrs have been heard: the atheist power that threatened the whole world has unexpectedly, before our eyes, fallen! Now we observe with joy and hope how the process of spiritual regeneration foretold by our saints has begun, and in parallel with it the gradual return to health of the Church administration in Russia. This process is difficult and is not being carried forward without opposition. Nevertheless, a radiant indicator of it is the recent glorification of the New Martyrs of Russia headed by the slaughtered Royal Family and the condemnation of the politics of cooperation with the godless authorities which took place at the last Council of the Russian Church in Moscow.
“There still remain other serious wounds in the leadership of the Russian Church which hinder our spiritual rapprochement. Nevertheless, we pray God that He may heal them, too, by the all-powerful grace of the Holy Spirit. Then there must take place the longed-for rapprochement and, God willing, the spiritual union between
347 The Serbian bishops declared that “during these three days our sense of brotherhood in Christ was deepened through our [joint] prayer and work.” Also in 2000 the Catholic Archbishop of Zagreb celebrated a mass in a suburb of Novi Sad in northern Serbia which was attended by the local Orthodox bishop.
210 the two torn-apart parts of the Russian Church – that which is in the Homeland, and that which has gone abroad. We pray your Holiness to grant your assistance in this.”
So the ROCOR bishops – this letter was signed by all of them - were asking a heretic anathematised for ecumenism to help them to enter into communion with other anathematised ecumenists – their old enemies in Moscow, whom they now characterised in glowing and completely false terms as if they had already returned to Orthodoxy! Why, then, should the ROCOR bishops continue to speak of ecumenism as an obstacle to union with the MP? As the Kursk clergy pointed out: “It is not clear how long, in view of the declared unity with the Serbian patriarchate, this last obstacle [ecumenism] to union with the MP will be seen as vital.”348
The second of the epistles, dated October 27, made several very surprising statements. First, it again spoke of “the beginning of a real spiritual awakening” in Russia. Considering that less than 1% of the Russian population went to the MP, then, even if the spiritual state of the MP were brilliant, this would hardly constitute “awakening” on any significant scale.
Moreover, as Demetrius Kapustin pointed out, the supposed signs of this awakening – the greater reading of spiritual books, the greater discussion of canonical and historical questions in the MP – are not good indicators of real spiritual progress: “It is evident that the reading of Church books can bring a person great benefit. However, a necessary condition for this is love for the truth. The Jews also saw Christ, and spoke with Him, but they did not want humbly to receive the true teaching, and not only were they not saved, but also took part in the persecutions and destroyed their own souls. It is the same with many parishioners of the MP. On reading books on the contemporary Church situation, many of them come to the conclusion that sergianism and ecumenism are soul-destroying. However, these doubts of theirs are often drowned out by the affirmations of their false teachers, who dare to place themselves above the patristic tradition. Satisfying themselves with a false understanding of love (substituting adultery with heretics and law-breakers for love for God, which requires chastity and keeping the truth) and obedience (substituting following the teaching of false elders for obedience to God and the humble acceptance of the patristic teaching, and not recognizing their personal responsibility for their own Church state), they often take part in the persecutions and slander against the True Orthodox. In a word, even such good works as the veneration of the Royal Martyrs are often expressed in a distorted form (by, for example, mixing it with Stalinism, as with the ‘fighter from within’ Dushenov)”.
Kapustin then makes the important point that “an enormous number of people… have not come to Orthodoxy precisely because they have not seen true Christianity in the MP (alas, in the consciousness of many people in Russia the Orthodox Church is associated with the MP). In my opinion, the MP rather hinders than
348 “Obraschenie kurskogo dukhovenstva k mitropolitu Vitaliu” (Address of the Kursk Clergy to Metropolitan Vitaly), Otkliki, op. cit., part 3, p. 79.
211 assists the spiritual awakening of the Russian people (if we can talk at all about any awakening in the present exceptionally wretched spiritual condition of Russia).”349
Secondly, ROCOR’s epistle welcomed the MP’s glorification of the New Martyrs, since “the turning of the whole Russian people in prayer to all the holy New Martyrs of Russia and especially the Royal new martyrs… had become possible now thanks to the recognition of their holiness by the Hierarchical Council of the Moscow Patriarchate”. As if the Russian people had not already been praying to the Holy New Martyrs in front of icons made in ROCOR for the past twenty years!
Moreover, as Protopriests Constantine Fyodorov and Benjamin Zhukov wrote, “the possibility of turning in prayer to the Russian New Martyrs was opened to the people not by the Moscow Patriarchate (as is written in our Hierarchical Council’s Epistle), but by the martyric exploit of these saints themselves, who were glorified by our Church in 1981. The prayer of the Russian people to these saints never ceased from the very first day of their martyric exploit, but was strengthened and spread precisely by the canonization of the Church Abroad.”350
Thirdly: “We are encouraged by the acceptance of the new social conception by this council, which in essence blots out the ‘Declaration’ of Metropolitan Sergius in 1927”.351
And yet in the MP’s “social conception” Sergius’ declaration was not even mentioned, let alone repented of. In any case, how could one vague phrase about the necessity of the Church disobeying the State in certain exceptional cases (which was contradicted on the same page, as we have seen) blot out a Declaration that caused the greatest schism in Orthodox Church history since 1054 and incalculable sufferings and death?! Two years later, as we have seen, in July, 2002, the Synod of the MP, far from “blotting out” the declaration, said that Sergius’ relationship to the Soviet authorities was “not blameworthy”, so not only has the MP not repented for sergianism, but it has continued to justify it, contradicting the position of the Catacomb new martyrs whom it has just glorified and who gave their lives because of their opposition to sergianism.
The epistle, which was signed by all the bishops except Barnabas, obliquely recognised this fact when it later declared: “We have not seen a just evaluation by the Moscow Patriarchate of the anti-ecclesiastical actions of Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) and his Synod and their successors”. If so, then how can we talk
349 Kapustin, “Raz’iasnenia Episkopa usilili somnenia” (The Explanations of the Bishop have Increased Doubts), Otkliki, op. cit., part 3, p. 66. Kapustin was actually commenting on Bishop Evtikhy’s report to the Council. However, since the Council in its epistle accepted Evtikhy’s report almost in toto, and repeated many of his points, the remarks on the bishop’s report apply equally to the conciliar epistle. 350 Fyodorov, Zhukov, “Ispovedanie iskonnoj pozitsii RPTsZ” (The Confession of the Age-Old Position of the ROCOR), Otkliki, op. cit., part 3, p. 46. 351 Again, it was Bishop Evtikhy’s report that played the vital role here: “We simply no longer notice it, one phrase from the Social Doctrine is sufficient for us” (A. Soldatov, “Sergij premudrij nam put’ ozaril” (Sergius the Wise has Illumined our Path), Vertograd, № 461, 21 May, 2004, p. 4).
212 about Sergius’ Declaration being blotted out?!
The third epistle, addressed to the Old Ritualists without distinguishing between the Popovtsi and Bespopovtsi, was similarly ecumenist in tone, beginning with the words: “To the Believing children of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Homeland and in the diaspora, who hold to the old rite, the Council of bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad sends greetings! Beloved brothers and sisters in our holy Orthodox faith: may the grace and peace of the Man-loving Saviour be with you to the ages!”
It was one thing to remove the bans on the old rites, as ROCOR had done in its Council in 1974: it was quite another to recognise the schismatics as Orthodox. And in such terms! For later in the epistle ROCOR compares the persecutions of the Old Ritualists to the persecutions of St. John Chrysostom, and begs forgiveness of the Old Ritualists as the Emperor Theodosius the Younger had begged it of the holy hierarch! But, as Bishop Gregory Grabbe pointed out after the 1974 Council, the sins of the Russian State in persecuting the Old Ritualists in the 17th century should not all be laid on the Church of the time, which primarily condemned the Old Ritualists not for their adherence to the old rites (which even Patriarch Nicon recognised to be salvific), but for their disobedience to the Church. To lay all the blame for the schism, not on the Old Ritualists but on the Orthodox, even after the Old Ritualists had proudly refused to take advantage of the many major concessions made by the Orthodox (for example, the edinoverie) while stubbornly continuing to call the Orthodox themselves schismatics, was to invert the truth and logically led to the conclusion that the Orthodox Church was not the True Church!
As clergy of the Kursk diocese pointed out: “The conciliar epistle to the Old Ritualists, in our opinion, is not only an extremely humiliating document for the Orthodox Church, but also contains signs of a heterodox ecclesiology. Effectively equating the Old Ritualists with the confessors of Orthodoxy, the Hierarchical Council, first, leaves them with their convictions, thereby blocking the path to repentance, and secondly, either teaches that outside the Orthodox Church there can exist true confession, or considers that the Church can be divided into parts which for centuries have not had any eucharistic communion between themselves. Both in form and in spirit the epistle in question represents a complete break with the patristic tradition of the Orthodox Church…. It seems that all that remains to be added is the request: ‘We humbly beseech you to receive us into your communion and be united to the Holy Church.”352
The feelings of the protestors were summed up by Fr. Stefan Krasovitsky and Roman Vershillo, who said that a “revolution” had taken place, and that “if we are to express the meaning of the coup shortly, then there took place, first, a moral disarmament, and secondly, the self-abolition of ROCOR as a separate part of the Russian Local Church…
352 “Obraschenie kurskogo dukhovenstva k mitropolitu Vitaliu” (Address of the Kursk Clergy to Metropolitan Vitaly), Otkliki, op. cit., part 3. pp. 81-82, 76.
213 “Alas, [it] is composed in such a way that it is not actually clear who has really fallen into schism from the Church: we or our errant Old Ritualist brothers!”353
For ROCOR the writing was now on the wall. The October, 2000 Council constituted a clear break with the traditional attitude towards the MP and World Orthodoxy adopted by Metropolitans Anthony, Anastasy and Philaret, as well as Vitaly in his last years. Only a clear renunciation of that clear break with the True Orthodox tradition could keep the children of ROCOR within the Church and Faith of their fathers…
The man who personally promoted the union and steered it to completion, an idea first mooted by Archbishop Mark in 1997 and by Archbishop Laurus on July 17, 1999354, was the President of Russia, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, the former KGB Lieutenant-Colonel who had begun his career spying on church dissidents in Leningrad and now capped his career as a destroyer of church freedom by ensnaring ROCOR into the coils of his own puppet-church, the Moscow Patriarchate…
Putin’s regime even included some of the most irreconcilable enemies of Soviet power. Thus probably his greatest coup was his enticement, in 2007, of the fiercely anti-communist Russian Church Abroad (ROCOR) under Metropolitan Lavr into union with the MP under Gundiaev. In this operation Putin himself took an important personal part, coming to New York to be photographed between the two hierarchs.
We have seen how this process began in the ROCOR Council of October, 2000. But almost immediately a rebellion broke out… Several bishops inside Russia (but none outside) withdrew their signatures from the October Council decisions. Among them were Archbishops Lazarus and Benjamin, whose Russian True Orthodox Church (RTOC) was augmented by the consecration of several more bishops in 2003. Then, on June 10, 2004 the RTOC Synod issued the following statement: “The Union of ROCOR with the MP is taking place through the political leadership of the Russian Federation and special services, and is the result of the New York Synod’s loss of freedom. This neo-sergianist act subjects the Church to antichristian powers and is an ecclesiastical crime analogous with the action of Metropolitan Sergius, and even more serious [thatn that] since it was committed voluntarily, and not under compulsion. The words of Hieromartyr Pachomy of Chernigov, spoken by him concerning Metropolitan Sergius and his Synod, apply completely to the Synod of Metropolitan Lavr: ‘Metropolitan Sergius is a complete slave, an obedient weapon in the hands of Soviet institutions… well-known to us, and it has completely lost its moral-ecclesiastical authority… In a word, the Holy Church has never before experienced such humiliation and abuse’.
353 Krasovitsky, Vershillo, “Esche raz o sergianstve” (Once More about Sergianism), Otkliki, op. cit., part 2, p. 52. 354 Fr. Benjamin Zhukov, Appeal to the West European Clergy, December 15, 2000; Church News, vol. 12, № 9 (91), p. 4.
214 “The union of ROCOR and the MP is being accomplished on the orders of the world’s behind-the-scenes government, being a necessary part of the accomplishment of the plan for the world’s antichristian globalization. This union strengthens the post-Soviet regime of the Russian Federation, gives it a church blessing. The regime which is carrying out the dechristianization of the Russian people, a campaign for its moral corruption, and is encouraging its physical dying- out, is declared by the Synod of ROCOR-L to be Christian and Orthodox… Thus ROCOR-L is consciously taking part in a fake regeneration of Russia and the Russian Church. The New York Synod, having blessed this regime and declared it to be ‘helping the spiritual regeneration of Russia’, has committed a terrible crime against the Christian conscience.” 355
355 http://www.catacomb.org.ua/modules.php?name=Pages&go=page&pid=2069.
215 97. PUTIN’S REVOLUTION: (1) POLITICS AND ECONOMICS
Orthodox monarchist writers, such as Archbishop Averky (Taushev) and Archimandrite Konstantin (Zaitsev) often used to that the only hope for the salvation of mankind from its rapid descent into Satanism was the return to power of the Russian Orthodox Autocracy. Monarchist sentiment was returning to Russia at the turn of the millennium, as we have seen. But then there appeared the last phase of the Russian revolution, Putinism.
“On 31 December 1999, Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned and, according to the Constitution of Russia, Putin became Acting President of the Russian Federation. On assuming this role, Putin went on a previously scheduled visit to Russian troops in Chechnya.
“The first Presidential Decree that Putin signed, on 31 December 1999, was titled ‘On guarantees for former president of the Russian Federation and members of his family’. This ensured that ‘corruption charges against the outgoing President and his relatives’ would not be pursued. This was most notably targeted at Mabetex bribery case in which Yeltsin's family members were involved. On 30 August 2000, a criminal investigation (number 18/238278-95) was dropped in which Putin himself was one of suspects as a member of the Saint Petersburg city government. On 30 December 2000 yet another case against the prosecutor general was dropped ‘for lack of evidence’, in spite of thousands of documents passed by Swiss prosecutors… The case of Putin's alleged corruption in metal exports from 1992 was brought back by Marina Salye, but she was silenced and forced to leave Saint Petersburg.
“While his opponents had been preparing for an election in June 2000, Yeltsin's resignation resulted in the Presidential elections being held within three months, on 26 March 2000; Putin won in the first round with 53% of the vote.
“The inauguration of President Putin occurred on 7 May 2000… The first major challenge to Putin's popularity came in August 2000, when he was criticized for the alleged mishandling of the Kursk submarine disaster. That criticism was largely because it was several days before Putin returned from vacation, and several more before he visited the scene.”356
The criticism Putin received for the Kursk disaster shocked him, and convinced him that his first task was to muzzle the free press – which he did… Then, from 2003 he began to reverse the main gains of the liberal 1990s – religious freedom, and a more open and honest attitude to the Soviet past. Churches were seized from True Orthodox Christians and their websites hacked; elections were rigged, independent journalists were killed; independent businessmen were imprisoned on trumped-up charges; new classroom history books justifying Stalinism were introduced; the red flag and hammer and sickle were restored to the armed services, as well as the melody (if not the words) of the Soviet national anthem.
356 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin.
216
In many ways, Putin’s regime resembled Hitler’s in the 1930s. Thus youth organizations similar to the Hitler Youth were created357, and young people were encouraged to breed (in specially provided tents) so as to halt the decline in Russia’s population. Not in vain was he nicknamed “Putler”…
In spite of that, Putin called his type of rule “sovereign democracy”. That meant, on the one hand, that Russia was a democratic nation, just like other democratic nations of the West, and on the other, that Russia would not be pushed around by the West – hatred of America is perhaps Putin’s deepest motive (after money- making). Here the decisive factor is the still-unexorcised demons of the Cold War, and the burning desire of the loser (Putin calls the fall of the USSR a “geopolitical tragedy”) to take revenge on the victor, like the seventh head of the beast who is defeated and wounded but miraculously recovers (Revelation 13.3).
The real meaning of “sovereign democracy”, however, was that authoritarianism was back - sovereignty in Russia belonged now, not to the people, but to one man, Putin. In the words of the German journalist Boris Reitschuster, this was what one might call “democratura”. 358 Or, as Yegor Kholmogorov put it, Putin had a “mandate from heaven” in the image of the Chinese emperors.
What this means in practical terms was demonstrated in 2008, when Putin came to the end of his two terms (the maximum allowed) as democratically-elected President of Russia. In that period, he had successfully muzzled the media and subjected the regions to the centre; so he could now move forward to “surrendering” power, while in fact guaranteeing his continuance in it. Thus at a nod from him, Dmitri Medvedev was put forward as candidate for the presidency from Putin’s “United Russia” party, and was then elected in a thoroughly fraudulent election. Putin himself became prime minister, but remained the eminence grise behind the scenes – and in 2012 returned as President in a “lawful” and “constitutional” manner. But that he was still in charge while Medvedev was President was demonstrated in 2010, when, as Kasparov writes, “and advisory panel set up by… Medvedev released a report full of grand liberalization ideas. As positive as this may sound, the institute’s chief, Igor Yurgens, then admitted in an interview that in the end ‘Putin will make any decision he likes’, and that ‘free elections are impossible in Russia today because the Russian population is politically ignorant, passive and dislikes democracy.’ His conclusion was that therefore ‘Mr. Putin and Mr. Medvedev should decide’ who was to be president!”359
Putin’s popularity in the 2000s was largely owing to the fact that the country was growing richer. He was not responsible for that: already in 1999, GDP had grown 10%, and in the 2000s the world price for oil rose over 700%. Most of that wealth was taken by Putin and his new generation of oligarchs. However, enough filtered down to the bureaucracy and the middle class to keep them, at any rate, happy.
357 Edward Lucas, The New Cold War, London: Bloomsbury, 2008, p. 102. 358 Kasparov, op. cit., p. 182. 359 Kasparov, op. cit., pp. 201-202
217
“The oligarchs of the 1990s,” writes Kasparov, “may have been robbing Russia bling, but at least we could find out about it in the press. Those days are over and the elite circle of oligarchs around Putin have power and riches beyond the dreams of Yeltsin’s entourage. In 2000, when Putin took charge, there were no Russians in the Forbes magazine list of the world’s billionaires. By 2005 there were thirty-six. In 2008 there were eighty-seven, more than Germany and Japan combined, in a country where 13 percent of our citizens were under a national poverty line of $150 a month…
“According to the 2015 numbers, even after a year of Western sanctions and plunging oil prices, there are still eighty-eight Russian billionaires on the Forbes list, which still doesn’t list Putin or several of his closest cronies. I find it impossible to believe that a man like Putin who holds the power of life and death over eighty- eight billionaires is not the richest of them all. The occasional leaks about mysterious Black Sea mansions and enormous bank transfers to nowhere add more circumstantial evidence to the case that by now Putin is likely the richest man in the world…”360
Banking on the high price of Russian oil, Putin began to rebuild Russia’s economic and military might in the 2000s – but imbalances within the economy hindered the diversification he needed. He also had to keep the oligarchs and Mafiosi on his side. That is, as the “boss of bosses”, he had to keep his hand in organized crime.
Misha Glenny has demonstrated in his important book McMafia, that the growth of trade liberalization and globalization in the 1990s engendered an enormous explosion in organized crime throughout the world. It now constitutes not only a significant part of world economic output, but also a distinct threat to the sovereignty of nations. Whether we are speaking about drug-trafficking (Colombia, Mexico), people-trafficking (China), counterfeiting (North Korea), gold (India), protection rackets (Japan), guns and bombs (North Korea), banking fraud (Brazil), oil (Nigeria, Libya) or diamonds (South Africa), in each sphere we see both enormous profits and penetration of governments and security forces. The cost not only in taxes but in ruined lives has been particularly horrendous especially in the case of drug- trafficking; here the criminals have consistently triumphed over the governments; even the war on drugs waged by the United States is judged by experts to have been a total failure, to the extent that decriminalisation – i.e. surrender – is being seriously put forward as the only “solution”.
360 Kasparov, op. cit., p. 185. Putin’s wealth was estimated in 2007 at about $40 billion. See Luke Harding, “Putin, the Kremlin power struggle and the $40bn fortune”, The Guardian, December 21, 2007, pp. 1-2. But in 2013 the Sunday Times estimated it at $130 billion, twice that of Bill Gates (http://artemov-igor.livejournal.com/227037.html). In 2012, the former Kremlin adviser Stanislav Belkovsky revised it upwards to $70 blllion (Rob Wile, “Is Vladimir Putin secretly the Richest Man in the World?” Money, January 23, 2107, https://uk.news.yahoo.com/vladimir-putin-secretly-richest- man-171217146.html). Browder revised that estimate upwards again: “Is Putin the world's real richest man? After 17 years in power, Russian leader has a '$200 billion fortune, 58 planes and helicopters and 20 palaces and country retreats” Daily Mail, February 20, 2017, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4242718/Vladimir-Putin-200-billion- fortune.html#ixzz4ZKELKhAz.
218
We have seen how in the 1990s the growth of organized crime in Russia penetrated and overwhelmed not only the elected government, but even the mighty KGB; the boundaries between business, law enforcement and the Russian mafia became hard to make out; and the power of the Russia mafia spread also to places like Israel and Hungary. Putin made great electoral capital out of his claims to control these oligarchs and mafiosi. And indeed, some of the oligarchs of the 1990s – those who refused to buckle under to Putin, like Berezovsky and Gusinsky (in the media) and Khodorkovsky (in oil) – were indeed tamed, imprisoned, or expelled. Thus Glenny writes: “In the 1990s, the oligarchs and gangsters clearly controlled the Kremlin. Under Vladimir Putin, who systematically used popular hostility to the oligarchs to strengthen his political position as President, the situation was reversed: criminal and oligarch interests were subordinate to state interests. It does not follow that Putin and friends persecuted criminals or dispensed with corrupt practices. On the contrary, they flourished as before but they are now much more carefully controlled. Of course, it is often difficult to tell who is truly running the show – the chicken or the egg!”361
Whoever truly runs the show, it is clear that the financial interests of Putin and his friends play an increasingly important in his conduct of international affairs. Thus the new American National Security Adviser, General Macmaster, said in May, 2016 that “Russia invaded Ukraine without being punished, established dominance over this territory and then turned the situation in such a way as to pretend that we and our allies are escalating matters.” The general drew attention to the complex strategy employed by Moscow, which was based on a combination of two factors – ‘the usual forces’ and, under their cover, ‘the much more complex campaign bound up with the use of criminality and organized crime.’”362
Indeed, the long post-Soviet campaign of the KGB to undermine Ukrainian independence, which involved attempts to assassinate pro-western politicians, appears to have owed as much to “turf wars” between Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs as to anything else.363
Of course, the purely political desire to restore the Soviet empire to its pre-1992 boundaries, was another very important motive. But it is very difficult to disentangle such supposedly “pure” political motives from financial ones. Thus there can be little doubt that the oligarchs that control such monstrous State-mafia companies as Gazprom and Rosneft are vitally interested in acquiring complete control over the oil and gas pipelines that pass through Ukraine. Other wars that
361 Glenny, McMafia, pp. 98-99. 362 “Sovietnikom Trumpa po natsbezopasnosti stal ideologom vojny s Rossiej” (Trump’s counselor on security has become an ideologue of war with Russia), Kavkaztsentr, February 21, 2017, http://www.kavkazcenter.com/russ/content/2017/02/21/114276/sovetnikom-trampa-po- natsbezopasnosti-stal-ideolog-vojny-s-rossiej.shtml. 363 Аndrei Illarionov, “Boevoj put’ FSB v Ukraine” (The martial path of the FSB in Ukraine), Online Kiev, June 10, 2014, http://kiev-online.net.ua/politika/andrei-illarionov-boevoi-put-fsb-v- ukrai.html.
219 Putin has conducted – in Chechnya, in Georgia and in Syria – also “coincidentally” happen to have important pipelines passing through them. If the United States is sometimes accused of conducting wars in the Middle East for the sake of oil interests, the same can be said with still greater confidence about Russia.
Anton Grigoriev writes: “Few are those who take account of the fact that criminality in the 2000s was not conquered, but integrated. In Putin’s time, not only have the Chechens become the greatest patriots of the Russian Federation, but also the Russian ‘thieves in law’. Who, let us say, will now fail to call Joseph Kobzon, not only Russian, and a member of ‘One Russia’ [Putin’s political party] but also a loyal patriot loyal to the authorities? But in the 1990s Kobzon was one of the deputies who did not enter into any of the deputies’ groupings, was not a member of the party of power of that time, and was forbidden entry into the USA, with which the Russian Federation at that time entertained the best official relations. Since 1995 he had been forbidden entry because of suspicions that he was linked with organized crime. Several attempts to get an American visa, including with the help of diplomatic channels, let to nothing. But in the 2000s Kobzon became a political figure of pan- national reputation – the president of the Culture Committee of the State Duma from ‘One Russia’, and deputy-president of the Committee for Information Politics. That is, he became one of the authorities.
“In the 1990s there was unorganized crime. In the 2000s this turned into the vertically integrated backbone of the new order.”364
*
But if Putin undoubtedly turned the tables on the mafia, or integrated himself with them to such an extent that he became “the boss of bosses” and the richest of them all, whose interests (apart from his own) did he ultimately represent?
There can be only one possible answer to that question: the KGB/FSB. As Martin Sixsmith writes, “In December 1999,… Vladimir Putin went to celebrate his election victory with his old comrades at the FSB. When the toasts came round and Putin proposed they should drink ‘To Comrade Stalin’ there was a shocked silence followed by a loud cheer. Putin opened his celebratory speech by jokingly telling his former colleagues: ‘The agent group charged with taking the government under control has completed the first stage of its assignment.’…”365
“The agent group” now moved on very quickly to the next stage: the re- establishment of the former USSR’s military power. Thus, as Masha Gessen writes, only his second decree “established a new Russian military doctrine, abandoning the old no-first-strike policy regarding nuclear weapons and emphasizing a right to use them against aggressors ‘if other means of conflict resolution have been exhausted or
364 Grigoriev, “Banditizm 1990-kh godov i novij poriadok pri Putine” (Banditry in the 1990s and the new order under Putin), October 16, 2016, http://anton- grigoriev.livejournal.com/1684413.html?utm_source=fbsharing&utm_medium=social. 365 Sixsmith, The Litvinenko File, London: Macmillan, 2007, p. 302.
220 deemed ineffective’. Soon another decree re-established mandatory training exercises for reservists (all Russian able-bodied men were considered reservists) – something that had been abolished, to the relief of Russian wives and mothers, after the country withdrew from Afghanistan. Two of the decree’s six paragraphs were classified as secret, suggesting they might shed light on whether reservists should expect to be sent to Chechnya. A few days later, Putin issued an order granting forty government ministers and other officials to classify information as secret, in direct violation of the constitution. He also re-established mandatory military training in secondary schools, both public and private; this subject, which for boys involved taking apart, cleaning, and putting back together a Kalashnikov, had been abolished during perestroika. In all, six of the eleven decrees Putin issued in his first two months as acting president concerning the military. On January 27 [Prime Minister] Kasyanov announced that defense spending would be increased by 50 percent – this in a country that was still failing to meet its international debt obligations and was seeing most of its population sink further and further into poverty…”366
Such an order could only mean one thing: that having returned to power after its temporary eclipse in the 1990s, the KGB was returning to the perennial expansionist goals of Soviet politics. Of course, Russia in 2000 was incomparably weaker than it had been even as recently as 1990. But the train was now back on the rails leading to the same goals as Lenin and Stalin had put before themselves.
However, certain changes in tactics and methods were now deemed necessary in order to “modernize” the revolution.
First, the old ideology of Marxism-Leninism had to be ditched. It was out-of-date and obviously false. Of course, telling lies had never been a problem for Soviet leaders and propagandists; but if the whole world saw that the Emperor had no clothes, it was time to discard the Emperor – or give him some new clothes. This was not to say, however, that old methods of the control of the press and other media were to be abandoned. Nor was the population, still saturated in Soviet modes of thinking, necessarily against such methods. According to a 2005 survey, 42% of the Russian people, and 60% of those over sixty, wanted the return of “a leader like Stalin.”367 Their wish had been granted… Thus in July, 2006, the Duma passed two laws allowing the secret services to eliminate “extremists” in Russia and on foreign territory, and defining “extremism” to include anyone “libellously critical of the Russian authorities”.
Again, old friends still stuck in the old Marxist ways were not discarded. So Zyuganov’s Russian Communist Party, as well as Zhirinovsky’s nationalist “Liberal Democrats”, would be given cosy and honoured places in the new order – so long as they did not present a serious threat to Putin’s “One Russia”, but remained a loyal (extremely loyal) “opposition”. (In fact, these opposition parties have been extremely useful to Putin. The Communists have kept the poor old pensioners onside, while
366 Gessen, The Man without a Face. The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin, London: Granta, 2013, pp. 153- 154. 367 Orlando Figes, “Vlad the Great”, New Statesman, 3 December, 2007, p. 34.
221 Zhirinovsky has been used to air outrageous opinions and policies which Putin adheres to but which he does not want to espouse publicly.) Moreover, old comrades abroad such as the North Koreans and Cubans, and especially the Chinese, would remain comrades, of course.
But if the old Soviet ideology would be discarded, Soviet patriotism remained a compulsory element of the new order. Hence the return of the melody of the Soviet hymn, the red flag in the armed forces, the resurrection of the pioneers, etc. And, especially, the mythology of the “Great Patriotic War”, which has been pumped as never before (not even Stalin used it, because of its nationalist connotations).
Indeed, any doubting of that mythology would now become a criminal offence. Thus Dmitri Volchek writes: “’One Russia’ proposes imprisonment for people who spread false information about the activity of the USSR during the war.
“A final version of a bill forbidding the rehabilitation of Nazism is ready. It was worked out by the ‘One Russia’ fraction in the Duma. The coordinator of the patriotic platform of OR, the president of the Committee for Security Irina Yarovaia, considers it necessary to punish people for ‘denial of fact and approval of crimes established by a sentence of the International Military Tribunal, as well as the distribution of knowingly false information about the activity of the USSR during the Second world war connected with accusing people of committing crimes established by the publicly determined sentences of the International Military Tribunal.
“Yarovaia proposes punishing such crimes with a fine of up to 300,000 roubles or imprisonment up to three years. It is proposed that the same actions carried out with the use of one’s service status or of the media should be punished with a fine of up to 100,000 – 500,000 rubles or a prison term of up to five years. In previous editions of the bill there was no mention of the USSR; it was a matter only of banning the declaration of the actions of the anti-Hitler forces as criminal. ‘Criticism of the USSR is threatened with prison,’ warns the newspaper Vedomosti. ‘If the bill is passed, will not historians occupied with the investigation of the crimes of Stalinism find themselves on the bench of the accused?’”368
Secondly, since the merging of the government, the bureaucracy, the KGB and the mafia was steadily advancing, there could be no question of cutting Russia off from the world economy; for the mafia derived most of its ill-gotten gains from outside Russia, and had invested heavily there in houses, yachts, football clubs, companies, their children’s education, etc. Of course, this also made the new regime vulnerable to sanctions and to simple operations such as the cutting off of links with western banks. And the recent sharp decline in the Russian economy as a result of sanctions applied after the invasion of Ukraine has been a serious worry for Putin.
However, it was precisely the New Russians’ openness to the West that allowed them to infiltrate it to a degree that Soviet spies could only have dreamed of.
368 Volchek, “Kvazireligia Velikoj Pobedy” (The Quasi-religion of the Great Victory), Radio Svoboda, February 7, 2014, http://www.svoboda.org/a/25255849.html.
222
Already in the liberal 1990s an increase in KGB activity in Britain was reported as compared with the Soviet period – and this at a time when so many people thought that the KGB no longer existed! In the 2000s and 2010s the spying and the propaganda barrage increased exponentially; foreign-language TV channels such as “Russia Today” beamed into millions of western homes, and began to produce significant fruits. Thus in Germany it was reported that as a result of Russian propaganda the populace had begun to move away from seeing Washington as the main friend of the country, and that Moscow was moving close to taking Washington’s place in the ratings. Again, polls show that four NATO countries – Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria and Slovenia – would prefer that Russia come to their aid in time of war than the US.369
Only China rivals Russia’s ability to infiltrate state institutions, corporations and major infrastructure (nuclear power stations, for example) through cyber warfare. Belatedly, NATO has decided to pour more money into combatting this deadly threat, which could give victory to Russia in any future war. Western Europe is particularly vulnerable to Russian hacking and cyber-spying; only Britain’s GCHQ at Cheltenham provides significant defence capacity against this new type of warfare. Thus in 2016, after the Russians backed a failed coup attempt against the government of Montenegro, the Montenegrins asked for British help in their cyber war with Moscow.370
But old-fashioned types of spying remained effective. Indeed, perhaps the most spectacular coup in this field, with incalculable consequences for the future, took place in 2013, when, as is now credibly argued by historians and experts, the present president of the United State, Donald Trump, was caught in a classic honeytrap and probably blackmailed into serving the Russians. Thus the Russian-American historian Yury Felshtinsky wrote on the eve of Trump’s electoral victory in 2016: “The behavior of Trump in relation to Russia fits into the schema of an agent’s behavior. I shall immediately qualify myself: I have no proofs that he is an agent of Putin. But the whole of his behavior points exclusively to this schema. Agent Trump is not allowed to criticise Putin; he is not allowed to criticise the foreign policy of Russia; he is not allowed to raise the question of the Russian invasion of the Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea; he is not allowed to encourage the strengthening of NATO and opposition to Russian aggression in Europe; he is not allowed to criticise Russian interference in the civil war in Syria.
“Trump is allowed to criticise American policy in relation to Syria and Iraq; to call for the weakening of NATO and the American withdrawal from Europe, Japan and the Muslim East; to call for the smoothing of relations with Russia and the restructuring (in reality, the worsening) of relations with Mexico, on the one hand, and with China, on the other.
369 Khorasan, “Chetyre strany NATO predpochli by Soedinennym Shtatam” (Four Countries of NATO would prefer Russia to the United State), Ortodoksiya, February 21, 2017, http://www.ortodoksiya.ru/single-post/opros-instituta-Gallup. 370 Ben Farmer, “Montenegro’s plea for UK Help in Cyber War”, The Daily Telegraph, March 1, 2017, p. 2.
223
“There remains only one winner from the foreign policy programme written for Trump in the Kremlin (which I also cannot prove): Putin.
“I don’t know how Trump was recruited (perhaps during his visit to Moscow in 2013 to conduct a beauty contest.1) But I know for certain that he was recruited…”1
If this hypothesis proves to be true, then it points to the deepest and highest penetration yet into the fortress of the West by the Russian revolution, and the possible fulfilment of the prophecy of Elder Ignaty of Harbin (+1958): “What began in Russia will end in America.”
Trump and Putin are both essentially crooked businessmen turned politicians. Trump is a real-estate businessman (with several bankruptcies to his name); Putin is in the same business (he owns a fabulous number of palaces) but with a finger in the pie of almost every other form of organized crime. They unite through their common worship of Mammon – but with Putin as the senior partner controlling the Russian- American organized crime syndicate – and most of the world’s nuclear weapons... 371
In this connection, we should recall that Leninism and banditism have existed in the closest symbiosis ever since Stalin robbed the Tbilisi bank and the Sochi post office to provide Lenin with funds for revolutionary terror in the early 1900s. The victims in the 1920s were the nobles, the industrialists and the Church, in the 1930s - the peasants, the generals and the Old Bolsheviks, in the 1940s - the Germans, the Crimean Tatars and other conquered peoples, and in the 1990s - all small-time investors and account-holders. In the 2000s it was the oligarchs’ turn: in true Leninist style, Putin “expropriated the expropriators”.
The gap between the richest and the poorest in Russia became the highest in the world except in some Caribbean islands. State institutions and services, such as education and health, were starved of funds. The only notable exceptions were the armed forces and security services, which received vast increases reminiscent of Hitler’s rearming in the 1930s. Moreover, he increased the numbers of bureaucrats, 78% of whom are now KGB372, and increased their pay. In this way he guaranteed their support, a tactic he borrowed from the Bolsheviks in the Civil War period…
371 It may also be the fulfillment of George Orwell’s quasi-prophetic allegory, Animal Farm, which describes the conflict between the Communists (the pigs) and the Capitalists (the humans) – and their final reconciliation. In the novel's final scene, a deputation of neighboring farmers are given a tour of the farm, after which they meet in the dining-room of the farmhouse with Napoleon (a type of Stalin) and the other pigs. Mr. Pilkington makes a toast to Animal Farm and its efficiency. Napoleon then offers a speech in which he outlines his new policies: The word "comrade" will be suppressed, there will be no more Sunday meetings, the skull of old Major has been buried, and the farm flag will be changed to a simple field of green. His greatest change in policy, however, is his announcement that Animal Farm will again be called Manor Farm. Soon after Napoleon's speech, the men and pigs begin playing cards, but a loud quarrel erupts when both Napoleon and Pilkington each try to play the ace of spades. As Clover and the other animals watch the arguments through the dining-room window, they are unable to discriminate between the humans and the pigs… 372 Alexander Podrabinek, “Chekisty na marshe. Vlast’ i Tserkov’, Radio Svoboda, May 29, 2015.
