THE ORTHODOX WORD
A BIMONTHLY PERIODICAL
1970 Vol 6, No. 3 (32)
May - June
Established with the blessing of His Eminence the late John (Maximovitch), Archbishop of Western America and San Francisco, Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia
Editors: Eugene Rose, M.A., & Gleb Podmoshensky, B.Th.
Printed by the Father Herman of Alaska Brotherhood.
Text set in 10-point Garamont type, titles in 18-point Goudy Bold.
CONTENTS
111 On the Canonization of our Holy and God-bearing Father Saint Herman of Alaska Epistle of Metropolitan Philaret
116 Before St. Herman's Canonization
120 The Life of St. David of Thessalonica
128 Orthodox Issues of the Day: The "Sorrowful Epistle" of Metropolitan Philaret A Rejoinder to Fr. Alexander Schmemann by Father Michael Azkoul
144 Documents of the Catacomb Church: The Catacomb Church by Professor I. M. Andreev
150 Martyrology of the Communist Yoke: Bishop Maxim of Serpukhov by Professor I. M. Andreev
COVER: A painting of St. Herman in his Spruce Island hermitage, by Arch- imandrite Seraphim, 1928.
Copyright 1970 by Orthodox Christian Books & Icons.
Published bimonthly by Orthodox Christian Books & Icons. Second-class postage paid at Redding, California.
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THE EPISTLE OF METROPOLITAN PHILARET
On the Canonization of Our Holy and God-bearing Father Saint Herman of Alaska
OUR BELOVED FLOCK, Rejoice in the Lord always: and again 1 say, Rejoice! (Phil. 4:4).
Remember with what feeling five years ago we greeted the day of the glorification of the righteous St. John of Kronstadt. The ever-memorable Metropolitan Anastassy, who had participated in the glorification of St. Hermogen (in 1913), in that year of 1964 had already lost his physical strength and laid aside the burden of church administration. But the All-High, Who once strengthened St. Simeon the God-receiver, on that day drew our elder and father to his Cathedral Church for divine service and a meeting with grace.
But the Apostle insists: And again I say, Rejoice! Come, then, all those who ask God's mercy and His help, as the Church refers to all of us.
When we pray for this help at the All-night Vigil, as intercessors for us we call upon those who have pleased God: the Mother of God, God's angels, the Forerunner, the Apostles and so on; not being able to enumerate the whole multitude of saints, we commemorate a selected list of them. This sacred list of names is perpetually supplemented and renewed. During the past three-quarters of a century we have begun to invoke St. Seraphim and the Hierarchs Theodosius, Ioasaph, Hermogen, Pitirim, John, Sophronius, and Joseph. Finally, in these prayers has resounded the name of the righteous St.
John of Kronstadt. And now, children, we join to these sacred names yet another name: that of our venerable and God-bearing Father Herman of Alaska.
The veneration of St. Herman ripened persistently in the bosom of the Russian Church. He was written about in the book Ascetics of Valaam, in the Theological Encyclop;dia, in the Outline of the Russian Spiritual Mission in America, in the books of E. Poselyanin, and, of course, in the well-known work of Bishop Nikodim of Belgorod, who was later martyred by the Bolsheviks, Ascetics of the Russian Land in the 18th and 19th Centuries. In the December volume of the latter book there is a separate article about the Elder Herman; but in order to demonstrate with what force the consciousness of the Church set apart the ascetic labor of the Elder, even as compared with other ascetics, let us here cite the words of this same work, but from the February volume, from the article on the Abbot of Valaam, Nazary. Here there is an account of the Abbot's selection of missionaries for America from among the monks of Valaam, and further on it is said: "Among these elect the following especially stood out: Archimandrite Ioasaph, the head of the Mission, who drowned after being elevated to the office of bishop – his activity, while by God's decrees it was brief, brought great benefit; the zealous Hieromonk Juvenal, who earned a martyr's crown; and the Monk Herman, who labored for forty years in apostolic self-denial, manifesting gifts of clairvoyance and miracles, and reposed in the fragrance of sanctity" (p. 304).
Thus was it written at the beginning of our century, but even in the '60's of the last century, that is, thirty years after the repose of Elder Herman, which was in 1837, the renowned Abbot of Valaam, Damascene, hearing of the veneration of Father Herman in Alaska, commenced the gathering of information about him.
The life of the Saint is most moving. And now you who have not heard it or read it will both hear it and read it. Herman was a contemporary of St. Seraphim, three years older than he, and outlived him by four years. He was the spiritual son of Abbot Nazary of Valaam, who took part in the publication of Paissy (Velichkovsky's) Philocalia – that revelation of the art of arts, inner prayer. Thus in the Russian "Spiritual Meadow" of the second half of the 18th century there are interwoven the names of St. Seraphim, the Elder Paissy Velichkovsky, Abbot Nazary (who died at Sarov), and St. Herman, with, of course, many other names which mean much to a spiritual person.
