St.
Christopher the Martyr
9/22 May 2007 [date corrected by the editor]
To: Exarchate Clergy and Friends
From: Archbishop Chrysostomos
Re.: Anti-unionists in the ROCA
Evlogia Kyriou. Now
that the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (ROCA) has taken a final step
in its reunification with the Moscow Patriarchate (MP), I am in a
position to answer a number of the questions that were asked of us
earlier and which I avoided until this union was a fait accompli.
These questions were mostly formed around the fact that we have, to
date, accepted, with the approval of the Holy Synod, three communities
from the ROCA into the American Exarchate of our Church, as well as
three communities in England under the direct jurisdiction of the
Metropolitan. I will summarize and condense the questions that have
been posed, answering them to the best of my ability:
A) If there are
other communities which want to join us, what will we advise them in
terms of the Russian jurisdictions that are being formed as the
successors of the ROCA, now that it has joined the MP? And what will we
do with the three communities that had already joined us [in the U.S.]
before successors to ROCA was established.
Let me answer this by
making some basic points very clear:
1) We are not simply an
ethnic jurisdiction. As the Orthodox Church of Greece, Holy Synod
in Resistance, we represent that part of the Greek Church which has
resisted the Calendar innovation, the political ecumenism which spawned
it, and the various innovations in worship, spiritual life, and Church
polity which have entered into the Church of Greece and
so-called "world Orthodoxy," a concept of Orthodoxy (in contrast to its
traditional idea of "catholicity") largely created and formed, today,
by the ecumenical movement and the World Council of Churches (WCC).
Hence, we call the Church
back to the unity in Faith that has always defined catholic Orthodoxy,
based as that unity is in the primacy of Orthodoxy in its maintenance
of Apostolic Tradition, its fidelity to the consensio Patrum
(the consensus teaching of the Fathers), its observance of an Orthodox
way of life (guided by the Canons and Holy Tradition), and its witness
of love to those outside the Faith.
In our resistance, we
address not only the Church of Greece, but all Orthodox. Moreover, our
witness is missionary-oriented at all times, serving to combat the
religious relativism and ecclesiastical syncretism preached by
ecumenism, which disallows the notion that any Church actually
represents that body, as Orthodoxy teaches, which preserves "what the
Lord taught, the Apostles preached, and the Fathers have guarded." We
are an antidote, as it were, to the anti-missionary effects of
ecumenism.
2) The communities that
have joined us did not do so because we recruited them "from the
Russians." We recruited no one. They sought in us episcopal oversight
and a purity of confession that, in their view, was the same as that of
the ROCA, prior to its reunification efforts with the MP. This was a
logical move on their part, since our Church, as well as our Sister
Churches in Romania and Bulgaria, were in full communion with the
ROCA for a decade before its reunification with Moscow. They turned to a Sister Church,
not some foreign ethnic group.
3) With regard to the
successors to the ROCA, despite the perhaps enthusiastic and
fanciful announcements of mass defections to some successor group of
that Church, the fact is that a stable alternative to the witness of
the ROCA has not definitively formed. If one is, it will takes a great
deal of time to develop and mature. Nor are the two major groups (those
of Bishop Agafangel and that of Archbishop Tikhon) that have stated
that they will receive anti-unionists wholly clear yet, in their
exposition of their positions, motives, and organizational plans, and
criteria for ecclesial authenticity clear. Thus:
a) We await a clear
statement by Bishop Agafangel of his stand with regard to the
ROCA's union with the MP; that is, we await not just a statement that
such a union is not timely, but an ecclesiological justification for
his resistance stand. In that sense, we are waiting for a clarification
by His Grace, too, of such matters as the ROCA's historical ties to the
Serbian Church. Bishop Agafangel and all of the Hierarchs of the ROCA
concelebrated Liturgy at the Fourth All-Diaspora Council in San Francisco in 2006, for example, with
the Serbian Metropolitan Amphilohije of Montenegro,
despite the fact fact that His Eminence is an active ecumenist and
outspoken critic of the Greek Old Calendarists.
Though these ties and this
event were never characterized as official, they were the cause of
concern to us and our Sister Churches as the ROCA continued its
informal relations with the Serbian Church, even after the latter has
become more and more deeply involved in ecumenism, to the point that,
today, it is even engaged in pro-Vatican dialogues on a wide scale.