224 98. PUTIN’S REVOLUTION: (2) RELIGION
A third major change of tactics that Putin’s revolution has necessitated is in relation to religion… In order to understand this change, we must first inquire into Putin’s personal religion (if he has any)…
When Putin became president, he presented himself as “all things to all men”: a communist to the communists, a capitalist to the capitalists, a democrat to the democrats, a nationalist to the nationalists, and an Orthodox to the Orthodox. And yet Putin is no believer. On September 8, 2000, when asked by the American television journalist Larry King whether he believed in God, he replied: “I believe in people…”
This refusal to confess a faith in God is not surprising. It should be remembered, as Konstantin Preobrazhensky points out, that Putin “began his career not in the intelligence ranks but in the ‘Fifth Branch’ of the Leningrad Regional KGB, which also fought religion and the Church. Putin carefully hides this fact from foreign church leaders, and you will not find it in any of his official biographies… The myth of Putin’s religiosity is important for proponents of ‘the union’. It allows Putin to be characterized as some Orthodox Emperor Constantine, accepting the perishing Church Abroad under his regal wing. For his kindness we should be stretching out our arms to him with tears of gratitude…”373
“For those who claim,” writes Professor Olga Ackerly, “that the ‘CIS is different from the USSR’ and Putin is a ‘practising Orthodox Christian’, here are some sobering facts. The first days and months Putin’s presidency were highlighted by the reestablishment of a memorial plaque on Kutuzovsky Prospect where Andropov used to live. The plaque was a symbol of communist despotism missing since the 1991 putsch, bearing Andropov’s name – a former head of the KGB, especially known for his viciousness in the use of force and psychiatric clinics for dissidents. On May 9, 2000, Putin proposed a toast to the ‘genius commander’ Iosif Stalin and promoted many former KGB officers to the highest state positions…
“Important to note is that the Eurasian movement, with ties to occultism, ecumenism, etc. was recently revived by Putin, and a Congress entitled ‘The All- Russian Political Social Movement’, held in Moscow in April of 2001, was ‘created on the basis of the Eurasist ideology and inter-confessional [sic!] harmony in support of the reforms of President Vladimir Putin.’ The movement is led by Alexander Dugin, a sexual mystic, National Bolshevik Party member, son of a Cheka cadre, personally familiar with the so-called ‘Black International’, advisor to the State Duma, and participant in Putin’s ‘Unity’ movement.”374
Again, while claiming to be a devout Orthodox Christian, as George Sprukts writes,
373 Preobrazhensky, KGB/FSB’s New Trojan Horse: Americans of Russian Descent, North Billerica, Ma.: Gerard Group Publishing, 2008, p. 97; KGB v russkoj emigratsii, p. 102. 374 Ackerly, “High Treason in ROCOR: The Rapprochement with Moscow”, pp. 21, 25.
225
“1) he lights menorahs when he worships at his local synagogue;
“2) he has worshipped the mortal remains of Kin Il Sung in North Korea;
“3) he has worshipped the mortal remains of Mahatma Gandhi;
“4) he ‘believes not in God, but in Man’ (as he himself has stated);
“5) he was initiated into an especially occult form of ‘knighthood’ in Germany;
“6) he has restored the communist anthem;
“7) he has restored the bloody red rag as the RF’s military banner;
“8) he has not removed the satanic pentagram from public buildings (including cathedrals);
“9) he has plans of restoring the monument to ‘Butcher’ Dzerzhinsky;
“10) he has not removed the satanic mausoleum in Red Square nor its filthy contents.”375
Although Putin is clearly not an Orthodox Christian, he has many reasons for pretending to be one and for protecting the official Orthodox church. First, the MP hierarchs are his partners in organized crime and fellow agents in the KGB. This is illustrated by the activities of “the tobacco metropolitan”, now Patriarch Cyril Gundiaev, KGB Agent “Mikhailov”, who imports tobacco and alcohol duty-free and is now one of the richest men in Russia.376
The MP’s enormous property portfolio, of which the hotel Danilovskaia is only one small element, is beginning to elicit unfavourable comment in the country. However, Putin is not yet ready to throw his colleagues to the wolves; besides, they are useful to him in important ways.
Thus Patriarch Cyril is useful, first, as a diplomat serving the interests of Putin. He does a considerable amount of external diplomacy, mainly among church leaders, both Orthodox and heterodox, but also with State leaders.
375 Sprukts, “Re: [paradosis] A Russian Conversation in English”, [email protected], 24 June, 2004. In 2013 Putin went to Israel, put on a Jewish skull-cap and prayed at the Wailing Wall. It seems that he approved of the idea of rebuilding the Jewish Temple… 376 “In 1995, the Nikolo-Ugreshky Monastery, which is directly subordinated to the patriarchate, earned $350 million from the sale of alcohol. The patriarchate's department of foreign church relations, which Cyril ran, earned $75 million from the sale of tobacco. But the patriarchate reported an annual budget in 1995-1996 of only $2 million. Cyril's personal wealth was estimated by the Moscow News in 2006 to be $4 billion." (http://news-nftu.blogspot.com, February, 2009)
226 For example, he has always maintained cordial relations with the Communist revolutionary Fidel Castro, and in 2016 he chose to meet the Pope in Cuba! A French comment on this meeting: "Cuba is at the same time a Catholic and a Communist land. Thus neither side had the feeling of going to Canossa." Indeed, this is the essence of the matter. Patriarch Cyril did not come to the meeting as a representative of Orthodoxy, but as a representative of Putin. This was a meeting of states, not of Churches.
Still more important is Cyril’s role as cheerleader for Putinism. Although the continuance in power of the heretical and deeply corrupt MP is a matter of deep sorrow for all truly Orthodox Christians, nevertheless there can be no denying that there has been a sharp growth in Orthodox religiosity in Russia since 1991. So millions of sincere if deluded people are ready to follow their leader wherever he points – whether it is in condemning the Ukrainian “schismatics” who reject the authority of the MP, or in hypocritically condemning the West for its lack of Christian values, or in praising the “holy wars” in Georgia, Ukraine and Syria, or in hailing the All-Holy Putin as the Saviour of Orthodoxy, the new St. Constantine.
Putin’s holier-than-thou propaganda campaign began in about 2006, at just the time that he was preparing his invasion of fellow Orthodox Georgia. It intensified during the Kievan counter-revolution in 2013 and in Russia’s invasion of Crimea and Ukraine in 2013. Putin’s problem here is: the extreme moral degradation of contemporary Russian society is plain for all to see. For under the watch of Putin and Gundiaev, these profoundly immoral moralists, Russia’s already shocking statistics on a wide variety of social indices – social equality, corruption, alcoholism, drug-taking, child mortality, suicide – have got worse, making her comparable only to some of the poorest and most corrupt nations of the Third World.
Thus according to United Nations statistics cited by Vladimir Ruscher, occupies the following positions in the world league tables:
1st in suicides of adults, children and adolescents; 1st in numbers of children born out of wedlock; 1st in children abandoned by parents; 1st in absolute decline in population; 1st in consumption of spirits and spirit-based drinks; 1st in consumption of strong alcohol; 1st in tobacco sales; 1st in deaths from alcohol and tobacco; 1st in deaths from cardiovascular diseases; 2nd in fake medicine sales; 1st in heroin consumption (21st in world production).
These statistics show that as regards general criminality, theft, corruption and murder (including abortion), Russia is very near the top of the world league, and this not least because the government itself has taken the lead in it, making Russia into a mafia state run by and for a small clique of fantastically rich criminals. Thus the general picture is one of extreme moral degradation.
227
The most obvious explanation for this is that during Soviet rule religious faith and morality was persecuted. However, Putin deals with this problem by putting the blame exclusively on the Yeltsin period (because that was the most westernizing). Before Yeltsin, as he argued in 2012 in a speech to the Federal Assembly, Soviet society had been distinguished by “charity, compassion and sympathy” (!) “Today,” however, “Russian society has an obvious deficit in spiritual bonds, a deficit in everything that made us at all times stronger, more powerful, in which we always prided ourselves – that is, such phenomena as charity, compassion and sympathy… The situation that has been created is a consequence of the fact that some 15 to 20 years ago ‘the ideological stamps of the former epoch’ were rejected… Unfortunately, at that time many moral signposts were lost…”
However, at the Valdai forum in 2013 Putin said: “Many Euro-Atlantic countries have de facto gone down the path of the rejection of… Christian values. Moral principles are being denied… What could be a greater witness of the moral crisis of the human socium than the loss of the capacity for self-reproduction. But today practically all developed countries can no longer reproduce themselves. Without the values laid down in Christianity and other world religions, without the norms of ethics and morality formed in the course of millennia, people inevitably lose their human dignity. And we consider it natural and right to defend these values.”377
The strange thing about this statement is that Putin seems entirely unconscious of the fact that with regard to the “Christian value” that he cites here, “self- reproduction”, Russia performs worse than any western country. Thus even after taking migration into account, the twenty-eight countries of the European Union have a natural growth in population that is twice as high as Russia’s! And if he is referring not to the balance between the birth rate and the death rate, but to homosexuality as a factor that by definition inhibits reproduction, then the situation is little better in Russia than in the West.
For in spite of Putin’s much-vaunted ban on pro-gay propaganda to minors, the vice remains legal among adults. Thus many in Putin’s entourage are homosexual; during the Winter Olympiad there were two openly gay bars in Sochi; while a marriage between two women was recently registered officially in Moscow.378 Homosexuality even flourishes in places from which it should have been banished first of all. Thus among the three hundred bishops of the Moscow Patriarchate, 50 according to one estimate (Fr. Andrei Kuraiev) and 250 according to another (Fr. Gleb Yakunin), are homosexuals. It is even claimed that promotion up the hierarchical ladder of the MP is possible only by serving the sexual needs of a bishop higher up the ladder…
*
377 Andrei Movchan, “Rossia i Zapad: kto moral’nee?” (Russia and the West: who is more moral?”), http://slon.ru/russia/rossiya_i_zapad_kto_moralnee-1114248.xhtml, June 17, 2014. 378 “V Moskve pozhenili dvukh nevest” (In Moscow two brides were married), http://www.kp.ru/daily/26270/3148680/
228
Like all Soviet leaders, Putin shows a marked antipathy to the West, and steadfastly proclaims that his country is morally superior to it. Probably the main reason why so many Orthodox Christians – and not only Orthodox Christians379 - support him, is his claim to be restoring “Christian values” to Russia by contrast with “Eurosodom” and the decadent West…. “We have to give him a chance,” is the view. And if he succeeds, then Christianity as a whole is the winner…
Of course, the West has only itself to blame for this. Thus its decision to join the civil war in Syria on the side of the Sunni rebels has enabled Putin to put himself forward as the champion, not only of the Shiites, but also of those Christians who have suffered at the hands of the rebels. Again, the West’s mindless pursuit of the LGBT agenda that has enabled Putin to portray himself as the champion of traditional Christianity. Of course, the irony is mind-boggling: the KGB, the biggest killer of Christians in history, which has regularly used well-trained heterosexual and homosexual prostitute-spies to pursue its ends, is now hailed as the champion of traditional Christian values!… But the level of historical knowledge in the West is now so low that younger generations in America, for example, scarcely have the first idea of what the Russian revolution and the KGB was.
“’Russia has been using this issue to develop a constituency in Muslim and African countries,’ says Mark Gevisser, an Open Society fellow who is writing a book on the global debate on gay rights. ‘This brand of ideological moral conservatism was originally minted in the US. It is highly ironic that these countries are mounting an anti-western crusade using a western tool. Moscow plays on opposition to gay rights most effectively closer to home. Last November, when it looked like the Ukrainian Viktor Yanukovych was close to signing an Association Agreement with the European Union, billboards appeared across the country warning that the ‘EU means legislating same-sex marriage’ [‘EURO=HOMO’]. The campaign was paid for by Ukraine’s Choice, a group associated with the Kremlin- connected politician and businessman Viktor Medvedchuk.”380
On the face of it, Putin’s devotion to “traditional Christian values” seems genuine. As Steve Turley writes, “In Russia, there have been over 15,000 churches rebuilt since the end of communism. Article 148 of the Russian criminal code, which Vladimir Putin signed in June of 2013, threatens prison sentences of up to three years for “insulting the feelings of Christian believers.” And on the very day that law was passed, a law was approved that prohibits so-called “homosexual propaganda.” And of course, the laws against offending the church were used to incarcerate the punk rock band Pussy Riot when they desecrated two churches with lewd and inappropriate behavior. Putin has banned abortion ads, and signed legislation banning abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy, all the while the Russian Orthodox Church is calling for an all-out ban of abortions.”381
379 See the American conservative evangelical Pat Buchanan, “Whose Side is God on Now?”, http://buchanan.org/blog/whose-side-god-now-6337, April 4, 2014. 380 Owen Matthews, “Putin’s Masterplan”, The Spectator, 22 February, 2014, pp. 12-13. 381 Turley, “The Reawakening of Christian Civilization in Eastern Europe”, Katehon, January 19, 2017, http://katehon.com/article/reawakening-christian-civilization-eastern-europe.
229
But if we look more closely, we see many reasons to question this judgement. Take the issue of abortions. Although the rate of abortions has fallen (as in other parts of Orthodox Eastern Europe, such as Georgia), there are some anomalies. Thus on January 22, 2012, the patriarch made an interesting proposal in the Russian Duma: to increase the rate that doctors charge for abortions. This would have the pleasing consequences of squeezing the rich (not the really rich, like himself, but the middle classes) and reducing the rate of abortions, thereby slowing down the catastrophic fall in Russia’s population. How moral! How financially prudent! How farsightedly caring about the demography of the Russian nation! Not a word, however, about the fact that abortion – any abortion, carried out for any or no price – is murder, and condemns the abortionist to eternity in hell-fire! Not a word about the fact that Russia is number one in the world for numbers of abortions per head of population. And not a word about the fact that (as the present writer has seen with his own eyes) placards outside churches proclaim it is possible to buy absolution from the sin of abortion from MP priests for a tidy sum of money; so that the jingle about the medieval papacy now applies equally to the Moscow Patriarchate:
As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, The soul from purgatory springs…
Like his predecessor, Patriarch Cyril is financially interested in the abortion business – and in a most bizarre way. Thus “one can have an abortion and restore one’s virginity in the medical centre ‘Alternative’, which operates on the territory of the ‘Danilovskaia’ hotel attached to the Danilov monastery of the ROC MP in the centre of Moscow, reports a correspondent of Portal-Credo.Ru. Very close to the hotel can be found the official residence of Patriarch Cyril (Gundiaev) and the Department of Foreign Ecclesiastical Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate.
“’If it turns out that the birth of a child forms no part of your plans, then it is necessary to reduce the consequences of termination of pregnancy to a minimum,’ it says on the page of the medical centre on the territory of the hospital “Danilovskaia”, which is dedicated to abortions and emergency terminations. Surgical and non-surgical methods of termination are offered, and abortion, it points out, ‘is always a hormonal stress for the organism’.
“The re-establishment of virginity is offered on the centre’s site as one of the services of aesthetic and intimate surgery. The site points out that the ‘foremother’ of this operation can be considered to be the goddess of love and beauty Aphrodite, who regularly dived into a special pool, ‘from which she emerged on the bank as a chaste virgin again’…” 382
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382 “Na territorii gostinitsy ‘Danilovskaia’ pri glavnom patriarshem monastyre RPTs MP mozhno sdelate abort i vosstanovit’ devstvennost’”, Portal-Credo.Ru, 9 March, 2012.
230 Putin’s regime claims to be the successor not only of the RSFSR and the USSR but also of the pre-revolutionary Russian Orthodox Empire. It may be described as neo- Soviet and neo-Fascist, without Marxism but with “Orthodoxy”. It draws support from a heady mixture of conflicting constituencies: nationalists and democrats and monarchists, conservative Orthodox and pagan mystics and dyed-in-the-wool atheists, westerners and capitalists, mafiosi and Slavophiles. Putin aims to find a place in his grasping heart for all the Russias of the last century. Only one condition is attached: that Putin’s regime is accepted as the lawful successor of all previous Russian regimes. This is a condition that no truly Orthodox Christian can accept; but Cyril accepts it with enthusiasm, and thereby provides an inestimable support to the new “Tsar”, the new Emperor of the supposedly resurrected Third Rome…
231 99. THE ABOLITION OF MAN
Now that the twentieth century has passed into the twenty-first, Cultural Marxism has passed into a new phase so extreme as to appear almost unbelievable to members of the older generation, such as the present writer. The most important ideas of this new phase, which is continuing to develop at break-neck speed, are: multiculturism, transgenderism and infantilism. Multiculturism tries to destroy the last vestiges of Christian culture by submitting it to non-Christian, especially Islamic cultures. Transgenderism tries to destroy the most basic - biologically-based – differences between human beings. Infantilism tries to destroy human nature itself in its most fundamental aspect – the ability to act as rational, free adults.
However, the descent of Homo Sapiens into Homo Infantilis and Asexualis is only the first stage of the revolution. The second, more seductive stage, is the supposed ascent of Homo Sapiens (now already transformed into Homo Infantilis) to Homo Deus – the deification of man through purely atheist, mainly scientific means. Let us study the main aspects of this dual revolution as it has developed in the last quarter-century.
*
The Norwegian blogger Hanne Nabintu Herland writes: “Multiculturalism – many cultures living side by side with none of them taking the lead – has in essence turned out quite differently than then utopian dreamers and naïve neo-Marxists initially hoped for when they started out implementing this theory in the 1960’s. Instead, multiculturalism has slowly robbed ordinary Europeans of pride in their own culture, many now feeling discriminated against in their own countries. Today, we watch how the tensions are building up in Europe and clashes happening now on an almost daily basis.
“Over the past decade the opponents of multiculturalism have multiplied. Leading politicians like Angela Merkel, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy have all condemned this neo-Marxist strategy of integration that equates the ideals of other cultures with European traditional values in Europe. The idea was that Europeans should not uphold their own cultural roots on their own soil, but instead listen humbly to new immigrants and accept their traditional norms and customs in the name of diversity. Whoever protested, has quickly, over the years been labelled ‘racist’ or ‘intolerant’, causing the person to quickly be silenced.
“The French philosopher, Jacques Derrida is often called the father of multiculturalism. He developed the theory of deconstruction, implying that power structures come in pair: one weak, the other strong. For example, the pair of man – woman, white – black, European – African/Asian. His desire to tone down the ‘strong in the pair’ was done by giving ‘the weak’ extra rights. Among the many mistakes that the neo-Marxist Derrida did, in his quest to tear down the traditional structures of the European society, was naively believing that ‘Europeans’ are always the strong part and ‘Africans – Asians’ always the weak part in the West. So, his theories legitimized a discrimination against Europe’s population, insinuating
232 that their perspectives are uninteresting and that only the perspectives of ‘the weak’ – that is the non-Western foreigner – had the right to strongly voice his beliefs...”383
Multiculturism in Europe usually means the triumph of Islam over the indigenous Christian culture. The blame for this must lie, first of all, on Christian leaders, who, with very few exceptions, have shown a spineless defeatism in the face of the Muslim threat and a shameful surrender of their own professed faith. The invasion of Europe by Muslim immigrants, and the vast inroads they have made into the Christian population, is both a consequence of, and punishment of, this Christian spinelessness. Experience shows that when Muslims reach about 20% of any nation’s population, they become uncontrollable, with no-go areas for whites (especially blonde female whites), sharia law operating in parallel with constitutional law, the take-over of schools and universities, the censoring of all anti-Muslim comment. It looks as if Sweden has already reached this stage – helped, of course, by the exceptionally liberal ideology of the Swedish state.384
The growth of Muslim influence in the West is rapid and inevitable for one simple reason: the Muslims have large families, whereas westerners prefer to abort their children. Almost all the countries of Europe now have rapidly aging populations and demographic growth rates well below that which would sustain the dominance of white, non-Muslim populations. But the suicidal ideologies of abortion and gay rights, not to mention ecumenism, continue to hold sway in European minds… Essentially, the battle to stop the Muslims’ internal take-over of the West has already been lost. There is no way western governments can now stop this short of resorting to civil war against the Muslim population – or building a wall between whites and Muslims on the model of Israel’s wall along the West Bank. But this is not only not remotely practical: it is excluded by the human rights ideology adhered to by almost all western leaders.
However, the Europeans, we are told, have a strategy! Actually, it is the strategy of complete and unconditional surrender. The German Chancellor Angela Merkel signified the triumph of this strategy when in 2015 she opened the gates of her country (and through that, of the rest of Europe) to massive, unprecedented and more-or-less uncontrolled migration – if “migration” is the right word, as opposed to “invasion” - from the Muslim Middle East. Already the government measures this has necessitated – such as turning German citizens out of their own properties in order to accommodate migrants – as well as the totally unacceptable behaviour of some migrants – such as defecating in public places, and demanding the services of prostitutes at government expense – has created bitter opposition to her policies, and she is beginning a small and hesitant retreat from them. But the game is up; the enemy is already within the gates; there is essentially nothing that the West European states can do except accept the inevitable. As the saying goes: “If you can’t beat them, join them.”
383 Herland, “Multiculturalism as a neo-Marxist, radical invention of the 1960’s is rendering Europe in total chaos”, http://www.hannenabintuherland.com/themiddleeast/hanne-nabintu-herland- multiculturalisms-failure-in-europe/ 384 https://www.facebook.com/PaulJosephWatson/videos/1538856029475212/?pnref=story.
233
However, it is a little different in Eastern Europe. Hungary’s President Orban has defied Germany’s “moral imperialism”, as he puts it, and refuses to let the Muslims settle in his country. Slovakia has agreed to take migrants, but only if they are Christians – the only country so far that seems to be concerned to protect Christian civilization. The Romanians say, quite reasonably, that if they cannot absorb their Gipsy Roma population, how can they be expected to take in untold numbers of anti-Christian Muslims? Meanwhile, the Bulgarians, in a quiet but determined fashion, have built a wall along their frontier with Turkey…
Greece is in a different position again. Completely helpless to stop the flood of Muslims crossing the Aegean Sea by boat, but entirely dependent on the EU to sustain their vast debt, the Greeks can only look on hopelessly as their Orthodox culture is invaded and destroyed. The Marxist government of Tsipras has reneged on its promise to leave the EU if the Europeans did not release them from their debts. So a “Grexit” seems unlikely in the near future. In any case, the atheist socialist, quasi-totalitarian ideology of the EU is close to the heart of the atheist Marxist Greek government.
Multiculturism usually goes together in the minds of liberals with ecumenism, LGBT fanaticism and Islamophilia. Paradoxically, the Muslims are far from multicultural or ecumenical, wishing to impose the exclusive truth of Islam and sharia law wherever they settle. Nor do they approve – in theory - of LGBT. But the LGBT fanatics turn a blind eye to that…
Melanie Phillips describes how, since 1991, the implementation of the gay rights and LGBT agenda has in effect destroyed Christian civilization in the West: “As communism slowly crumbled, those on the far Left who remained hostile towards western civilization found another way to realize their goal of bringing it down.
“This was what might be called ‘cultural Marxism’. It was based on the understanding that what holds a society together are the pillars of its culture: the structures and institutions of education, family, law, media and religion. Transform the principles and you can thus destroy the society they have shaped.
“The key insight was developed in particular by an Italian Marxist philosopher called Antonio Gramsci. His thinking was taken up by Sixties radicals – who are, of course, the generation that holds power in the West today.
“Gramsci understood that the working class would never rise up to seize the levers of ‘production, distribution and exchange’ as communism had prophesied. Economics was not the path to revolution.
“He believed instead that society could be overthrown if the values underpinning it could be formed into their antithesis: if its core principles were replaced by those of groups who were considered to be outsiders or who actively transgressed the moral codes of that society.
234 “So he advocated a ‘long march through the institutions’ to capture the citadels of culture and turn them into a collective fifth column, undermining from within and turning all the core values of society upside-down.
“This strategy has been carried out to the letter.
“The nuclear family has been widely shattered. Illegitimacy was transformed from a stigma into a ‘right’. The tragic disadvantage of fatherlessness was redefined as a neutrally viewed ‘lifestyle choice’.
“Education was wrecked, with its core tenet of transmitting a culture to successive generations replaced by the idea that what children already knew was of superior value to anything the adult world might foist upon them.
“The outcome of this ‘child-centred’ approach has been widespread illiteracy and ignorance and an eroded capacity for independent thought.
“Law and order were similarly undermined, with criminals deemed to be beyond punishment since they were ‘victims’ of society and with illegal drug-taking tacitly encouraged by a campaign to denigrate anti-drugs laws.
“The ‘rights’ agenda – commonly known as ‘political correctness’ – turned morality inside out by excusing any misdeeds by self-designated ‘victim’ groups on the grounds that such ‘victims’ could never be held responsible for what they did.
“Feminism, anti-racism and gay rights thus turned… Christians into the enemies of decency who were forced to jump through hoops to prove their virtue.
“This Through the Looking Glass mind-set rests on the belief that the world is divided into the powerful (who are responsible for all bad things) and the oppressed (who are responsible for none of them).
“This is a Marxist doctrine. But the extent to which such Marxist thinking has been taken up unwittingly even by the Establishment was illustrated by the astounding observation made in 2005 by the then senior law lord, Lord Bingham, that human rights law was all about protecting ‘oppressed’ minorities from the majority…
“When the Berlin Wall fell, we told ourselves that this was the end of ideology. We could not have been more wrong.
“The Iron Curtain came down only to be replaced by a rainbow-hued knuckle duster, as our cultural commissars pulverised all forbidden attitudes in order to reshape western society into a post-democratic, post-Christian, post-moral universe. Lenin would have smiled…”385
385 Phillips, “We were fools to think the fall of the Berlin Wall had killed off the far Left. They’re back – and attacking us from within”, The Daily Mail, November 9, 2009, p. 14.
235
Or perhaps he would not have been so pleased… For, as Ryszard Legutko writes: “If the old communists had lived long enough to see the world of today, they would be devastated by the contrast between how little they themselves had managed to achieve in their antireligious war and how successful the liberal democrats have been. All the objectives the communists set for themselves, and which they pursued with savage brutality, were achieved by the liberal democrats who, almost without any effort and simply by allowing people to drift along with the flow of modernity, succeeded in converting churches into museums, restaurants, and public buildings, secularizing entire societies, making secularism the militant ideology, pushing religions to the sidelines, pressing the clergy into docility, and inspiring powerful mass culture with a strong antireligious bias in which a priest must be either a liberal challenging the Church or a disgusting villain.”386
“Consider the main enemy,” writes Codevilla: “religion. America’s mainline Protestant denominations have long since delivered their (diminishing) flocks to the ruling class’s progressive priorities. Pope Francis advertises his refusal to judge attacks on Western civilization, including the murder of priests. His commitment of the Catholic Church to the building of ‘a new humanity,’ as he put it at July’s World Youth Day in Krakow, opens the Catholic Church to redefining Christianity to progressive missions in progressive terms, a mission already accomplished at Georgetown University, Notre Dame, and other former bastions of American Catholicism now turned into bastions of American progressivism. Evangelical leaders seem eager not to be left behind. Gramsci would have advised that enlisting America’s religious establishments in the service of the ruling class’s larger priorities need not have cost nearly as much as Mussolini paid in 1929. Refraining from frontal challenges to essentials would be enough.
“Instead, America’s progressives add insult to injury by imposing same-sex marriage, homosexuality, ‘global warming,’ and other fashions because they really have no priorities beyond themselves. America’s progressive rulers, like France’s, act less as politicians gathering support than as conquerors who enjoy punishing captives without worry that the tables may turn…”387
Tragically, America’s Orthodox Christians have not stood up against the LGBT movement. Thus Fr. Alexander Webster writes: “Prominent Orthodox clergy and theologians have advocated for various avant-garde causes of non-Orthodox provenance, ranging from women clergy (first, the ‘restoration’ of the obsolete order of “deaconess” and, for some, even the radical innovation of female ‘priests’) to a soft-sell of the ancient proscriptions against abortion to the latest trend, ‘transgenderism.’ But the granddaddy of them all is a mounting obsession with all things LGBT. Concerning the latter, the leftist elites are surprisingly not so far ahead of a majority of the regular church-going faithful. The 2016 Religious Landscape Study by the Pew Research Center disclosed that 64 percent of Orthodox Americans
386 Legutko, The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies, 2016, https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/the-demon-in-democracy. 387 Codevilla, op. cit.
236 surveyed in 2014 thought that homosexuality ‘should be accepted,’ while only 31 percent thought it ‘should be discouraged.’ Similarly, 54 percent strongly favored or favored ‘same-sex marriage,’ while only 41 percent strongly opposed or opposed it. The ‘same-sex marriage’ percentages comport with those of Mainline Protestants and Catholics, but are inverted compared to Evangelical Protestants and Mormons.”388
There is a dynamic in this movement which involves constantly pushing the boundaries of the permissible. Thus LGBT is soon to be followed by LGBTP (the “P” is for Pedophilia).389 Again, the manifesto of a British political party declares: “Welcome to the LGBTIQA+ website of the Green Party of England & Wales. Our mission is to advance the rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Intersex, Queer and Asexual people.” Wesleyan University in Connecticut, goes further: “LGBTTQQFAGPBD”, which stands for: “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, questioning, flexural, asexual, gender-f**k polyamorous, bondable/discipline, dominance/submission and sadism/masochism”!390
“Once upon a time,” writes Melanie Phillips, “’binary’ was a mathematical term. Now it is an insult on a par with ‘racist’, ‘sexist’ or ‘homophobic’, to be deployed as a weapon in our culture wars. The enemy on this particular battleground is anyone who maintains that there are men and there are women, and that the difference between them is fundamental.
“This ‘binary’ distinction is accepted as a given by the vast majority of the human race. No matter. It is now being categorized as a form of bigotry. Utterly bizarre? Scoff at your peril. It’s fast becoming an enforceable orthodoxy, with children and young people particularly in the frame for attitude reassignment.
“Many didn’t know whether to be amused or bemused when the feminist ideologue Germaine Greer was attacked by other progressives for claiming that transgender men who became women after medical treatment were still men. What started as a baffling skirmish on the wilder shores of victim-culture has now turned into something more menacing.
“The Commons Women and Equalities Select Committee has produced a report saying transgender people are being failed. The issue is not just whether they really do change their sex. The crime being committed by society is to insist on any objective evidence for this at all. According to the committee, people should be able to change their gender at will merely by filling in a form. Instead of requiring evidence of sex-change treatment, Britain should adopt the ‘self-declaration’ model
388 Webster, “Three Trojan Horses: Insider Attempts to Disorient the Orthodox”, Aiousa, April 17, 2017. 389 “The Left’s Push For Pedophile Acceptance”, Renegade Tribune, July 8, 2017, http://www.renegadetribune.com/lefts-push-pedophile-acceptance/ 390 Andrew Pearce, “I’ve had it up to here with these gender fascists!”, Daily Mail (London), March 1, 2017, p. 16, http://www.aoiusa.org/three-trojan-horses-insider-attempts-to-disorient-the-orthodox.
237 now used in Ireland, Malta, Argentina and Denmark. To paraphrase Descartes, ‘I think I am a man/woman/of no sex; therefore I am.’…
“If people want to identify with either gender or none, no one is allowed to gainsay it. Objective reality crumbles under the supremacy of subjective desire. Those who demur are damned as heartless.
“In fact, gender fluidity itself creates victims. Professor Paul McHugh is the former chief psychiatrist at John Hopkins hospital in the US. In the 1960s this pioneered sex-reassignment surgery – but subsequently abandoned it because of the problems it left in its wake. Most young boys and girls who see sex reassignment, McHugh has written, have psychosocial issues and presume that such treatment will resolve them. The grim fact is that most of these youngsters do not find therapists willing to assess and guide them in ways that permit them to work out their conflicts and correct their assumptions. Rather, they and their families find only ‘gender counsellors’ who encourage them in their sexual misassumptions.
“In two states, any doctor who looked into the psychological history of a ‘transgendered’ boy or girl in search of a resolvable problem could lose his or her licence to practice medicine…
“The intention is to break down children’s sense of what sex they are also wipe from their minds any notion of gender norms…”391
Every civilization known to man before our own has recognized, following God’s clear word that man was created “male and female” (Genesis 1.26, 27), that there is a fundamental difference between men and women that cannot be extirpated and that this is the basis for certain important moral and cultural norms. The desire to change one’s sex from male to female, or from female to male, was once considered a psychiatric illness, gender dysphoria, but in recent decades has been restored to “normal” status. Moreover the LGBT fanatics have forced through various abhorrent changes in moral and cultural norms, such as allowing men who have supposedly become women to use female toilets, and encouraging children to choose their gender. Those who doubt that men can really, deeply become women, or vice-versa, are discriminated against in various ways; and traditionalists can only watch in horror as the attempt to create a new, sexless civilization proceeds apace.
However, just recently an authoritative decision by the American College of Pediatricians has given hope that this madness of our contemporary civilization may eventually be healed. Michael Dorstewitz writes: “The American College of Pediatricians issued a statement this week condemning gender reclassification in children by stating that transgenderism in children amounts to child abuse.
“The American College of Pediatricians urges educators and legislators to reject all policies that condition children to accept as normal a life of chemical and
391 Phillips, “In Defence of Gender”, The Spectator, January 30, 2016, pp. 12, 13.
238 surgical impersonation of the opposite sex. Facts – not ideology – determine reality.”
“The policy statement, authored by Johns Hopkins Medical School Psychology Professor Paul McHugh, listed eight arguments on why gender reclassification is harmful.
“1. Human sexuality is an objective biological binary trait: “XY” and “XX” are genetic markers of health – not genetic markers of a disorder.
“2. No one is born with a gender. Everyone is born with a biological sex. Gender (an awareness and sense of oneself as male or female) is a sociological and psychological concept; not an objective biological one.
“3. A person’s belief that he or she is something they are not is, at best, a sign of confused thinking. When an otherwise healthy biological boy believes he is a girl, or an otherwise healthy biological girl believes she is a boy, an objective psychological problem exists that lies in the mind not the body, and it should be treated as such.
“4. Puberty is not a disease and puberty-blocking hormones can be dangerous. Reversible or not, puberty-blocking hormones induce a state of disease – the absence of puberty – and inhibit growth and fertility in a previously biologically healthy child.
‘5. According to the DSM-V, as many as 98% of gender confused boys and 88% of gender confused girls eventually accept their biological sex after naturally passing through puberty.
“6. Children who use puberty blockers to impersonate the opposite sex will require cross-sex hormones in late adolescence. Cross-sex hormones (testosterone and estrogen) are associated with dangerous health risks including but not limited to high blood pressure, blood clots, stroke and cancer.
“7. Rates of suicide are twenty times greater among adults who use cross-sex hormones and undergo sex reassignment surgery, even in Sweden which is among the most LGBQT – affirming countries.
“8. Conditioning children into believing a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful as child abuse.
“The left, as one might expect, reacted swiftly with claws fully extended.
“Think Progress described the American College of Pediatricians as a ‘hate group masquerading as pediatricians.’
“The Huffington Post said that ‘Once again, Paul McHugh has used the ever more tarnished name of Johns Hopkins to distort science and spread transphobic misinformation.’
239
“McHugh, who formerly served as Johns Hopkins’ psychiatrist in chief, issued an opinion last year stating that transgenderism is a ‘mental disorder’ and sex change is a ‘medical impossibility’.
“The statement was also signed by Drs. Michelle A. Cretella, M.D., president of the American College of Pediatricians, and Quentin Van Meter, M.D., the organization’s vice president…”392
The rebellion against God’s nature, in essence an attempt literally to recreate human nature, has reached such a state of blasphemous pride that soon even those forms of sexual activity which are still considered beyond the pale by contemporary legislators will soon be found acceptable. Thus the gay actor George Takei has openly and without being punished expressed his delight in the joys of paedophilia.393 The only good aspect of this statement lies in the fact that it suggests (but does not, of course, prove) what many people have suspected, that homosexuality and paedophilia are closely related forms of sexual perversion…
Earlier it was pointed out that the essence of humanrightism consists in the assertion of self-will. Man wants something, so he asserts that he has the right to it. Moreover, if obtaining what he wants entails a change in identity, so be it: he will re- identify himself. And nobody has the right to deny his new identity. For “I want: therefore I am”. So if a man wants to be a woman, he re-identifies himself as a woman. And anybody who denies this “fact” is “transphobic”, “hate-filled”, etc.