Father Herman, coming as a youth to the Trinity-Sergius Hermitage near Petersburg, was, like St. Seraphim, granted a miraculous healing by the Mother of God. Having gone soon thereafter to wondrous Valaam, which he came to love dearly, he had experience already there, with the blessing of his elder, of the anchoretic life. Under obedience he left with the Mission to America. There could not be any monastic community there, but Herman himself was the bearer of the ancient spirit of asceticism: strict fasting, a shirt for clothing, a bench for bed, a log for pillow, a board for blanket, chains; austerity toward himself, but a wonderful meekness with his neighbors. He built an orphanage for children; fearless during an epidemic, he gave himself over to caring for the contagiously ill. Around him were poverty, danger from the natives, and great affliction from his own countrymen. The traders, and foremost among them the head of the Russian colony, looked after their own profit and colonizing interests, behaving cruelly with people, in the spirit of their age. And it was here that the Elder Herman, although in his great humility he had refused the priesthood, revealed himself as the model of a true compassionate pastor, and in his own words he wished to be a "nurse" for these Aleuts and other local tribes. This gave birth to a responsive love in hearts simple but sensitive to good, and the Lord aided the Elder by the grace both of clairvoyance and of miracle-working. The Life tells of the Elder's taming of the elements of both fire and water. And from his repose until the present day those who call on his name have many times received healing or other help. The Life tells also about the high character of the instruction of this apparently simple monk Herman. The best living testimony to this grace-filled instruction of the Elder's was the Schema-monk Sergius, a highly educated person, who in the world was the naval officer S. N. Yanovsky and for a short time after Baranov was also the head of the Russian colonies in America. Under the sole influence of the Elder Herman this prominent Russian public figure, and his children as well, accepted monasticism. His life in itself is full of edification. The principal information about the life of St. Herman was given by him; the first graphic portrayal of the Elder belongs to his daughter-novice.
The repose of the Elder was truly in the fragrance of sanctity; he reposed having known beforehand the day of his death, having foretold the circumstances of his burial in the wilderness without people; and he departed to the Lord as if on the eve of Pascha, with candles lit at his command, with the reading of the Acts of the Apostles by his disciple.
The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia should naturally approach the canonization of saints without haste. Thus, in spite of the "immeasurable sea of miracles" (Akathist to St. Nicholas) of which there is testimony concerning the righteous St. John of Kronstadt, our fathers wavered between the desire to glorify him in general and the intent to glorify him in Russia. Only at the time of the Sobor in 1964 did the fervent desire to pray to the righteous John as a glorified saint overcome all other motives.
It was difficult to proceed to the present canonization as long as the canonization of the universally-renowned miracle-worker John of Kronstadt was still being postponed. But even at the Sobor of 1939 in Sremsky-Karlovtsy, during consideration of this question, Metropolitan Anastassy explained that Elder Herman was venerated in Alaska as a saint, and that the question of his canonization had already arisen in America. Then it was decided to write to Bishop Alexy of Alaska concerning the preparatory process necessary for the canonization. This was when the American Metropolia was part of our Church Abroad. In the same year at the Sobor of Bishops in America, the chairmanship of the committee for preparation of the canonization was entrusted to Archbishop Tikhon, who later laid the foundation of the new San Francisco Cathedral of the Most Holy Mother of God, the Joy of All Who Sorrow, where it has now been decreed that the glorification of the Saint be celebrated.
A special veneration for the memory of Elder Herman was held by the successor of Archbishop Tikhon, Archbishop John of Western America and San Francisco. In his cell to the present day the Elder's portrait hangs together with the icons. In San Francisco, with the blessing of the late Vladika John, there was organized a Brotherhood of St. Herman of Alaska, which undertook a responsible missionary and publishing activity. With a large circulation in English, but also in Russian, the brothers have acquainted their readers with the life and miracles of the Elder, who spiritually nourished and gave growth to the beginnings of Orthodoxy in America. On the feast of Sts. Sergius and Herman of Valaam and on the day of the repose of Elder Herman there has been, from the time of Archbishop John, a panikhida served for Elder Herman in the printshop of the brothers; and afterwards the Magnification has been sung before his iconographic image, in anticipation and expectation of his canonization by the Church.
At the Sobor of 1964, in connection with the glorification of St. John of Kronstadt, we asked ourselves: And will those who are not within the enclosure of the Russian Church Abroad canonize the new Wonderworker?.....At the same time, in connection with the preparations of the American Metropolia for the canonization of St. Herman (concerning which there was talk even then), we said to ourselves that no initiative in this matter would prevent our own canonization of Elder Herman.
And so be it. This glorification of St. Herman was conceived in the hearts of the Elder's contemporaries, the simple Aleuts whom he tenderly loved, was carried at first in the womb of the Homeland which we share with the Elder, and then in America, when the American Metropolia was still with us. And when now this Metropolia was the first to draw its conclusion, we did not in the least hesitate to draw also our own conclusion to the veneration of the Elder Herman and designate the same date for the glorification as the Metropolia's. This was still before the latest church events, over which we grieve; but of them, for the sake of the Saint's glorification, we shall not speak here. The conclusion has been drawn to that veneration which has existed for more than a hundred years; and it was also about a hundred years ago that the first See of the Russian Church in America was founded, which was then in San Francisco.