(Even its Patriarch, a spiritual son of the Blessed Archimandrite
Justin and a man celebrated for his spiritual sobriety, conducted a
memorial service in Rome, much to
everyone's shock, for the late Pope John
Paul II.)
We also await, as I said
above, a clear statement about how Bishop Agafangel will organize a
Church worldwide to represent the former witness of the ROCA and what
kind of administration will be available to its faithful in this
country. And finally, our Holy Synod is in the process of determining
just what relationship the body which Bishop Agafangel envisions will
have with our own Church. One of our Bishops will soon be discussing
this with His Grace. Then, of course, the matter will have to be
discuss with our Sister Churches in Romania
and Bulgaria.
b) We await answers from
Archbishop Tikhon, too, about the same administrative issues raised
with regard to Bishop Agafangel's plans, as well as a clear statement
his ecclesiological principles and those of his Bishops. Of particular
concern to us are an incredibly crude and polemical article circulating
in this country about "devious Greeks" and other extremist and
regrettable articles written by his clergy in the journal "Nasha
Strana," which show little understanding of, or appreciation for, the
catholic and wider concerns of Orthodoxy that define our Church's
witness in the contemporary world. We are not endorsers of extremist
zeal not according to wisdom, so we anxiously seek clarification on
this matter.
c) Since our concerns
are not ethnic but universal and catholic, we advise those seeking
refuge in our Church to concern themselves with our confession of
Faith. If, eventually, a Sister Church with Russian Bishops having a
common confession and full communion with us should emerge in this
country, anyone wishing to be released to such a group would, of
course, be fully free to do so and would receive a canonical release
and our best wishes. Again, however, we have a responsibility to anyone
under our episcopal supervision to see that they enter into a body
sharing our vision and which will insure their spiritual welfare and
integrity. We also wish to see such a body established over a period of
time, demonstrating, thereby, its stability. Ethnic matters are not a
real issue in this.
B) Is it
not true that Bishop Agafangel is still in communion with our Church,
and that he therefore can receive anyone from the ROCA who wants to
leave Moscow now that ROCA is in
reality under its control, including the communities that we have
already received?
When the ROCA broke
communion with our Church (and subsequently with our Sister Churches),
Bishop Agafangel made it clear that he did not accept this cessation of
communion, which, according to Bishop Gabriel, was required by the MP,
before it would reunify with the ROCA. (This is perfectly logical,
since the MP is involved in the WCC and has been the object of a number
of our Synod's Russian-language exposés of ecumenical
excesses by the
Orthodox members of the WCC ("official" or "world" Orthodoxy).
Our Holy Synod has initiated
contacts with Bishop Agafangel and will try to determine what his
present stand is and what his plans are, now that he has officially
refused to accept union with the MP. We will discuss these matters, as
well, with our Sister Churches in Romania
and Bulgaria, as I stated above,
before making any decision about the future. Thus, what I said supra
about waiting to see what stable bodies emerge from anti-unionist
forces in the ROCA applies to this question, as well.
C) Some
critics of our Church have said that we should have accepted dialogue
with Moscow, along with the ROCA,
and that since it follows the Old Calendar, we should have tried to
unite with it. How can I answer this statement?
1) First, the issue
of the Church Calendar is pertinent one in context; that is, in the
context of its having been discarded for reasons of political ecumenism
and since its abandonment represents a rejection of long-established
Church tradition. In and of itself, of course, the calendar is not a
matter of dogma. Its dogmatic significance emerges in the context of
the full mosaic of Orthodox tradition. Moscow
is a committed player in ecumenism and has, from time to time, even
flirted with the idea of reforming the calendar. These are the issues,
not the calendar per se.
2) Second, much to
our chagrin, the ROCA never informed its Sister Churches of its
dealings with the MP. We were, from the very beginning, outside of the
picture. We learned of the dialogues only by way of the Internet. And
when Metropolitan Cyprian wrote eloquent letters of inquiry to the
ROCA, asking that we discuss the matter among our Sister Churches, he
was rebuffed and told that this was a matter for the Russian Church.
