NEW ZION in BABYLON the Orthodox Church in the Twentieth Century
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NEW ZION IN BABYLON The Orthodox Church in the Twentieth Century Vladimir Moss Copyright: Vladimir Moss, 2008 PART 4. BETWEEN THE HAMMER AND THE ANVIL (1941-1964) ............3 The Genocide of the Serbian Orthodox ......................................................................3 Orthodoxy and Paganism in Manchuria.................................................................11 German-Occupied Russia........................................................................................13 The Pskov Mission and the Catacomb Church ........................................................17 The Church in Belorussia and Ukraine ...................................................................21 ROCOR and the Germans.......................................................................................25 The Stalin-Sergius Pact ...........................................................................................30 The Consequences of the Pact ..................................................................................38 The False Moscow Council of 1945 .........................................................................44 The Tragedy of the Vlasovites..................................................................................48 ROCOR moves to America......................................................................................52 The Greek Church during the War..........................................................................57 The Soviet Offensive: (1) Inside the USSR..............................................................60 The Soviet Offensive: (2) Outside the USSR...........................................................66 Archbishop John of Shanghai...................................................................................72 The Post-War Serbian Church.................................................................................79 Other East European Churches ...............................................................................91 More Soviet Councils...............................................................................................93 The World Council of Churches ..............................................................................97 Divisions in the Greek Church ..............................................................................100 The New Calendarist Offensive.............................................................................108 The True Orthodox Church of Cyprus ..................................................................114 The Cult of Stalin...................................................................................................115 ROCOR at the Crossroads.....................................................................................117 Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople .............................................................130 The Communists Become Ecumenists...................................................................135 The Khruschev Persecution ...................................................................................143 The Passportless Movement ..................................................................................148 The Florinites Acquire a Hierarchy .......................................................................151 The Romanians Acquire a Hierarchy ....................................................................155 Another Romanian Hierarchy ...............................................................................160 Showdown in San Francisco..................................................................................163 2 PART 4. BETWEEN THE HAMMER AND THE ANVIL (1941- 1964) If My People had heard Me, if Israel had walked in My ways, quickly would I have humbled their enemies, and upon their oppressors would I have laid My hand. Psalm 80. 12-13 He shall seduce with flattery those who violate the covenant; but the people who know their God shall stand firm. Daniel 11.32. By the beginning of the Second World War, the Orthodox Church, having suffered the most terrible and sustained onslaught from the powers of evil in her history, was almost unrecognizable from her pre-revolutionary glory. The sergianist Moscow Patriarchate, on the one hand, and the newcalendarist Churches of Constantinople, Alexandria, Greece and Romania, on the other, could no longer be counted as truly Orthodox in their official confession. The Churches of Serbia, Bulgaria and Jerusalem were still Orthodox – but they had not broken communion with those Churches that had fallen away from the truth, so the prospects of their remaining free from the quicksands of “World Orthodoxy” for long were not good. The situation of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad was only a little better – she was not in communion with the Moscow Patriarchate, but had not broken decisively with the other heretical Churches, and even her attitude to Moscow was not entirely unambiguous. The Greek Old Calendarist Church was strong in the faith, but tragically divided. The Romanian Old Calendarists were also strong, but as yet had no bishops. The Catacomb Church of Russia was bathed in the glory of a vast multitude of new martyrs and confessors; but the whole apparatus of the most evil and most powerful state in history was directed towards her complete annihilation… Could the outbreak of world war bring relief to the Orthodox Church? Or would it consolidate the power of the antichristian powers ranged against her? That was the question in the early months of 1941… The Genocide of the Serbian Orthodox On April 6, the Germans invaded Yugoslavia. Archbishop Averky writes: “The unexpected German bombardment of Belgrade on April 6, 1941, which soon decided the fate of Yugoslavia, produced such a shattering impression that the capital was completely abandoned, both by the government organs and by the ordinary inhabitants, who fled in indescribable panic for many tens of kilometers. Amidst this complete devastation it was only in the life of the Russian church in Belgrade that no essential changes took place: the services prescribed by the Typicon continued as usual, while priests went 3 with the Holy Gifts around the city, giving communion to the wounded and carrying out prayer services in the refuges. During the raid Metropolitan Anastasy remained at his hierarchical place in the altar, while the clergy took it in turns to serve prayer services in front of the wonder-working Kursk-Root icon of the Mother of God ‘of the Sign’. And this in spite of the fact that five bombs fell in the immediate vicinity of our church, the neighbouring Serbian church of St. Mark burned down, and for a whole two days a gigantic fire from a warehouse full of logs that had been hit by a bomb burned just next to the wall of the church. On the second day, March 25 / April 7, on the very feast of the Annunciation, when there was a particularly violent bombardment, Vladyka Metropolitan was present at the Divine Liturgy which one of the priests celebrated in the basement of the Russian House for the many Russian people who had sheltered there. This liturgy, which was carried out in a situation recalling that of the ancient Catacomb Christians, was sealed for life in the memory of all those who received communion at it. And with the blessing of Vladyka Metropolitan up to 300 people received communion after a general confession (this was in view of the danger of death that clearly threatened everyone). “Exactly a week later, on Lazarus Saturday, the Germans entered the completely destroyed and deserted city, and difficult years began for the Russian emigration in Yugoslavia. Together with the whole of his Belgrade flock, Vladyka Metropolitan nobly endured hunger and cold and all kinds of restrictions and deprivations, various unpleasantnesses from the German occupying authorities and hostile attacks from that part of the Serbian population which had submitted to the influence of communist propaganda. “Soon after the occupation of Yugoslavia by the German armies, members of the Gestapo carried out a thorough search in the residence of Vladyka Metropolitan Anastasy, and then took away the clerical work of the Hierarchical Synod.1 However, they were forced to admit that Vladyka , as a true Archpastor of the Church of Christ, was profoundly alien to all politics, and they left him in peace.”2 Deserted by the Croats, the Serbian resistance was soon crushed. The Germans arrested Patriarch Gabriel and Bishop Nicholas Velimirovich; but 1 On the day the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, writes M.V. Shkarovsky, “a search was carried out in the residence of Metropolitan Anastasy [in Belgrade]… [and] searches in the chancellery of the Hierarchical Synod and in the flat of the director of the synodal chancellery G. Grabbe… During the search the clerical work of the Synod and many other documents were taken away to Germany for study. In 1945 they were acquired by the Soviet armies and are now in Moscow, in the State archive of the Russian federation…” (Natsistskaia Germania i Pravoslavnaia Tserkov’ (Nazi Germany and the Orthodox Church), Moscow, 2002, p. 193; in Soldatov, op. cit., p. 12). (V.M.) 2 Averky, Zhizneopisanie Blazhennejshago Mitropolita Anastasia (A Life of his Beatitude Metropolitan Anastasy), in Troitskij Pravoslavnij Russkij Kalendar’ na 1998 g. (Trinity Orthodox Russian Calendar for 1998), Jordanville: Holy Trinity Monastery, pp. x-xi ®. 4 although the two hierarchs were to spend the whole war in prisons