But then the traditionalists also have the right to label this man, much more accurately, as narcissist and infantile. For what is the difference between adults and children if not that while adults are expected to take at least some account of reality and not mistake what they want to be with what they in fact are, children are excused that responsibility?
Until, that is, they grow up! But our narcissistic generation does not seem to want to grow up. Its main occupation seems to be in taking “selfies”, delights in completely self-centred, infantile behavior – even to the extent of dressing up as children.
The narcissism of contemporary western civilization is reflected in what Professor Frank Furedi has called “therapy culture”. He argues, as Peter Watson writes, “that, by the beginning of the twenty-first century, the legacy of the therapeutic revolution is that ‘society is in the process of drawing up a radically new
392 Dortstewitz, “American College of Pediatrics Reaches Decision: Transgenderism of Children is Child Abuse”, http://www.bizpacreview.com/2016/03/25/american-college-of-pediatrics-reaches- decision-transgenderism-of-children-is-child-abuse-321212, March 25, 2016. 393 http://www.returnofkings.com/115445/adored-gay-leftist-george-takei-calls-child-molestation- delightful-and- delicious?utm_source=easy_share_social_twitter&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=easy_share _social.
240 definition of what constitutes the human condition’. He has found that therapy, happiness and fulfilment can be damagingly intertwined.
“The core element in this new condition, he says, is that many experiences which have hitherto been interpreted as a normal part of everyday life have been redefined as injurious to people’s emotions. He quotes a wealth of figures to substantiate this, including the fact that children as far unhappier these days than ever before, that children as young as four are ‘legitimate targets for therapeutic intervention’, that there has been a ‘massive increase’ in depression ‘due to the difficulty that people have in dealing with disappointment and failure’.
“The number of mental health counsellors has snowballed, in both the UK and the USA. In Furedi’s critique, 53 percent of British students had ‘anxiety at pathological levels’, and a host of new ‘illnesses’ have been conceived, or created, by new profession[al]s who ‘invent the needs they claim to satisfy’. He explores many aspects of this ‘medicalization’ or ‘psychologicalization’ or ‘pathologicalization’ of life, arguing that there has been a ‘promiscuity’ in therapeutic diagnosis: counselling for job loss, for people who are ‘exercise addicts’ or ‘sex addicts’, for the recently divorced, for women who have just given birth, for athletes who retire from competition and face ‘the onset of post-sporting depression’. He describes self-help books to help people survive their twenties, claims that office politics has been redefined as ‘bullying’, caution as ‘inhibition’ and diffidence as ‘withholding’. In a survey carried out in the same place in 1985 and again in 1996, he reports, there was found to have been an increased of 155 percent among sixteen- to nineteen-year-olds who considered themselves disabled.
“His point is that, from birth to education to marriage and parenting, all the way through to bereavement, ‘people’s experience is interpreted through the medium of the therapeutic ethos’. Among all this, religion has been subordinated to therapy. ‘This subordination of religious doctrine to concern with people’s existential quest reflects a wider shift towards an orientation towards a preoccupation with the self. A study of ‘seeker churches’ in the United States argues that their ability to attract new recruits is based on their ability to tap into the therapeutic understanding of Americans.
“Furedi believes, as Christopher Lasch does, that there has been a powerful shift away from the more traditional affirmation of communal purpose toward encouraging people to find ‘meaning through their individual selves’. And this is where the fundamental problem lies. It is a problem because it exaggerates people’s vulnerability. Some accounts of therapeutic culture associate it with the ‘selfish or at least self-centred’ quest for fulfilment, but, he argues, in fact therapy culture promotes self-limitation. ‘It posits the self in distinctly fragile and feeble form and insists that the management of life requires the continuous intervention of therapeutic expertise.’ He finds that in therapy culture, many emotions are depicted negatively ‘precisely because they disorient the individual from the search for self- fulfilment’.
241 “Even love, though portrayed as the supreme source of self-fulfilment, is depicted as potentially harmful ‘because it threatens to subordinate the self to another’. In books such as Anne Wilson Schaef’s Escape from Intimacy and Women Who Love Too Much by Robin Norwood, ‘Intense love towards another is regularly criticized for distracting individuals from fulfilling their own needs and from pursuing self-interest’. In a similar vein, ‘It has been suggested that people who have too much faith may be suffering from religious addiction’. Father Leo Booth in his Where God Becomes a Drug warns of becoming ‘addicted to the certainty, sureness or sense of security that our faith provides’.
“The rise of confessional novels and television programs, what Joyce Carol Oates has described as ‘pathography’, has eroded the sphere of private life, with the result that no shame now attaches to negative events and ‘mere survival is presented as a triumph’, as we sacralise self-absorption. From this it follows that we have redefined the meaning of responsibility: ‘This redefinition of responsibility as responsibility to oneself helps provide emotionalism with moral meaning’.
“What has happened, says Furedi, following Ernest Gellner, is that in our risky modern society the spiritual struggle of former times has been replaced by a personal struggle for ‘attention and acceptance’. The decline of tradition helps situated the demand for new ways of making sense of the world. The weakening of shared values fragments this quest for meaning, privatizes it and lends it an individual character. ‘Therapeutics promises to provide answers to the individual’s quest for the meaning of life.’ But this gives rise, he says, to a therapeutic ethos in which there are no values higher than the self. Therapy attempts to avoid the problem of how people can be bound to a shared view of the world (as with religions) by offering individuated solace.
“Furedi argues that the invasion of the therapeutic ethos into life has reached such proportions that ‘[b]eing ill can now constitute a defining feature of an individual’s identity’… Self-esteem has become paramount in our psychological lives: almost any action or policy can be justified by its effect on our self-esteem, almost any behavioural wrong or dereliction can be put down to lack of self-esteem. He scoffs at the absurdities it can lead to, such as the case of Jennifer Hoes, a Dutch artist who was so much in love with herself, she said, that she decided marry herself. ‘Self-esteem has acquired a free-floating character that can attach itself in any issue.’”394
“Self-marriage” is indeed one of the most striking and characteristic examples of contemporary narcissism and infantilism. Abigail Pesta writes: "Self-marriage is a small but growing movement, with consultants and self-wedding planners popping up across the world. In Canada, a service called Marry Yourself Vancouver launched this past summer, offering consulting services and wedding photography. In Japan, a travel agency called Cerca Travel offers a two-day self-wedding package in Kyoto: You can choose a wedding gown, bouquet, and hairstyle, and pose for formal wedding portraits. On the website I Married Me, you can buy a DIY marriage
394 Watson, The Age of Atheists, London: Simon & Schuster, 2014, pp. 443-445.
242 kit: For $50, you get a sterling silver ring, ceremony instructions, vows, and 24 ‘affirmation cards’ to remind you of your vows over time. For $230, you can get the kit with a 14-karat gold ring.
“‘It's not a legal process — you won't get any tax breaks for marrying yourself. It's more a ‘rebuke’ of tradition, says Rebecca Traister, author of All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation. ‘For generations, if women wanted to have economic stability and a socially sanctioned sex life or children, there was enormous social and economic pressure to do that within marriage,’ she says. ‘Personally, as someone who lived for many years single and then did get married, I know that the kind of affirmation I got for getting married was unlike anything I'd ever had in any other part of my life.’ That, she adds, is ‘incredibly unjust.’"395
Here we come back to that passion which unites all the Marxists – old and new, cultural and barbarian: the feeling of burning injustice, of resentment, of envy. This feeling, together with the desire to “rebuke” tradition, shows that Cultural Marxism is the social and political mode of Satan’s protest against God. Only, in becoming “cultural”, Marxism has now migrated from a social or political movement to pure individualism, narcissism, even infantilism, which can be described as a childish refusal to face up to reality, an insistence that what I want I must have and will have – and woe to anyone who stands in my way. So the poor man insists on being rich; the stupid man insists that he is clever; the boy insists that he is a girl, and the girl – that she is a boy. And anyone who thinks otherwise is an enemy of the people who must be exterminated – or, at a minimum, utterly ostracized.
*
Where and when did this madness begin and where could it end?
Ultimately this is the same madness Adam and Eve succumbed to when they accepted the temptation of “becoming as gods” who “will not surely die”. In its modern form, it began in the Renaissance, when man became intoxicated by his increasing knowledge, and was pierced again with the desire to eat of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But now the Tree is called science…
However, the early modern age was still a religious age, and for all its fascination with humanism, believed in other forms of knowledge than science. Moreover, it believed in the supra-scientific mystery of man, born in the image of God and having an immaterial “quintessence” that could not be reduced to the four material elements. Thus to the probing but dim-witted Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Hamlet says:
You would play upon me;
395 Pesta, “Why I married myself”, Good Housekeeping, December 21, 2016, http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/relationships/a42034/marrying-yourself-wedding- trend/
243 You would seem to know my stops; You would pluck out the heart of my mystery; You would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass. And there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ. Yet cannot you make it speak…
However, the Enlightenment dispelled the aura of mystery, the idea of a certain unfathomability in the nature of man. In its stead came the conviction that nothing was beyond the bounds of human investigation and manipulation - including human nature itself. Hence the preoccupation with – and fear of - the figure of Frankenstein in the nineteenth century.
The real explosion in science, and in the numbers of scientists, came during the Cold War. Both of the superpowers were motivated by the desire to steal a march on the other in the arms race; both believed in science as the key to knowledge, which in turn was the key to power; both subjected even human beings to scientific manipulation, hoping to produce a new man – “Homo Sovieticus” or “Homo Occidentalis”. But this new man was seen as only a variant of the old man – more pliable, more obedient, and less religious; conditioned so as to be “beyond freedom and dignity” (B.F. Skinner), subhuman rather than superhuman, as befitted the totalitarian ideologies of both East and West. For the ideal in both countries was control rather than recreation, the reduction of man to a machine or an animal rather than a god.
*
What is new about the last quarter-century since the end of the Cold War is the desire to create a new and superior species, not a variant of Homo Sapiens, but something completely new – Homo Deus! 396 Nor is there any Frankensteinian horror at this prospect. On the contrary, it is embraced with enthusiasm and even with a certain intoxicated, quasi-religious rapture.
The critical breakthrough event, according to the Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari, is what he claims is “the replacement of natural selection by intelligent design”, when, instead of being the passive object of mindless natural selection, man takes active, intelligent, deliberate control of his own evolution. This “could happen in any of three ways: through biological engineering, cyborg engineering (cyborgs are beings that combine organic with non-organic parts) or the engineering of in- organic life.”
The most important of these methods is biological engineering, which is “deliberate intervention on the biological level (e.g. implanting a gene) aimed at
396 Cf. Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, London: Harvill, 2016.
244 modifying an organism’s shape, capabilities, needs or desires, in order to realize some preconceived cultural idea.”397
After describing some remarkable genetic experiments performed on voles and mice, and the possibility of resurrecting Siberian mammoths and Neanderthal ape- men, Harari continues with even more remarkable chutzpah (or hubris):
“Why not go back to God’s drawing board and design a better Sapiens? The abilities, needs and desires of Homo Sapiens have a generic basis, and the Sapiens genome is no more complex than that of voles and mice. (The mouse genome contains about 2.5 billion nucleobases, the Sapiens genome about 2.9 billion bases – meaning the latter is only 14 per cent larger.) In the medium range – perhaps in a few decades – genetic engineering and other forms of biological engineering might enable us to make far-reaching alterations not only to our physiology, immune system and life expectancy, but also to our intellectual and emotional capacities. If genetic engineering can create genius mice, why not genius humans? If it can create monogamous voles, why not humans hard-wired to remain faithful to their partners?
“The Cognitive Revolution that turned Homo Sapiens from an insignificant ape into the master of the world did not require any noticeable change in physiology or even in the size and external shape of the Sapiens brain. It apparently involved no more than a few small changes to internal brain structure. Perhaps another small change would be enough to ignite a Second Cognitive Revolution, create a completely new type of consciousness, and transform Homo Sapiens into something altogether different.
“True, we still don’t have the acumen to achieve this, but there seems to be no insurmountable technical barrier preventing us from producing superhumans. The main obstacles are the ethical and political objections that have slowed down research on humans. And no matter how convincing the ethical arguments may be, it is hard to see how they can hold back the next step for long, especially if what is at stake is the possibility of prolonging human life indefinitely, conquering incurable diseases and upgrading our cognitive and emotional abilities.
“What could happen, for example, if we developed a cure for Alzheimer’s disease that, as a side benefit, could dramatically improve the memories of healthy people? Would anyone be able to halt the relevant research? And when the cure is developed, could any law enforcement agency limit it to Alzheimer’s patients and prevent healthy people from using it to acquire super-memories?
“It’s unclear whether bioengineering could really resurrect the Neanderthals, but it would very likely bring down the curtain on Homo sapiens. Tinkering with our genes won’t necessarily kill us. But we might fiddle with Homo sapiens to such an extent that we could no longer be Homo sapiens…
397 Harari, Sapiens. A Brief History of Humankind, London: Vintage, 2014, p. 448.
245 “Recently, only a tiny fraction of these new opportunities have been realized. Yet the world of 2014 is already a world in which culture is releasing itself from the shackles of biology. Our ability to engineer not merely the world around us, but above all the world inside our bodies and minds, is developing at breakneck speed. More and more spheres of activity are being shaken out of their complacent ways. Lawyers need to rethink issues of privacy and identity; governments are faced with rethinking matters of health care and equality; sports associations and educational institutions need to redefine fair play and achievement; pension funds and labour markets should readjust to a world in which sixty might be the new thirty. They must all deal with the conundrums of bioengineering, cyborgs and inorganic life.
“Mapping the first human genome required fifteen years and $3 billion. Today you can map a person’s DNA within a few weeks and at the cost of a few hundred dollars. The era of personalized medicine – medicine that matches treatment to DNA – has begun. The family doctor could soon tell you with greater certainty that you face high risks of liver cancer, whereas you needn’t worry too much about heart attacks. She could determine that a popular medication that helps 91 per cent of people is useless to you, and you should instead take another pill, fatal to many people but just right for you. The road to near-perfect medicine stands before us.
“However, with improvements in medical technology will come new ethical conundrums. Ethicists and legal experts are already wrestling with the thorny issue of privacy as it relates to DNA. Would insurance companies be entitled to ask for our DNA scans and to raise premiums if they could discover a genetic tendency to reckless behavior. Would we be required to fax our DNA, rather than our CV, to potential employers? Could an employer favour a candidate because his DNA looks better? Or could we sue in such cases for ‘genetic discrimination’? Could a company that develops a new creature or a new organ register a patent on its DNA sequences? It is obvious that one can own a particular chicken, but can one own an entire species?
“Such dilemmas are dwarfed by the ethical, social and political implications of the Gilgamesh Project [the Project to achieve immorality] and of our potential new abilities to create superhumans. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, government medical programmes throughout the world, national health insurance programmes and national constitutions worldwide recognize that a humane society ought to give all its members fair medical treatment and keep them in relatively good health. That was all well and good as long as medicine was chiefly concerned with preventing illness and healing the sick. What might happen once medicare becomes preoccupied with enhancing human abilities? Would all humans be entitled to such enhanced abilities, or would there be a new superhuman elite?
“Our late modern world prides itself on recognizing, for the first time in history, the basic equality of all humans, yet it might be poised to create the most unequal of societies. Throughout history, the upper classes always claimed to be smarter, stronger and generally better than the underclass. They were usually deluding themselves. A baby born to a poor peasant family was likely to be as intelligent as
246 the crown prince. With the help of new medical capabilities, the pretensions of the upper classes might soon become an objective reality.
“This is not science fiction. Most science-fiction plots describe a world in which Sapiens – identical to us – enjoy superior technology such as light-speed spaceships and laser guns. The ethical and political dilemmas central to these plots are taken from our own world, and they merely recreated our emotional and social tensions against a futuristic backdrop. Yet the real potential of future technologies is to change Homo sapiens itself, including our emotions and desires, and not merely our vehicles and weapons. What is a spaceship compared to an eternally young cyborg who does not breed and has no sexuality, who can share thoughts directly with other beings, whose abilities to focus and remember are a thousand times greater than our own, and who is never angry or sad, but has emotions and desires that we cannot begin to imagine?
“Science fiction rarely describes such a future, because an accurate description is by definition incomprehensible. Producing a film about the life of some super cyborg is akin to producing Hamlet for an audience of Neanderthals. Indeed, the future masters of the world will probably be more different from us than we are from Neanderthals. Whereas we and the Neanderthals are at least human, our inheritors will be godlike.
“Physicists define the Big Bang as a singularity. It is a point at which all the known laws of nature did not exist. Time did not exist. It is thus meaningless to say that anything existed ‘before’ the Big Bang. We may be fast approaching a new singularity, when all the concepts that give meaning to our world – me, you, men, women, love and hate – will become irrelevant. Anything happening beyond this point is meaningless to us…”398
It would be foolish to deny the possibility of stunning scientific discoveries in the future that will enable scientists, if not radically to change the nature of man, at least modify it – within the limits placed on His creation by the Creator. However, Harari’s vision of the future depends on three rather large and definitely false assumptions: (1) that God does not exist, (2) that the origin of man is through the mindless process of Darwinian natural selection, and (3) that the nature of man is entirely material, wholly “wrapped up” in his genes. For believers in God, in creation (as opposed to evolution) and in the fixedness of human nature as made in the image and likeness of God, it would seem much more likely that the technological innovations he hails will lead to a kind of “superman” that Harari appears not to have envisaged at all, but which was definitely envisaged by the saints: the Nietzschean superman, “genius of geniuses”, world ruler and perdition that Church tradition knows as the Antichrist.
In 1953, DNA was discovered. As we have seen, properly understood this discovery disproved the foundation myth of western civilization – Darwinism. But
398 Harari, Sapiens, pp. 452-453, 459-461.
247 at the same time it gave scientists in the image of Frankenstein the hope of changing human nature by shifting around its physical building blocks.
The discovery of DNA was followed by notable “advances” in reproductive technology with potentially enormous – and catastrophic - consequences for society. “First, contraception severed the connection between sex and reproduction. It became possible to have sex without having babies. Then modern technology severed the connection between reproduction and sex. It became possible to have babies without having sex.”399 Further developments from this included the cloning of animals, and the supposed creation of animal-human hybrids.400 Again, since the 1960s surgeons and doctors have been attempting to heal diseases by transplanting organs from dead or even – horror of horrors! – living donors. This has led to a new form of organized crime – the extraction of body parts from living people (often Chinese criminals about to be executed or poor peasants in Turkey or India) in order to prolong the lives of rich sick people in the West. There is no doubt that the motivation of several of these scientific experiments is not just ungodly, but anti- God. Thus Professor Sir Robert Edwards, who invented the technique of in vitro fertilization, said that his research was aimed at establishing who was in charge: God or the scientists. “He was left in no doubt. ‘It was us,’ he said…”401
The evil and truly eschatological possibilities of this revolution were clearly seen as early as 1976 by the director of the Institute of Genetics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Academician N.P. Dubinin: “The achievements of human genetics, and of general and molecular genetics, will push forward the problem of interference in human heredity. The coming revolution in genetics will demand a decisive overturning of the previously dominant view concerning the primacy of nature in its natural form. Genetics will turn out to be capable of overcoming the natural story of life and creating organic forms inconceivable in the light of the laws of natural evolution… For the molecular genetics and the molecular biology of the 21st century there lies in store the prospect of creating cells as the only self- regulating open living system, which will be bound up with the understanding of the essence of life. An exchange of living forms will take place between the earth and other worlds… The aim of genetic engineering is the creation of organisms according to a given model, whose hereditary program is formed by means of introducing the recipient of new genetic information. This information can be artificially synthesised or separated in the form of natural genetic structures from various organisms. In this way a new single genetic system which cannot arise by means of natural evolution will be created experimentally… Various manipulations with DNA molecules can lead to the unforeseen creation of biologically dangerous hybrid forms… ”402
399 Anthony Daniels, “How far has humanity sunk when we treat the creation of life just like ordering a new car?” Daily Mail (London), August 13, 2001, p. 12. 400 Alok Jha, “First British human-animal hybrid embryos created by scientists”, The Guardian, April 2, 2008. 401 “Pioneer of IVF who persevered in the face of hostility”, The Week, April 20, 2013, p. 41. 402 Dubinin, Obschaia Genetika, Moscow: Nauka, 1976; quoted by Protopriest Vladislav Sveshnikov, “Rabota adova delaietsa uzhe”, Kontinent, 71, 1992, pp. 270-271.
248 After quoting this passage, Fr. Vladislav Sveshnikov expressed the truly apocalyptic fear: “We have to admit that contemporary science is preparing the ground for the coming of the Antichrist.”403 In more recent years, with the mapping of the human genome, and the development of ever more sophisticated methods of genetic manipulation, these fantastical ideas seem less fantastical by the day… Both St. Nilus the Myrrh-gusher and St. Seraphim of Sarov hinted that the Antichrist will be born through a form of in vitro fertilization: the devil will enter, and take complete control of, the sperm of his father before it has entered the womb of his mother, enabling him to claim he was born, like Christ, from the Holy Spirit and a virgin.404
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Now human nature is God’s greatest work, the crown of His creation. Science with all its ingenuity has never improved on man as God has created him. Once there was a scientific conference that tried to establish ways of improving on the human hand. The conclusion was: we cannot improve on it. For “Thou hast fashioned me, and hast laid Thy hand upon me. Thy knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is mighty, I cannot attain unto it” (Psalm 138.4-5)… When man attempts to overstep the bounds of human nature by trying to improve on it, he is silently rebuked. Thus human organ transplants come up against a clear sign of God’s displeasure – rejection. Only by massive doses of drugs administered daily will the body be persuaded to accept the foreign invasion of the donor’s body part. And so inadvertently, in the course of these transplant operations, scientists have discovered what the Holy Fathers always knew but which our modern mechanistic theories have caused them to forget: that there is a very mysterious union between the soul and the body, between certain psychological functions and certain “purely” physical organs.
We are not here talking about the crude and obviously false materialist theory that mental activity is simply the same as brain activity. We are talking about the fact that memory, emotion, even personal identity, seem to be linked with every organ of the body. Now we have always known this about the heart. And the first heart-transplant operations produced frightening results. The family of the first man who received a new heart in South Africa could not recognize him after the operation; he seemed to be a different person. Later transplants have confirmed that many of the characteristics of the donor seem to be transplanted with his heart into the patient. Some of these characteristics are trivial, such as tastes in food; others are more serious, such as sexual orientation, or suicidal thoughts…
More recently, as Dr. Danny Penman writes, scientists “started claiming that our memories and characters are encoded not just in our brain, but throughout our entire body.
403 Sveshnikov, op. cit., p. 271. 404 V. Moss, “Genetics, UFOs and the Birth of the Antichrist”, https://www.academia.edu/25672072/GENETICS_UFOS_AND_THE_BIRTH_OF_THE_ANTICHR IST.
249
“Consciousness, they claim, is created by every living cell in the body acting in concert.
“They argue, in effect, that our hearts, livers and every single organ in the body stores our memories, drives our emotions and imbues us with our own individual characters. Our whole body, they believe, is the seat of the soul; not just the brain.
“And if any of these organs should be transplanted into another person, parts of these memories – perhaps even elements of the soul – might also be transferred.
“There are now more than 70 documented cases… where transplant patients have taken on some of the personality traits of the organ donors.
“Professor Gary Schwartz and his co-workers at the University of Arizona have documented numerous seemingly inexplicable experiences… And every single one is a direct challenge to the medical status quo.
“In one celebrated case uncovered by Professor Schwartz’s team, an 18-year-old boy who wrote poetry, played music and composed songs was killed in a car crash. A year before he died, his parents came across a tape of a song he had written, entitled, Danny, My Heart is Yours.
“In his haunting lyrics, the boy sang about how he felt destined to die and donate his heart. After his death, his heart was transplanted into an 18-year-old girl – named Danielle.
“When the boy’s parents met Danielle, they played some of his music and she, despite never having heard the song before, knew the words and was able to complete the lyrics.
“Professor Schwartz also investigated the case of a 29-year-old lesbian fast-food junkie who received the heart of a 19-year-old vegetarian woman described as ‘man crazy’.
“After the transplant, she told friends that meat now made her sick, and that she no longer found women attractive. In fact, shortly after the transplant she married a man.
“In one equally inexplicable case, a middle-aged man developed a newfound love for classical music after a heart transplant.
“It transpired that the 17-year-old donor had loved classical music and played the violin. He had died in a drive-by shooting, clutching a violin to his chest.
“Nor are the effects of organ transplants restricted to hearts. Kidneys also seem to carry some of the characteristics of their original owners.
250 “Take the case of Lynda Gammons from Weston, Lincolnshire, who donated one of her kidneys to her husband Ian.
“Since the operation, Ian believes he has taken on aspects of his wife’s personality. He has developed a love of baking, shopping, vacuuming and gardening. Prior to the transplant, he loathed all forms of housework with a vengeance.
“He has also adopted a dog – yet before his operation he was an avowed ‘cat man’, unlike his wife who favoured dogs…”405
The most recent – and shocking – proposed innovation is frozen brain transplants.406
Although, to the present writer’s knowledge, there are no contemporary conciliar church decisions on this subject, nevertheless Church Tradition provides us with some important clues in our search for guidance on the issues raised by these facts… Thus St. Philaret of New York (+1985) wrote: “The heart is the center, the mid-point of man's existence. And not only in the spiritual sense, where heart is the term for the center of one's spiritual person, one's ‘I’; in physical life, too, the physical heart is the chief organ and central point of the organism, being mysteriously and indissolubly connected with the experiences of one's soul. It is well known to all how a man's purely psychical and nervous experiences joy, anger, fright, etc., — are reflected immediately in the action of the heart, and conversely how an unhealthy condition of the heart acts oppressively on the psyche and consciousness... Yes, here the bond is indissoluble—and if, instead of the continuation of a man's personal spiritual-bodily life, concentrated in his own heart, there is imposed on him a strange heart and some kind of strange life, until then totally unknown to him—then what is this if not a counterfeit of his departing life; what is this if not the annihilation of his spiritual-bodily life, his individuality, his personal ‘I’? And how and as whom will such a man present himself at the general resurrection?
“But the new attainment does not end even here. It is intended also to introduce into the organism of a man the heart of an animal—i.e., so that after the general resurrection a ‘man’ will stand at the Last Judgement with the heart of an ape (or a cat, or a pig, or whatever). Can one imagine a more senseless and blasphemous mockery of human nature itself, created in the image and likeness of God?
“Madness and horror! But what has called forth this nightmare of criminal interference in man's life—in that life, the lawful Master of which is its Creator alone, and no one else? The answer is not difficult to find. The loss of Christian hope, actual disbelief in the future life, failure to understand the Gospel and disbelief in it, in its Divine truthfulness—these are what have called forth these
405 Penman, “Can we really transplant a human soul?” The Daily Mail (London), April 9, 2008. 406 Colin Fernandez, “Frozen brain transplant could ‘bring back dead’”, Dily Mail, April 28, 2017, p. 13.
251 monstrous and blasphemous experiments on the personality and life of man. The Christian view of life and death, the Christian understanding and conception of earthly life as time given by God for preparation for eternity—have been completely lost. And from this the result is: terror in the face of death, seen as the absolute perishing of life and the annihilation of personality; and a clutching at earthly life— live, live, live, at any cost or means prolong earthly life, after which there is nothing!”407
St. Philaret’s reference to the general resurrection provides us with the clue to the evaluation of the innovations we have been discussing. The Church teaches, on the one hand, that the soul continues to function with full consciousness even after the body has been reduced to dust; but on the other hand, that the body will be resurrected at the last day in order that soul and body together may receive the reward fitting to them for the deeds they have performed together in life. This illustrates two important truths. First, man, the whole man, is not soul alone, still less body alone, but soul and body together. Just as they are conceived together and simultaneously, so they will enter into eternal life together.408 And secondly, every soul will be judged with his own personal body, and not with any other’s (II Corinthians 5.10).
This second truth is sometimes doubted on the grounds that in the course of a man’s lifetime every cell in his body dies and is replaced many times, so that it makes no sense to speak about “his own personal body”. We take the elements of our body from outside and replace them in a constant exchange that unites us indissolubly with the nature around us. However, the discovery of DNA in the 1950s weakened this objection in that it showed how, in principle, a man’s body can be said to be the same throughout his lifetime in spite of the fact that its entire cellular composition will be “recycled” as it were several times in the course of his life from birth to death. For his bodily identity is encapsulated in his DNA; every organ and every cell of my body is marked by a seal showing that it belongs to me and me alone – my personal DNA, which is who I am, physically (but not psychologically or spiritually) speaking. This is the natural order, the foundation of my personal physical identity and the earnest of the re-establishment of my personal physical identity at the General Resurrection.
In principle, therefore, a body can be said to be the same and unique and belonging to only one person in spite of the most radical overhauls in its cellular and atomic composition. In view of this, it is not difficult to understand why God has ordained that my body rejects the invasion of a body part with a different DNA – it’s simply not me! Physical rejection by the body should be accompanied by moral
407 St. Philaret, “An Orthodox View of Heart Transplantations”, Pravoslavnaia Rus’, No. 4, 1968; The Orthodox Word, Vol. 4, No. 3 (May-June 1968), pp. 134-137. 408 As St. Maximus the Confessor writes: “Neither exists in separation from the other before their joining together which is destined to create one form. They are, in effect, simultaneously created and joined together, as is the realization of the form created by their joining together.” (Letter 15; P.G. 91:552D, 6-13) Again, St. John of Damascus writes: “body and soul were formed at one and the same time, not first the one and then the other, as Origen so senselessly supposed.” (Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, II, 12).
252 rejection by the soul – it cannot be God’s will for this mixing of persons (and even of species) to take place!
This general thesis raises the question: Are all organ transplants to be rejected? Or only transplants of the most central organs, such as the heart? Only a truly Orthodox Council, employing the expertise of scientists, can decide this question; and there has been no such Council, to the present time...
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Being a religious animal, man will never be satisfied with a purely materialist, scientific progress to godmanhood or superman status, the more so in that the collapse of Marxism-Leninism has discredited the purely atheist concept of man. However, in order that the religious component in the scientists’ world-view should support science wherever it leads, it must not be a traditional, dogmatic religion like Christianity. Apart from any other problems (and there are many), traditional religions like Christianity claim to have discovered the one truth once and for all – “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever” (Hebrews 13.8). But scientists claim to have the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth through the uniquely reliable path of empiricism, so they cannot allow that the most important truths were discovered thousands of years ago, and not by empirical methods, but by Divine Revelation. From this point of view, Christianity (and Islam) is passé, outdated, pre-scientific and, to a significant degree (in that it allows other, non- empirical methods of reaching the truth), anti-scientific.
However, there is one ancient, pre-scientific religion that is not incompatible with the scientific march to godmanhood – Buddhism. Buddhism is popular with scientists because of its adogmatism and rejection of a personal Creator God distinct from His creation, and because some of the cosmological ideas of Buddhism and its ancestor, Hinduism, are compatible with popular modern cosmological ideas.
The most popular attempt to claim godmanhood has been the Hindu-Masonic- Theosophist-New Age doctrine that man is a god by nature. The main intellectual foundation of this doctrine, as of all materialist anthropologies, remains the theory of evolution. But the raw material or dust from which evolution springs is now endowed with a supra-material principle, or natural divinity, which emerges ever more clearly as inorganic matter evolves in organic matter, vegetable into animal, animal into human, and human – into divine status.
Thus J.S. Buck writes: “First a mollusc, then a fish, then a bird, then a mammal, then a man, then a Master, then a God… The theologians who have made such a caricature or fetish of Jesus were ignorant of this normal, progressive, higher evolution of man.”409 Again, Marilyn Ferguson writes: “The myth of the Saviour ‘out there’ is being replaced with the myth of the hero ‘in here’. Its ultimate expression is the discovery of the divinity within us… In a very real sense, we are
409 Buck, in L. De Poncins, Freemasonry and the Vatican, London: Britons Publishing Company, 1968, pp. 43, 29.
253 each other.” And psychiatrist Scott Peck writes: “Our unconscious is God… The goal of spiritual growth is… the attainment of godhead by the conscious self. It is for the individual to become totally, wholly God.” Finally, John Dunphy preaches “a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being.”410
However, man is not a god by nature, although he can become one by grace. True, his soul was created by an act of Divine inbreathing. But, as St. Macarius the Great points out, this does not mean that his soul is part of the uncreated Godhead, but rather that it is “a creature noetical, beautiful, great and wondrous, a fair likeness to and image of God”.411 If man were a god by nature, as Vladimir Lossky points out, then, “without mentioning other outrageous consequences, the problem of evil would be inconceivable… Either Adam could not sin, since by reason of his soul, a part of divinity, he was God, or else original sin would involve the Divine nature – God Himself would sin in Adam.”412
It is because man is not a god by nature that he is able to fall, and has in fact fallen, from his godlike status. Thus man has not evolved from the apes, but he can devolve to an animal-like status413 - as David says, “Man, being in honour, did not understand; he is compared to the mindless cattle, and is become like unto them” (Psalm 48.12). At the same time he retains the ability, through Christ, of returning from his present animal-like to the godlike status he had in the beginning.
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It should be clear now that the Orthodox Christian doctrine of man as a bicomposite creature made in the image of the God-Man is the only final safeguard against the opposite and antichristian doctrine of man as the man-god made in the image of the beast, to which the whole of modern culture and scientism, both theist and antitheist, tends. For if the godlike in man is denied, he is assimilated to the animals and becomes like them. If, on the other hand, the godlike in him is recognized, but is ascribed, in common with the theistic evolutionists and New Agers, to some emergent properties of matter, then the position is no better, and even decidedly worse. For then man is seen as the summit of being, whose godlikeness comes from within creation, and within his own nature, but not from without.
And the final consequence of that is that he becomes like Satan or the prince of Tyre in his pride, of whom the only true God says: “Because thine heart is lifted up,
410 R. Chandler, Understanding the New Age, Milton Keynes: Word Books, 1989. 411 St. Macarius the Great, Spiritual Homilies, I, 7. 412 Lossky, The Mystical Nature of the Eastern Church, London: James Clarke, 1957, p. 117. 413 Once the Soviet commissar for education and enlightenment Lunacharsky was engaged in a public debate with the leading “Living Church” heretic, Fr. Alexander Vvedensky. Lunacharsky said: “I have come from the apes. But this man affirms that he was created in the image and likeness of God. But look: what great progress I have made by comparison with the apes, and how strongly this man has been degraded by comparison with God” (http://mitr.livejournal.com/225299.html, September 1, 2009).
254 and thou has said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas, yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God” (Ezekiel 28.2).
The Christian vision of man is both far greater, and far humbler, than the New Agers’. On the one hand, the origin of man is to be found, not in the dust of an original “big bang”, but in the Council of the Holy Trinity; and the Divine image is to be identified with those attributes of reason, freedom and self-sacrificial love which raise him far above the animals. And on the other hand, his glorious destiny is not the result of his own efforts or the reward for his own merits, but the work of God Himself. Man is called to be a partaker of the Divine nature (II Peter 1.4); in St. Basil’s striking phrase, he is a creature who has received the command to become a god. But he carries out this command, not in pride, but in humility, not by inflating himself, but by magnifying God his Saviour, not by nourishing his own supposed divinity, or “divine spark”, but by purifying the image of God in himself so as to be irradiated by the Uncreated Light.
255 EPILOGUE. THE WORLD AFTER 9/11
The final warning bell for western civilization came on September 11, 2001, when the World Trade Twin Towers in New York were destroyed in a terrorist attack. It is still not known for certain who perpetrated the catastrophe. But that question is less important than its symbolical – indeed, eschatological – significance.
For New York today is the city that most closely symbolizes the Babylon of the Apocalypse, not only in its nature, but also in its final destruction. Not only is it the true capital of modern Jewish-Masonic civilization: as Denis Geoffroy points out, it "so resembles the description of Babylon in the Apocalypse of St. John that it is hard to believe that this is a simple coincidence." As for its destruction, the destruction of New York’s twin towers both looks back to God’s destruction of the towers of Babylon and forward to the coming destruction of the whole of contemporary western civilization.414
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In his magisterial work, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (London: Touchstone Books, 1996), Samuel P. Huntingdon showed that since the end of the Cold War the underlying structure of World Order has changed from being bipolar and ideological to being multipolar and civilizational. In his view, which he backs up with a very impressive array of data and argumentation, the ideological liberalism vs. communism struggle was a comparatively superficial “blip” in the tide of history. After all, both liberalism and communism are products of western civilization, and the Cold War can be seen as a civil war between two outcomes or stages of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment.415 World politics has now reverted to the more traditional, long-term pattern of struggles between civilizational blocs based on profound differences in values and religion. Huntingdon identified the following main contemporary civilizations: Western, Orthodox (Russian), Islamic, Sinic (Chinese), Japanese, Buddhist, Hindu, Latin American and African. Of these the most powerful are the Western, Islamic and Sinic civilizations.