3) As I said above, the
Moscow Patriarchate is deeply involved in the ecumenical movement
and the WCC. It is, in fact, one of the most active Orthodox Churches
in the WCC, justifying itself, at times, as a counterweight to the
influence of Constantinople, another essential player in the WCC.
(Indeed, it seems that competition with Constantinople is more
important, here, than the obvious damage to the spiritual life of the
Russian Church posed by the ecumenism and ecclesiastical relativism
that are openly preached by Moscow Patriarchate leaders such as
Metropolitan Kyrill of Smolensk [rumored to be the next Patriarch] and
Archbishop Hilarion of Vienna.)
As a major player in
ecumenism, the MP despises us for exposing its antics, in our
anti-ecumenical publications and video-cassettes (which have spread
throughout Russia) and thus
ordered, as I said previously, the ROCA to break relations with us
before pursuing union with its Bishops. Indeed, long before this, our
Church in Greece was told that we
should avoid any public interaction with the ROCA, and especially in
this country, unless specifically invited to some event. This
request was attributed to various "difficulties" among the ROCA
Bishops. It was, of course, clear to us that something was amiss, even
that early on (i.e., before full-blown dialogues were made public).
Let me also say that, in
response to the inquiries of our Sister Churches, Metropolitan Laurus
wrote an official letter to Metropolitan Cyprian, Metropolitan Vlasie,
and Bishop Photii, advising that they attempt to reconcile with their
respective New Calendar national Churches. Since this meant, in effect,
that we should abandon our resistance movements, these letters were met
with absolute astonishment. Moreover, last September, Archpriest
Alexander Lebedeff made a personal visit to Romania
and Bulgaria, conveying this same
request to Metropolitan Vlasie and Bishop Photii. While he was politely
received, his visit brought even further astonishment to our Sister
Churches in those countries. Knowing our stand on ecumenism perhaps
more thoroughly, no such visit was made to our Church in Greece.
D. Since
at least one Bishop of the ROCA has declared us, its former Sister
Church to be outside the Orthodox Church and without Grace, is it not
appropriate for us to say the same about the ROCA, now that it is in
apostasy?
The Church is not a
sandbox in which children play games. It is a realm in which souls
and human destiny are at stake. Adolescent babble about canonicity,
"consecrations under the cover of night," and selective canonical
formulations to prove who is and who is not subject to salvation or
damnation should be left to those immature in the Faith and bereft of
Apostolic sensitivities.
Much to our sadness,
since we have many friends in the ROCA, that Church has changed
course and has ceased to be the bastion of traditionalist resistance
that it once was. It has now exposed itself to the bacteria of
ecumenism, world Orthodoxy, officialdom created by ecumenical
compromise, and the forces of innovation and modernism that alienate
the true Christian from that "peculiar" status of life "in" but not
"of" the world. It has obviously fallen to subtle phyletism, too, in
exalting "Russian" character over the catholicity of Orthodoxy.
However, the ROCA is
Orthodox, is certainly not without Grace, and should be the object
of our prayers, ailing, as it now is, in the Faith. If, in its
succumbing to spiritual illness, it now considers us, a Sister Church
with Bishops (myself and Bishop Auxentios) who even took part in the
Consecration of one its Hierarchs, outside the Church, this should
cause us tremendous and heartfelt distress; it should not be the
occasion for us to return inane condemnations! We must be known for our
love and sobriety, not by vengeful sentiments against our own brothers
in Christ.
From: [e-mail removed by the
editor]
Subject: Re: AN IMPORTANT CORRECTION!
Date: 22 May 2007 21:16:19 BST
To: [e-mail removed by the editor]
I am told that it was Oecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, and not
Patriarch Pavle, who " conducted a memorial service in Rome, much to everyone's shock, for the
late Pope John Paul II." (This was
at the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore.) Rather, Patriarch Pavle sent
a telegram to the Vatican on the
death of the Pope, assuring its leaders that he would pray that "our
common Lord Jesus Christ will grant him eternal peace and a place in
heaven." I accept that my information was apparently wrong and
apologize for this incorrect statement. It does not, of course, change
the point of my characterization of the present ecumenical course of
the SOC. + AC