And for you, beloved, as for all who will call on the help of St. Herman, we wish all that consolation which the meek, newly-glorified Saint of God, Herman, is powerful to solicit both now and in the future. May this glorification be grace-giving and sanctifying to each of the faithful, to the much-suffering Russian people from which the Saint has come, to Alaska, and to all America, to the harsh Northwest of which St. Herman, with his fellow-laborers, brought the light of Christ. Amen.
Metropolitan Philaret
First Hierarch of the Russian Church Outside of Russia
–––
— A full description of the canonization services will be presented in the next issue of THE ORTHODOX WORD.
BEFORE ST. HERMAN'S CANONIZATION
Before his canonization a Saint usually manifests himself as especially close to earth, more attentive than ever in his heavenly intercessions for those who have reverence toward him. The following, received shortly before the canonization, only confirm the faithful in St. Herman's closeness to those on earth.
I. ST. HERMAN'S VISITATION OF GRATITUDE
The Spirit breatheth where He will.
St. John 3:8
IN HOLY TRINITY MONASTERY near Jordanville there labored in asceticism a monk who bore the name of St. Nikodim the holy prosphora-baker of the Kiev-Caves Monastery. In his youth he came to love monasticism, made a pilgrimage to Valaam, stayed for some time in the Pskov-Caves Monastery, and for many years served and was the cell-attendant of the New Martyr John, Bishop of Riga (d. 1934). When Nikodim was ordained and sent on a new obedience to the monastery of St. Job of Pochaev in Munich, his abbot, in sending him on his way, gave him a secret commission: to go to New Valaam in Finland and give Communion there to several old monks who had been without Communion for many years because of their faithfulness to the Church Calendar; for on Valaam the uncanonical New Calendar had been forcibly introduced, and many monks – led by the later Schema-monk Michael of holy life – had not acknowledged it, even though they remained in the Valaam brotherhood. Fr. Nikodim gave the Holy Mysteries of Christ to these confessors, and to one of them who, having awaited this moment, immediately reposed in the Lord – he also gave the last rites. Having fulfilled his obedience, he returned to his own Holy Trinity Monastery, and in several years the Lord called him also. He died while at his obedience of monastery baker, and he was buried thus, according to the monastic custom, with dough on his hands. His mother, overwhelmed with grief, came to live out her own days near the monastery, so as to be near the grave of her son. There she lives to the present day.
But in the Lord all are alive. And the grateful about-to-be-canonized St. Herman, accepting Fr. Nikodim's labor for his own Valaam brethren who had acquired crowns of glory for themselves by their labor of confession, did not leave without consolation the sorrowing mother of Nikodim and secretly visited her and comforted her with heavenly joy on the eve of his canonization. "Yesterday I was reading the Life of St. Herman," she writes, "and I came to love his splendid face and kissed his image. And suddenly I felt a certain fragrance. I began to smell the page, the book, to look and see if there weren't some flowers nearby. But they gave little aroma, since lately it had been raining every day. But I, to be sure, am unworthy of this." Later she added, "Sometimes, when I am alone, this happens again." (Signature: Raissa Gavrilovna Zemmering, July 3/16, 1970.)
Translated from RUSSIAN LIFE Daily, San Francisco, No. 7075, 1970.)
Archimandrite Gerasim before the sarcophagus with the relics of St. Herman in the Spruce Island chapel of Sts. Sergius and Herman, whose icon (with St. Nicholas, in the Valaam tradition) is above the reliquary.
II. THE SAINT'S LESSON THROUGH HIS SPRING
IN THE CITY of Kodiak up to the present time there has lived a certain V. K., a Protestant by faith, who is married to one of the granddaughters of the ever-memorable Archpriest Nicholas Kashevarov, a very zealous daughter of the holy Orthodox Church. Mr. V. K. likes to have a drink; however, he never gets seriously drunk. By nature he likes fishing and hunting. Every year, whether the fishing were good or bad, he would unfailingly go to Spruce Island to go visiting, as he said, with Blessed Herman and Archimandrite Gerasim, who was living at that time on the island and was the guardian of the relics and objects relating to Father Herman. Unfailingly V. K. would visit the chapel built on the site of Father Herman's cell, and would admire and marvel at the Elder's chains that were kept there, his preserved kamilavka and other objects connected with the Elder's life; he would ascend to the church, in which the Saint's remains were found, and, although not Orthodox, would bow down before the Saint's tomb with the Saint's image covering it, and place a candle. Then he would go to visit Fr. Gerasim, and before leaving would go to the spring to drink the cold, pure water, take this water home at his wife's instruction, and set out on the return trip.
This time V. K. was not alone, but with other residents of Kodiak. On the way to the spring V. K. remembered his wife's request to bring St. Herman's water. But he had no bottle, except for a bottle with wine which was being saved for the return trip. Without thinking long about it V. K. drank the contents, proposing to rinse the bottle and fill it with Father Herman's water...