414 The date of this tragedy is highly significant. September 11 – August 29, according to the Orthodox calendar – is the feast/fastday of the Beheading of St. John the Forerunner. St. John is the prophet of repentance, and his beheading signified the attempt by Herod to cut off his preaching of repentance. And so the time of repentance for the apostate Herodian West is near to being cut off… 415 They both offer a utopian vision for mankind based on rationalism, science and education, in which religious belief has no place. Liberalism is relatively more individualistic than Communism, gives more place to individual initiative in economic and social life, and is more tolerant of individual differences and idiosyncracies, such as religion. But the similarities between them are more striking than their differences. And from the point of view of traditional Christianity, the main difference is that while the one destroys faith slowly, the other does it relatively quickly. Thus Stuart Reed writes: “In the Cold War, an unworkable revolutionary creed, communism, yielded to a workable revolutionary creed, liberal capitalism. Now liberal capitalism has replaced communism as the chief threat to the customs, traditions and decencies of Christendom…” (“Confessions of a Fellow-Traveller”, The Spectator, 23 September, 2000, p. 45).
256 Huntingdon makes an important distinction between two different things that are becoming global: modernization and westernization. Globalization in the sense of the modernization of the whole world is not evil in itself. It could even work to the furtherance of the good in certain circumstances – if, for example, the True Faith could be preached globally, using global means of communication, as it was in the time of the apostles. What is evil is the globalization of westernization, the spreading of the apostate culture of the western world. 416 And so if it is westernization that is being globalized - that is, the process leading to a single world civilization and a single world government under the banner of democracy and federalism in politics, free trade (so-called) in economics, ecumenism in religion and human rights in morality, - there is no doubt about it: this is a great evil.
It is easy to see that the world republic (or kingdom?) would have no place in it for Orthodoxy except as a kind of cultural museum, and could very quickly turn the propaganda of freedom into the reality of a tyranny worse than any that has gone before it. We have already seen such a transformation from democracy to potentially global totalitarianism in communist Russia and Nazi Germany in the first half of the twentieth century; and in the second half of the century the despotic power exerted by supra-national organizations such as the IMF, the World Bank, the United Nations, the European Union and the World Council of Churches is clearly mapping a more subtle path to the same goal…
Accepting Huntingdon’s thesis on the clash of civilizations in principle, and agreeing that the ultimate aim of the western globalists is evil, we may ask: to what extent are they succeeding in coming close to their goal? Or are they in fact being thwarted by the revival of older, clashing civilizations? And the surprising answer is: since the end of the Cold War, in spite of some tactical successes, the goal of the globalists appears to be receding away from them, and that three rival centres of power that explicitly rejected western ideology and the West’s NWO are rapidly growing in power and influence: China, the Islamic world and Russia. Like the horsemen of the Apocalypse, these four civilizations are set to clash and set the world ablaze…
1. The West
But let us begin with the West, the common “bogey” of the other three.
As the world turned from the second into the third millennium since Christ, it was clear that to speak of “the End of History” in the shape of the complete, global triumph of democracy and free trade was premature to say the least, and that opposite tendencies were developing fast. True, there were more nominally democratic countries than ever before, - “by 2000, 60 per cent of the world’s population lived in democracies, a far higher share than in 1974,”417 - and the Chicago-style liberalization of the financial and commodity markets had proceeded
416 Bandar bin Sultan said: “We Saudis want to modernize, but not necessarily westernize” (New York Times, July 10, 1994). 417 Brendan Simms, Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy, London: Allen Lane, 2013, p. 505.
257 apace. But on the horizon, like clouds that gradually draw nearer, becoming larger and darker all the time, several distinct threats to the New World Order, some old and some relatively new, were emerging. America’s emphatic but pyrrhic and costly victory over Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 2003 was a turning point; thereafter, her prestige has plummeted…
Moreover, the western way of life as a whole does not seem to be making people significantly happier; it is no longer something that people from other countries strive for – if we exclude the higher income levels and security, which are still envied. Thus “one well publicized finding,” writes Peter Watson, “is that although the developed Western nations have become better off in a financial and material sense, they are not any happier than they were decades ago. In fact, in The Age of Absurdity: Why Modern Life Makes It Hard to Be Happy (2010), Michael Foley argues that modern life has made things worse, ‘deepening our cravings and at the same time heightening our delusions of importance as individual. Not only are we rabid in our unsustainable demands for gourmet living, eternal youth, fame and a hundred varieties of sex, we have been encouraged – by a post-1970s “rights” culture that has created a zero-tolerance sensitivity to any perceived inequality, slight or grievance – into believing that to want something is to deserve it.’ Moreover, ‘the things we have are devalued by the things we want next’…”418
Of course, this begs the question whether “happiness” should be the aim of life. The right to happiness is enshrined in the American Constitution, but western civilization before the Masonic eighteenth century had a far higher ideal: eternal life in Christ, which is as much higher than “happiness” as heaven is higher than the earth. But even if we judge the West by its present, base and purely secular ideals, it has obviously failed.
The sins of the West in relation to the peoples it once colonized are generally recognized – which is not to say, forgiven. Among the most serious death-tolls were those of the Indians of North America at the hands of the White Americans, and the Mayans and Incas of Central and South America at the hands of the Spaniards. Several western nations had a hand in the slave trade from Africa to America. In Africa itself, the Congolese suffered horrific genocide at the hands of the Belgians, and the Hereros of South-West Africa at the hands of the Germans. Later slaughters in Africa included the Ethiopians at the hands of the Italians, the Mau-Mau of Kenya at the hands of the British and the Algerians at the hands of the French. The British killed millions indirectly: through neglect of the Irish famine, through the destruction of the native Indian textile industry, and through the imposition of the opium trade on China at the Treaty of Nanking in 1842. The Europeans were supposed to bring Christianity to the pagans. But the reality was that the non- European civilizations were sacrificed on the altar of European profit. It was not so much Christianity as revolutionary teachings such as socialism and nationalism that the West instilled into its colonies – which, by the Justice of God, would later be turned against them.
418 Watson, The Age of Atheists, London: Simon & Schuster, 2014, p. 20.
258 The West reached its peak just before the First World War; Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West was published in 1918. The two world wars constituted the climax of the long series of civil wars between members of the Western civilizationThough disguised and to some extent reversed by the dominance of America from 1945 to 1991, this decline is now a fact that cannot be denied. The tired, aging and debt-ridden populations of North America and Europe still retain a lead over the rest of the world in military and economic terms. But the gap is narrowing very fast, especially in relation to China, but also in relation to Russia. Thus “NATO defence spending is falling fast, but Russia’s military budget rose by 26% this year [2013]”.419
Let us look more closely at the figure of the whore of Babylon in the Book of Revelation: “The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority for one hour as kings with the beast. These are of one mind, and they will give their power and authority to the beast... The ten horns which you saw on the beast, these will hate the harlot, make her desolate and naked, eat her flesh and burn her with fire” (17.12-13, 16).
In the next, eighteenth chapter there follows a detailed description of the fall of Babylon, hailed by the inhabitants of heaven but bewailed by the merchants of the earth because the enormous possibilities for enrichment that she had provided have now vanished...
One vivid detail immediately strikes us: “Every shipmaster, all who travel by ship, sailors, and as many as trade on the sea, stood at a distance and cried out when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What is like this great city?” (Revelation 18.17-18). Evidently, insofar as Babylon can be identified with a geographical place or city, it is situated on the sea. The hypothesis, therefore, is that Babylon is western civilization as a whole, and that what we see here described in the Sacred Scripture is the destruction of its most potent symbol, the Twin Towers of New York, which, of course, is situated on the sea.
That the West in general and New York in particular should be identified with Babylon is confirmed by several facts. First, New York’s street-plan is modelled on that of ancient Babylon.420 Secondly, it is in New York that the United Nations is situated with its declared purpose of uniting all nations in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a cardinal aim of which is a reduction and “levelling” down of all religions to a lowest common denominator. And thirdly, New York, together with other great cities of the West – Amsterdam, Paris, Geneva, London and Chicago – has taken the lead in hosting and promoting the ecumenical movement in such institutions as the World Council of Parliaments (first meeting: Chicago in 1893) and the World Council of Churches (first meeting: Amsterdam in 1948).
419 Drawsko Pomorksie, “Back to Basics”, The Economist, November 16-22, 2013, p. 65. However, for a pessimistic assessment of Russia’s military potential, see http://vasiliy- smirnof.livejournal.com/3831.html. 420 Werner Keller writes that "the town plan of Babylon is reminiscent of the blueprints for large American cities", especially New York (The Bible as History, New York: Bantam Books, 1982, p. 316).
259
St. John Maximovich said that America was a great nation, but was threatened by the sins of greed and sensuality. These are the “Babylonian” sins of a society that permits everything, every religious abomination and every deviant and perverse life-style. Of course, America is not alone in this: her parent-civilization of Western Europe is, it could be argued, even more debauched. However, the popular imagination – and especially the imagination of non-western peoples – has seized on America in particular because of her size, wealth, and military and technological superiority over every other nation. America for many around the world is the Antichrist.
The effect of 9/11 was electrifying. On the one hand, it reinforced the trend of American governments to intervene pre-emptively in any region of the world where democracy was under threat – President Bush’s scepticism about overseas interventions changed overnight into a “global war on Terror”. But on the other hand, those interventions became increasingly pyrrhic and counter-productive. Thus the Second Iraq war in 2003, while overthrowing a real tyrant, brought to the surface Sunni/Shiite divisions that the tyrant had suppressed. Again, the intervention in Libya to overthrow Gaddafi’s regime exposed divisions in NATO and does not appear to have united Libya itself. Again, while the “Arab Spring” appeared to promise a new wave of pro-western democratization, it also produced an Islamist president in Egypt, the biggest country in the Arab world, and instability in America’s monarchical allies in the Persian Gulf, while the governments of America’s main enemies in the region, Iran and Syria, remain in power in spite of the pressure of sanctions and war...
As for “soft power”, the West’s lead here is also declining. Even in the field of Human Rights, in which it always took the lead, it appears to have surrendered influence to the most illiberal of countries. Thus the Human Rights Council of the United Nations is chaired by a Saudi Arab, and has representatives from China, Cuba and Russia.
“The ‘Washington consensus’ of democracy and free markets has given way to the Beijing consensus of authoritarian modernisation. America’s self-confidence has been battered first by George Bush’s clumsy war on terror, which gave democracy a bad name, then by the economic crisis of 2008, which did the same for Western finance, and finally by the dysfunctionality of Congress, which shut down the American government in 2013. China become bolder about asserting its rights in Asia, Russia began rearming and reconquering parts of the former Soviet Union, while Barack Obama has seemed a defensive president, retreating from Iraq and Afghanistan, unwilling to guide the Arab awakening and keen to ‘outsource’ responsibility in other regions to local powers.”421
Although a resurgence of the West cannot be ruled out (Chinese and Islamic civilizations have also undergone periods of decline and recovery), it looks increasingly unlikely that it can survive the next global financial crisis, let alone a
421 “Your chance, Mr. Obama”, The Economist, October 30, 2013, p. 19.
260 war with either Russia or China. Moreover, when the fall comes it is likely to be rapid.422 Japanese philosopher Takeshi Umehara might well be right when he says: “The total failure of Marxism… and the dramatic break-up of the Soviet Union are only the precursors to the collapse of Western liberalism, the main current of modernity. Far from being the alternative to Marxism and the reigning ideology at the end of history, liberalism will be the next domino to fall…”423
2. China
Huntingdon believed that China was the country most likely to challenge the West in the role of global hegemon…424 China acquired both cultural and political unity at about the same time as Rome – in the late third century BC. In spite of changes of dynasty, Chinese despotism lasted for another 2100 years and more! Between the Treaty of Nanking in 1842 and Tiananmen Square in 1989, it looked as if western civilization in one or another of its forms might overcome the older Chinese civilization. First came the Taiping rebellion led by a man claiming to be the younger brother of Jesus Christ, which caused between 20 and 40 million deaths and ended with the fall of the Taiping capital of Nanking in 1864. Then came the long period of western capitalist dominance, beginning with the sack of Peking by an Anglo-French force in 1860 and punctuated by failed rebellions such as that of the Boxers in 1900 and the intervention of other civilizations such as that of the Japanese in the 1930s. Finally, from 1949 China adopted another variant of western civilization, communism, which seemed on the verge of falling to the worldwide wave of democratization that began in 1989.
But in 1989 the Chinese communist leaders, unlike their colleagues in Russia, held their nerve and held on to power. However, the result was not a return to old- style Marxist communism, nor liberalization in any but the economic sphere. Rather, China seems to be returning in essence to the old empire-civilization, the Confucian Middle Kingdom, an intensely nationalist civilization that extends its power over neighbouring lands not so much by war as by sheer demographic and economic dominance. Thus the Far Eastern province of Russia is already overrun by Chinese, with little resistance from Putin, while Chinese entrepreneurs are outshining their Russian colleagues in other parts of Siberia. In almost every other economy in the Far East, with the exception of South Korea and Japan, a small Chinese elite seems to hold the economic cards. Chinese investment in Africa is already huge. As for the West, large chunks of western industry, commerce and real estate are being taken over by the Chinese, and European governments go cap in hand to the Chinese asking for loans and investment. This increasing influence of China abroad sometimes causes resentment among the indigenous populations (for example, in Indonesia). But the Chinese overseas have always stressed their dutiful obedience to their adopted countries. The Chinese are extending their influence by “soft” rather than “hard” power – for the time being, at any rate…
422 Niall Ferguson, “Complexity and Collapse”, Foreign Affairs, March/April, 2010, pp. 18-32. 423 Ushemara, in Huntingdon, op. cit. p. 306. 424 Huntingdon, op. cit., p. 83.
261 “China’s soft power,” predicted Jonathan Friedland in 2014, “will make itself felt in every aspect of Western lives. Business may slow during late January, thanks to the Chinese new year. The seasonal habit of hanging lanterns from the trees may cross the Pacific, the way Halloween masks travelled back to Europe across the Atlantic. The Olympic games and football World Cup will have to adjust their timetables to accommodate the world’s largest television audience.
“The classiest hotels will have signs in English and Mandarin, welcoming the new rich. Western politicians will all but beg for Chinese investment. And American Lord Granthams, eminent men without money, will marry Chinese Coras, women without lineage but with plenty of spare cash.
“American and European elites will pride themselves on knowing the names of the rising stars of Chinese politics, the way they used to know the early field for Iowa and New Hampshire. They will follow China for the same reason Willie Sutton said he robbed banks: ‘Because that’s where the money is’.”425
And if this seems very superficial and short-term, we must remember that fashions in important ideas, too, tend to follow the money. Societies that are perceived to be powerful and successful in material terms are usually imitated in more profound matters. So the growth in Chinese soft power, backed up as it is by increasing hard power, will most likely continue to erode the prestige of western democracy and humanrightism throughout the world. The greater emphasis of the Chinese on the collective as opposed to the individual appeals to many who see the absurdities of the selfish, individualistic western obsession with human rights. And if Chinese civilization seems at first too China-centred to have a truly universal appeal, we could have said that with even greater conviction of western civilization in the nineteenth century with its barely-concealed racism. There is no reason at all – apart, as we have said, from the prophecies of the Holy Scriptures – why China should not succeed the West as the world’s next global civilization…
In view of the exponential growth of its economy, it is sometimes thought that China is a truly modern state in the making and must eventually become a member of the New World Order (NWO), if it is not one already. But only a fantasist could think that the globalists control China as they control the West! Moreover, it must not be forgotten that, while modernizing its economy, China has not modernized its political system: while jettisoning Marxism, it is still despotic and therefore part of the Old World Order (OWO), that Old Order of anti-christian despotism.
Nor has this changed under China’s new leader, Xi Jinping (even if his wife is a pop star). As Jonathan Fenby writes, “there is no doubting his complete attachment to the party state he heads. This year [2013] has seen a toughening of the clampdown on dissent and an insistence by Mr. Xi on the need for absolute loyalty to the regime. He has resurrected Maoist ideology on party power. Western ideas of plurality and democracy have no place in his people’s republic…”426
425 Friedland, “The China Question”, The Economist, October 30, 2013, p. 58. 426 Fenby, “Princeling tightens his hold over China”, Sunday Telegraph, November 17, 2013, p. 40.
262
China’s main weaknesses are the instability and corruption inevitably created by rapid economic growth and the monopoly power of the party over that growth. Unlike the Soviet Union under Gorbachev, glasnost’ has been decoupled from perestroika in China. The authorities retain a formidable power over the people, and China remains one of the few major countries that have made determined efforts to control even the internet. However, the party’s corruption and the increasing gap between rich and poor is causing increasing tension. Thus “the show trial of Mr. Xi’s erstwhile rival, Bo Xilai, opened many Chinese eyes to the opulence of the country’s princelings. Americans may moan about money politics, but the wealth of the richest 50 members of Congress if $1.6 billion, compared with $95 billion for the richest 50 members of China’s People’s Congress. More such revelations will surely come.”427 Riots and strikes are common in China today – contrary to the common opinion, there is a tradition of protest in Chinese history. Thus “in the last five years,” wrote Misha Glenny in 2009, “the number of peasant riots has risen spectacularly to roughly 80,000 per year and they continue to proliferate. These outbursts of discontent can be serious, involving the wrecking of local government offices and the lynching of officials.”428
Another weakness of China is her aging population, which was caused by the communist government’s one-child policy (now in the process of abandonment), which still leaves a disastrous legacy: a vast excess of males over females. Now masculine energy that cannot be directed towards employment or the building of families can easily be redirected towards another traditional occupation of young males – war.
This brings us to the question of China’s “hard” power, her military, into which very large resources have been poured of late. How is China likely to use her enormous military power, second only to that of the United States?
In Revelation the army of “the kings of the East” numbers 200 million (9.12-19, 16.12), and marches to the River Euphrates. By “coincidence”, the Chinese military is reported to be able to put 200 million men into the field… 429 Their heading for the River Euphrates, the heart of the Islamic world, points to a phenomenon that is already clearly evident: the aggiornamento of China and Islam, especially Pakistan and Iran, which, though not a natural partnership since they constitute different civilizations, nevertheless makes sense as an alliance against American hegemony. Such an alliance can also count on two other resources that could bring America to her knees even without a shot being fired: Arab oil and Chinese purchases of American bonds.430 And although America’s “fracking” revolution has lessened her
427 “Your chance, Mr. Obama”, The Economist, October 30, 2013, pp. 19-20. 428 Glenny, op. cit., p. 363. 429 “Ekspert: veroiatnost’ aggressii Kitaia protiv Rossii 95%” (Expert: probability of aggression of China against Russia is 95%), http://newsland.com/news/detail/id/1256448/, October 3, 2013; “China’s Military Rise”, The Economist, April 7-April 13, 2012, pp. 25-30. 430 Oil has, of course, made parts of the Arab world fabulously rich. But some parts, such as Dubai, have prospered independently of oil. See Daniel Pipes, “The Dubai Miracle has Become Real”, Washington Times, December 7, 2017, http://www.danielpipes.org/18081/dubai-miracle.
263 dependence on Arabic oil, and the symbiosis between the Chinese and American economies – Niall Ferguson has called it “Chimerica”431 - means that the Chinese would suffer almost as much as the Americans if they sold American bonds, the fact remains that western civilization is uniquely vulnerable to these two threats.
A third threat related to the first two is that oil and gas will begin to be paid for in euros or some other currency rather than the dollar – which might well bring down the dollar. Iran, with the support of Russia and China, has suggested creating a petroeuro market. It has been suggested that this threat, rather than that of the building of a nuclear bomb, is the real reason why America has been trying to bring about regime change in Iran and in its close ally, Syria…432 Be that as it may, a Eurasian bloc consisting of Russia, China and Iran – among others – would be a huge threat to NATO and the West. Russia supplies Iran with nuclear technology and S-300 surface-to-air missiles. At the time of writing, Aleppo has just fallen to Russian, Syrian and Iranian forces; this may be the first victory of the bloc.
China combines the cruelty and atheism of communism with the luxuriousness and immorality of capitalism.433 In spite of that, it is treated with great respect by most world leaders – with the notable exception of Donald Trump. And although all political and economic analysts predict that China will overtake America as the world’s most powerful nation in the near future, they either ignore this prospect or contemplate it with equanimity…
3. The Islamic World
If the main difference between the western and Chinese civilizations is that China places the rights of the collective over the rights of the individual, thereby giving the state a despotic power and discouraging freedom of thought, whereas the West gives the individual the right to rebel against both the collective and against Christian civilized norms, the main difference between the Islamic civilization and the other two is that it places religion above the state, and religious (sharia) law above state law. Having this essentially negative attitude to politics, the Muslims have had difficulty in establishing stable, loyal attitudes to political authorities, whether Islamic or western. Since the fall of the Ottoman empire in 1918, no political regime, whether nationalist or secularist (Baathist or Kemalist), has arisen in the Middle East that commands the loyalty of all the Islamic peoples. And yet there is no doubt that the Muslims long for a Caliph that will unite them and crush the infidel…
The Islamic religious resurgence can be said to have started with the overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1979. But in accordance with its religious nature, the revolution in Iran did not remain like Stalin’s “socialism in one country”, with its
431 Ferguson, The Ascent of Money, London: Penguin Press, 2008, chapter 6. 432 http://www.dailypaul.com/297562/stormcloudsgathering-could-be-the-most-important-video- you-will-ever-watch 433 For a grotesque yet eloquent photographic symbol of the demonic evil of Chinese communism, see http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/820684-devil-horns-grandmother-now-quite-enjoying-her- horns.
264 cruel, but cool-headed political calculation. It was much closer to Trotsky’s wildly fanatical concept of world revolution.
Thus in December, 1984 Ayatollah Khomeini said in a speech: “If one allows the infidels to continue playing their role of corrupters on Earth, their eventual moral punishment will be all the stronger. Thus, if we kill the infidels in order to put a stop to their [corrupting] activities, we have indeed done them a service. For their eventual punishment will be less. To allow the infidels to stay alive means to let them do more corrupting. [To kill them] is a surgical operation commanded by Allah the Creator… Those who follow the rules of the Koran are aware that we have to apply the laws of qissas [retribution] and that we have to kill… War is a blessing for the world and for every nation. It is Allah himself who commands men to wage war and kill.”
After citing these words, Roger Scruton writes: “The element of insanity in these words should not blind us to the fact that they adequately convey a mood, a legacy, and a goal that inspire young people all over the Islamic world. Moreover,… there is no doubt that Khomeini’s interpretation of the Prophet’s message is capable of textual support, and that it reflects the very confiscation of the political that has been the principal feature of Islamic revolutions in the modern world…
“… Even while enjoying the peace, prosperity, and freedom that issue from a secular rule of law, a person who regards the shari’a as the unique path to salvation may see these things only as the signs of a spiritual emptiness or corruption. For someone like Khomeini, human rights and secular governments display the decadence of Western civilization, which has failed to arm itself against those who intend to destroy it and hopes to appease them instead. The message is that there can be no compromise, and systems that make compromise and conciliation into their ruling principles are merely aspects of the Devil’s work.
“Khomeini is a figure of great historic importance for three reasons. First, he showed that Islamic government is a viable option in the modern world, so destroying the belief that Westernization and secularization are inevitable. Second, through the activities of the Hizbullah (Party of Allah) in Lebanon, he made the exportation of the Islamic Revolution the cornerstone of his foreign policy. Third, he endowed the Islamic revival with a Shi’ite physiognomy, so making martyrdom a central part of its strategy.”434
The Islamic Revolution gathered strength during the successful war to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan in 1979-89. Many of the Mujaheddin who fought against the Russians in Afghanistan then went on to fight the Croats and the Serbs in Bosnia in the early 1990s. And then NATO in Afghanistan…
The Revolution suffered an apparent setback in the First Iraq War of 1990. However, the result of that war in military terms proved to be less important than
434 Scruton, The West and the Rest: Globalization and the Terrorist Threat, London: Continuum, 2002, pp. 118-120.
265 its effect in galvanizing Muslim opinion throughout the world against the western “crusaders”, who had once again intervened on sacred Muslim soil for purely selfish reasons (oil).
These feelings were greatly exacerbated by the Second Iraq War, and by the NATO intervention in Afghanistan. It was not that most Muslims could not see the evil of Saddam Hussein or the Taliban. But such notions as political freedom and human rights mean little to the Muslim mind. Much more important to them is the principle that the followers of the true faith should be able to sort out their problems by themselves without the help of the corrupt infidels. True, in the Kosovan war of 1998-99 the West overcame its internal differences and hesitations to intervene decisively on the side of the Albanian Muslims against the Serbs. But this also annoyed the Muslims, who would have preferred that Muslim interests should have been defended by Muslims...
The Islamist threat was brought into vivid and terrifying relief by 9/11. However, the essential failure of the West’s military response in Iraq and Afghanistan has reinforced its traditional (in recent times) defeatist attitude towards the threat. Thus so frightened was Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury, by Islamism in Britain that he suggested the introduction of sharia law in parallel with British common law…
The chaos created by the Syrian war pushed millions of Muslim refugees westwards towards “Christian” Europe. However, in their majority these were not like the traditional refugees Europeans had been familiar with after the Second World War – cowed by suffering and grateful for any help they could get. Overwhelmingly young and male, infiltrated by ISIS terror cells and egged on by the KGB, they were aggressive and violent, contemptuous of the civilization that was giving them shelter, ready to defecate in public and rape white women.
In spite of this, and her own previous assertion that multiculturism was not working, German Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the floodgates to them in 2015, causing great ructions among other European governments and providing a major stimulus to Britain’s decision to leave the European Union. And yet, not only is there no real resistance to the Islamist threat from governments: the liberals’ fear of offending Islamists has become so strong that open platforms are given to the preaching of the most illiberal Islamism. Thus “Islamic Studies professor Jonathan Brown recently lectured at the International Institute of Islamic Thought, where he shared his alarming beliefs with students in attendance in his lecture, ‘Islam and the Problem of Slavery.’ Freelance writer Umar Lee expressed his shock over the 90- minute lecture, which included explicit endorsements of rape and slavery.”435
Whether the liberal elite will ever be able to solve the ideological challenge posed by the Islamic Revolution seems unlikely – liberalism is powerless in the face of real religious zeal, whether true or false. At the time of writing a reaction to the Islamic
435 “Georgetown Islamic Studies Professor: Slavery OK, so is Non-Consensual Sex”, Government Slaves, February 11, 2017.
266 threat appears to be developing in Europe, not from the liberals, but from grass- roots anti-liberal forces, as is witnessed by the rapid rise of anti-immigrant parties such as UKIP in Britain. So the near civil war that we see between Islamists and secularists in Egypt in the midst of an officially Muslim culture may be reflected in similar civil war conditions in several countries of the officially secularist West. Western leaders, while offering no solutions to the largely justified Muslim condemnation of western decadence and its devastating effects on family life and social solidarity, have tried to excuse the worst aspects of Islam. They have tried to argue, for example, that the “real” Islam is peaceful, and that it is only contemporary Islamic “fundamentalists” who commit terrorist acts. However, a reading of the Koran and of early Islamic history proves the opposite. Moreover, as Huntingdon has demonstrated, most inter-civilizational conflicts in the contemporary world involve Islamists on one side.
The greatest weakness of Islamism lies in the bitter division at its centre between the Sunnis (Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt) and the Shiites (Iran). Proxy wars between the Sunnis and Shias are taking place in Syria and Yemen. Russia and China appear to have lined up on the side of the Shias, while the West supports the Sunnis.
4. Russia
Traditional Russian – as opposed to Soviet - civilization stands equidistant from the Western civilization to the west, the Chinese civilization to the east and the Islamic civilization to the south, but represents the most powerful member of a quite distinct civilization, that of Orthodox Christian Romanity. Russia inherited her Orthodoxy and Romanity from Byzantium in the tenth century after St. Vladimir quite consciously rejected the western, Jewish and Islamic religions. In spite of two hundred years under the Mongol yoke (the same Mongols who conquered China), Russia remained relatively uncontaminated by foreign civilizational influences until towards the end of the seventeenth century. In this period she retained the classically Byzantine “symphony of powers” between Church and State that distinguished her both from the engulfment of religion by politics that was common in the West and China, and from the engulfment of politics by religion that was common in the Islamic world.
But then Peter the Great adopted western-style absolutism, opened “a window to the West”, and a century later the governing elite was only superficially Orthodox… At the same time the first peaceful contacts were being made with the Chinese empire, and the first warlike encounters with the Ottoman empire, as the Russians strove to liberate their fellow-Orthodox in the Balkans and the Middle East from the Muslim yoke and replace the crescent with the Cross on Hagia Sophia in Constantinople.
This noble aim came very close to being achieved in 1916 as Russian armies defeated the Ottomans in the east and the Austrians in the south. But then came the revolution, and Russia fell under a yoke that was western in its ideological inspiration but thoroughly Asiatic in its despotic cruelty. Hardly less cruel, however, was the disappointment felt by all True Orthodox after the fall of
267 communism in 1991, when True Orthodoxy was not restored to Russia. Instead, we witnessed a decade of anarchical democratism in the 1990s under Yeltsin, and then, from January 1, 2000, the “sovereign democracy” of Putin.
In accordance with his anti-Americanism, and his fondness for the Eurasian ideology, Putin is seeking an alliance with China and selected Muslim countries in order to counter America’s hegemony. But this alliance is even more unnatural than one with the West, for Russia’s traditional enemies have included invaders from across the Eurasian steppe no less than the Central European plain. Moreover, Russia has major problems with its large and growing Muslim minorities, which have already led to wars in Chechnya and Tadjikstan and may cause further conflicts if, for example, the Tatars seek independence. Again, Russia could easily get involved in war with Islamic countries just beyond her boundaries, particularly the traditional enemy of Turkey, with which she came into conflict over Armenia in 1992-93 and again just recently over Syria.436 As for China, we have seen that whatever pious words of friendship the two former communist allies may mouth, the Chinese already have vast demographic and commercial power in Siberia, over parts of which they have territorial claims, and which they must see as a critical part of their worldwide drive for reliable energy supplies. In view of this, Russia’s cheap sale of military technology and energy to the Chinese437 must be regarded as very short-sighted, ignoring as it does the fact that China’s very rapid military build-up is directed as much against Russia as against anyone else...
From an Orthodox point of view, the spiritual and physical health of Russia is a matter of the most vital concern. The Balkan countries are too wrapped up in their nationalist egoisms to take up the banner of Universal Orthodoxy, and are in any case too weak to have a wide influence. Only Russia, with her relatively recent imperial past and her hundreds of thousands of martyrs under the Soviet yoke, has the potential to unite the Orthodox and revive the Orthodox faith worldwide.
The root cause of the failure of Orthodox civilization to revive since 1991 has been the failure to repent of the sins of the Soviet period. In Russia there has been no desovietization process, no trials of communist leaders, and no true repentance in any but a few individuals. Moreover, the organ that might have been expected to lead the process of national repentance, the official church of the Moscow Patriarchate, has been adept only at justifying the crimes of the past.438
As a direct result, as we have seen, on almost every index of social health, from the level of material inequality (higher in Russia than in any other nation) to child mortality, drug abuse, organized crime and corruption, Russia figures among the most wretched countries in the world. The lack of repentance has led to a deeply
436 Some have suspected that the KGB played a major part in the abortive coup against Erdogan in July, 1916. 437 Stephen Kotkin, “The $20-a-barrel price borders on the shocking”, Foreign Affairs, September- October, 2009, p. 133. 438 See V. Moss, “1945 and the Moscow Patriarchate’s ‘Theology of Victory’”, www.orthodoxchristianbooks.com/articles/321/1945-moscow-patriarchate-s-.
268 depressing picture of moral and social degradation. And the picture is not dissimilar in the other “Orthodox”, formerly communist countries of Eastern Europe.
It is possible to believe in a special messianic role for Russia only if she completely rejects the accursed Putin regime and all its works, both within and outside the country. Indeed, the complete rejection of the Russian revolution in all its phases and incarnations, including the present one, is an absolute condition of the resurrection of Russia as a truly Orthodox state. For in no other way can the curse of 1613 and the anathema of 1918 be lifted from the Russian people.
Before the revolution, St. John of Kronstadt said that Russia without a tsar would be “a stinking corpse”. His prophecy has proved accurate, not only for the Soviet period, but also for the post-Soviet period, which should more precisely be called the neo-Soviet period. St. John’s opinion was echoed by the last true elder of the Russian Church Abroad, Archimandrite Nektary of Eleon (+2000): “Everywhere and at all time he remained devoted to Tsarist Russia. The Russian autocracy was for him the only lawful and God-established power. All later governments in Russia after the overthrow of the Tsar on March 2, 1917 – whether the February-democratic government, the Bolshevik, or another – were enemies of God. He used to say that every republic and even every constitutional monarchy was clearing the path to the coming of the Antichrist. By contrast with certain Russian emigres, he was not deceived when, in the expression of Fr. Konstantin (Zaitsev), ‘the communists put church gloves on their nails’. Later, Fr. Nektary ‘did not swallow the bait’ of the perestroika NEP. ‘No,’ said Fr. Nektary, ‘”perestroika” is a great trap of the dark powers. They are preparing something new, something more terrible. Russia is on the threshold of the Antichrist.’ But in the last few years he more and more often began to say that, in spite of the clear signs of the end, and in spite of the fact that the rulers of Russia have already entered into the world government, the regeneration of Russia, according to the forecasts of St. Seraphim of Sarov, St. John of Kronstadt and Bishop Theophan of Poltava, is still possible, albeit for a short time…”439
Is it too much to hope that the stinking corpse of Lenin may finally be cast out of its mausoleum on Red Square, as that of the false Dmitri was cast out (through the barrel of a gun) in 1612? Could a real regeneration then take place, as it did in 1613, so that the purified, renewed and reinvigorated body of Orthodox Russia will shine forth again in all its splendour, as the holy prophets of Russia said that it would? Could we be on the eve of that radical searching and repentance of Russian minds that, as the holy elders said, is the essential prerequisite of the resurrection of Holy Rus’ – and through her of the whole world?
It is indeed possible, but only if we remember that cancer remains dangerous and life-threatening even when only a few cancerous cells remain in the body; it has to be thoroughly extirpated even at the cost of the thorough exhaustion of the rest of the body. In the same way, the present recommunization led by Putin has to be extirpated completely. “Do you now know,” asks the Apostle Paul, “that a little
439 Isaak Gindis, in Archimandrite Nektary (Chernobyl’), Vospominania, Jordanville, 2002, p. 7.
269 leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you are truly unleavened” (I Corinthians 5.6-7).
For, as Metropolitan Anastasy (Gribanovsky), first-hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad, wrote in 1938: “There is nothing more dangerous than if Russia were to want to assimilate anything from the sad inheritance left by degenerate Bolshevism: everything that its corrupting atheist hand has touched threatens to infect us again with the old leprosy.”
Conclusion
Military experts, they say, are too often obsessed with reliving the battles of the last great war, as a result of which they fail to predict the new strategies and new technologies that will be decisive in the future great war. Thus in the 1930s some were still thinking about cavalry attacks and trenches, when they should have been thinking about blitzkrieg tank offensives and carpet bombing… The opposite is the case in the spiritual war that is being waged today: we Orthodox are obsessed with fighting what we think is the war of the future without having drawn the lessons of the past. Worse than that: we have not even finished fighting the last war, but live under the wholly mistaken illusion that we were then the victors, when in fact the old enemy is alive and well and laughing at us for our naivety! Thus on innumerable forums and websites we talk a great deal and with great fervour about the New World Order, the evil of America and the Jews, globalization, 666, etc., while the Old World Order is preparing to deliver us a final, knock-out blow!
So what are the unfinished old wars? First of all, the war against Soviet communism. The old foe has changed his appearance and strategy so successfully that many Orthodox now think of Putin as a new St. Constantine or St. George come to deliver Orthodox civilization from the American dragon! Greek politicians, in particular, appear to have taken Putin with his cold, chekist smile to their hearts.440
Putinist propaganda appears to have penetrated even into the most traditionalist corners of Mount Athos. An example is the DVD distributed by Esphigmenou monastery’s journal, Boanerges, but made by the Moscow Patriarchate and presented by Fr. (now Bishop) Tikhon Shevkunov, Putin’s reputed spiritual father. The subject is an analysis of the Fall of Constantinople in which much emphasis is laid on the roles of evil aristocrats within and western barbarism without. However, the real purpose of the DVD is not historical analysis, but contemporary political allegory: for “the Fall of Constantinople, the Second Rome”, read “the possible Fall of Moscow, the Third Rome”; for evil Greek aristocrats then, read evil Jewish oligarchs now; for western barbarism then, read NATO expansion now; for the absolute need for a powerful and independent autocrat then, read the same need in Russia now…
440 Thus “Panos Kammenos, a former ND deputy who opposes austerity and admires Mr. Putin, says Greece should turn to Russia if, as expected, it needs yet another bail-out. (Russia has already lent Cyprus €2.5 billion, or $3.3 billion, to avert the island’s default.) Mr. Kammenos’s new party, Independent Greeks, is predicted to sweep into parliament with around 10% of the vote…” (“An Orthodox Friendship”, The Economist, April 7-13, 2012, p. 38) As for the Marxist Tsipras, the President of Greece, he has also demonstrated his closeness to Putin…
270
The grim fact that almost the whole of the Orthodox world appears to ignore is that Soviet communism was not destroyed in 1991: it suffered a defeat which allowed it to reculer pour mieux sauter – that is, change form in order to deceive its adversaries and successfully re-establish its grip over the heartland of Orthodoxy. The final defeat of communism is still in the future. According to the prophecies of the Russian elders, this will take place, not through some kind of peaceful evolution, but in war, and the final knock-out blow will be administered by – China…
Secondly, there is the war against Islam. Many hundreds of years, and many millions of martyrs later, some Orthodox appear ready to forgive or at least condone the sins of the Islamic world simply because it opposes Israel, America and the West! As if the martyrs of Islam hate the Christianity of the East any less than that of the West! But Islam is still a formidable enemy, and its final defeat is also still in the future. Again, this will take place in war, a “general [world] war”, according to St. Cosmas of Aitolia, after which “the Hagarenes [Muslims] will learn the mysteries [of the faith] three times faster than the Christians”.
Thirdly, there is the war against paganism. Paganism was the earliest enemy of the Church, and the Chinese empire represents the latest and by far the most powerful representative of pagan culture to survive in the modern world, even if western technology and to some extent western ideology have disguised its pagan essence. Again, some Orthodox appear prepared to respect China if only for its opposition to America. But the Chinese, too, will be finally defeated in war. They will be destroyed, according to the elders, during the same war in which the Chinese conquer Siberia and destroy the old power structures in Russia…
All this is not to say, of course, that the New World Order, Western civilization headed by America, is not an evil, soul-destroying reality that must be combatted. At the same time this evil must be combatted intelligently. Which means, first of all, that we must not attempt to combat the evil of the NWO by supporting the no less evil evil of the OWO – evil is not overcome by evil, but by good. Neither Putin nor Xi Jinping nor any sheikh or ayatollah is going to save Orthodoxy. Nor, unfortunately, will loyalty to any of the leader-hierarchs and patriarchs of World Orthodoxy; for they are as much in thrall to the NWO or OWO as any politician.
We should follow the path of the early Christians, who, while living under a corrupt and anti-Christian despotism, engaged in no political activism or agitation of any sort (apart from occasional calls on the emperors to be merciful to the Christians), but obeyed the authorities to the limit that their conscience allowed them, sincerely praying for all their enemies. The reward of their patience and love was the final overthrow of the pagan Roman system through civil war and its replacement by Christian Romanity under St. Constantine. If we imitate their patience and faith, then we shall witness, first, the division of the whore of Babylon, western civilization, “into three parts” (Revelation 16.19) (America, Europe and Japan?), then her destruction by a coalition of ten states headed by the beast (Russia? China?) who “will burn her with fire… in one day” (Revelation 17.17, 18.8). But that will not be the end; for then the beast will be destroyed by the Word
271 of God Himself (Revelation 19.20-21), making possible the resurrection of Orthodoxy (Revelation 20). For as the Lord Himself declared in a prophecy that, as St. John Maximovich said, has not yet been fulfilled: “This Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come…” (Matthew 24.14).
APPENDIX 1. ANONYMOUS PROPHECY OF MOUNT ATHOS (1053)
New European War [First World War, 1914]. Overthrow of Russia and Austria [1917, 1918]. Defeat of the Hagarenes [the Turks] by the Greeks [1922]. Defeat of the Greeks by the Hagarenes [1923]. Slaughter of the Orthodox until 1935 [the Bolshevik persecution in Russia reached its peak in the 1930s]. An invasion of foreign armies across the Adriatic sea [Italian invasion of Albania and Greece in 1939]. Woe unto all those who dwell upon the earth and the sea. Hades is ready for… Hagarenes and barbarians. A new European war [Second World War, 1939]. The union of Orthodox peoples with Germany [pacts between Nazi Germany and Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria and the USSR, 1940-41]. The defeat of France by Germany [1940]. The defeat of Germany [1945]. The rebellion and separation of India from England [1947]. England will be restricted to the Saxons only [A ban on immigration? Or separation of Scotland from the United Kingdom? Or Britain’s exit from the European Union?]. Victory of the Orthodox, defeat of the Hagarenes by the Orthodox peoples [Russia will conquer Turkey, according to the prophecies of Hieromartyr Methodius of Patara, St. Andrew the Fool-for-Christ of Constantinople, St. Tarasius of Constantinople, Emperor Leo the Wise, Hieromartyr Cosmas of Aitolia and on the tomb and column of St. Constantine the Great.] Anxiety of the world. General hopelessness on the earth [expectation of a world war following Russia’s occupation of a NATO country]. Battle of seven states for Constantinople and slaughter for three days. Victory of the largest state over the six. Union of the six states against the seventh, Russia, and slaughter for three days. [St. Nilus the myrrh-gusher of Mount Athos: “The Tsar will summon all his European and Asiatic peoples. The belligerents will meet in an immensely wide plain where a terrific battle will be fought and will last for eight days. The result will be the victory of the West over the Russians.”] Cessation of the war by an Angel of Christ God, and handing over of the city to the Greeks. Submission of the Latins to the unerring faith of the Orthodox. Exaltation of the Orthodox faith from the East to the West. Cessation of the Roman papacy. [St. Agathangelus (+1279): “Stone will not be left upon stone in your walls, and you will be desolate like the holy city of David. You will humble your haughty neck and go to worship with him who conquered my sanctuary in Byzantium.”] Declaration of one patriarch for the whole of Europe for five or fifty years. [St. Agathangelus: “For full fifty years peace shall reign. Truth shall triumph, and the sky will rejoice in true glory. The Orthodox faith will be exalted and will spring from East to West to be blessed and praised…”] In the seventh is no wretched man; no one is banished. Returning to the arms of Mother Church rejoicing. Thus shall it be. Thus shall it be. Amen.
272 APPENDIX 2. A PROPHECY OF ST. NILUS THE MYRRH-GUSHER OF MOUNT ATHOS (+1596)
About the year 1900, towards the middle of the twentieth century, the people of that time will begin to become unrecognizable. When the time of the coming of the Antichrist draws near, people’s minds will be darkened from carnal passions, and dishonour and iniquity will become ever stronger. The world will then become unrecognizable, the appearance of people will change and it will be impossible clearly to distinguish men from women thanks to their shamelessness in clothes and hairstyle. These people will become savage and cruel, like beasts, because of the deceptions of the Antichrist. There will be no respect for parents and elders, love will disappear, Christian pastors, bishops and priests will become vainglorious men, completely unable to distinguish the right path from the left. Then the morals and traditions of Christians and of the Church will change. Modesty and humility will disappear from among men and adultery and dissipation will reign. Lies and love of money will reach the highest limits, and woe to those who gather treasures. Adultery, lust, homosexuality, secret deeds, thefts and murders will rule in society. At that future time, thanks to the strength of very great criminality and dissoluteness, people will be deprived of the grace of the Holy Spirit which they received in Holy Baptism, and they will equally lose the pangs of conscience. The Churches of God will be deprived of God-fearing and pious pastors, and woe to the Christians who remain upon the earth, who will completely lose their faith, because they will be deprived of the possibility of seeing the light of knowledge from anyone. Then they will depart from the world into holy refuges in search of a lightening of their spiritual sufferings, but everywhere they will meet hindrances and obstacles. And all this will be the result of the Antichrist’s desiring to rule over them and become the ruler of the whole inhabited earth. He will work wonders and fantastic signs. He will also give corrupt wisdom to an unfortunate man, so that he will make discoveries enabling one man to conduct a conversation with another from one end of the earth to the other. Also, they will be able to fly in the air like birds, and descend to the bottom of the sea like fishes. [St. Cosmas of Aitolia (+1779): “There will appear a box of the devil, which will stupefy the world, and whose horns will be on the roof”.] And when they have achieved all this, these unfortunate people will live their lives in comfort, not knowing, wretched ones, that this is a deception of he Antichrist. And he, the dishonourable one, will so complete science with vainglory that it will lose its way and lead people to unbelief in the existence of the God in three Persons. Then the all-good God, seeing the destruction of the human race, will shorten the days for the sake of those few who are being saved, because the Antichrist will want to lead astray, if it were possible, even the elect… Then suddenly the sword of punishment will appear and will kill the perverter and his servants.
273 APPENDIX 3. A PROPHECY OF ST. THEOPHAN OF POLTAVA (+1940)
You ask me about the near future and the last times. I do not speak from myself, but communicate the revelations of the [Valaam] elders. And they passed on to me the following: the coming of the Antichrist draws nigh and is very near… But before the coming of the Antichrist Russia must yet be restored - to be sure, for a short time. And in Russia there must be a Tsar forechosen by the Lord Himself. He will be a man of burning faith, great mind and iron will. This much has been revealed about him. He will not be a Romanov, but he will be of the Romanovs according to the maternal line....
The quiet and peaceful times have come to an end. Ahead woes await men, and grievous sufferings. First of all there will be a world war, as it is written in the Gospel: ‘Nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom’ (Matthew 24.7). Because of the multiplication of iniquities, and the apostasy from God, which the Lord called ‘the abomination of desolation… standing in the holy place’ (Matthew 24.15), in other words, in the Church, because of the sins, in the first place, of the episcopate, and then of the priesthood, as of the leading men in the state, for all this the Lord will permit… In the Church the woes will be so great that there will remain faithful to God only two, at most three hierarchs.
The Lord will have mercy on Russia for the sake of the small remnant of true believers. In Russia, the elders said, in accordance with the will of the people, the Monarchy, Autocratic power, will be re-established. The Lord has forechosen the future Tsar. He will be a man of fiery faith, having the mind of a genius and a will of iron. First of all he will introduce order in the Orthodox Church, removing all the untrue, heretical and lukewarm hierarchs. And many, very many - with few exceptions, all - will be deposed, and new, true, unshakeable hierarchs will take their place. He will be of the family of the Romanovs according to the female line.441 Russia will be a powerful state, but only for 'a short time'... And then the Antichrist will come into the world, with all the horrors of the end as described in the Apocalypse."
The comparison of past and present woes with the corresponding utterances in the Gospels and the Apocalypse gives us reason to think that now four seals have already been removed by the Lamb from the book which He Who sits on the Throne and Who was seen by the seer of mysteries holds in His right hand. Not hundreds, not tens of thousands, but myriads of thousands of our brothers have laid down their lives for the Word of God and the testimony concerning the Lamb in the Great War and the horrors of civil war and anarchy that followed it. These innumerable numbers of those killed for the Word of God and the testimony concerning the Lamb now cry out to the Throne of God and call on the righteousness of God to take revenge for the crimes committed by the sons of this age. And look what reply the Wisdom of God gives to their fervent petition. He asks them to be calm for a short time until their co-workers and brothers who will be killed, as they have been, fill up the number of those crowned with a martyr's crown (Revelation 6.9-11). It follows from
441 And again: “He [the future Tsar] will not be a Romanov, but he will be from the Romanovs on the maternal line, he will re-establish the fertility of Siberia.”
274 this that after all the horrors of war and anarchy in the world calm will nevertheless be given to the world, albeit for a short time. But the world cannot be calmed without a calmed and restored Russia. But Russia cannot be restored until the power of darkness in her is cast down and a lawful power, both according to human law and according to the law of Divine anointing, is confirmed in her. Consequently, Russia will undoubtedly be restored, and a lawful power will also be restored in her. But this calm will be given both to the Russian people and to the other sons of this age in order that they should prepare themselves for the great struggle with antichristianity, during which the number of martyrs predetermined from eternity, who must suffer for the Word of God and for the testimony concerning the Lamb, will be filled up.
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APPENDIX 4. THE FALL OF ROCOR
The last serious ideological opponent of the Putin-Gundiaiev regime was the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR). We have seen how, in its October, 2000 Council ROCOR departed from its traditional anti-Soviet and anti- MP stance. It remains only to trace its final fall.
“On November 21 / December 4, 2000,” writes Vitaly Shumilo, “Metropolitan Vitaly, in reply to the numerous appeals, published his ‘Epistle to the Clergy and Flock’ in which he gave his evaluation of the Moscow Patriarchate and its Sobor of 2000, in particular with regard to the canonization in the MP of the New Martyrs and the Royal Family. ‘The Moscow Patriarchate has decided to carry out a political capitulation and to perform its glorification with one aim only: to pacify the voice of its believers and thereby gain some continued existence for itself.’ In his Epistle Vladyka Metropolitan also gives a critical evaluation of the decree accepted by the ROCOR Sobor concerning the creation of a Reconciliatory commission for unity with the MP and recalled how and with what aim Stalin created the contemporary ‘Moscow Patriarchate’. And here he speaks about the Catacomb Church, which did not enter upon the path of serving the God-fighting authorities, and about the Soviet church, which submitted to the authorities: ‘The silent response to this on the part of the believers in Russia was that they began to pray in their homes, and in every such flat a house church with an iconostasis was created… This kind of church exists to this day.’ In his Epistle the First-Hierarch affirmed that ‘our Church, which already now for 80 years has gone along the straight path of Christ, will not deviate into any dubious holes’, and ‘the fact that I have signed this Epistle [the conciliar decision of 2000 –author’s comment] by no means signifies that I agree with every point in it, and I know that there are other hierarchs who thought the same as I’. At the end of the Epistle Metropolitan Vitaly once more declared: ‘And so know, faithful children of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, that our Church has not changed its path, and we also, if we wish to be saved, must go along this path’, and he called on them to remain ‘faithful to the Lord and His Church’.”
*
The most organized resistance outside Russia came from the West European diocese. The clergy there were unhappy with the appointment of the pro-MP Bishop Ambrose (Cantacuzène) as head of the diocese to replace the anti-MP Archbishop Seraphim, who was retiring. Moreover, on October 17 a letter to the Council of Bishops signed by Bishop Barnabas, 7 archpriests, 7 priests, the Abbess of the Lesna convent and other lower clergy protested against the plans, announced in a letter by two Geneva priests, to transfer the Geneva parish of the Elevation of the Cross to the MP in exchange for “stavropegial” status and administrative and financial independence.
276 The role of Bishop Ambrose of Geneva in this affair was not immediately obvious. Although he had been conducting negotiations with the MP for the last five years, he appeared at first to distance himself from the two priests. However, on October 27 he was elevated to the rank of diocesan bishop of the Western Europe diocese, and immediately, at a parish meeting, said that he was very happy with the parish council’s decision to join the MP…
There were stirrings in Russia also. On January 21 / February 2, 2001, Bishop Benjamin (Rusalenko) of the Kuban and Black Sea made the first open declaration by a bishop withdrawing his signature from the unorthodox decisions of the Council of the year 2000. In June he was followed by Archbishop Lazarus. Now all the Russian bishops except Bishop Eutyches of Ishim and Siberia were on the side of the protesters.
On February 6-8 there took place a meeting of the Hierarchical Synod in New York under the presidency of Metropolitan Vitaly that confirmed all the decisions of the Council. “We are very upset,” said the Synod, “by the disturbances that have taken hold of some parts of our church organism. In connection with this we affirm that we – all the members of the Hierarchical Synod, headed by the president, his Eminence Metropolitan Vitaly, - unanimously stand by the decisions and declarations accepted at the Hierarchical Council and we cannot agree with the attempt to introduce a spirit of doubt and disagreement into our midst.”
In response to this, on February 24 / March 9 Bishop Benjamin and the clergy of the Kuban and Black Sea diocese wrote to Metropolitan Vitaly and the Synod, saying: “We insistently ask you to convene a new Council with the participation of clergy, monastics and laity. Because by your decisions you have introduced strong dismay and disturbance into the whole of our Church. We are expecting a positive response to our Address from the next meeting of the Hierarchical Synod. But if our voice is not heeded by the Archpastors, then we shall be forced, in accordance with the holy canons that forbid joint prayer with heretics, to step on the path of decisive actions (‘depart from evil and do good’)… We have not lost hope that our Hierarchical Synod will review these decisions and by the conciliar mind of the Russian Church Abroad will correct the errors that have been made.”
Meanwhile, the clergy of the West European diocese were continuing to refuse to accept Bishop Ambrose’s authority. Fr. Nicholas Semeonov of Brussels and Fr. Constantine Fyodorov of the Lesna convent in France were suspended. On February 28, 2001, Bishop Barnabas withdrew his signature from the October Council’s letter to the Serbian patriarch. The next day Bishop Ambrose “released the clergy and the flock of the French vicariate [of Cannes] from submission to Bishop Barnabas”. Then, on April 24 the ROCOR Synod, on the basis of a report by the Protopriests George Larin and Stefan Pavlenko, suspended the French clergy for their refusal to commemorate Bishop Ambrose, and told them to meet Archbishop Laurus in Munich on May 2. This suspension was signed by Metropolitan Vitaly and Archbishop Laurus, secretary of the Synod. The French clergy, meeting with Bishop Barnabas, unanimously rejected the suspensions as uncanonical, and did not
277 go to the meeting in Munich. But on April 25, Bishop Barnabas was also placed under ban. These acts were signed by Metropolitan Vitaly and Archbishop Laurus.
None of the banned clergy was able to arrive at such short notice for the meeting on May 2. In their absence a broadened Hierarchical Synod confirmed the April decisions to ban Bishop Barnabas and his clergy. On May 5 Bishop Barnabas and his clergy signed an Address in which they evaluated the activity of the Synod and Bishop Ambrose in the last few months. They pointed out that they had made several appeals to the Synod to review the ecumenist and pro-MP activity of Bishop Ambrose and to remove him from administering the diocese. In reply, instead of investigating the complaints and initiating an ecclesiastical trial, the Synod had banned the appealers “until repentance”. Referring to Bishop Benjamin’s Declaration (“the voice of Bishop Benjamin of the Black Sea and Kuban has sounded out in a confessing manner”, they said), the West European clergy appealed to the like-minded clergy and flock in Russia and abroad to unite “and form a powerful opposition to the new course in our Church”.
On May 6/19 another Address of the West European clergy appeared on the internet, in which their position was explained and bewilderment expressed with regard to the bans placed on them by the Synod. “The essence of the question is not in some crude and enigmatic disobedience to the hierarchy, but in the acceptance or non-acceptance of the Moscow Patriarchate. The question was clearly put at the Council of the year 2000, which established a Commission for the Unity of the Russian Church and turned to the Serbian ‘Patriarch’ with a request that he intercede on the path to this unity. The hierarchs deliberately ignore this question and cover it with a supposed violation of church discipline. The appointment of Bishop Ambrose as the ruling bishop, although he is a supporter of rapprochement with Moscow and in spite of all the warnings, has brought the diocese into complete disorder… In recognizing the Moscow Patriarchate as the genuine Russian Church, the hierarchs have condemned themselves as schismatics, falling under the Moscow Patriarchate’s condemnation of the Church Abroad.” At the end of the Address the banned clergy declared that this kind of action on the part of the members of the Synod “has no real ecclesiastical significance, and all their decisions bear only a party character”. The crisis in the West European diocese had reached the point where formal synodical decrees and bans were no longer able to resolve it.
But perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the whole affair was the fact that Metropolitan Vitaly had signed these bans…
On May 22 / June 4 Archbishop Lazarus withdrew his signature from the decisions of the Council of 2000. In his Address (which he had begun in January, 2001, but had been prevented from completing because of illness) he, following Bishop Benjamin, called for an extraordinary Council of ROCOR to review several points in that Council’s documents. And he went on: “In no way am I thinking, and never have thought, of leaving ROCOR and causing a schism, but, on the contrary, by this step of mine I guard myself and the flock entrusted to me by the Holy Church from deviating from the only true path of confession along which ROCOR
278 and RTOC (as two parts of one Russian Church) have unwaveringly gone since the very moment of their origin.”
Archbishop Lazarus also warned against premature breaking with the Synod. He was probably thinking of the action of the Paris Protopriest Benjamin Zhukov, who in the previous month of May, had attempted to have Archimandrite Sergius (Kindyakov) consecrated and had unsuccessfully tried to draw Lazarus into his plot. But he did succeed in enrolling Bishop Barnabas, who travelled with the aim of consecrating Sergius to Mansonville in Canada, but was deterred from carrying out the consecration by Metropolitan Vitaly. However, Bishop Barnabas and Fr. Benjamin went on to register a new church group under the name of “The Russian Orthodox Church in Exile” in the Paris prefecture as a “public, non-commercial corporation.” It appeared that already these two were plotting a church coup, with the replacement of Vitaly by Barnabas as metropolitan and with Zhukov as the real controller behind the scenes…
At this point, Metropolitan Vitaly, seeing the chaos being created in the Church, began to step back from the course he had undertaken together with the other hierarchs. In an epistle dated June 7/20, he rescinded the bans on Bishop Barnabas and the French clergy. He had the right to do this as a temporary measure, in accordance with article 38 of the ROCOR Statute, pending the convening of a new Sobor that alone could make a final decision. Then, in an encyclical dated June 9/22, which he ordered to be read from the ambon of all the churches, the metropolitan subjected many positions adopted in the recent Sobor to just criticism, and called for the convocation of a new Sobor. Although the metropolitan did not personally repent of his part in the creation of this chaos (as recently as the Synodal session on February 8 he had upheld the decisions of the October 2000 Council), his willingness to review the disastrous decisions of the October Sober was very welcome. On June 25 / July 8 Archbishop Lazarus expressed his “support and profound gratitude” for the encyclical.
However, the encyclical “was forbidden to be read on the orders of Bishop Gabriel” of Manhattan, the deputy secretary of the Synod, who declared that the metropolitan had probably not composed the encyclical but had been pressured into signing it by unknown persons (the first of several such accusations in the months to come). Bishop Gabriel’s claim was supported in letters by Archbishop Mark and Bishop Ambrose. But then Bishop Barnabas weighed in on the side of the metropolitan, pointing out that the encyclical had been thrashed out in the course of three days of talks in Mansonville and expressed the freely expressed opinions of the metropolitan himself.
On July 10, a critical session of the Hierarchical Synod was held. The event turned into a very crude and rude attempt to force the metropolitan to retire – only two or three days before the fiftieth anniversary of his service as a bishop. The metropolitan said that he could retire only as the result of the decision of a Sobor; but the other bishops said that that was not necessary. The metropolitan then closed the session, declaring that he had nothing in common with the other bishops, and that he would see them at the Sobor.
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However, two documents dated the same day and signed, as it would seem, by Metropolitan Vitaly as well as by the other ten bishops, declared that the metropolitan had submitted a petition that he be allowed to retire “in view of age and illness” (he was 92), that his petition had been accepted with understanding, that Archbishop Laurus was appointed deputy of the first hierarch “with all proxy powers” (protocol № 9) until a Sobor could be convened, and that a Sobor to elect a new metropolitan would be convened in October! The decision was taken that “any official documents coming from the Synod without the signature of the deputy of the First-Hierarch, Archbishop Laurus, are invalid (article three of the Act). And it was also decreed that a Hierarchical Sobor should be convened in October to elect a new First-Hierarch (article 4). Archbishop Laurus was appointed Deputy of the First-Hierarch, and his name was to be commemorated in all the parishes after the name of the First-Hierarch…
Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin did not submit to these decrees, and continued to commemorate Metropolitan Vitaly without commemorating Archbishop Laurus.
On July 12 a triumphant liturgy and moleben was celebrated in honour of Metropolitan Vitaly’s jubilee, after which a number of hypocritical speeches praising the metropolitan were uttered by hierarchs who had been treating him with such disrespect only two days before.
On July 13 the Synod declared, in an attempt to assuage the fears of Metropolitan Vitaly’s supporters: “None of the hierarchs of ROCOR is pushing towards a unification with the MP. There is no pro-MP faction amongst us.” The falseness of these words was already evident, but would be demonstrated even more clearly in the coming years…
“Shortly after the forced removal of Metropolitan Vitaly,” writes Professor Olga Ackerly, “… the MP began to voice its endorsement: ‘We welcome the fact that the more healthy forces in the Church Abroad have predominated and are now for all practical purposes in charge of it.’”
On September 4-5, a Conference of the Hierarchs, Clergy and Laity of the Russian Parishes of ROCOR took place in Voronezh under the presidency of Archbishop Laurus, and with the participation of Bishops Benjamin, Agathangelus and Eutyches. At this meeting the Kursk and Belgorod clergy declared their break of communion with the New York Synod and addressed their bishops – Lazarus, Benjamin and Agathangelus – with a suggestion that they appeal to Metropolitan Vitaly and Bishop Barnabas that they unite with them on the basis of the pre-2000 dogmatical and canonical position of ROCOR. Bishop Agathangelus reacted by demanding that the Kursk clergy renounce their break of communion with the New York Synod. Otherwise, he would not sign any proposed documents. And he showed the clergy the door… Archbishop Lazarus did not support his colleague’s hardline attitude to the Kursk clergy, but agreed with him about not breaking with the Lavrites. Bishop Benjamin adopted a neutral position. Although the majority of
280 the Conference agreed with the Kursk clergy, they now tried to persuade them, for the sake of “the good of the Church” to withdraw their words about a break of communion with the New York Synod. Fr. Valery Rozhnov said that the Synod had fallen under their own anathema. Archbishop Lazarus retorted that nobody had anathematized them. When the Kursk clergy refused to back down, Bishop Agathangelus said that he was not in communion with them. And so they left the meeting… Finally, the Conference accepted an Address to the forthcoming Sobor in which support was expressed for Metropolitan Vitaly’s encyclical and for the banned Bishop Barnabas and the West European clergy, while the practice of this kind of ban was condemned. Then, addressing Metropolitan Vitaly personally, the Conference besought him not to abandon his post of First-Hierarch.
On reading this Address, Metropolitan Vitaly raised his right hand and said: “There is the True Church. Here everything is finished…” And on September 8/21 Bishop Barnabas and the West European clergy (including Fr. Benjamin Zhukov) expressed their gratitude to the Russian hierarchs and their complete support for their position.
Bishop Agathangelus signed all the decrees and addresses of the Voronezh Conference, and was entrusted with representing its views to the Sobor in New York. He assured the participants that he would not vote for the new course of rapprochement with the MP, and that if Metropolitan Vitaly refused to take part in the Sobor and left the hall, he would follow him. However, having arrived in New York, he changed course and joined the uniates. And then, on returning to Russia, he raised a persecution against Archbishop Lazarus and his colleagues. He denounced them to the civil authorities, tried to have their registration rescinded and their churches taken from them. He even tried to seize the church of St. John of Kronstadt in Odessa that belonged to Archbishop Lazarus…
At the first session of the Sobor in New York, on October 10/23, Archbishop Laurus was elected metropolitan – a decision welcomed by “Patriarch” Alexis of Moscow. Metropolitan Vitaly was present at this session, but only in order to hand in the following declaration, dated October 5/18, after which he left the hall:
“Recognizing the depth of the sinful fall of certain members of the Hierarchical Council of our Church in their intensive, but not yet expressed desire to unite with the Moscow Patriarchate, I, with full responsibility before God, the Russian people and my conscience, consider it my archpastoral duty to declare that the coming Hierarchical Sobor, which is due to open on October 23, 2001 cannot be called anything other than a collection of irresponsibles.
“This Sobor undoubtedly intends to discuss questions relating to a possible union with the false-church of the Moscow Patriarchate. The other day I received a ‘Fraternal Epistle’ from Patriarch Alexis II, which, to my profound sorrow, elicited a joyful reaction from many clerics of our Church. They even sent a triumphant address to the Sobor, asking the Sobor to react positively to this epistle of the patriarch. Their address was signed by 18-odd clerics of our Church. But how many more are there who do not dare to express themselves openly? Seeing no other way
281 out of the situation that has been created, and not wishing to bear responsibility for the final destruction of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad that has been entrusted to my care, I declare:
“I consider myself the lawful heir of all the preceding metropolitans of our Holy Church Abroad: first Metropolitan Anthony, then Metropolitan Anastasius, and finally Metropolitan Philaret. I am the fourth Metropolitan of our Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and until the most recent time, I have continued, with the help of God, to lead this ship on the straight path amidst the threatening waves of the sea of this world, avoiding underwater rocks, sudden storms and deep pits that suck ships to the bottom of the sea. Unfortunately, a fateful time has come, when I have understood and appreciated the sad fact that between me and the other hierarchs of our Synod there is no longer oneness of mind and soul. I said this at the last Synod, when after the first session I, distressed and fully conscious of my isolation among the other hierarchs, left the gathering. On this basis and only on this basis, I agreed to retire and will be considered the Metropolitan of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad in retirement. In this Church I was born, was baptized and will die when the time comes.
“I wish to declare for all to hear that as First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, I completely reject and condemn any rapprochement whatsoever and union in the future with the false-church, the Moscow Patriarchate.
“I also wish to declare that I remove my signature from the following documents signed by me:
“1. My signature on the address to the Serbian Patriarch Paul.
“2. My signature on the agreement to form a commission for the establishment of negotiations with the Moscow Patriarchate…”
On the same day Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin again addressed the Sobor and Metropolitan Vitaly personally. They called on the Sobor to review the unacceptable documents accepted in the previous Sobor, and asked the metropolitan not to retire, saying that they recognized only him as First-Hierarch. They said that they were not able, for objective reasons, to be in New York, but were ready to take part in the work of the Sobor by telephone – on condition, however, that all the bishops withdrew their signatures from the documents of the Council of 2000.
On October 11/24, Bishop Barnabas also wrote to Metropolitan Vitaly expressing his support. Before that he and Protodeacon Herman Ivanov-Trinadtsaty had phoned him, appealing to him not to retire. On the same day Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin once again wrote to the metropolitan, asking him to review his decision to retire. Archbishop Lazarus even repeated the request in a phone call to Mansonville. “No,” replied the metropolitan firmly, “I am a metropolitan in retirement.” “How then is it to be with us now in Russia?” asked the archbishop. “Place your hope on God. God will bless”, replied the metropolitan…
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On receiving this reply, Archbishop Lazarus decreed that for the time being only the name of the ruling bishop should be commemorated in his cathedral church of St. John of Kronstadt in Odessa. With the retirement of the metropolitan, the ruling organ of the Russian Church now became the Hierarchical Conference of Russian Bishops, first created with the blessing of the ROCOR Hierarchical Council in 1994 with Archbishop Lazarus at its head.
On October 11/24, having discussed the declarations of the Russian bishops, the Sobor in New York elected Archbishop Laurus as metropolitan by a majority of votes and confirmed its adherence to the decisions of the robber council of 2000.
On October 12/25, Metropolitan Vitaly came into the hall, congratulated “the new First-Hierarch Metropolitan Laurus” and said “that he was going into retirement and is handing over the reins of the Church’s administration”. From what is written in the Protocol, the conversation was friendly. The metropolitan congratulated Archbishop Laurus and wished him “to guide the ship of the Church in the same way that it had always been guided, on the straight path of True Orthodoxy”. On his part, Archbishop Laurus “in the name of the Sobor thanked Metropolitan Vitaly for his labours for the good of the Church”, and “asked him for his help in bringing order to Church life”. The metropolitan once again emphasized that “by reason of his health and in view of his advanced age he could no longer administer the Church. He had never been ambitious. He truly needed rest.” The session continued without the metropolitan, and they discussed the participation of Vladyka Vitaly at the enthronement of Archbishop Laurus and the provision of a pension for him in his retirement.
The Sobor wanted Metropolitan Vitaly to hand over all his property in Canada to the Synod. To this end, fearing the interference of his secretary, Liudmilla Rosnianskaia, it was decreed, already on October 11/24, to remove her immediately from the Synodal house, “bringing to an end her position as a servant of the Hierarchical Synod”. Then, on the evening of the same or the following day (that is, on October 11/24 or 12/25), she was unceremoniously thrown out of the Synodal building, and the contents of her handbag, containing the metropolitan’s Canadian passport, medication and $20,000, were stolen. The next day, the metropolitan himself fled, first to the house of Fr. Vladimir Shishkov (where Metropolitan Valentine of Suzdal happened to be staying), and then to Canada. The ROCOR hierarchs gave an order to detain him at the border, but he successfully arrived at his Transfiguration Skete in Mansonville. The next day ROCOR sued Fr. Vladimir for assisting in the supposed kidnapping of the metropolitan, and Rosnianskaia was accused of kidnapping him, of giving him drugs to destroy his memory, and of exploiting his senility to her advantage.
As a result of these events, through the greed of the Synodal hierarchs, Metropolitan Vitaly was prevented from taking part in the enthronement of Archbishop Laurus and of praying together with the uniate hierarchs. On the day after his departure for Canada there was an earthquake in New York… And on the very night that Metropolitan Laurus arrived in the Holy Trinity monastery in
283 Jordanville, a fire broke out in the monastery… The fire was stopped at the seminary building in which was housed the cell icon of the Iveron Mother of God that had belonged to Metropolitan Philaret.
On November 13, President Putin met Bishop Gabriel, secretary of the ROCOR (L) Synod, and invited him and Metropolitan Laurus to visit Moscow. He must have agreed this invitation with Patriarch Alexis. So with the blessing of the KGB leaders of both Church and State, the real negotiations on union, a process that was called “structuring” by its supporters, could begin.
*
Meanwhile, in Mansonville Hieromonk Vladimir (Tselischev), an ally of Fr. Benjamin Zhukov, finally convinced Metropolitan Vitaly to come out of retirement. According to the witness of Fr. Vladimir, the argument that prevailed with him was the support of the Russian bishops and the question: “Vladyka, to whom are you leaving the Russian bishops and flock?”
This represented a striking volte face on the part of Hieromonk Vladimir. Only a few months before he had dismissed the metropolitan, saying: “there is no more metropolitan” (letter of November, 2000). He said that the metropolitan was no longer able to administer the Church because he was “deprived of orientation and memory” and remained in “an unhealthy state of mind and reasoning (letter of May, 2001). He “completely depended” on his secretary, L.D. Rosnianskaia, who had control of his signature, his writing paper and his seal. “One should have no illusions about this,” he wrote (letter of July, 2001). Such inconsistency raised suspicions about Fr. Vladimir’s real motivation – suspicions that were to be confirmed quite soon…
Indeed, if the main body of the bishops led by Archbishops Laurus and Mark were preparing a “revolution on the left” against the authority of the metropolitan, there is strong evidence that a “revolution on the right” was also being prepared. The real leader of these rightist revolutionaries was the Paris Protopriest Benjamin Zhukov. In May, 2001, he asked the metropolitan to bless Bishop Barnabas of Cannes (his creature at the time) to consecrate Archimandrite Sergius (Kindiakov) to the episcopate. The metropolitan refused, and Zhukov, annoyed, then tried to persuade Archbishop Lazarus of Tambov and Odessa to carry out the consecration in secret, suggesting that he would become “metropolitan” and “first-hierarch”. Lazarus refused, thereby earning the hatred of Zhukov – with dire consequences for the Church.
Persuaded by “rightist revolutionaries” such as Tselischev and Zhukov, on October 14/27, the metropolitan issued an “Extraordinary Declaration” on the internet: “In view of the unwillingness on the part of the majority of the bishop to reconcile and pacify the unheard-of disturbance among our clergy and flock, and also taking into account the requests of some of the bishops and many of the children of the Church Abroad, I with all responsibility declare that, in accordance with paragraph 34 of the Statute on the ROCOR, I remove my signature concerning
284 my voluntary retirement and handing over of my powers to Archbishop Laurus. My name must be commemorated as before at services in all the churches of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. In case of unforeseen circumstances, Bishop Barnabas of Cannes is entrusted with temporarily bearing the powers of Deputy of the First-Hierarch of ROCOR until the election of a new First-Hierarch of the Church Abroad by hierarchs who have remained faithful to the Orthodox faith.”
This news was greeted with joy, but also with some perplexity, by the opponents of union with the MP. After all, only three days before the metropolitan had refused to revoke his decision to retire even after several earnest entreaties from hierarchs, clergy and laity both within and outside Russia. Moreover, there was considerable concern whether the metropolitan had the right to come out of retirement and resume the leadership of the Church without the decision of a Sobor of bishops. Paragraph 34 of the Statute on ROCOR did not provide him with that authority.