Coming to the spring, however, V. K. saw that the water was as if boiling, raising to the surface various kinds of filth, and for as long as V. K. waited the water continued to be turbulent, becoming muddy and unsuitable for drinking. And so he left for Kodiak, without drinking the water or bringing any home.
"For a long time," V. K. told me, "I told no one of this, but I didn't stop thinking of what had happened until I went again to Spruce Island." This time he took with him no "provisions." After landing on Spruce Island, he went immediately to the spring. The water was transparent, as pure as tears! "I drank the water for a long time and came to believe that the Elder, showing me such a sign, was really a man of holy life," he told me. Having returned home, he related what had happened to him. And from that time no one again would dare to go to Spruce Island without proper reverence, but would go there to venerate the Saint and be refreshed by his holy water.
This incident, so similar to the incident of St. Seraphim of Sarov and the Decembrist at the spring-whose suddenly muddy waters, the Saint related, were a sign of the evil nature of this revolutionary's schemes – has never appeared in print before. Wondrous is God in His saints!
Archpriest Alexander Popov
III. POSTHUMOUS VOICE OF ST. HERMAN'S GUARDIAN
In the papers of the late Dr. N. N. Alexander, Dean of Holy Trinity Seminary at Jordanville, N.Y., his collection of material on Fr. Gerasim of Alaska was discovered. It was forwarded to the Brotherhood of St. Herman and received on the eve of the Saint's canonization. The contents of one of the documents are strikingly timely: a cry resounding from a man who more than anyone else served the Saint, and who felt the whole sorrow of the betrayal of the unity of the Russian Church Abroad by the rival "jurisdictions" that sprang up after 1927. (Russian text published in TSARSKY VESTNIK, February, 1931.)
GOING THROUGH periodicals and books in my private library, I found an old letter, sent to me from Russia in 1922 by a monk-friend. Here is what he writes me:
"My dear friend, Father Gerasim!
"Our monastery in Tula has been closed and all of us chased out. At first I lived in my home town and took over the parish in the town of N. But when the whole diocese of Tula was occupied by the Living Church heretic-atheists, I had to flee from the parish. Now I live in Moscow with Bishop Theodore. Evdokim (Bishop) also called me to Nizhni-Novgorod, but I did not go to him, since he is also a Living Church heretic now.
"Now in Russia the Church is ruled by heretic-clergy.
"I also have visited Patriarch Tikhon, who lives now in the Donskoy Monastery. I told him about what you have written to me from America. To this he replied to me: 'For the Church abroad I am calm: it is governed synodically and by hierarchs well known to me.'"
Do you hear, all you schismatics from the Church of Christ, the Orthodox Church, what His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon said about the Higher Church Authority of the Church Outside Russia?
Do you hear what he said?
Archimandrite Gerasim (Schmaltz) Afognak, Alaska
"THE RIGHTEOUS LIVE FOREVER"
THE LIFE OF OUR FATHER AMONG THE SAINTS
DAVID OF THESSALONICA
who is commemorated on June 26
Translated from the Greek by the Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Boston
ST. DAVID OF THESSALONICA
Reposed c. 540
KONTAKION, TONE 1
An ever-blossoming garden, bearing fruits of virtues,+ thou didst appear on a garden tree like a sweet-singing bird;+ but all the more didst thou take into thy heart paradise, the Lord's tree of life,+ and having cultivated it, O divinely-wise one,+ by it thou dost nourish us with grace:+ ever pray for us, O David all-blessed.
With David of old art thou now united, O new David; For thou didst kill the carnal passions like another Goliath. On the twenty-sixth, David passed through the gates of life.
DAVID, OUR FATHER of great renown, the earthly angel and heavenly man, was born and reared in the illustrious and great city of Thessalonica. Renouncing the world and worldly things, he abandoned friends and relatives, temporal honor and glory, money, possessions, and every other passing joy and even his own life, according to the evangelical exhortation. Following the Master, he took up the Cross from his youth; for his heart was deeply pierced with divine love.
He was tonsured and remained in the Monastery of the Holy Martyrs Theodore and Mercurius, which was known as Koukouliaton, and there he struggled in sacred silence in a manner surpassing the limits of human nature. He observed every virtue most diligently; above all, he kept the virtues of temperance and humility, knowing well that satiety of the stomach drives away spiritual vigilance and chastity, and that vainglory totally obliterates every virtue. Because of this, like a wise man, he was diligent to acquire humility.
Reading the Sacred Scriptures by day and by night, the righteous one marvelled at the virtues of the Saints, both those who were before the Law and those who were after the Law. He observed how God glorified them because they obeyed His commandments and were pleasing to Him as was meet. He made Abel wondrous by his sacrifices, Abraham by his faith, Joseph by his chastity, Job by his patience. He showed forth Moses as Lawgiver, and preserved Daniel and the Three Youths unharmed from the fire and the lions. Reflecting upon the examples of these men, the marvellous David was diligent to emulate them with his whole heart and strength, so that, together with them, he might become co-heir of the Heavenly Kingdom.