The only justification that the metropolitan could give for his action was the fact that he had been coerced to retire in July. As he himself said: “I hereby declare that, at that time [July 2001] I was coerced by violence to put my signature on documents prepared and written by the Synod... I have been the object of outrages and of high and repeated psychological pressures from the bishops. These tortures have exhausted me.” That Metropolitan Vitaly had indeed been coerced was witnessed by two participants in the July meeting, Archimandrite Sergius (Kindiakov) and Priest Anthony (Orlov). As against this, however, is the fact that by October the metropolitan appears to have been completely reconciled with his retirement, refused to withdraw it when asked to on many occasions, and voluntarily congratulated Archbishop Laurus on his election as the new metropolitan, reaffirming that he was retiring because of his health and old age and because he “truly needed rest”.
“Here it is appropriate to note a similar precedent,” writes Vitaly Shumilo: “it was for precisely this reason that the pre-revolutionary Russian Church did not recognize the canonicity of the so-called Belokrinitskaya Old Ritualist hierarchy, which traced its origins to Metropolitan Ambrose of Bosnia and Sarajevo, who was in retirement. The Old Ritualists’ references to the fact that Metropolitan Ambrose had been sent into retirement not in accordance with his will, but on the demand and under the pressure of the Turkish government, and that the metropolitan did not recognize the decision of the Constantinopolitan Patriarchate – were not accepted by the Holy Synod.
“The fact that Vladyka Vitaly was in the situation of a bishop in retirement is confirmed by consideration of what rights he actually enjoyed in the ‘Mansonville Synod of Vicar-Bishops’. With the seizure of power in Mansonville by Protopriest B. Zhukov, Hieromonk V. Tselischev and Priest N. Orlov, Metropolitan Vitaly was de facto retired for the second time (the first time was by the plotters from New York headed by Archbishop Laurus and Archbishop Mark): all the parishes in Canada were removed from the direct administration of Vladyka Vitaly as the ruling Bishop of Montreal and Canada and transferred to the administration of the vicars, who proclaimed themselves to be ‘ruling’. From this time and until his blessed death,
285 Metropolitan Vitaly had not one single parish under his administration in Canada. From a canonical point of view, this was a possible situation for a hierarch only if he was in retirement. The remarks that the Metropolitan was weak and unable to administer the parishes are not honest. If the Metropolitan was not able to administer his parishes, was he able to administer the Church? It is clear that the people who kept the Metropolitan in captivity were inconsistent – not to say, cunning.”
There was a similar canonical problem with regard to the metropolitan’s appointment of Bishop Barnabas as his deputy. Barnabas was under a ban signed by the metropolitan himself. That ban could be removed only by a Sobor of bishops. Therefore the Metropolitan’s decision to appoint him as his deputy without the authority of a Sobor, and later to allow him to ordain bishops and be raised to the rank of archbishop, was uncanonical.
The only way in which what we shall now call ROCOR (V) could correct these canonical deficiencies was to turn to the Russian hierarchs Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin in order to convene a canonical Sobor. For they were in fact the only ruling bishops opposed to the New York synod who did not need a Council of bishops to reinstate them as fully functioning bishops. These bishops were very eager to help in this way. On October 27, the very day of his “Extraordinary Declaration”, they had declared their loyalty to Metropolitan Vitaly. And on October 28th, 29th or 30th they “made their declaration of loyalty to Metropolitan Vitaly by telephone. This phone call was received by Bishop (then Hieromonk) Vladimir in Mansonville in the presence of Protopriest Spyridon Schneider and Priest Andrew Kencis. When Bishop Vladimir finished his phone call with Archbishop Lazarus he enthusiastically proclaimed: ‘Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin are with us, they are commemorating Metropolitan Vitaly.’”
The Mansonville group were happy to welcome the Russian bishops in October, when they were desperately in need of support against the uniate Synod under Metropolitan Laurus (ROCOR (L). However, the tragedy was that within a few days they no longer felt any need for them and in effect broke communion with them. For Zhukov wanted to rule the Synod on his own; he cared nothing for the canonical scruples of the Russian bishops, who wanted the convening of a canonical Sobor in order to correct the canonical deficiencies of the Mansonville Synod, but wanted with the aid of Bishop Barnabas alone to promote his protégé priests…
“On November 1, 2001,” writes Shumilo, “an event took place that greatly perplexed many Orthodox Christians. On the initiative of the New York Synod, Metropolitan Vitaly, accompanied by police, was forcibly sent to a psychiatric hospital for testing. This was a great indignity for the person of the Metropolitan, a mockery of his rank and age, but Vladyka Vitaly humbly and with dignity bore it all…
“[On November 3], immediately on the return of Vladyka Metropolitan from hospital, taking advantage of his distraction and under the excuse of ‘saving’ the Church, on the initiative and under the direct pressure of Protopriest V. Zhukov
286 (who shouted down the phone to Bishop Barnabas: ‘Consecrate a bishop immediately, even if it’s with a rope around his neck’ – this is witnessed by clergy from France and Russia who were present at the conversation), the Vicar-Bishop Barnabas carried out the consecration of Archimandrite Sergius (Kindiakov). The decision to carry out this consecration was taken hastily, it was not discussed in council, and none of the acting hierarchs was informed about it (not to speak of the necessity that they should give their written consent to the carrying out of a hierarchical consecration, as is demanded by the church canons and the Statute of ROCOR, see paragraph 11, and the note to this paragraph, also Canon 4 of the First Ecumenical Council: ‘… and those who are absent must compose an agreement by means of letters: and then the consecration can take place’, etc.). Only one consent was obtained to this consecration, together with the Metropolitan’s oral blessing – but not immediately, but after some pressure on him (the decisive argument was: ‘You can be arrested and the Church will remain without bishops’)…
“As many sources witness, the ninety-year-old Metropolitan, by reason of his health had not been able to serve a liturgy since 1999, was very weak and unable to take full part in the consecration of Archimandrite Sergius. He was present at it clad only in a mantia (this is witnessed by photographs: on them Bishop Barnabas and Bishop Sergius are in full hierarchical vestments, but Metropolitan Vitaly is in a mantia), whereas neither a liturgy nor a hierarchical consecration can be carried out in a mantia. The consecration of Archimandrite Sergius was carried out by Vicar-Bishop Barnabas on his own…
“This consecration laid the foundations for the creation of a new church organization – the ROC in Exile (ROCiE, it was under that name that it was registered in France, Canada and the USA)…
“If, taking into account the exceptional circumstances, for the sake of love and peace and with the aim of averting a schism in the Church, it would have been possible, in a conciliar fashion, with the application of the broadest economy, to accept the consecration of Archimandrite Sergius at a Hierarchical Sobor with a consequent laying of hands [cheirothesia] on him, then all the later ‘Mansonville consecrations’ [of Bishops Vladimir, Bartholomew, Anthony and Victor] carried out by Bishop Barnabas and Archimandrite Sergius in secret even from Metropolitan Vitaly (without the participation and contrary to the will of the metropolitan) were openly unlawful, and it is impossible to accept them.”
On November 5, the Mansonville Synod published an ukaz stating that the metropolitan was now to be commemorated as “First-Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church in Exile”. It was decided that the Church should be incorporated under this name (we recall that Zhukov had already done this in France), and Fr. Joseph Sunderland was appointed as legal advisor to carry this out. However, since a change in name usually signifies a change in Church, the ukaz disturbed many believers and was rejected by the Russian bishops. Archbishop Lazarus even orally forbade the commemoration of the metropolitan for a few weeks. But then, on November 20, the Mansonvillians recognized their mistake and reversed their previous decision, restoring the name “Russian Orthodox Church Abroad”. As
287 emerged only later, Metropolitan Vitaly had always been against the change of name. With the original name restored, on November 24 Archbishop Lazarus ordered that the metropolitan’s name be commemorated again. Bishop Benjamin issued a similar ukaz.
Also on November 5, the new “Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church in Exile” raised Bishop Barnabas to the rank of archbishop with the title “of Cannes and Europe”. Strangely, Archbishop Barnabas’ signature was not on this document. However, he was all too willing to accept the power it gave him. Thus already on or about November 7, he declared that he would not accept Archbishop Lazarus as senior to himself. And later he claimed that, as deputy to the metropolitan and “Archbishop of Europe”, he should have control over the whole of European Russia, thereby excluding Lazarus and Benjamin from the administration of their sees!
Later, the Mansonvillians would describe the meeting at which these decisions were made as “the first Hierarchical Sobor of the regenerated ROCA”. And yet much later, on May 20, 2003, they decreed the “establishment of the Hierarchical Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad”! The absurdity of establishing the Synod already eighteen months after “the first Hierarchical Sobor of the regenerated ROCA” appears to have escaped the notice of these “rightist revolutionaries”.
After this “first Hierarchical Sobor”, Metropolitan Vitaly left Montreal with his secretary, L. Rosnianskaia, who reported him as having been against the consecration of any more bishops after Archimandrite Sergius, “so that they don’t say that we bake bishops like pies”. He arrived in Mansonville on the evening of November 6. We can imagine his astonishment, therefore, when, that same evening, he saw Hieromonk Vladimir (Tselischev) coming to him with a hierarchical panagia on his breast. For Archbishop Barnabas and Bishop Sergius had ordained him as Vicar-Bishop of Sacramento that day, claiming falsely in the ordination certificate that this had been done with the metropolitan’s blessing. The metropolitan refused to recognize this “consecration”.
However, as in the case with Archimandrite Sergius, they persuaded him to recognize it “for the sake of the good of the Church”. So as to hide the illegality and give the “consecration” an appearance of lawfulness, the signature of the metropolitan was added to the ordination certificate under the printed resolution: “I confirm”.
That this consecration was performed against the will of the metropolitan was confirmed on July 12/25, 2004 by Archbishop Barnabas, when he wrote: “I repent of taking part in the consecration of Bishop Vladimir without your permission”. He had good reason to repent, for the consecration violated the Sixth Canon of the First Ecumenical Council, which says: “If anyone is made a bishop without the permission of the metropolitan, this Great Council has defined that he must not be a bishop”.
288 This administrative chaos was compounded by yet another uncanonical episcopal consecration. On November 11, Bishops Sergius and Vladimir, without the agreement or blessing, not only of Metropolitan Vitaly, but also, this time, of Archbishop Barnabas also, consecrated Archimandrite Bartholomew (Vorobiev) as Bishop of Grenada.
Later, on July 12/25 Archbishop Barnabas wrote in his penitential letter to Metropolitan Vitaly: “I repent that I did not express my protest in connection with the consecration of Bishop Bartholomew, which was carried out by Bishop Sergius and Bishop Vladimir in spite of your and my decision”. And a lie was added to the lack of canonicity: in Bishop Bartholomew’s ordination certificate it was asserted that the consecration had been carried out by Metropolitan Vitaly.
So all three consecrations – of Sergius, Vladimir and Bartholomw - were carried out contrary to the canons, without the convening of a canonical Hierarchical Sobor, by vicar bishops without the participation of the only two ruling bishops of the Russian Church that were not under ban or in retirement (Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin), in two cases against the will of their metropolitan, and in one case secretly from him. We therefore come to the conclusion that if ROCOR (L), at its October Sobor, fell away from the confessing path of the true Russian Church Abroad by its declared intention to unite with the MP and World Orthodoxy, only a few days later ROCOR (V) fell in the opposite direction through its violation of the conciliar norms of the Holy Church as enshrined in the holy canons. Taking advantage of the infirmity of Metropolitan Vitaly and his personal ascendancy over the “Mansonville Synod of Vicars”, Protopriest Benjamin Zhukov accomplished a coup d’église that left Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin as the only canonical survivors of the pre-2001 Bishops of ROCOR.
On November 22 a second attempt to kidnap Metropolitan Vitaly and take him to New York was made by Bishop Michael (Donskov) of Canada, as a result of which the metropolitan anathematized him. When the attempt failed (Canadian judges refused to allow the kidnapping), the Synod of ROCOR (L) issued a statement condemning the action and claiming that it had always wanted to persuade the metropolitan to return by peaceful means. Bishop Michael was freed from governing the Canadian diocese and sent to Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville.
On December 7, Metropolitan Vitaly wrote to all the clergy and flock of the Church Abroad: “The supporters and followers of the so-called self-styled Metropolitan Laurus, who tried to seize ecclesiastical power in our Church Abroad, have departed into complete spiritual tracklessness.
“Seeing the disturbances in our Church, I have returned to myself the rights of head of the Church. In reply to this, the Synod, with the participation of Bishops Michael and Hilarion, raised a real persecution against me. I was subject to arrest at the hands of the civil authorities without the slightest indication of any reason for my guilt. Exclusively in order to cleanse the Church from such apostates, with my
289 blessing and participation the ordinations of new bishops have been carried out: Bishop Vladimir of Sacramento and Bishop Bartholomew of Grenada…
“The apostates headed by Archbishop Laurus cannot be considered to be within the bounds of the Church…”
Evidently Patriarch Alexis was speaking the truth when he later said in the media that Metropolitan Vitaly’s removal had been a necessary condition of the rapprochement of the MP and ROCOR…
Let us return to the beginning of November. At that time a group of priests led by Protopriest Victor (Melehov), exarch of the flock of the “Holy Orthodox Church of North America” (HOCNA) in Russia, left HOCNA and were received in their existing rank by Metropolitan Vitaly into ROCOR (V). Fr. Victor was then nominated by Fr. Anatoly Trepatchko, and unanimously elected by all the clergy and bishops, as Secretary of the newly incorporated “Russian Orthodox Church in Exile”, while Fr. Michael Marcinovsky was voted Treasurer.
Later, Fr. Benjamin Zhukov, seeing in Melehov a potential enemy to his plans to take over the Synod, inserted the words “in North America (USA and Canada)” after the word “Secretary” on the ROCiE official website, and also fraudulently claimed that he himself had been made secretary of the Synod on November 5.
Having been appointed secretary, Fr. Victor immediately made his presence felt. As Fr. Spyridon Schneider writes: “Within a few days [on November 8] Fr. Victor came to Mansonville,… and asked them to: 1. renounce the MP and Sergianism; 2. renounce any relationship with the Serbian Church, 3. reaffirm the 1983 anathema against ecumenism, and 4. renounce Cyprian of Fili and his heretical ecclesiology which had been accepted in 1994 by the Synod of Bishops. These issues were discussed for about two and one half hours and when the Metropolitan, the Bishops and Fr. Victor were finished with these discussions they were all very happy that complete agreement had been reached. Soon after the meeting a statement was written by Vladyka Vladimir that addressed these four points and faxed to Fr. Victor with all of the Bishops’ signatures including Archbishop Barnabas.”
This “Declaration of the Hierarchical Synod of ROCiE” appeared on the internet, and declared that (i) that ROCiE had no canonical or Eucharistic communion with the Moscow Patriarchate, and (ii) that there would be a cessation of “the badly thought out establishment in 1994 of Eucharistic communion with the Synod of the Resisters under the Presidency of Metropolitan Cyprian of Orope and Fili”. The latter resolution was signed by “Metropolitan Vitaly, Bishop Sergius for Archbishop Barnabas with his agreement, Bishop Sergius, Bishop Vladimir”. Later Archbishop Barnabas, who had left Canada for France the previous day, declared that he had not given his agreement to the placing of his signature under this resolution. However, to the distress of the American clergy, some French clergy began to criticize the condemnation of Cyprian. And on November 7/20 the decree on cessation of communion with the Cyprianites was halted.
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But on December 16/29, at a Pastoral Convention of the North American clergy, under the signatures of all the bishops except Archbishop Barnabas, who was not present, the Cyprianite ecclesiology was formally condemned. Barnabas did not protest the decision to break with Cyprian, although he introduced one qualification. However, rumblings of discontent continued from some of the lower French clergy, especially Protodeacon German Ivanov-Trinadtsaty, and two priests with links to the Cyprianites, Michael and Quentin Castelbajac, who joined ROCOR (L). On the other hand, there was support for the decision from others in Western Europe and elsewhere.
The decision to renounce Cyprianism was important, for it signaled a return to the ecclesiology of Metropolitan Philaret, which had been jettisoned when ROCOR joined the Cyprianites in 1994. Formally speaking, it could be argued that this decision was incorrect, since only a canonical Hierarchical Council could overturn the decision of another Hierarchical Council – and, as we have seen, several of the hierarchs at this Council were not canonical, nor were the canonical bishops in Russia allowed to participate. However, it expressed the truth – and that was the main thing.
The opposition of the French had its roots in the fact that they had lived for many years under the omophorion of Archbishop Anthony of Geneva, the most ecumenist hierarch of ROCOR for at least 20 years until his death in 1993, whom even now they called their “great Abba” and “he who restrained [the coming of the Antichrist]”. And Archbishop Barnabas himself had had a very chequered career. Therefore a root-and-branch examination of the past, with repentance for all mistakes, - conducted, moreover, on the initiative of American clergy, some of whom had broken with ROCOR in 1986 precisely because of their opposition to ROCOR’s ecumenist tendencies under Metropolitan Vitaly and Archbishop Anthony of Geneva - was deeply threatening to them.
This led Fr. Victor and the group of North American clergy to call for: (i) the introduction of order into the administrative chaos of ROCOR (V), which required the convening of a Sobor; and (ii) the introduction of a clear ecclesiology which would help to avoid the mistakes in ecclesiology made by ROCOR in the past and provide a firm foundation for her development in the future.
*
Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin, while rejecting the decisions of the Mansonville Sobor of November, 2001 as uncanonical, remained in communion with Metropolitan Vitaly and continued to call for a canonical Sobor in which they would take part. Knowing that this would expose his own nefarious activity, Zhukov tried hard to discredit them and the whole idea of a Sobor. Thus on December 2/15, 2002 he wrote in an “Explanation”: “In the conditions that arose at the beginning of 2002, when Archbishop Lazarus was actively trying to acquire the whole of the Russian flock faithful to Metropolitan Vitaly (and consequently the removal of ROCOR from all missionary work in Russia – which was equivalent to
291 its end), the convening of a Sobor became for Her a dangerous undertaking. Only when order would reign in the Church and all her members would know their place, would the participants in the Sobor come with a constructive intention. Then they would be able to say that truly “the Grace of the Holy Spirit has brought us together today” and would think, not of themselves, but about the Preservation of the Church of Christ. A hasty convening of a Council would have led to a catastrophe, and for that reason Vladyka Barnabas addressed the Metropolitan with a request that he defer this initiative.”
While putting off the convening of a Sobor, Zhukov incited Archbishop Barnabas to seize as much of Archbishop Lazarus’ flock as possible. Thus on December 16, 2001 he accepted under his omophorion the Kursk, Belgorod and some of the Voronezh clergy who belonged to Archbishop Lazarus’ diocese. Lazarus reacted fiercely. In a telephone conversation with the warden and treasurer of one of the Voronezh parishes, he declared that Archbishop Barnabas was “defrocked”, that the new Synod under Metropolitan Vitaly consisted of people unknown to him, who had simply solicited the Episcopal rank, for which reason he did not recognize it, and that in general they should from now on commemorate only him, Archbishop Lazarus. Lazarus’ anger was fully justified.
A full breakdown in relations between the Russian bishops and the Mansonville Synod was averted after a phone call by Bishop Benjamin to Bishop Vladimir on December 20.
However, this partial reconciliation was accepted only grudgingly by Archbishop Barnabas. Thus in January he wrote to Bishop Vladimir: “It is necessary to stop the organization with Vladyka Lazarus and Benjamin. Now action is being taken to destroy our Church in which these bishops involuntarily participate. Therefore it is necessary to keep them in the most limited rights. I, on the other hand, as the deputy of Metropolitan Vitaly, must be given the broadest care for Russia.”
It is necessary to remind ourselves that while remaining in communion with Metropolitan Vitaly, the Russian bishops never accepted the canonicity of the consecrations of the Mansonville vicars. Later Zhukov himself recognized this fact. He said that the Russian hierarchs “did not enter our Church, but attached themselves only to Metropolitan Vitaly”. This was quite true. For the “Mansonville Synod of Vicars” was an uncanonical organization of uncanonically consecrated bishops. At the same time Zhukov accused the Russian bishops of trying “to obtain a Sobor”. A strange accusation! According to Orthodox tradition, all Church conflicts and major Church questions can only be resolved at Councils of Bishops. So trying “to obtain a Sobor” was quite natural and praiseworthy. It was Zhukov’s (successful) attempt to put off the Sobor that required explanation and justification…
On December 15/28 or 16/29, 2001 Metropolitan Vitaly declared at the Pastoral Convention of North American Clergy in Mansonville: “After many long, hard years of trying to manage the Church in Russia from New York, I have learned that
292 it is impossible to manage the Church in Russia from Abroad. We do not know and understand their problems and we do not know their people and possible candidates for the clergy. Without a knowledge of their people and their problems the best that we can do is give them Apostolic Succession and Grace and allow them to organize while maintaining communion with them and praying that they will be able to do something for themselves… There must be a separate administration in Russia, another administration in Europe and a third administration in North America…”
Shortly after this, on December 25 / January 7, 2001/2002, Metropolitan Vitaly issued his “Nativity Epistle and Spiritual Testament” in which he hinted that he was in captivity, and that people should be very careful in trusting everything that was published in his name: “We live in such a time when they can steal men away and in my name begin to try and convince you. Know that from captivity I will not convince you of anything. Believe only my living word…”
On January 8/21, 2002 (№835/65) Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin wrote an “Epistle on the Contemporary Situation of the Orthodox Church” to Metropolitan Vitaly. In it they gave a short characterization of the situation of the Church in the contemporary apostate world, beginning from the time of the God- fighting revolution and until ROCOR’s October, 2000 Council. At this Council non- Orthodox decisions were taken on union with the MP and Eucharistic communion with the ecumenist Serbian patriarchate; the council of 2001 did not repeal these decisions, therefore the hierarchs of ROCOR had fallen “under their own anathema” and the 45th Apostolic Canon, which “categorically forbids communion in prayer with heretics: ‘Let a bishop […] who has only prayed with heretics be excommunicated /.../ from the Church’ – the Epistle said. Also, reasons were given why the falling of the hierarchs of ROCOR into apostasy had become possible: ‘sergianism and ecumenism have poisoned the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad’. The Epistle went on to say: ‘The Holy Patriarch Tikhon, applying all his strength to preserve the Orthodox Church from the blows of the God-fighters, in his God- inspired Ukaz №362 of November 7/20, 1920 foresaw the form that Church administration would take if the activity of the organs of the Higher Church Authority should cease. The essence of this ukaz can be reduced to this: if the activity of the Higher Church Administration ceases […] the diocesan bishops takes upon himself the whole fullness of power in his diocese until the formation of a free ecclesiastical administration.
“The Russian Orthodox Church existed on the foundation of this Ukaz. In Russia, after the issuing in 1927 […] of the declaration of Metropolitan Sergius, the Catacomb Church began to be created […] With the blessing of Patrairch Tikhon and the Locum Tenens Metropolitan Cyril, and also on the foundation of Metropolitan Agathangel’s Epistle of June 5/18, 1922, communities of the True Orthodox Church (TOC) were formed under the leadership of the most eminent hierarchs. These communities preserved original Orthodoxy. They suffered especially terrible persecutions. The Bolsheviks ferreted out the “catacombniks” wherever they could, often with the help of priests of the “patriarchate”, who
293 denounced the true bishops and priests to the “organs”. Those who fell into the camps for belonging to the TOC generally did not come out again.
“The whole episcopate of the Russian True Orthodox Church was destroyed. In spite of this, by 1982 quite a few communities of the True Orthodox Christians remained scattered over the whole territory of the Soviet Union, creating an extensive widowed diocese. Archimandrite Lazarus (now Archbishop) was secretly ordained to the Episcopal rank by a ROCOR bishop who came specially from abroad, to rule this diocese.
“After the fall of the Bolshevik regime, the Russian True Orthodox Church acquired a legal status and was officially registered in the Ukraine (registration №356 of June 19, 1993).
“Until October, 2000 no insoluble problems in administration arose. But after the publication of the documents of the October 2000 council of ROCOR a wave of contradictory ukazy, bans and the most varied kinds of false information was poured out upon the Orthodox living on the territory of the former Soviet Union, and chaos, unclarity and confusion was created in administration.
“We, the Russian bishops, on the foundation of ukaz №362 of November 20, 1920 of Patriarch Tikhon, in connection with the complicated situation in ROCOR, on the basis of multiple addresses of the First-Hierarch of ROCOR Metropolitan Vitaly to the Council of Bishops, in 1998 and 2000, on the provision of independence to the Russian Bishops (of which we are witnesses), and also in connection with all that has been said above, ask the at present lawfully acting Metropolitan Vitaly to provide us with temporary administrative-canonical independence.. We do not refuse to be in spiritual, prayer and Eucharistic communion with those who have not fallen into sergianism, ecumenism or any other heresy, and we also call to repentance all those whom the Lord has not deprived of this great gift.
“We turn to you, beloved in the Lord Vladyko Metropolitan Vitaly. We turn to you as to the eldest First-Hierarch of ROCOR, chosen by lot, who has preserved the purity of Orthodoxy. We raise your all-honourable name in services and ask your blessing on our beginning.”
Since the Russian bishops were never allowed to speak personally to Metropolitan Vitaly, Archbishop Lazarus entrusted this letter to Protopriest Vladimir, now Bishop Irenaeus, to deliver personally to the metropolitan in Mansonville. Bishop Vladimir refused to allow Fr. Vladimir to see the metropolitan (“you have arrived without warning”), but Vladyka Vitaly, hearing that a priest from Archbishop Lazarus in Russia had come to see him personally, immediately accepted him and gave him hospitality for several days.
In these days Fr. Vladimir managed to convince the metropolitan that Archbishop Lazarus was unanimous with him on all important questions of Church life. So the metropolitan wrote a small letter to Archbishop Lazarus in which he said: “With all my heart I wish you spiritual and archpastoral success in our great
294 common archpastoral stand in the Truth”. Then, three days later, on February 26 / March 11, on the official notepaper of the First-Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad, Metropolitan Vitaly wrote to Archbishop Lazarus in his own handwriting: “May God bless you to carry out the consecration of new bishops. You must create your own Hierarchical Synod which would be in concord with our Hierarchical Synod. At the next Hierarchical Sobor I will inform all our hierarchs about this situation. Let us be with Russia of one mind and of one soul, while having separate administrations. Church life itself virtually dictates this to us.”
This was good and important news. And so on April 4/17 – 5/18, at the Second All-Russian Conference of hierarchs, clergy and laity of RTOC in Voronezh under the presidency of the head of the Hierarchical Conference Archbishop Lazarus and his deputy Bishop Benjamin, “the decision was taken, on the basis of the Holy Canons, the Decree of the Holy Patriarch Tikhon no. 362 and the Directive- Testament of Metropolitan Vitaly of February 26 / March 11, 2002, to carry out hierarchical ordinations for RTOC and to transform the Hierarchical Conference of Russian Bishops of RTOC that had been created with the blessing of the Hierarchical Council of ROCOR in 1994 into the Hierarchical Synod of RTOC.”
Maintaining their continued devotion to Metropolitan Vitaly, the Conference reproached Bishop Barnabas for the various anticanonical actions conducted against them in the past, but nevertheless called for peace and cooperation between them.
On April 19, Archbishop Barnabas replied angrily, calling the Conference’s address to him “shame” and “deception”, and saying that the “Lazarite schism foreseen by us is trying to wipe her [ROCOR (V)] finally off the face of the earth”.
On April 20, Metropolitan Vitaly met Bishops Sergius and Vladimir and four North American priests, including Fr. Victor Melehov, in Mansonville. They decreed that “in spite of the fact that his Eminence Metropolitan Vitaly gave his personal agreement, the decision on the creation of an ecclesiastical administration in Russia is in the competence of the whole of the Hierarchical Council. Before and without a conciliar decision, in spite of the 34th Canon of the Holy Apostles [which decrees that nothing should be done by the hierarchs without the agreement of the first-hierarch, and vice-versa], that is, in view of its uncanonicity, no separate administration in Russia can be formed. Consequently, hierarchical consecrations can take place in Russia only after a decision of the Hierarchical Council of ROCOR.”
The irony of this statement consisted in the fact that “the Lazarites” had been calling for a Hierarchical Council consistently since the very foundation of ROCOR (V), but Zhukov, followed by his puppet Bishop Barnabas, had always argued against it!
Bishop Benjamin then asked Metropolitan Vitaly: “Should we carry out hierarchical consecrations, or should we refrain from this until a final conciliar decision on the basis of the 34th Apostolic Canon?” He also informed him that Archbishop Lazarus had three candidates for hierarchical consecration and that the
295 consecrations were appointed for Bright Week. Metropolitan Vitaly replied that this question was “exceptionally important and needed a conciliar decision”.
In May Archbishop Lazarus and his Diocesan Council asked again for the summoning of a Council, but with the following “necessary preconditions”: (i) the cessation of all hostile actions and propaganda against the Russian Bishops, and an apology for the latest public insults; (ii) the cessation of attempts to usurp ecclesiastical power by exploiting the difficult position of the first hierarch; (iii) respect for the rights of the Russian Bishops, including those that were given them by the decree of Metropolitan Vitaly in March; (iv) a clear declaration by the non- Russian bishops whether they were intending to establish a Church in Russia, or join Suzdal or the Greek Old Calendarists.
It should be pointed out that the fact that the Russian bishops were ready to join with ROCOR (V) in a common Council did not mean that they accepted any of the consecrations carried out by ROCOR (V) since they were contrary to the holy canons and the ROCOR’s Statute. And so Archbishop Lazarus continued not to recognize the “Mansonville Synod of Vicars”.
Spring passed into summer, and still no Sobor was convened. Finally, in August, despairing of the possibility of the convening of a Sobor that would discuss all these questions as well as the consecration of bishops for Russia, the Russian bishops consecrated four new bishops: Tikhon of Omsk and Siberia, Hermogen of Chernigov and Gomel, Irenaeus of Verney and Semirechiye and Dionysius of Novgorod and Tver. They felt that they had the right to do this, on the basis not only of Metropolitan Vitaly’s blessing, but also of Patriarch Tikhon’s ukaz no. 362 of November 20, 1920.
On August 21, however, Metropolitan Vitaly and four ROCOR (V) hierarchs condemned the consecrations as “uncanonical” and the initiators of it as being “outside the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad”. Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin were then condemned without a trial or summons to a trial. For, as Zhukov argued, “to summon Bishops Lazarus and Benjamin to a Sobor would be a crime against our Church. Since any variant of their presence at the Sobor, whether to recognize or not to recognize the consecrations carried out by them, or for a trial on them themselves, would lead to the annihilation of our Russian Orthodox Church Abroad.”
So, according to this logic, to expel the Russian bishops through a lawful canonical trial would be more destructive of the Church than to expel them uncanonically and without a trial!
Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin never received official notification that they were banned from serving. They continued to recognize Metropolitan Vitaly as head of their Church, declaring that his signatures were being forged and that he was “in captivity” to Protopriest Benjamin Zhukov and L.D. Rosnianskaia “and in complete isolation from the external world”. The present writer has personal experience of this. In January, 2003, in Mansonville, Rosnianskaia blocked his and
296 Hieromonk Augustine Lim’s access to the metropolitan, although Bishop Sergius of Mansonville had given his blessing…
Having finally succeeded in manipulating the expulsion of the Russian bishops, Zhukov now proceeded to further purges within the church organization that he controlled. The American priests led by Fr. Victor Melehov had been shown alarming signs of a concern for canonical order. So it was now their turn…
The movement to oust Melehov had begun some months before. In June, 2002 he was informed by Bishop Vladimir that he was the secretary only of North America. In July, he was told by Bishop Vladimir that he recalled that Fr. Benjamin Zhukov was in fact the secretary of ROCiE. In September, Fr. Victor made preparations for Metropolitan Vitaly’s visit to Russia, but the visit was stopped by Zhukov. In October, he began to receive anonymous letters telling him that he would be suspended and defrocked.
And so, writes Fr. Victor, “when, in October, 2002, there was published on the official site of ROCOR (ROCiE) the preconciliar report of the secretary of ROCOR (ROCiE), Protopresbyter Victor Melehov, on the situation of the ROCOR, together with a projected confession of faith to be sent to the flock, Protopresbyter Victor Melehov did not only not receive any response from the hierarchs on the ecclesiological questions, but was subjected to reproaches by Bishop Vladimir for publishing this report.
“Some hope that the hierarchs would be able to come out with an Orthodox confession of faith appeared after Bishops Bartholomew and Sergius, at the beginning of November, 2002, in response to the worries of the North American clerics, signed a letter-appeal demanding the immediate convening of a Hierarchical Council, the removal of the commission that was blocking its convening, the resolution of the problem with Archbishop Lazarus and the necessity of the acceptance of a confession of faith by the clergy of ROCOR (ROCiE). Bishops Bartholomew and Sergius also signed the text of this confession of faith. However, after talking to Bishop Vladimir and Archbishop Barnabas, they withdrew their signatures.
“Bishop Bartholomew decided to compose a new appeal to all the clergy and faithful of ROCiE on the catastrophic situation of ROCiE and the necessity of accepting a confession of faith. This letter of November 13/26, 2002, together with the former text of the confession of faith, was again signed by Bishop Bartholomew. However, on the very day when the letter should have been placed on the official site, Bishop Bartholomew again withdrew his signature, fearing, in his words, ‘to bite the bullet’.
“This letter was nevertheless published on the official site of ROCiE signed only by the secretary of ROCiE, Protopresbyter Victor Melehov, and the dean of the Western American deanery, Protopriest Joseph Sunderland. The confession of faith was signed by these clerics and by Priests Michael Martsinovsky, Andrew Kencis and Mark Smith.
297
“The letter had not been on the official site of ROCiE for one day before it was removed on the demand of the episcopate of ROCiE, and many learned of its contents from other sources.
“On December 9, 2002, Bishop Bartholomew officially informed us that his signature on the appeal of the North American clerics was invalid and was being removed (and this in spite of the fact that the appeal had been published without his signature)…”
The final act in this shameful episode was the uncanonical expulsion of the still- unyielding American clerics led by Fr. Victor Melehov. It was officially announced on January 18, 2003 that he had never been secretary of the ROCOR (V), that he had been admitted into the Church “by an oversight” and that he was actually a defrocked ex-clergyman. In February, Fr. Victor received a letter from Metropolitan Vitaly, Bishops Barnabas, Bartholomew and others stating that “ROCiE does not know Fr. Victor Melehov”. This was the height of anti-canonical arbitrariness: no trial, no summons to a trial, not even a more or less plausible accusation, but only: “We do not know you”!
Fr. Victor summed up the situation well: “Factually speaking, the ship of our Church is without direction and is being borne along in complete darkness and obscurity… The main aim of the Synod of Laurus - to paralyze the activity of the Metropolitan as First-Hierarch and not to allow the restoration of our Synod – has been attained… Our brothers in France apparently do not even realize that they are in the same camp as the Synod of Laurus and the other opponents of our Church, who are abusing the Metropolitan-elder in every way…”
On June 22 / July 5, 2003, “the canonical organ of administration of the parishes of RTOC – the Hierarchical Conference of Russian Bishops – was transformed into the Hierarchical Synod of the Russian True Orthodox Church as ‘a small constantly acting council of bishops’ (literally the word ‘synod’ in Greek means gathering, council). The oldest Russian hierarch, Archbishop Lazarus of Odessa and Tambov, was elected as President of the Hierarchical Synod of RTOC.”
On June 24 / July 7, 2005, shortly after the death of Archbishop Lazarus, Bishop Tikhon of Omsk and Siberia was elected first-hierarch of the Russian True Orthodox Church.
*
Archbishop Barnabas was now at the height of his power. However, his fall was to be precipitate. Anton Ter-Grigorian writes: “Soon after getting rid of Fr. Victor [Melehov] and the priests and laity who supported him, Archbishop Barnabas lost the need for the all-powerful cleric of his diocese, Protopriest Benjamin Zhukov, who after the ‘general victory’ over ‘the Melehov schism’ began to demonstrate too much independence… He was soon distanced from closeness with Archbishop
298 Barnabas, and the closest advisor of the ‘deputy of the First Hierarch’ again became Protodeacon German Ivanov-Trinadtsaty.”
His power began to slip at the Sobor which Zhukov now graciously allowed to convene from May 3/16 to 7/20, 2003. Three candidates were put forward for the episcopacy: Archimandrite Anthony (Rudej), as vicar of the European diocese with the title Bishop of Balt and Moldovia; Hieromonk Anastasy (Surzhik), as ruling Bishop of the Far Eastern diocese with the title Bishop of Vladivostok and the Far East; and Priest Victor Pivovarov, as a vicar of the European diocese with the title Bishop of Slavyansk and South Russia. These candidacies were confirmed, although Archbishop Barnabas was opposed to that of Pivovarov. He asked instead that the candidacy of Archimandrite Alexis (Makrinov) and Hieromonk Joseph (Philosophov) be considered. He also asked that all priests and laymen coming from the dioceses of Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin should be received by repentance.