While reading the lives of the righteous ones who struggled after the saving Incarnation of the Saviour and who accomplished such marvellous struggles, he marvelled – especially at the life of Simeon of the Wondrous Mountain, and of the other Simeon, and of Daniel and Patapius the Stylites, who spent their lives living in the open, without shelter, tormented by the winds, rains, and snows. As he read the lives of these men, he wept and came to such compunction that he decided to undergo a similar life of affliction for as long as he, the ever-memorable one, could, so that he might find rest with the Saints after death.
One day, therefore, he became so fervent with zeal and his heart so filled with compunction, that he climbed up an almond tree that was by the left side of the church. He remained there upon a branch of the tree where he made a small bench as well as he could, and there he struggled in ascetic labors with wondrous patience, tormented by the winds, the rains, and the snows, burned by the searing heat of the sun in summer, and suffering many other afflictions. O the fortitude of this much-suffering martyr, that the evermemorable one should undergo such hardship! The other stylites had some security, for their pillars were constructed and stood fast, and what is more, when they slept or had some other need, the pillars were immobile. But this adamantine man swayed always in the branches of the tree, and never had any repose, but was tormented by the rains and the winds and suffered greatly from the snows.
In enduring all these things, the stout-hearted one did not let up in his discipline, neither did he become faint-hearted in any way, neither was he overcome by tedium, nor did his angelic face become transformed or changed, but remained as comely as a rose. Indeed, in this thrice-blessed one was there fulfilled that prophetic saying: The righteous man shall blossom like a palm tree, and like a cedar in Lebanon shall he be multiplied. For in his deeds he too blossomed forth like a palm tree, and rendered unto God an acceptable fruit sweeter and more beneficial than the almond or the date palm. For the tree gives forth corruptible blossoms and fruit for man's delight and enjoyment; but the righteous one gladdened our good God with the fruits of divine vision and a holy life, and he praised and glorified Him unceasingly.
The righteous one had some disciples who were exceedingly pious and Christ-loving, and they labored and toiled together with him in the monastic discipline. Many times they begged and entreated him to come down from the tree so that they could build him a cell wherever he liked, in some quiet place, so that he could guide them and tend them as his sheep and bring them into the pastures of salvation. But he answered saying, "My brethren and children, I am a sinner and an unworthy man; but Christ the Master, the Good Shepherd Who laid down His life for His sheep, will protect you from the plots of the devil, and as He is supremely good, He will account you worthy of His Eternal Kingdom. But as for me, as the Lord my God Jesus Christ, the Son of God liveth, I will not come down from this tree until three years are accomplished, and even then I will come down only by His own command; for if it is not His will, I will never come down from here." When they saw that his mind could not be changed, they did not trouble him any longer in this matter.
WHEN THE THREE YEARS had passed, a holy angel appeared unto him saying, "David, the Lord has heard your supplication and grants unto you this favor for which you have asked many times, that is, that you be humbleminded and modest, and that you fear Him and worship Him with proper reverence. Come down, therefore, from the tree and live in sacred silence in your cell, blessing God until you accomplish one other act of love; then shall you find comfort of soul and rest from bodily travail." During the whole time that the Angel spoke with him, the righteous one listened with fear and trembling. When he that had appeared disappeared, the righteous one gave thanks unto God, saying, "Blessed is God who has had mercy on me."
Then calling together his disciples, he revealed the vision and told them to prepare the cell, as the Master had commanded. Straightway they did as they were ordered and they informed the most holy Metropolitan Dorotheus also. The Metropolitan rejoiced to hear these tidings and took the more pious clerics with him. Going up to the righteous one, he kissed him and they brought him down from the tree with great reverence. After the Liturgy, they placed him in his cell and celebrated this great feast. Thus they returned rejoicing and the righteous one remained in his cell struggling in sacred silence. Even as before, he perpetually and ceaselessly blessed the Lord Who had granted him such grace, that he put demons to flight, gave sight to the blind, and healed every other incurable disease by calling upon the name of Christ. Out of the many signs which he did we mention only two or three as proof of the others; for the lion is known from his claws and the cloth from its hem.
A certain youth had a demon, and one day he came to the cell of the righteous one. Standing, therefore, outside the door, he cried out saying, "Release me, O David, thou servant of the eternal God, for fire comes forth from your cell and burns me." Then the righteous one stretched forth his hand from a small window and held the youth and said, "Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, commands you to go forth from His creature, O unclean spirit!" Saying this, he sealed the youth with the sign of the Precious Cross and immediately the demon went forth from the youth and he became well. On seeing such a marvel, all who were present glorified God Who glorifies those who glorify Him with God-pleasing works.
But listen to yet another similar miracle.
There was a woman who was totally blind and could see nothing at all. Hearing of the virtue of the righteous and wondrous David, she was led to his cell. Falling upon the ground outside the door, she wept and with much humility cried out these words: O servant of the blessed Christ, help me. Emulate the goodness of Christ and deliver me from this painful torment and give light to my eyes; for the power of sight is a gladsome and most delightful thing to all men." These things and many others did she say with sighings and fervent tears. The righteous one also wept out of compassion for her pain and affliction; for he was compassionate and kind. After he had prayed much before the Lord, he told her to rise from the ground where she lay weeping and to approach the window of his cell. Then he stretched forth his right hand from the window, and sealing the eyes of the afflicted woman with the sign of the Precious Cross, he entreated the Lord again saying, "Lor; Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, Who wast incarnate of the Ever-Virgin Mary and by the Holy Spirit that Thou mightest deliver man from darkness, O Friend of man, and that Thou mightest bring him unto the eternal light, and Who didst enlighten the man blind from birth, do Thou now, Master, enlighten this Thy handmaid, as Thou art omnipotent. For Thou art the enlightenment of our souls and we glorify Thee always with the Father and Thy Holy Spirit."
When the righteous one had prayed with these words – O the wonder! – immediately the woman who was formerly blind saw clearly and distinctly, and she thanked the righteous one and glorified the Lord. When the Thessalonians heard of this great feat, the whole city held him in great reverence and they esteemed him as a divine angel.
Whoever had any illness would come unto him, and no sooner would the Saint lay his right hand upon the sick man when straightway every malady would depart and be dispersed, even as darkness is dispersed by the light. Having performed innumerable miracles, he was glorified greatly by men and was revered by all.
AFTER MANY YEARS, Dorotheus, the Metropolitan of Thessalonica, reposed, and one other, Aristides by name -a man equally virtuous took his place. At that time, great loss and much confusion was caused by the barbarians in the whole of Thessaly. Hence, the eparch of Illyricum wrote to the Metropolitan, asking him to intercede with the Emperor, or to send some other virtuous man to ask him to elect an eparch for Thessalonica, because of the confusion caused by the barbarians; for at that time, there was no eparch in Thessalonica, but only a locum tenens who was under the eparch of Sirmium. When the most holy Aristides, the Metropolitan of Thessalonica, had read the letter of the eparch in the presence of the clergy and the nobility of the city, he told them to choose a capable and erudite man to send to the Emperor for this matter.
When all, therefore, had gathered in the church, they cried out with one accord that the righteous David should be sent, for the most pious Emperor would reverence him as a virtuous and holy man, and thus would carry out their request. This was done by the dispensation of Divine Providence, that the prophecy of the angel might be fulfilled; for the angel had told the righteous one to come down from the tree that he might perform one other act of love also, and then he would depart for the Lord.
The bishop, then, took the most pious of the clergy and the people and went to the righteous one and told him of the matter and entreated him to go to the Emperor with the aforementioned request. At first, the righteous one excused himself, saying that he could not go because of old age. Afterwards, seeing that all constrained him to go, he agreed so that he might not appear disobedient to the bishop and the Christ-loving people who were urging him.
The righteous one then remembered the prophecy of the angel, and he said these words to the Metropolitan: "May the Lord's will be done, holy master. Yet, be it known unto you that, through your prayers and with God as my helper, the Emperor will grant me whatever I request of him; but as for David, you will not see him alive again to speak with him. For on my return to you from the palace, when I am yet one-hundred and twenty-six stadia from my poor cell, I shall depart for my Master."
Thinking that the righteous one was saying this as an excuse, so that they would not force him to go, the Metropolitan admonished him again saying: "Then imitate our Shepherd and Master Who gave Himself over unto death as a man and died for us. Give your life for your people that you may receive thanksgiving from men and glory and boundless praise from Christ the Master, as an emulator of His Passion."
Then the thrice-blessed one went forth from his cell and all worshipped him; for his countenance was a marvellous sight; the locks of his hair fell down to his belt and his beard down to his feet; his venerable face was handsome and comely, just like Abraham's, and everyone who saw him marvelled. He took with him two of his disciples, Theodore and Demetrius; these men were pious and virtuous, and were like David, not only in the comeliness of the soul, but also in that of the body.
When they reached Byzantium, the report of the righteous one was heard throughout the whole city. At that time, the Emperor was the pious Justinian. Since the Emperor was absent when the Saint arrived, the Empress Theodora sent chamberlains and escorts to welcome him and she received him with much honor and reverence. On beholding his radiant and angelic face and his venerable white beard, she marvelled and worshipped him with much humility, and asked for his prayers and his blessing. The Saint, therefore, prayed for the Emperor, the imperial city and every city. The pious Empress received him with such gladness and with such friendly hospitality that I am not able to describe fully the reverence which the ever-memorable one showed him; for she thought that she had received an angel of the Lord and not a man. When the Emperor returned, the august Empress told him of the righteous one, saying, "The supremely-good God has taken compassion on us, Master, and has sent His angel unto your majesty on this day from the city of Thessalonica; and, in truth, it seemed to me that I saw Abraham."
On the following day, when the whole Senate had gathered, the Emperor gave orders for the righteous one to be brought in. When the Saint entered, he placed live coals and incense in his hands and, together with his disciples, he censed the Emperor and the whole Senate without his hands being burned at all from the fire, even though he took more than an hour censing, until he had censed all the people. All were astonished as they beheld this wonder. Rising from his throne, the Emperor received him gladly and with much reverence, and he, in turn, received the gifts of the Metropolitan of Thessalonica from the hands of the Saint. The pious and Christ-loving Emperor listened to the Saint's request and voted that the seat of the eparch be changed from Sirmium to Thessalonica. Not only did he fulfill the written requests of the Thessalonians, but with great willingness, he carried out the righteous one's other requests as well, and, in accordance with the custom, signed them in vermillion. With his own hand, he gave them to the righteous one and told him, "Pray for me, venerable Father." Afterwards, he dismissed him and sent him on his way with a great escort, even as it was meet.