On June 26, 2003 Archbishop Barnabas issued an ukaz criticizing Zhukov for anti-canonical behaviour, and demanding that he return his diocesan seal and facsimile signature, which Barnabas suspected he had been using unlawfully. Zhukov rejected the ukaz and flatly refused to give back the seal and signature. Instead, he stirred up such a vicious campaign against the bishop that “six out of the eight ‘French’ parishes very soon began to demand from the Synod ‘the replacement of the Bishop’ and even ‘the defrocking of Archbishop Barnabas’.” Barnabas was forced to leave the parish. Taking advantage of his master’s absence, Zhukov summoned Bishops Vladimir and Sergius from Canada, who, on Archbishop Barnabas’ canonical territory, and against his will, proceeded to consecrate Fr. Victor Ponovarov - who was not only a KGB agent with the nickname “Ponomar” , but had also been defrocked by his former bishop, Benjamin of the Black Sea, and was considered to be a heretic by Bishop Sergius – and Fr. Anastasy (Surzhik) to the episcopate. Several weeks after this scandalous event, Archbishop Barnabas received his diocesan seal and facsimile signature in the post from Zhukov – they were no longer needed by him!
Zhukov then proceeded to convene a Synod meeting from November 14/27 to 16/29, at which three independent dioceses were formed. The Russian part of Archbishop Barnabas’ diocese was removed from him and divided between Bishop Anthony of Moldova, who took Ukraine, Belorussia, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, and Bishop of Victor of South Russia, who took the North-West, the Centre, the Volga and the Southern regions of Russia with Georgia, while “separating those parishes whose priests want to continue commemorating Archbishop Barnabas”. As for Barnabas himself, he was confined to Western Europe. Bishop Anastasy’s Far Eastern diocese was enlarged to include the Japanese islands, Korea and China (where there were no ROCOR parishes!), while the Siberian diocese (including the Urals district and Kazakhstan) was also entrusted temporarily to Bishop Anastasy.
Then the bishops declared Archbishop Barnabas’ acceptance of some Romanian new calendarist parishes into his diocese as uncanonical, removed Barnabas’ title of
299 “Deputy of the First Hierarch”, and defrocked one of his clerics, Hieromonk Seraphim (Baranchikov), for immorality.
On November 6/19, 2004 the Synod issued the following anathematization: “To those who affirm the antichristian heresy of Sergianism; who teach that the Church of Christ is supposedly saved by union with the enemies of Christ, and reject the exploit of martyrdom and confession, and construct a false church on the foundation of Judas, and for its sake permit the transgression and distortion of Christian teaching, canons and moral laws; who command Christians to bow down to the God-hating authorities as if they were given by God, and to serve them not out of fear but for conscience’s sake, blessing all their iniquities; who justify the persecutions against the True Church of Christ at the hands of the God-haters, thinking thereby that they serve God, as was done in fact by the continuers of the renovationist heresy, Metropolitan Sergius and all his followers – Anathema!”
But right-believing anathemas could not conceal the inner corruption of the Synod. For Archbishop Barnabas, the coup de grâce was not long in coming. On December 7, 2003, striking out against his tormentors, he banned Zhukov from serving. However, on January 19, 2004, brushing aside an explanatory letter from Archbishop Barnabas, Metropolitan Vitaly and the North American bishops declared this act to be invalid, saying that Barnabas had “exceeded his rights” (although Fr. Benjamin was a priest of Archbishop Barnabas’ diocese, and directly subject to his authority), and placing him “in retirement”. On July 8 the Synod banned him from serving. On July 25 he wrote a penitential letter to Metropolitan Vitaly, repenting of many of his acts in the last few years. But this repentance only enraged his enemies. At the November Hierarchical Sobor he was defrocked - naturally, without a trial or summons to a trial…
On January 27 / February 9, 2005 Archbishop Barnabas issued a “sorrowful epistle” in which he said that he did not recognize “the so called ‘Mansonville Synod’” as having any power or significance, since “it had shown its complete incompetence and its deeply uncanonical conduct of its affairs”. Shortly after this, Barnabas joined the Synod of Metropolitan Laurus, recognizing the original ban placed on him in April, 2001…
The further disintegration of the Mansonville Synod was now unstoppable. On June 3, 2006 the Synod’s official site published a declaration of Zhukov, Bishop Vladimir and Bishop Bartholomew, announcing that power in their Synod had been seized by Archbishop Anthony (Orlov), Bishop Victor (Pivovarov) and a certain Irina Mitse-Goldberg. Anthony declared Metropolitan Vitaly to be incompetent, made charges against Bishops Vladimir and Bartholomew, and took over the Church with Bishop Victor.
Archbishop Anthony was a married man who, secretly from Metropolitan Vitaly and his own wife, had been consecrated to the episcopate in 2002 in Paris by Bishops Barnabas and Sergius. For two years, this consecration had been a secret, and was only revealed in 2004 on the internet. For a long time Metropolitan Vitaly did not recognize this consecration, but Zhukov finally forced him to give in.
300 Although all the bishops knew that Anthony, as Priest Nicholas Orlov, had been living in a church marriage with his wife at the time of his consecration, they still recognized it, and even, at Zhukov’s insistence, raised him to the rank of “archbishop” and “deputy of the First-Hierarch” in place of Barnabas. Anthony’s church divorce was formalized two years after his consecration. His civil marriage remained in force…
On June 22, 2006 Metropolitan Vitaly, under pressure from Archbishop Anthony, Bishop Victor and Archimandrites Damascene (Balabanov) and Stefan (Babaev), was invited to the local police station so that he could officially, without outside influence, express his will regarding their presence in Mansonville. When the police officer asked: “Does Metr. Vitaly wish that Orlov, Pivovarov, Balabanov, Babaev and Mitze leave the territory of the Transfiguration Skete?” the metropolitan replied firmly: “Yes, I wish it.” Archbishop Anthony tried to persuade the metropolitan to change his mind, but the police officer said: “Enough. The answer has been received.” The group were then asked by the police to leave Mansonville before July 25. The next day, June 23, Archbishop Anthony issued an ukaz saying that he counted it “his duty temporarily to take over the administration of ROCOR” because of the poor health of the metropolitan, “who is not able sometimes even to recognize his deputy and bishops” because of the “inconsistence and false ukazy cancelling the previous ukaz signed by the First Hierarch” and because of the “malicious isolation of the First Hierarch”.
The disintegration continued. In 2006 Bishop Victor broke from archbishop Anthony and formed his own Synod together with Bishop Damascene (Balabanov). These two were later to split again…. Archbishop Anthony, meanwhile, had taken to calling himself “Metropolitan of Moscow, Los Angeles and all Abroad”!
On September 12/25, 2006 Metropolitan Vitaly reposed. Fr. Spyridon Schneider writes that this “marked a turning point in the life of ROCiE. When Metropolitan Vitaly reposed… there were four bishops remaining in the Vitaly Synod. Bishop Vladimir of San Francisco and Western America, Bishop Bartholomew of Edmonton and Western Canada (who is in the advanced stages of Parkinson’s disease and has severe dementia), Bishop Anthony of Moldova and Bishop Anastassy of Vladivostok. Bishop Vladimir became temporary acting First Hierarch on the basis of the fact that he, at the age of thirty nine, was the oldest bishop by ordination.
“… In the early winter of 2006 Protopriest Benjamin Zhukov and Bishop Anthony of Moldova sent Protopriest Nicholas Semenov from Brussels to Edmonton, Canada with a document for Bishop Bartholomew to sign. Through intrigue and deceit Bishop Bartholomew, not knowing and understanding what he was signing, applied his signature to this document. The document was an ukaz retiring Bishop Anastassy of Vladivostok. This action was taken in a totally uncanonical and unethical manner, without due process, without a meeting of the Synod, without the presence of the Acting First Hierarch and without following the Regulations which govern the Russian Church Abroad.”
301 On May 12, 2007, continues Fr. Spyridon, “at a meeting with Bishop Vladimir which included Archpriest Constantine Fyodorov, Archpriest Spyridon Schneider and Priest Andrew Kencis, Bishop Vladimir explained that he intends to call a Sobor of Bishops with the full knowledge and expectation that Bishop Anthony of Moldova and the Secretary of the Synod, Archbishop Benjamin Zhukov, will not attend. Bishop Vladimir explained that he will call the Sobor in Edmonton, Canada so that Bishop Bartholomew… can participate in the first session of the Sobor. Bishop Vladimir further explained that if Protopriest Zhukov and Bishop Anthony do not come to the Sobor, as expected, then Bishop Vladimir, Bishop Bartholomew and Bishop Anastasy will constitute a quorum. Therefore when the meeting is convened the first item on the agenda will be to consider and accept Bishop Bartholomew’s petition to retire from one year ago. This decision will be made with the vote of Bishop Bartholomew. Once Bishop Bartholomew is retired then he will no longer participate, nor will he be counted as a member of the Synod. Consequently, Bishop Vladimir and Bishop Anastasy will then have a two-third majority of the votes which would allow them to go forward with their agenda for the future of the Church. Bishop Vladimir further explained that Fr. Benjamin Zhukov, although he is secretary of the Synod and has always voted in the Synod meetings, will not have a vote because he is a priest and not a bishop…”
Zhukov could never submit to such a demotion. On November 1/14, 2007, at his instigation, Bishop Anthony (Rudej) of Moldova, secretly and on his own, consecrated Archimandrite Seraphim (Skuratov) as Bishop of Birmingham, and then with Bishop Seraphim ordained Fr. Roman Apostolescu as Bishop of Brussels. Zhukov had now created his own “catacomb church” – in the free West!
With the departure of Zhukov from the scene of the Synod he both created and destroyed, we shall end our account of ROCOR (V). The disintegration has continued in recent years, as was only to be expected. For, as the Greek Old Calendarist Confessor Papa Nicholas Planas said, “Whatever has been done uncanonically cannot stand – it will fall…”
*
The second bishop to be consecrated for ROCOR inside Russia during the 1990s, after Archbishop Lazarus, was Bishop Valentine (Rusantsev) of Suzdal. Having been unlawfully expelled by the ROCOR in 1996 together with three other bishops consecrated by him and Archbishop Lazarus, and having taken part neither in the dogmatic errors of the shameful October Sobor of 2000, nor in the canonical violations of both ROCOR (L) and ROCOR (V) in 2001, the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church (ROAC) under Metropolitan Valentine was in a relatively strong canonical position at the beginning of the new millennium. However, strong suspicions had often been voiced about the personality and history of the first hierarch himself, who while in the MP had received many medals from the God- fighting state and had two charges of homosexuality against him dropped – through the intervention of the KGB, as many thought. His relatively strong performance in the 1990s had begun to dispel these suspicions; but now a new
302 threat appeared which exposed his real character, and the weakness of his Church organization, in a glaringly unattractive light…
The threat appeared in the form of a group of intellectualist refugees from ROCOR in St. Petersburg, led by the Byzantinist (although some Byzantinists would deny him that title) Basil Lourié. From the beginning of their entrance into ROAC in 1999, this group made no secret of their plans to “reform” it in accordance with their perverted understanding of patristic tradition, which involved: a heretical, Manichaean approach to marriage and sexuality; an almost Nietzschean fascination with popular culture and rock music and its cult of death and suicide; an extremely negative attitude to the pre-revolutionary Russian Church; a cool attitude towards the Catacomb Church and her martyrs and confessors; a “positive” attitude towards Stalin; an approval of the “name-worshipping” heresy of Fr. Anthony Bulatovich; and several other deviations.
However, Metropolitan Valentine was only too eager to use this group to raise the educational standard of his clergy and the general profile of ROAC in Russian society. He blessed their often interesting, but also often highly controversial publications, especially Vertograd-Inform (which began life in ROCOR), which the Petersburg group published in collaboration with other “near-Church” intellectuals, such as Alexander Soldatov (the chief editor), Egor Kholmogorov and Michael Kiselev. And, overlooking Lourié’s unscrupulous use of mafia connections and his uncanonical abandonment of his wife and child, he ordained him to the priesthood.
Alarm-bells began to ring in 2000, when Lourié published a book entitled The Calling of Abraham, which claimed that sexual relations in marriage were sinful, and that the celibate and monastics possessed the grace of the New Testament, while the married were merely “Old Testament Christians”. Alarmed by criticisms of this work, the metropolitan, instead of investigating the book himself and coming to a decision about it in the Synod, blessed the publication of a critique of Lourié’s book by four authors (including the present writer) entitled Marriage, the Law and Grace (Moscow, 2001).
In the winter of 2000-2001 further alarm was caused when a disciple of Lourié, Hierodeacon Theophanes (Areskin), began a series of lectures to clergy in Suzdal in which he praised the “name-worshipping” heresy of Fr. Anthony Bulatovich, who was condemned by Patriarch Tikhon and the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church. The leader of the attacks on Lourié and Areskin was Protopriest Andrew Osetrov, the secretary of the Synod and a close collaborator with Metropolitan Valentine. In March, the metropolitan turned to the present writer, asking him to enter into a dialogue with Lourié in order to ascertain his true views on name- worshipping and other matters, assuring him (Moss) that if he found his (Lourié’s) views to be heretical, he would bring him to trial before the Holy Synod.
The dialogue began, and would no doubt have continued peacefully if Osetrov had not brought the issue to a head in a Synod meeting at the end of April, during which, supported initially by the Catacomb Archbishop Seraphim of Sukhumi, he demanded that the metropolitan condemn Lourié. When the metropolitan refused
303 in a particularly crude form, Osetrov left ROAC. The next day, at the glorification of Metropolitan Philaret of New York as a saint of the Russian Church, Archbishop Seraphim served with the metropolitan, demonstrating his loyalty to him for the time being and his separation from Osetrov – probably because Osetrov had not contented himself with attacks on heresy within the Church, but had proceeded publicly to accuse the metropolitan of paedophilia…
Osetrov told parishioners in Suzdal that he had a video film showing interviews of adolescents admitting to intimate relations with the metropolitan. This film turned out to be less incriminating than Osetrov claimed, and would in any case have been inadmissible as evidence in a court of law. More serious was the accusation of the well-respected Hieromonk Paisius (Gorbunov) that he personally had witnessed a homosexual act of Metropolitan Valentine in 1995. Enormous pressure was brought to bear on Fr. Paisius, who repented of his accusation, then reaffirmed it and fled into hiding (with the help of his spiritual father, Archbishop Seraphim).
The metropolitan now demanded the defrocking of those clerics (about five) who accused him of immorality, and eventually obtained the signatures of the other bishops – although Archbishop Seraphim delayed signing for six weeks. Between June and August the Vladimir newspaper Prizyv printed a series of eight articles in support of Osetrov’s accusations. Fighting to stay out of prison, the metropolitan claimed that Prizyv had received direct orders from the Vladimir public prosecutor’s office and regional administration to publish “compromising material on Valentine”.
In an interview with Keston College’s Geraldine Fagan on March 26, 2002, Osetrov “maintained that, since Metropolitan Valentin had actively restored churches whereas the Moscow Patriarchate had been quite incompetent in that area, he had ‘enjoyed some kind of protection’ from the Suzdal authorities. Fr Osetrov admitted that he himself had been instrumental in maintaining this state of affairs throughout the ten years during which he had worked as synodal secretary to Metropolitan Valentin, initially having been ordained in ROCA. When any accusations against the Metropolitan of homosexual practice - a criminal offence in Russia until 1993 - or sexual abuse were made, he said, he ‘arranged everything so that they died away or got lost in bureaucratic channels.’ Once he had been removed after protesting that ROAC clergy who preached heresies were not being dealt with, said Fr Osetrov, his protection of Metropolitan Valentin had ceased: ‘This time I gathered evidence and sent it to reliable people in the Lubyanka [the headquarters of the FSB] and the Vladimir public prosecutor's office.’ Had the affair been left to the Suzdal public prosecutor, he maintained, ‘it would have been completely covered up.’
“When Keston asked how Fr Osetrov had managed to serve in the ROAC for ten years without suspecting Metropolitan Valentin, he replied that the accusation of homosexuality (golubizna) was commonly used as an easy way of discrediting a person in the Soviet period. While the rumours about Metropolitan Valentin grew from year to year, he said, they were at first vague and he was disinclined to believe
304 them until some of his own children began to relate details they had heard at school. Fr Osetrov said that he then discovered that the Suzdal authorities' protection of Metropolitan Valentin dated back to 1988 – ‘I was shocked, both the local police and administration knew everything.’ In that year, said Fr Osetrov, local police investigated the then criminal activities of 70 homosexuals in Vladimir region, including then Archimandrite Valentin. An article in the May-September issue of Suzdal Diocesan News, partially edited by Fr Osetrov, contains computer scans from the original police files on Criminal Case No. 0543, including various witness statements graphically describing homosexual activity involving Archimandrite Valentin. According to Fr Osetrov, this was why the Moscow Patriarchate attempted to transfer Archimandrite Valentin from the town of Suzdal, in response to which he ultimately left the Moscow Patriarchate. In his view, the only possible reason why Archimandrite Valentin was not prosecuted by the authorities at that time was because ‘he was working for the KGB,’ who, he said, most probably used his sexual orientation to compromise him.
“When interviewed by Keston on 19 October, ROAC Archbishop Feodor continued to maintain that the allegations against Metropolitan Valentin were being fuelled by an alliance of the Vladimir authorities and the Moscow Patriarchate. The parish priest of Suzdal's Kazan Church, Fr Dmitri Ledko, and Archbishop Yevlogi (Smirnov) of Vladimir and Suzdal were the local Moscow Patriarchate representatives present at the June 2001 meeting aiming to ‘sort out Valentin’, thought the archbishop. While declining to confirm whether such a meeting had indeed taken place, Fr Leonid did tell Keston that there were anonymous persons in authority who wished to see Metropolitan Valentin removed, ‘without them there would be no court case or publications or anything.’”
Valentine now accepted the help of a very dubious new member of his Church, the “polittechnologist” and close associate of Putin, Gleb Pavlovsky, who had been introduced to him, coincidentally, by – Lourié! Pavlovsky stopped a programme on ORT television attacking Valentine in September, and offered to pay all the expenses of several lawyers who were employed to defend the metropolitan; they were to be supervised by Lourié and his closest associate, Olga Mitrenina. Precisely why Pavlovsky should have chosen to support the metropolitan at this time was not clear: perhaps, it was suggested, he was trying to build up “Suzdal” as a counter-weight to the MP, in order to frighten the latter and extract political concessions from it. In any case, what was clear was that the metropolitan’s accepting the help of such a compromised figure, deeply immersed in Kremlin politics and with a history of betraying dissident enemies of the Soviet régime, could only come at a price. It soon became clear what that price was: the relaxation of pressure on Pavlovsky’s “childhood friend”, Lourié, and the expulsion – by force, if necessary - of those who persisted in raising the question of Lourié’s heresies. A vicious whispering campaign had already been started against Lourié’s (and Pavlovsky’s) main critic, the layman and editor of the internet server Romanitas, Anton Ter-Grigorian. He was even punched outside the church by one of Lourié’s cronies, the former parliamentarian Michael Kiselev.
305 The present writer also experienced pressure in his efforts to clarify Lourié’s heresies – a task that had been entrusted to him by the metropolitan himself. In May, 2001, the metropolitan invited Egor Kholmogorov to mediate between Moss and Lourié in drawing up an agreed theological statement on the issue of “name- worshipping”. When Moss rejected the statement proposed by Kholmogorov and accepted by Lourié as involving an unacceptable compromise between Orthodoxy and heresy, the metropolitan terminated the theological dialogue between Lourié and Moss.
Then, in July, he issued an ukaz appointing Moss head of a theological commission to investigate the long list of Lourié’s blasphemous statements that had caused commotion in the Church – but stacked the rest of the commission with all of Lourié’s closest cronies, including Lourié himself, with only one of the six members, Protopriest Michael Makeev, being of undoubted Orthodoxy. Moss refused to accept headship of a commission that would in effect allow those accused of heresy to be judges of their own case, and reminded the metropolitan of his promise that if he (Moss), after the concluding of the now-aborted theological dialogue with Lourié, were to consider Lourié’s views heretical, then he (the metropolitan) would bring him to trial before the Holy Synod. The metropolitan angrily rejected any idea of bringing Lourié to account, saying that the issue of “name-worshipping” interested only a few people and would “disappear of itself”.
On September 3 Lourié conducted a press-conference in the House of the Journalist arranged by Pavlovsky, in which he fawned before the government, denying the involvement of either the state or the MP in “Osetrovschina” (though this was manifestly untrue), and spoke about “three branches” of Orthodoxy in Russia – the MP, the ROAC and the Old Believers.
On September 5, Metropolitan Valentine was formally accused of “committing forcible acts of a sexual nature”, “compulsion to commit acts of a sexual nature” and “enticing minors into antisocial activity” under Articles 132 (part 2), 133 and 151 (part 1) respectively of the Criminal Code. His trial began on 7 February, 2002 in Suzdal District Court, but was adjourned on 13 February until August.
In October, 2001 the metropolitan made an attempt to be reconciled with Moss and Ter-Grigorian and invited them to dinner in Suzdal. However, he then proudly declared that he had been working for Christ’s Church for fifty years! When Moss pointed out to him that by his own confession he had left the Catacomb Church at the age of 19 to join the MP, and that it was ROAC’s official confession that the MP was a false church, which he had left only in 1990, he became angry and insisted that he had been a true priest while in the MP. In a private conversation the next day, trying to cover up the bad impression he had made the previous evening, he told Moss that Lourié was “not ours”, strongly hinting that he was KGB and that for that reason he could do nothing about him. After all, he said, Putin was replacing all the mayors in Russia by communists, and the new mayor of Suzdal was one of them…
306 The metropolitan then departed for America. But before leaving he accepted from Moss an open letter to the bishops and a few senior priests of ROAC listing all Lourié’s heresies and appealing for action to be taken against them. Somehow this letter got into the hands of Lourié’s associates, who created a special web-site where the open letter was “discovered” and “announced” by a certain “Sergius Lourié”, as evidence of Moss’s desire to discredit ROAC publicly - although it was precisely this website that made the matter public! Then, on November 2, Tatiana Senina, another of Lourié’s associates, created another website devoted exclusively to propaganda for the heresy of “name-worshipping”. Shortly after, on November 7, the anniversary of the revolution, Protopriest Michael Ardov published an open letter against Moss’s open letter in Vertograd, which, in addition to defending Lourié and “name-worshipping” publicly, made an astonishingly crude and completely slanderous attack on Ter-Grigorian, forbidding him even to enter his church in Moscow.
At this point, if the metropolitan were not to be accused of connivance with the heresy of “name-worshipping”, he had to renounce Ardov’s statement and close down Senina’s website. This he did not do. Indeed, since Ardov is a very cautious man, it is very unlikely that he would ever have undertaken such a step without “a nod from on high” – that is, either from the metropolitan himself, or from those who spoke in his name and by this time had effective control over him, especially Alexander Soldatov, the editor of Vertograd.
But now Protopriest Michael Makeev, the second priest of ROAC in Moscow, wrote to the metropolitan saying that he was very unhappy with the heresies in the Church and that he intended to send a letter to that effect to the bishops. Immediately, the metropolitan summoned a meeting in Moscow for the next day, November 15. Present were Archbishop Theodore, Archimandrite Irinarch, Protopriests Michael Ardov and Michael Makeev, Soldatov, Kholmogorov, Ter- Grigorian and others. The metropolitan told all sides to stop quarrelling and to forgive each other. He placed most of the blame for the situation on Moss, who was a “Judas” and “going along the path of Osetrov”. No rebuke was given to Lourié, Senina or Ardov. It was agreed that both Vertograd and Romanitas should remove all polemical articles from their sites - Romanitas complied with this order: Vertograd did not.
At a session of the ROAC Synod in December, 2001, another attempt was made to stop all discussion of the heresies. In May, 2002 the ROAC Synod at last addressed the question of name-worshipping, only to “deliver judgement of the teaching of Hieroschemamonk Anthony Bulatovich to the competence of a Local Council of the Russian Church”. This gave the false impression that Bulatovich and his teaching had not yet been judged by the Russian Church…
On July 26, 2002, Ter-Grigorian was excommunicated “for violation of Church discipline”. Later, he was excommunicated six more times and even anathematized! On September 9, 2003, an “Official Communication of the Editors of the Suzdal’skie Eparkhial’nie Vedomosti” declared that the reason for his excommunications was his open preaching of Nestorianism, refusal to call Christ God and the Virgin Mary –
307 the Mother of God, a false teaching on the presence of two Persons and two Hypostases in Christ and a false teaching on the deification of Christians. Needless to say, all these accusations were completely without basis in fact.
And so the position of ROAC at the beginning of 2002 had changed radically from a year earlier: her metropolitan was due for trial in the secular courts on the most serious of moral charges; her senior priests in Moscow and Petersburg were publicly proclaiming heresy and were not being rebuked for it; a vicious campaign of slander and intimidation against her “dissidents” was well under way; and her attitude to the Sergianism and the neo-Soviet authorities had notably softened – at least on the part of her spokesmen.
Metropolitan Valentine and his supporters saw his trial as persecution by the MP, as part of a general trend of increasing persecution of the True Orthodox by the official Orthodox Churches. There is no doubt that the MP was interested in humiliating him, and that Osetrov’s campaign against him was malicious. But there is also no doubt that he had a case to answer…
And it was in order to win much-needed friends in high places that in the autumn of 2002, just two days before the first session of the trial of Metropolitan Valentine, ROAC published an “Address to the state leadership of the Russian Federation, the organs of the international community and the rulers of the world” analogous to the “social doctrine” accepted by the MP at its “Jubilee” Sobor, in which it was written that “as in the case of the Christians of ancient Rome or the Soviet epoch, an increase in persecutions on our Church will not lead to our civil disobedience, and still less to a rebellion against the powers that be. We are ready humbly to bear any persecutions, and, to the extent that we are able, to defend our lawful rights.” This statement of loyalty to the neo-Soviet regime, upon whose goodwill the fate of the metropolitan now depended, was supposedly signed by a long list of clergy – but many knew nothing about the declaration, and protested the inclusion of their names under such a sergianist document.
Since many clergy, and in particular the Catacomb hierarchs Archbishop Seraphim of Sukhumi and Bishop Anthony of Yaransk, were continuing to be disturbed by the teaching of Lourié and calling for his defrocking, on October 18, at a session of the ROAC Synod he presented a “report” expressing “my deep regret regarding my public statements concerning name-worshipping, which have become a reason for discord within our Church. I hold to the teaching of the Holy Fathers and confess no heresy about the name of God, which would have been condemned by previous Fathers and Councils. I also hold to the resolutions of the All-Russian Local Council of 1917-1918, which were confirmed by two resolutions of the Synod of our Church, in accordance with which the decision on the essence of the question of name-worshipping belongs exclusively within the competence of a Local Council of the Church of Russia”. Lourié did not mention, or repent of, any of his other heresies and blasphemies.
308 The craftiness of this statement is immediately evident from the fact that the All- Russian Local Council of 1917-1918 did not in fact issue any resolutions on name- worshipping – these came both earlier and later.
Further craftinesses were exposed by Protopriest Alexander Lebedev, who wrote: “Very interesting phrasing here that has to be read carefully.
“First of all, Fr. Gregory does not deny that he holds to the teaching of name- worshipping, nor does he state that he considers it to be a heresy. He has always maintained that it was not a heresy and that it was the true teaching of the Holy Fathers.
“The phrasing ‘Fathers and Sobors’ seems to neatly set aside the condemnations of the name-worshipping heresy that were made not by ‘Sobors’ – but by the Holy ‘Synod’ of the Church of Russia (and Constantinople) and by Patriarch Tikhon.
“His agreement with the concept that the final resolution of the question belongs solely to the competence of a Local Council of the Russian Church equally neatly puts off this final resolution almost indefinitely, as no full Local Council of the Russian Church is contemplated in the foreseeable future, perhaps decades, perhaps even longer.
“And, finally, although he states that he will himself refrain from any more public statements on this issue, he does not take any of his previous statements back or renounce them, and he does not promise to direct his followers to refrain from continuing to defend name-worshipping…”
On October 30, the Parish Council of the Orthodox Parish of St. Michael, Guildford, England under Hieromonk Augustine (Lim) wrote a letter to the ROAC Synod asking for answers to twelve questions on the faith arising as a result of the various heresies and blasphemies of Hieromonk Gregory (Lourié). Instead of replying, Metropolitan Valentine said that only a larger Synod or the Tsar himself could compel him to reply! Lourié was allowed to present his defence in a “report” to the metropolitan, which drew no comment or criticism from the Synod.
In December, having received no answer to their questions, and seeing that the metropolitan was determined to defend the heretics, who now had complete control of all the official organs of ROAC, the Parish of St. Michael left ROAC. Nine months later, when the Parish was already in another jurisdiction, the metropolitan declared that Fr. Augustine had been banned from serving, and that the present writer was excommunicated because of his supposed opposition to monasticism, which was influenced, according to the metropolitan, by the Jewish Cabbala! The latter false accusation is more than a little curious in that Fr. Gregory Lourié is a direct descendant of the foremost cabbalist of sixteenth-century Europe, Isaak Lourié Levi, and a Jewish influence in his heresies has been suspected…
In July, 2003 the ROAC Synod declared in an epistle: “The old ‘Christian world’ has gone, never to return, and that which is frenziedly desired by some, the
309 regeneration of the ‘Orthodox monarchy’ in some country, in which the true faith will reign, must be considered a senseless utopia.”
This epistle was almost certainly written by Fr. Gregory Lourié. However, it was signed, according to Vertograd for July 30, by the bishops: Valentine, Theodore, Seraphim, Irinarch and Ambrose. Therefore unless Vertograd is lying and one or more of these signatures were forged – which is quite possible, since Archbishop Seraphim in particular has said that he never signed certain synodal decrees on name-worshipping which he is quoted by Vertograd as having signed, - then we must conclude that the ROAC has officially rejected the hope of all truly Orthodox Christians in the resurrection of Orthodoxy under an Orthodox Emperor, and in particular the resurrection of Russian Orthodoxy under a Russian Tsar. According to it, the faith and hope of many, many saints and martyrs is a “senseless utopia”, an object of “frenzied” desire that cannot possibly be fulfilled and must be renounced!
In August, 2003, the metropolitan was convicted of paedophilia by the court, and given a conditional four-year prison sentence. The sentence was upheld by the appeal court in the autumn. But in March, 2004 his conviction was expunged. Although there had been no new evidence, and no new trial, Vertograd immediately trumpeted this as an acquittal. However, one of the lawyers of the metropolitan himself contradicted Vertograd, saying that this legal whitewash was based on the metropolitan’s private acknowledgement of his guilt – and would be removed immediately if he “misbehaved” again…
Opposition to the heretics continued, but in November, 2003 the ROAC Synod was able to silence its critics in a clever way: both Fr. Gregory Lourié and one of his principal opponents, Fr. Roman Pavlov, were “retired”. No matter that de facto this meant that Fr. Roman was able to serve only with the explicit permission of the metropolitan, while Fr. Gregory’s activities and serving were in no way hindered or diminished. From now on, the ROAC was not responsible for Lourié because he had supposedly been “retired”…
Early in 2004 two priests (Protopriest Michael Makeev and Fr. Roman Pavlov) and a parish of ROAC in Moscow, which included the seven-times excommunicated and anathematised Anton Ter-Grigorian, left ROAC. They joined the True Orthodox Church of Cyprus under Metropolitan Epiphanius of Kition. It is reported that many Catacomb Church parishioners were also leaving ROAC at this time…
In March, 2004, the name-worshippers Yegor Kholmogorov and Fr. Gregory Lourié demonstrated that they deviated from True Orthodox teaching in another important way. According to Vertograd, they “publicly recognized themselves to be supporters of the Declaration of Sergius Stragorodsky of 1927, distinguishing, from their point of view, the Declaration of Sergius Stragorodsky from ‘sergianism as such’. Yegor Kholmogorov declared the following: ‘The position expressed in the Declaration by the formula [there follows a long quotation from the Declaration, including the most contentious passage about “our sorrows and joys”] seems to me
310 to be absolutely just and faithful to the church-political position in those conditions.’
“Later, Ye. Kholmogorov declared the following: ‘Thus if one considers that sergianism is the recognition of Soviet power as the civil authority in Russia, an authority that could aid the strengthening of lawfulness, the flourishing of the country, etc., then sergianism is undoubtedly a justified church position and there is nothing for which to reproach Metropolitan Sergius.’
“Besides this, Comrade Kholmogorov affirms that Holy Hieromartyr Joseph of Petrograd held to the principles reflected in Sergius’ Declaration on loyalty to the Bolsheviks. While on ROCOR and the Catacomb Church he writes the following: ‘… It is completely incomprehensible why the position of the Orthodox Christian should be that of the political partisan. To justify this political partisanship, both in ROCOR and in the catacombs, completely made, absolutely heretical theories were created that turned a certain part of the catacombniks into a new edition of the Priestless Old Ritualists with their “spiritual antichrist”…’
“Hieromonk Gregory (Lourie) completely agreed with him and declared the following: ‘Yes, it’s something like that. Especially important is the distinguishing between the Declaration and sergianism as such.’
“In his time the chief ideologue of ROAC and the chief editor of Portal Credo.ru, Alexander Soldatov, expressed himself on the Declaration of Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky). In an editorial article for Credo.ru dated September 8, 2003 he referred to Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) as on a par with ‘the great hierarchs of the epoch of the Ecumenical Councils’, while the word ‘sergianism’ he put in inverted commas.
“Earlier, from very many judgements of comrades Kholmogorov, Soldatov and Lourie it followed that they consider sergianism to be an insignificant canonical transgression. But now they speak about it openly…”
In July, 2005 Archbishop Anthony of Yaransk met Fr. Victor Melehov, who had been expelled from ROCOR (V), in Dmitrov. As a result of their meeting, at which the heresies of Lourié were discussed, Archbishop Anthony blessed Fr. Victor to commemorate him alone at the Liturgy. When Archbishop Anthony arrived in Suzdal, Metropolitan Valentine secured the banning of the American priests for creating a faction (Fr. Christopher Johnson was banned for trying to become a bishop!). However, Archbishop Anthony, supported by the Catacomb Bishops Gerontius and Hilarion from the Ukraine, secured the banning of Lourié and the setting up of a commission to investigate “the matter of Fr. Gregory Lourié”.
On September 5, Lourié, 2005 was defrocked – without a trial - by the Synod. The heretic had at length been removed. But the uncanonical manner it which it had been done allowed the heretic to paint himself as a victim. Soon he managed to detach two bishops (Sebastian of the Urals and Ambrose of Khabarovsk) from the ROAC Synod. They soon consecrated him “Bishop of St. Petersburg and Gdov” and
311 made him leader of their group. As Lourié’s influence has waxed, - he now poses as a focus of unity of the different True Orthodox jurisdictions, - so that of Metropolitan Valentine has waned. The only hope for members of ROAC would seem to reside in coming under the omophorion of the only remaining canonical branch of the Russian Church, RTOC under Archbishop Tikhon of Omsk and Siberia…
*
All this time ROCOR (L) was coming inexorably closer to official union with the MP… In May, 2003 it declared that it and the MP mutually recognised each other’s sacraments, which was followed by cases of de facto concelebration. And yet, if the Moscow Patriarchate now recognized the sacraments of ROCOR (L), it had a strange way of expressing it. In 2003, a book published by the Moscow Patriarchate called Strazh Doma Gospodnia (The Guardian of the House of the Lord) not only justified the official Church's capitulation to the Soviet regime, but also condemned the confessors in the Catacomb Church and ROCOR who did not capitulate. True, the author, Sergius Fomin, did make the startling admission: “If Metropolitan Sergius, in agreeing in his name to publish the Declaration of 1927 composed by the authorities, hoping to buy some relief for the Church and the clergy, then his hopes not only were not fulfilled, but the persecutions after 1927 became still fiercer, reaching truly hurricane-force in 1937-38” (p. 262). But the book as a whole sought to justify Sergius. Moreover, the foreword, which was written by Patriarch Alexis, praised the heroic path taken by Sergius and viciously castigated his critics. Those that did not follow Sergius in his submission to Stalin were "schismatics", who, "not having reconciled themselves to the new government, became a danger just as big as the persecutions." Sergius, on the other hand, received only words of praise, and was credited with averting, "maybe even the destruction of the Russian Orthodox Church itself."
«In 2003,» writes Sergei Chapnin, «Vladimir Putin met the hierarchs of the Church Abroad and in effect showed them that their union with the Moscow Patriarchate was viewed by him not only as an internal church matter, but also as a political task to which the state was not indifferent…”442 Indeed, the KGB under Putin’s direction played a very active part in the whole process. This was acknowledged officially in a letter of gratitude addressed to Putin by the Synod of ROCOR-MP on June 14, 2017.443
In November, 2003 a delegation to Moscow led by Archbishop Mark kissed the patriarch’s hand and asked forgiveness for any harsh things ROCOR may have said about the MP in the past. Since a great deal had been said in the past, and by all the leaders of ROCOR, such an apology could only be interpreted as capitulation to the
442 Sergei Chapnin, “Kak RPTs demontiruiet tserkovnoe nasledie russkoj emigratsii”, Moscow Carnegie Center, November 18, 2016. 443 “Архиерейский Собор Русской Зарубежной Церкви направил приветствие Президенту России Владимиру Владимировичу Путину”, http://www.synod.com/synod/2017/20170620_soborputin.html.
312 MP. Again, on January 26, 2004, Archbishop Mark said in answer to a question about the canonical status of the Moscow Patriarchate: “The Russian people has made its choice. It has recognized the present Russian Orthodox Church in Russia and its hierarchy. We must take account of this in spite of possible objections from members of the Church Abroad. At the beginning of the 1990s we still could not see the processes that were happening in Russia as the people there saw them. Life in Russia went by a different path from how the émigrés presented it…”
In May, 2004 Metropolitan Laurus headed another ROCOR delegation on a two- week visit to Russia. On May 15, the anniversary of “Patriarch” Sergius’ death, Patriarch Alexis demonstratively served a pannikhida for the traitor-patriarch, after which he said: “May the Lord create for him eternal and grateful memory”. Then, during a liturgy at the Butovo polygon, where thousands of Christians, both True Orthodox and sergianist, were killed and buried, he had this to say to his foreign guests: “Today is the 60th anniversary since the death of the ever-memorable Patriarch Sergius. The time of the service of this archpastor coincided with the most terrible years of the struggle against God, when it was necessary to preserve the Russian Church. In those terrible years of repression and persecutions there were more sorrows. In 1937 both those who shared the position of Metropolitan Sergius and those who did not agree with him suffered for the faith of Christ, for belonging to the Russian Orthodox Church. We pay a tribute of respect and thankful remembrance to his Holiness Patriarch Sergius for the fact that he, in the most terrible and difficult of conditions of the Church’s existence in the 1930s of the 20th century led the ship of the Church and preserved the Russian Church amidst the stormy waves of the sea of life.”
The idea that those who shared Sergius’ position and those who rejected it were equally martyrs is to mock the very idea of martyrdom for the truth. Clearly, therefore, “Patriarch” Alexis, “forgetting” historical facts as accepted even by MP historians, was determined to justify even the most shameful acts of the “ever- memorable” Sergius, claiming that he truly “saved the Church” by his agreements with the God-haters. There could be no doubt, therefore, that he remained a dyed- in-the-wool sergianist. And there could similarly be no doubt that Metropolitan Laurus, in listening to this speech in respectful silence and without interjecting the slightest objection, was a sergianist, too.
The conclusions of the first two sessions of the joint commissions of the MP and ROCOR (in June and September, 2004) were approved in the autumn by the MP Council of Bishops, although very few details were made public. However, on November 1 Patriarch Alexis revealed something, which was published by “Yedinoe otechestvo” under the intriguing title: “Wishing a speedy union with ROCOR, Alexis II emphasises that it is wrong to judge Metropolitan Sergius and his actions”. The patriarch was reported as saying: “Two working meetings of the commission of the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Church Abroad on the dialogue over the re-establishment of ecclesiastical unity took place, and the projects of the following documents were agreed: on the relationships between the Church and the State, on the relationships between Orthodoxy and the heterodox communities and the inter-confessional organization, and on the canonical status of
313 ROCOR as a self-governing Church.” In other words, all the important issues have already been agreed! But what was the agreement? And if it is in accordance with Orthodoxy, why was it not being published?
While every attempt was made to pretend that the MP and ROCOR were negotiating on equal terms, many facts indicated the opposite. Thus when Fr. Constantine Kaunov left the Volgograd diocese of the MP and joined the Siberian diocese of ROCOR under Bishop Eutyches, and was banned from serving by the MP Bishop of Ekaterinburg (under whom he had never served), he was told by Bishop Eutyches that he was banned because he had not submitted to the ban of the MP bishop! In other words, already now, before full, official union, ROCOR priests in Russia were under the power of the MP – with the full connivance of the ROCOR bishops!
On January 24, 2005 Metropolitan Cyril (Gundiaev) of Smolensk, head of the MP’s Department of Foreign Relations and the future patriarch, confirmed that the MP did not condemn Sergianism: “We recognize that the model of Church-State relations [in the Soviet period] did not correspond to tradition. But we are not condemning those who realized this model, because there was no other way of preserving the Church. The Church behaved in the only way she could at that time. There was another path into the catacombs, but there could be no catacombs in the Soviet space…”
But there were many “catacombs in the Soviet space”. And it was precisely the existence of those catacombs, and of the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of the Catacomb Church, that gave the lie to the MP’s assertion that there was no other way. That other way was the way of Christ, Himself the Way, the Truth and the Life – and for the true Christian there was no other Way!
Meanwhile, Patriarch Alexis officially endorsed the communist view of the Second World War. In February, 2005, there was a “Worldwide Russian People’s Council” in Moscow, to which several guests from ROCOR (L) were invited. As Laurence A. Uzzell, president of International Religious Freedom Watch wrote for The Moscow Times: “The speeches at that gathering, devoted to celebrating the Soviet victory in World War II and linking it to the Kremlin’s current policies, suggest that the domestic church [the MP] is counting on Russian nationalism to woo the émigrés. Especially striking is the distinctively Soviet flavor of that nationalism. The main speeches failed to mention the victory’s dark sides, for example the imposition of totalitarian atheism on traditionally Christian societies such as Romania and Bulgaria. Patriarch Alexey II made the incredible statement that the victory ‘brought the Orthodox peoples of Europe closer and raised the authority of the Russian Church’. If one had no information, one would think that the establishment of Communist Party governments in the newly conquered countries were purely voluntary – and that what followed was unfettered religious freedom…”
Uzzell continues: “Sergianism is clearly still thriving, despite the Moscow Patriarchate’s occasional abstract statements asserting its right to criticize the state.
314 The Patriarchate’s leaders still openly celebrate Patriarch Sergei’s memory, with some even favoring his canonization as a saint. With rare exceptions, they still issue commentaries on President Vladimir Putin’s policies, which read like government press releases. They seem sure that this issue will not be a deal-breaker in their quest for reunion with the émigrés. Putin’s Kremlin will be hoping that they are right.”
Matushka Anastasia Shatilova noted: “In the Moscow Patriarchate there can be observed an elemental striving towards the ‘glorification’ of a series of very dubious personalities, including Ivan the Terrible (seven times married, who killed his own son and sent Maliuta Skuratov to suffocate the holy Hierarch Philip of Moscow for his rebuking of the Tsar’s cruelties) and Rasputin (whose ‘icons’ are even streaming myrrh). The crown of all this is the ‘icon’ of Stalin, which was put on the “Live Journal” on the internet on June 5. On it this outcast of the human race is portrayed in hierarchical vestments with an omophorion, a Gospel book and a sword in his hands!”
In June, 2005 four documents agreed by the joint MP-ROCOR commissions were published – on the same day that a delegation from the WCC visited the patriarch in Moscow! These documents contained a more or less complete submission to Moscow’s commands, including even a justification of Sergius’ declaration.
On November 22, 2005 (old style) the Cyprianites, who, while accepting that the MP had grace, still opposed union with it, broke communion with ROCOR (L). In December, 2005 the Hierarchical Synod of ROCOR (L) broke communion with the Cyprianites. The real reason was that the MP had laid it down as a condition for the union of the MP with ROCOR that ROCOR “regulates its relations with groups that have separated from their Local Churches” (Protopriest Nicholas Balashov).
In May a so-called “Fourth All-Diaspora Sobor of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad” was convened by ROCOR (L) in San Francisco. By dint of a great deal of manipulation and the weeding out of dissenters, the Sobor endorsed the union with the MP. Nevertheless, the dissenters who were able to speak at the Sobor were still able to make some telling points, especially about the continuing ecumenism of the MP.
Thus in his report to the Sobor Priest Victor Dobrov said: “Just recently, from February 14-23 of this year in Porto Alegre, Brazil the regular 9th ecumenical Assembly of the WCC took place.
“The Russian Church (MP) at this Assembly was unusually imposing with more than 20 members in its delegation.
“The Summary Document, adopted and ratified by the participants of this ecumenical Assembly, and particularly by the Moscow Patriarchate in the face of its representatives, is the Document PRC 01.1 entitled “The Teaching on the Church: Called to be a United Church”.
315 “A careful study of this Document casts doubt on the multitude of statements made by the representatives of the Moscow side, that the objective of the continued membership of the Patriarchate in the WCC is the uncompromising witnessing to the Truth to the heterodox world. Moreover, this document evokes doubt in the Orthodoxy of the confession of the faith of the Moscow Patriarchate itself. The entire adopted Document is heretical from beginning to end, but because of the lack of time for a thorough examination, we will focus only on the most glaring evidence.
“Let us refer to the text of the Document:
“One may call the following assertion in the Document a theological breakthrough, yet it is far from Orthodox thinking:
“’All who have been baptized into Christ are united with Christ in his body’. (III, 8) (i.e. in the Church of Christ!)
“It is completely unequivocal, simple and comprehensible! Since nowhere in the remainder of the Document is it stated that this implies baptism with the obligatory participation of the one being baptized in the Eucharist which is in the Orthodox Church, therefore now there is every basis to consider the Moscow Patriarchate as already being of one body with Protestants…
“Our Orthodox consciousness is amazed and startled by the ecumenical statement adopted by the Moscow Patriarchate on recognizing the grace and genuineness of baptisms carried out in heretical communities!”
The Council declared: “Hearing the lectures read at the Council, the reports made by the Commission on negotiations with the corresponding Commission of the Moscow Patriarchate, and the various points of view expressed during the discussions, we express our conciliar consent that it is necessary to confirm the canonical status of the Russian Church Abroad for the future as a self-governing part of the Local Russian Church, in accordance with the Regulations of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia currently in force.”
A kind of autonomy of ROCOR within MP was granted her – but it was only a fig-leaf to hide her complete submission. The Patriarch still retained veto power on appointments, the Orthodox Church of America remained outside ROCOR’s control, and, most important, full communion with the “Local Russian Church”, i.e. the Moscow Patriarchate, was established.
The declaration went on: “From discussions at the Council it is apparent that the participation of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate in the World Council of Churches evokes confusion among our clergy and flock. With heartfelt pain we ask the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate to heed the plea of our flock to expediently remove this temptation.
316 “We hope that the forthcoming Local Council of the One Russian Church will settle remaining unresolved church problems.”
This rather pathetic appeal to the conquerors to heed the “heartfelt pain” of the vanquished was swept aside. Since the union between the MP and ROCOR, the ecumenist activities of “the One Russian Church” has actually increased, especially since the enthronement of Patriarch Cyril (Gundiaev). In any case, since ROCOR did not lay down the renunciation of ecumenism as a sine qua non of union, and only asked that the “remaining unresolved church problems” be settled “at the forthcoming Local Council of the One Russian Church”, that is, after union, there was no real pressure placed on the MP: ROCOR had surrendered…
Protests continued to the very end. Thus former KGB Lieutenant-Colonel Constantine Preobrazhensky reminded the ROCOR faithful of what they already knew but had begun to forget: “Absolutely all [my italics – V.M.] the bishops and the overwhelming majority of the priests [of the MP] worked with the KGB…” And very near the end, in February, 2007, Fr. Nikita Grigoriev, an instructor at Holy Trinity Seminary, Jordanville, produced one of the most incisive exposés of the Moscow Patriarchate in the whole history of its existence.
But in vain. On May 17, 2007, deceived by the vain hope of retaining some kind of real autonomy within the MP, and suppressing the unassailable evidence that the MP was still sergianist and ecumenist to the core, Metropolitan Laurus signed the union with the KGB-Patriarch while the KGB-President beamed approvingly... The Russian Church Abroad, the last free voice of the True Russian Church, had ceased to exist.
Or so it seemed…
As the wise Solomon says, pride goes before a fall (Proverbs 16.18). The fall of ROCOR was the result of pride – pride in her own past virtues, and pride in relation to the other bearers of True Russian Orthodoxy. This is not to say that the achievements of ROCOR were not genuinely great. Apart from providing spiritual food for her own large flock scattered over every continent, and bringing many foreigners to the light of the true faith, she faithfully preserved the traditions of the pre-revolutionary Russian Church that were being destroyed with the utmost ruthlessness in the Homeland, while providing a voice (and, in some cases, an omophorion) for the catacomb confessors. Several of her conciliar declarations – the condemnation of sergianism (1928), the glorification of the New Martyrs and Confessors (1981) and the anathema against ecumenism (1983) – will stand forever as monuments of the faith of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
Probably her greatest long-term achievement was that accomplished when she was almost at the end of her strength: her creation of parishes inside Russia in 1990, and her resurrection of the apostolic succession and hierarchy of her sister-church in the Homeland, the Russian True Orthodox Church. Paradoxically, however, it was this final achievement that brought about her downfall; for the task of replacing the Moscow Patriarchate as the dominant confession in Russia was
317 beyond her strength, and the spiritual diseases and temptations transmitted through the first face-to-face encounter with the old enemy in the Homeland since the 1920s shook her faith and determination. Forgetting their duty before God and their flock both in Russia and abroad, the majority of the hierarchs wavered, began to listen to the siren-calls of pseudo-Russian Soviet nationalism, and fell into a false union with the Sovietized Moscow Patriarchate and apostate World Orthodoxy.
This is without doubt a profound spiritual tragedy whose consequences are still reverberating among the Orthodox all over the world. However, “all things work for the best for those who love God” (Romans 8.28), and “the Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble” (Proverbs 16.4). So even in this terrible tragedy there is hidden the hope and the means of spiritual healing and resurrection – ROCOR’s fall by no means excludes the possibility of a recovery. But that recovery must now come primarily from within Russia, and not from abroad, especially since 95% of ROCOR inside Russia refused to join the unia with the MP as opposed to 30 % outside Russia. And it must come with a full understanding of the causes of the past failures, and a determination not to repeat them.
What are the lessons from this tragedy? Briefly, they are: that Soviet power is not from God, but from the devil, and that neither with it, nor with its neo-Soviet successor under KGB agent Putin, is any “symphony of powers” possible; that the Moscow Patriarchate, having sold its soul to the devil in the form of Stalin in the 1920s and not repented of it even after the fall of communism, does not have the grace of sacraments and is no longer an ark of salvation; that ecumenism is “the heresy of heresies”, and union with the ecumenist churches in the World Council of Churches or other ecumenical forums is spiritual death; and that the unity of the Russian people cannot be bought at the expense of the betrayal of God and of the confession of the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.
A further lesson, of a less dogmatic nature but still important, is that the leadership of the Russian Church has now passed from Abroad back to the Homeland. In a sense, this was inevitable, both from a historical and from a canonical point of view. In her early years, the Russian émigrés were always looking to return to the Homeland; they felt themselves and their Church to be truly “in exile”, and the purpose of their lives to be the resurrection of true piety and the True Church in the Homeland. The hope of this resurrection grew fainter with time, but the primacy in the hearts of the exiles of the Church in the Homeland, of which the Church Abroad was merely a part (and rather a small part - merely “a drop in the ocean” in the words of St. Philaret of New York), remained. It was therefore entirely natural that the return of the Church Abroad to Russia in 1990 should be seen as the culmination of her existence, and the struggle with the MP that ensued as “the last battle”.
But from a canonical point of view the whole existence of ROCOR was highly anomalous. A part of the Russian Church that existed outside Russia, throughout the world, and in many places on the territories of other Local Churches, but as an autonomous, self-governing unit – this was an unprecedented phenomenon in
318 Orthodox Church history. Strictly speaking, the existence of such a global, “floating” Church body contradicted the basic territorial principle of Church administration. It could be justified only on the grounds that to merge with the other Local Churches, and still more with the official Church in the Homeland, would be to the detriment of the Orthodox Faith and the spiritual welfare of its flock. This justification was seen as adequate by all zealots of the faith, both Russian and non-Russian – and yet the situation of the Church remained anomalous, and therefore necessarily temporary, requiring a canonical resolution sooner or later. Moreover, the anomaly became still more extreme when the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia became – contrary to the first paragraph of its own Statute – also the Russian Orthodox Church Inside Russia in 1990. How could the Church Outside Russia be at the same time the Church Inside Russia?!
The anomaly could be resolved only by transferring the central authority of the Church from Abroad to the Homeland. Such a solution had many obvious and major advantages, whereas keeping the administration of the Church in the hands of hierarchs living thousands of miles away with no knowledge of the conditions in contemporary Russia was a recipe for disaster. This was at least partially recognized by Metropolitan Vitaly himself, when he declared in December, 2001: “After many long, hard years of trying to manage the Church in Russia from New York, I have learned that it is impossible to manage the Church in Russia from Abroad. We do not know and understand their problems and we do not know their people and possible candidates for the clergy. Without a knowledge of their people and their problems the best that we can do is give them Apostolic Succession and Grace and allow them to organize while maintaining communion with them and praying that they will be able to do something for themselves…“
And yet the leadership of ROCOR (V) strenuously resisted bestowing any such autonomy on ROCOR inside Russia, let alone giving the leadership of the Russian Church as a whole to hierarchs inside Russia; and this prideful insistence that the Russian Church can only be governed from Mansonville or Paris must be considered as the main reason for the fall of ROCOR (V).
However, the fall of ROCOR (V), and the emergence of RTOC under Archbishop Tikhon of Omsk and Siberia as the only truly canonical Russian Church jurisdiction, has now solved the problem. The leadership of RTOC always insisted that the Russian Church Abroad and the Catacomb or Russian True Orthodox Church should be seen as separate but closely related organisms, “sister-churches”. Even when under extreme provocation, they tried hard not to break the link with Metropolitan Vitaly. But once ROCOR (V) had definitely fallen away, they created a Church structure that was the mirror-image of the old ROCOR. That is, the central leadership of the Church was now permanently inside Russia, while the Church Abroad existed as a semi-autonomous body with its own bishop(s) in communion with the main body inside Russia.
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319 This “ecclesiastical perestroika” had its critics, however, even within RTOC and even within that remnant of ROCOR – about a third of the parishes worldwide – who refused to accept the unia with Moscow. They gathered around the figure of Bishop Agathangelus of Odessa, the only bishop in ROCOR (L) who rejected the unia, and who now proclaimed himself the sole lawful successor-bishop of the old ROCOR. While continuing to live in the Ukraine, he declared that the centre of the Church was still Abroad, and has recently been given the title “Metropolitan of New York”.
We have met Bishop Agathangelus before, as the hierarch who, in October, 2001, betrayed his spiritual father and RTOC and “jumped ship”, joining Laurus at just the moment that Laurus fell away from the faith. Little good should have been expected from such a turncoat, and so it turned out. Only three days after the May, 2007, RTOC sent an appeal to Agathangelus to unite with them. But Agathangelus rejected it. In fact, he not only refused to join any of the existing “splinters” (oskolki) that had been saved from the shipwreck of ROCOR: he vigorously claimed that they were all schismatics, that the Lavrite Synod had been the only true Russian Synod until its fall in May, 2007, and even that all the decisions of the Lavrite Synod until that date were valid and correct – including, presumably, all the decisions of the false Council of 2000 and the decision to seek union with the MP!
Agathangelus now proceeded to repeat all the errors of the 1990s that had undermined the strength of ROCOR in the 1990s, beginning with the union with the Cyprianites and the acceptance of their ecclesiology. Thus in November, 2007 he entered into communion with Metropolitan Cyprian and his Synod. The Cyprianites claimed that there had never been a break in communion between them and Bishop Agathangelus, but this was not true, since the Lavrite Synod, of which Bishop Agathangelus was then a member, broke communion with the Cyprianites in 2006. Then, early in December, Bishop Agathangelus consecrated two further bishops for his jurisdiction with the help of the Cyprianite Bishops Ambrose of Methone and George of Alania (South Ossetia) in Odessa: Andronik (Kotliarov) for New York, and Sophrony (Musienko) for St. Petersburg. So the “Agathangelite” Synod, thanks to the Cyprianites, now has three dioceses: one each for the Ukraine, Russia and North America.
Some hailed this expansion of the Agathangelite Synod as “the resurrection of ROCOR”. Did this title correspond to the truth about the Agathangelite Synod? It would have corresponded to the truth only if: (1) the confession of faith of this Synod were purely Orthodox, (2) its apostolic succession were undoubted, and (3) it were the only Synod that could reasonably argue that it was “the continuer of ROCOR”. But the Agathangelite Synod failed to pass this test on all three counts.
1. The Confession of the Agathangelite Synod is not purely Orthodox. The present writer asked the Cyprianite Bishop Ambrose of Methone: “Can we take it that Bishop Agathangelus shares your ecclesiology in all respects? In particular, does he, like your Synod, regard the Moscow Patriarchate as having grace?” His reply (the bishop was speaking only in his own name, not for the whole Cyprianite Synod) was: “So far as I know, and so far as I have discussed [it] with him, yes.” We can
320 assume that this was a correct answer, because the Cyprianites and the Agathangelites have remained in communion to the present day without any quarrels over the faith.
In other words, Bishop Agathangelus recognized the Moscow Patriarchate and the whole of World Orthodoxy to be grace-filled. Moreover, he embraced the false Cyprianite ecclesiology that heretics such as Patriarchs Alexis and Bartholomew were “sick” members of the True Church. The immediate reaction was: had Agathangelus learned nothing from the fall of Metropolitan Laurus? Or rather, did he consider it a “fall” at all, since Laurus, according to his and the Cyprianites’ understanding, was simply returning to union with his “Mother Church”, the Moscow Patriarchate? Did he not understand that it was precisely when ROCOR entered into communion with the Cyprianites, in 1994, that the Synod began negotiations with the Moscow Patriarchate and began its rapid descent into union with heresy?
More recently, Agathangelus and his Synod (ROCOR (A)), while continuing fiercely reject all jurisdictions “to the right”, such as ROCOR (V), ROAC or RTOC, have shown increasing sympathy for jurisdictions located “to the left”. Thus Agathangelus and the deposed Patriarch Irenaeus of Jerusalem, who since 2005 has been living under house arrest, now recognize each other and commemorate each other at the Great Entrance in the liturgy. Moreover, as Protopriest Alexander Lebedev writes, “the liberalism of ROCOR (A) in its reception of communities and clerics serves the aims of broadening its influence and increasing its numbers. In the words of Metropolitan Agathangelus, ‘we take everybody’. The politics of careful examination, which we see, for example, in RTOC, does not permit an increase in the quantity of communities and clerics, while ‘economy’ present many opportunities for this. In unofficial Orthodoxy, besides the ‘splinters’ of ROCOR and the Greek Old Calendarist jurisdictions, which are known for their serious attitude to questions of ecclesiology and faith, there exists an enormous ‘bank’ of jurisdictions and clerics who have dubious canonical origins and a vague confession of faith. In ROCOR (A) they have already shown long ago that in order to broaden their ranks they are ready to us this diverse conglomerate. The first step was undertaken by the newly formed jurisdiction already in 2007, when ‘catacomb hierarchs of the Sekachite tradition’ were received [by cheirothesia] into the ranks of their episcopate. This autumn it became known that ROCOR (A) was reviewing the question of receiving into their ranks the Orthodox Church of Ecuador, whose first- hierarch, however, earlier managed to join the True Orthodox Church of [the ‘healer’] Metropolitan Raphael (Motovilov)…”
2. The Apostolic Succession of the Agathangelite Synod is doubtful for two reasons: first, because their Cyprianite co-consecrators’ Synod was formed in schism from the True Orthodox Church of Greece under Archbishop Chrysostom (Kiousis) of Athens, and secondly, because Agathangelus has not yet publicly renounced the false and heretical councils of 2000 and 2001 – and heretics do not have apostolic succession.
321 3. There are other Synods having an equal, or greater claim to be the “continuer of ROCOR” – especially RTOC. Bishop Agathangelus’ claim to be the sole canonical successor of ROCOR is founded on nothing stronger than the fact that he was the last to separate from the Lavrite Synod. But is that anything to be proud of? Is it not rather something to be ashamed of? After all, the Holy Canons – in particular, the 15th Canon of the First-and-Second Council of Constantinople – do not praise procrastination in matters of the faith, but rather praise those who separate immediately heresy is proclaimed. And in the case of ROCOR that took place, not in 2007, as Bishop Agathangelus likes to think, but in 2001, if not in 1994…
Bishop Agathangelus’ position is similar to that of a person who criticizes those who jump off a heavily listing ship that has been holed below the water-line, and himself “jumps” only when the water has reached his neck… And yet his position is still worse. For he claims that the ship he jumped off, ROCOR-MP, and which is now at the bottom of the ocean of this sinful world, is in fact floating majestically on the surface with Christ Himself at its helm! If that is what he believes, then we are entitled to ask: why did he jump in the first place? And still more pertinently: will he not be tempted at some time in the future to return to that ship, becoming one of those who, “having thrust away a good conscience concerning the faith, have made shipwreck…” (I Timothy 1.19)?
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Let us return, finally, to the one ray of true light to emerge from the dark and stormy history that is the subject of this small book – the emergence of the Russian True Orthodox Church under Archbishop Tikhon of Omsk and Siberia.
This is the only Church body that the present writer can recommend as having preserved both the faith and the apostolic succession of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad in the period before it began to fall away, while at the same time preserving the traditions of the Church of the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, the Catacomb Church. It is a relatively small Church, and compared with uncanonical bodies such as ROCOR (A), it is growing slowly. However, slow but steady growth is no bad thing after the recent period of extreme turmoil.
Moreover, in its Sobor in Odessa in November, 2008 it demonstrated a model of what true Church Sobornost’, or Conciliarity, should be in an age when that quality has been very hard to find. The Sobor issued a large number of documents on a wide range of subjects. And it canonized Metropolitan Philaret of New York and 49 Catacomb confessors, thereby demonstrating its veneration for the faith and piety both of the Russian Church Abroad and of the Catacomb Church.
Let us conclude, then, by quoting one of the Sobor documents, “Definition of the Sacred Council on the Confessional and Ecclesiological Foundations of the Russian True Orthodox Church”, a statement of that Faith that alone can serve as the rock on which the future Russian Church will be built:-
322 “The Russian True Orthodox Church confesses and holds the Orthodox Christian Faith as it has been preserved by Holy Tradition from the foundation of the Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Orthodox Church of Christ, and as it was until 1927 in the Local Russian Church, as the Catacomb Church kept it in a confessing spirit, and as the Russian Church Abroad kept it right until the year 2000.
“We believe in the Triune God, the Holy Trinity, as expounded in the Nicaeo- Constantinopolitan Symbol of faith, and in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church vwhich our Lord Jesus Christ founded, and which is the pillar and ground of the Truth (I Timothy 3.15). We believe that the Church is the Body of Christ, a Divino-human organism, in which we, the faithful, constitute Its Body, while the Head of the Church is the Lord Jesus Christ (Colossians 1.18). We believe that the gates of hell cannot prevail over Her (Matthew 16.18). Like the Lord Himself, She cannot be destroyed, annihilated or divided, and for that reason does not need to be “saved” by human forces.
“In full unanimity with the Symbol of faith, we confess one baptism for the remission of sins. The Russian True Orthodox Church strictly holds to the ecclesiastical laws which prescribed that it be carried out by three-times and complete immersion in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
“That which the Holy Apostles and Holy Fathers of the Church accepted and confirmed, we also accept and confirm, and that which they rejected and anathematized, we also reject and anathematize, without adding or subtracting anything. And together with the Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, we proclaim: “We follow the ancient traditions of the Ecumenical Church, we keep the laws of the Fathers; we subject to anathema those who add or take away anything from the Ecumenical Church.”
“The Russian True Orthodox Church is an indivisible part of the Local Russian Church, and governs itself on conciliar bases in accordance with the decree of his Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, the Holy Synod and Higher Church Council of the Russian Church of November 7/20, 1920, № 362. We have canonical succession from the Catacomb Russian Church and the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad as two equal-in-honour and spiritually united parts of the True Russian Church remaining in Eucharistic and canonical communion under different ecclesiastical administrations, as it was in the time of the Holy Martyr Metropolitan Peter of Krutitsa, and as was blessed by the last lawful First Hierarch of ROCOR, Metropolitan Vitaly. We confess our spiritual and ecclesiological unity with the Holy New Martyrs of Russia and the Father-Confessors of the Catacomb Church, and also with the First Hierarchs of ROCOR and Her outstanding hierarchs and pastors.
“Confessing that the Church saves man, and not man – the Church, we reject the sergianism confessed by the Moscow Patriarchate, which is so-called from the name of Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky), as a special form of apostasy and ecclesiological heresy. This false teaching is not compatible with the teaching of the Holy Fathers on the Church and on political authority, for sergianism is the inner
323 preparedness of the Orthodox Christian for compromise with antitheism, and in a broader sense, for compromise with lies, with any evil, with the elements of this world. This preparedness proceeds from the heart, from the spiritual condition of man himself, and for that reason we affirm that the Moscow Patriarchate is being cunning when it calls sergianism a temporary phenomenon conditioned by a political situation. In raising sergianism – that is, compromise with antitheism – into a norm of ecclesiastical life, the Moscow Patriarchate is thereby preparing its flock to recognize the power of the Antichrist as a lawful power, and to accept “the seal on their right hand” (Revelation 13.16). We affirm that true Orthodoxy in our suffering Fatherland cannot be regenerated without a consciousness of the sergianist fall and without repentance for this fall.
“We are unanimous with the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia and the Catacomb Father-Confessors, and also with the outstanding holy hierarchs and pastors of the Church Abroad, that sergianism is a heresy, which the Moscow Patriarchate that was born from it is “a neo-renovationist schism” which entered into symphony with the antitheist authorities and to which are applicable the definitions and canonical bans of the Russian Church that were laid on renovationism and its hierarchy. Having been formed as a schism, the Moscow Patriarchate unlawfully calls itself “the Mother Church”.
“Our faith in the oneness and uniqueness of the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church is incompatible with ecumenism, and for that reason we recognize ecumenism to be a heresy that has trampled on the Orthodox Faith. Confessing our unity with the heritage of ROCOR, we confirm the condemnation of ecumenism made by the Council of the Church Abroad in 1983 and the proclamation of a conciliar anathema on this heresy “and on those who have communion with these heretics or help them, or defend their new heresy of ecumenism”. The participation of the Moscow Patriarchate in the ecumenical movement is not a private apostasy of individual hierarchs, but was conciliarly confirmed as the Church’s course in 1961 at the Hierarchical Council of the MP. Having joined the “World Council of Churches”, the Moscow Patriarchate has defined itself not only as “a neo- renovationist schism”, but also as a heretical community that has fallen both under the anathema of the Holy Patriarch Tikhon and the All-Russian Council on the communists and all their co-workers, and under the anathema of the ROCOR Council.
“Also falling under the anathema on the 1983 heresy of ecumenism are all the hierarchs and clergy of the official Local Churches that confess their Eucharistic unity but at the same time participate together in the pan-heresy of ecumenism, in the acceptance of the new calendar, in modernism, and in the construction of the new world order. For that reason the Russian True Orthodox Church can have Eucharistic communion and unity with none of them; and, following the patristic teaching, it decrees that official World Orthodoxy has fallen away from the Church of Christ, and that its sacraments are ineffective [nedejstvenny] for salvation. By this we confess the witness of Church Tradition that the grace of the Holy Spirit works in a saving manner only in the True Church of Christ, to which heretics and schismatics do not belong.
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“We reject the destructive opinion that heretics and schismatics have not fallen away, but are so-called “sick members of the Church”, in whom the grace of God works in an equally saving manner as on the members of the True Orthodox Church. We confess that all the members of the Church who live in the world and bear flesh are sick through their sins, and only in the True Church of Christ can they receive true healing and salvation. But deviation into heresies and schisms is nothing else than falling away from the Body of the True Orthodox Church. That is why, as the Holy New Martyrs of Russia taught, the Moscow Patriarchate is not the True Church of Christ and its sacraments cannot be effective for salvation.
“However, we do not thereby usurp the Judgements of God and do not boldly declare that the Lord is not able to turn to repentance and save a sincere Christian soul that remains in the official church, but affirm that salvation is possible only through entering the Church of Christ.
“We decree that clergy coming into the True Church from the MP must be received through repentance and the carrying out on them of an additional laying on of hands (kheirothesia) by the hierarchs of the True Orthodox Church with the aim of completing the ordinations (kheirotonia) that the arriving clergy received from the apostate hierarchy of the MP.
“Concerning the rite of reception from heretical and schismatic communities, the Russian True Orthodox Church, as a part of the once united Local Russian Church, continues to preserve Her heritage, Her historically formed local traditions and conciliar decrees, at the basis of which was laid the principle of ecclesiastical condescension (oikonomia), in order that, according to the word of the holy Hierarch Philaret (Voznesensky), First Hierarch of ROCOR, “many should not be driven from the Church”.
“In spite of the fact that there now exists an admissible variety of differences in the rites of reception of laymen practiced by some True Orthodox Churches, we consider that it is necessary to proceed towards the overcoming of these differences, basing ourselves on the dogmatic teaching of the Church. For the time being it is possible to relate to these differences in the rites of reception in same way as did St. Cyprian of Carthage in his letter to Jubian: “But someone will say: what will happen to those who, before this, having converted from heresy to the Church, were received into the Church without baptism? The Lord by His mercy is powerful to give them forgiveness, and not to deprive of the gifts of His Church those who, having been received into the Church, reposed in the Church”.
“A basis for changing the rite of reception of laymen from the MP could be, for example, facts concerning the open, official concelebration of the hierarchy of the MP with Roman Catholics or other heretics.
“Confessing the RTOC to be the True Russian Church and the canonical successor in law of the Catacomb and Abroad Churches, we do not isolate ourselves and do not dare to think of ourselves as ‘the only true Church’.
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“We confess unity of Faith with our brothers, the Old Calendarist Orthodox Christians in Greece and other countries, who reject the unia with ecumenical and new calendarist official Orthodoxy, and who do not accept the heresy of ecumenism either in its open confession or in its hidden form in the teaching on the “sick in faith” members of the Church.
“The Sacred Council of the Russian True Orthodox Church confirms the validity [dejstvennost’] of the decree of the ROCOR Council of August 15/28, 1932, which decreed “the condemnation of Masonry as a teaching and organization hostile to Christianity, and the condemnation also of all teachings and organizations that are akin to Masonry”. In accordance with this conciliar decree, the idea of the “new world order” begotten by Masonry is subject to condemnation, as well as the processes of globalization introduced with this aim in mind, and the systems of global control over mankind that are directed to preparing society for the establishment of the power of the Antichrist in the future.
“Remaining faithful to the heritage of the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of the Catacomb Church, we witness that for True Orthodox archpastors and pastors participation in the processes of world apostasy, one of the forms of which is contemporary political activity, is not permitted. In his service the Orthodox pastor must guard his flock from the destructive influence of “this world”, and the official Orthodoxy that goes in step with it, as well as from the imitation artificially generated by it – so-called “alternative Orthodoxy”, explaining to his flock the destructive essence of these phenomena. Both these phenomena, which surround the Church on the left and on the right, derive their origin from one and the same apostate source of this world, and are foreign to True Orthodoxy.
“Following the outstanding holy Hierarchs of the Ecumenical and Russian Church, we believe that the power established by God is the Orthodox kingdom. We sorrow over the loss of this God-given Orthodox kingdom by our ancestors, and pray to the Lord for its restoration. However, we also witness to the fact that a truly Orthodox kingdom can be restored in Rus’ only after the repentance of the Russian people and its return to the True Church, for there can be no genuine repentance, nor restoration of an Orthodox monarchy, in a false church. A monarchy founded with the blessing of the church of the evil-doers will have craftiness at its very foundation. Such a kingdom is not pleasing to God; even if great and powerful, it will only prepare the ground for the coming of the Antichrist.
“We call on all Orthodox Christians to stand in the Truth, to increase their penitential prayer and union around our Holy Mother – the True Orthodox Church. The spiritual regeneration both of every individual human soul and of society in general is possible only through repentance and the conciliar participation of all of us in the Body of Christ, in Which the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth and Love, acts. The loss by the community of men of true conciliarity [sobornost’] brings with it the loss of participation in the Body of Christ, which means the loss also of the beneficial action upon this community of the grace of the Holy Spirit. This grace- filled action is possible only through the True Church of Christ.
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“Understanding this, the contemporary world is trying to substitute artificial spiritual fakes and false-churches for the True Church. For that reason there is nothing dearer for the Orthodox Christian than the genuine regeneration of the True Orthodox Church, the pure Bride of Christ, Who remains faithful to Her Heavenly Bridegroom. Outside the Church salvation and the true spiritual healing of the soul damaged by the passions is impossible. Amen.”
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