AS SOON as the righteous one had fulfilled his mission, he set sail for Thessalonica. But even as he had prophesied, he did not reach the city. When they were passing near the Lighthouse he said these words to his disciples: "My children, the time of my end has come. See that you bury my remains in the Monastery where I dwelt. Take care for your souls, that you may find eternal rest." Saying these and other edifying words, they arrived at the promontory which is called Emvolos, from where his monastery could be seen. He looked towards it and prayed, and after he had kissed his disciples, the thrice-blessed one surrendered his soul to God.
When the righteous one reposed a strong wind was blowing; and though they had been sailing most swiftly, at that very moment, the boat stopped for a long time in spite of the wind (O the wonder!) and did not move at all. Furthermore, there came forth a wondrous fragrance as of indescribable incense, and voices were heard in the air melodiously chanting praises to the Lord. After a long time the voices stopped. Immediately the boat began to sail again, but it did not go to the harbor as usual; but rather it sped to the west side of the city, at the place where the impious had cast the holy relics of St. Theodoulus and St. Agathopodus.
When the people heard of the righteous one's repose and arrival, the whole city came forth with the Metropolitan. Carrying his holy relics with much reverence, they came to the Monastery, and they made him a coffin of wood in which they placed him and buried him with honor. Afterwards, in accordance with the imperial decree, they changed the seat of the eparch from Sirmium to Thessalonica. As for the righteous one, his memory was celebrated by all the people each year in the aforementioned Monastery.
After 150 years had passed, the abbot at the Monastery was a certain virtuous man, Demetrius by name. He had much reverence for the righteous one. Moved by a desire to take a portion of the Saint's holy relics in order to have them for sanctification, he took men and had them begin digging at the grave. Immediatelythe slab broke into four pieces. Seeing that the Saint did not wish them to go on, the abbot abandoned his plan. A disciple of this ab bot, a man named Sergius who likewise became abbot, and, through his virtues, later Metropolitan of Thessalonica, revered the Saint greatly. Many times he besought him in prayer to allow him to take a small portion of his Holy Relics. When he was informd by God that the Saint agreed to it, he opened the tomb and there came forth a wondrous fragrance. Seeing that the Saint's relics were entire and unharmed he did not dare to take any part except for a few strands of hair from his head and beard. These were kept with care and are kissed on the Saint's feast by the Christ-loving peoples. The feast is celebrated annually on the 26th of June with much joy, in praise of the righteous one, and to the glory of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
ORTHODOX ISSUES OF THE DAY
The "Sorrowful Epistle" of Metropolitan Philaret
A REJOINDER TO FR. ALEXANDER SCHMEMANN
By FATHER MICHAEL AZKOUL
Recent months have seen an intensification of efforts on the part especially of the American Metropolia and its 'theologians' to discredit the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, which has offered an outspoken and un compromising opposition to Orthodox apostasy in general and to the Metropolia's recent 'autocephaly' in particular. The unfairness of these attacks has been noticed by those outside the Russian Church situation, and an indication of the signs of these times the most thorough reply to the most serious of these attacks has come from a priest of the Syrian Archdiocese.
Father Michael Azkoul holds a theological degree from St. Vladimir's Seminary in New York and a PhD in Ancient and Mediaeval History from Michigan State University. He is a contributing editor of The Logos, a director of the Institute of Byzantine Studies, and a contributor of patristic studies to several scholarly journals. Ordained to the priesthood by the late Archbishop Anthony Bashir in 1958, he has since then held pastoral positions in several parishes in the Midwest. His articles in THE LOGOS and other Orthodox periodicals have been notable for their solid patristic foundation and sober logic; among them have been several articles in defense of the Russian Church Outside of Russia.
In May of this year Father Michael himself followed "Where the Truth Leads" (see his article in THE LOGOS, January, 1970), obtaining a canonical release from the Syrian Archdiocese and joining the Russian Church Outside of Russia. This fall he will be teaching in the St. Louis area and will organize a parish there. The present article was, however, written while he was still within the Syrian Archdiocese and should be, therefore, all the more a voice to those outside the jurisdiction of the Russian Synod.
AS THE INFLUENCE of the Russian Synod is increasingly felt A among Orthodox, criticism of her seems also to be rising. The latest falls from the pen of the eminent Orthodox theologian, Father Alexander Schmemann, Dean of St. Vladimir's Orthodox Seminary. It has been more than six months since the appearance of his polemic in The Orthodox Church (Nov., 1969), the official publication of the Russian Metropolia, and no response has been made to it in English. One should be made, because Father Schmemann's remarks are unjust and directed at a sister-Church.
It is unfortunate that a theologian of his reputation should castigate the Russian Synod, the Supreme Administration of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, and that he should use the "Sorrowful Epistle" of Metropolitan Philaret, her leading prelate, as the occasion for his polemic. I wonder, however, if it is significant that his uncharitable reproof appeared on the eve of the disclosure that the Metropolia had been secretly negotiating with the Moscow Patriarchate for autocephaly. I wonder if it is significant that Father Alexander never answers Metropolitan Philaret's critique of Uppsala. I wonder if it is significant that the charges against the Synod-which have been made and refuted so often before-are compulsively repeated. I wonder if these three matters are related.
In more than three thousand words, Father Schmemann seeks to smack down the Russian Synod, a perturbing "gadfly" which has been haughtily buzzing around the great body of Orthodox ecumenism. Indeed, from the very beginning of his article, the author assumes that his position imposes upon him the responsibility of liquidating this nuisance. Thus, he never concedes that the challenge of the Synod to the present course of Orthodox ecumenism – and its folly – has any validity, and the story of the "other side" is never given. His object does not seem to be the truth, but the negation of all opposition to that religious ideal to which he, and those like him, have committed themselves.
The reader is not told that, until recently, the canonicity of the Synod was questioned by no one (save Moscow); that not until the reigns of Basil III and Meletios Metaxakis did the Constantinopolean Patriarchs ever doubt it. Both Basil and Metaxakis supported the so-called "Living Church" movement in Russia and the latter, like Athenagoras I, was a Freemason. It is true, moreover, that His Eminence, Chrysostom Papadopoulos, Archbishop of Athens, was displeased with the opposition of the Russian Church Abroad to the New Calendar; however, he was in friendly correspondence with the Synod. Neither, indeed, does Father Schmemann even mention Patriarch Tikhon's famous Ukase 362, nor Canon 39 of Quinisext or Apostolic Canon 34, which gave the Synod her right to exist; or the Sremsky-Carlovtzy Convention which gave her form.
Nevertheless, Father Schmemann denies the canonicity of the Synod. He refers to the flight of the Russian bishops before the Bolsheviks as "having abandoned their dioceses... and therefore formally deprived of their jurisdictional rights which a bishop can exercise only within his diocese, but certainly not at large...." He would be right if under ordinary circumstances these bishops had "abandoned" their dioceses; but, as we have said, the canon law recognizes the possibility of bishops and churches in exile1 – even as civil law recognizes governments in exile. He is further unfair to the Synod, because he knows that the bishops who left Russia did, in many instances, take their flocks with them. He knows, too, that the bishops were often driven out and involuntarily cut off from their dioceses. And he is wrong when he says that these bishops may necessarily be considered as no longer possessing "jurisdictional rights" over those flocks which they left. Was St. Athanasius no longer Bishop of Alexandria because he was banished five times by the Roman authorities? Was St. John Chrysostom no longer Patriarch of Constantinople when he was sent into exile by the Emperor? Was St. Martin I no longer Patriarch of Rome when he was brought to Constantinople by order of the Emperor Constans II, and then imprisoned at Cherson where he subsequently died (653)? In other words, historical and political circumstances, as the Fathers and the canons attest, do alter the usual understanding of that relationship which customarily exists between a bishop and his diocese.
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1. The head of the "Holy Ukrainian Autocephalic Orthodox Church-in-Exile," Archbishop Palladios, is a member of the Standing Conference of Canonical Bishops in America Apparently, the Standing Conference recognizes "churches-in exile," the opinion of Fr. Schmemann notwithstanding.
In connection with this same matter, Father Alexander states that the Russian Synod was "challenged and not recognized by other Russian jurisdictions which arose out of the same tragedy" (i.e., the Communist Revolution and its aftermath). The other "jurisdictions" to which he alludes are the Paris emigres under Metropolitan Evlogy, the Metropolia, and, of course, the restored Moscow Patriarchate. Leaving aside the latter for the moment, abroad it was after all only the Synod that emerged from the Revolution. Both Metropolitans Evlogy of Paris and Platon of North America were originally members of the Synod Abroad; and in fact the Metropolia was nothing more than the North American administration of the Synod from 1921 to 1926 and from 1935 to 1946. In 1927, the other "jurisdictions" attempted to submit themselves to Moscow, but finding the Soviet demands insupportable, Evlogy in 1930 went under the Patriarch of Constantinople (after suspension by Metropolitan Sergius), while Platon decided upon autocephaly. In 1935, the Patriarch of Serbia, Varnava, undertook to reconcile the Russian churches, and a conference was held in Serbia. The result was that both Theophilus (the new Metropolitan of North America) and Evlogy vowed fidelity to the Russian Synod Abroad. Their agreement was put in writing and signed. The reunification of the Russian exiles was announced by Metropolitan Theophilus at the 1936 Pittsburgh Sobor1 and in 1937 in New York. Evlogy, on returning to Paris, broke his promise, and eleven years later, at the Cleveland Sobor, the Metropolia followed suit.
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1. In 1936, a Sobor of Bishops was convoked in Pittsburgh, at which was announced: "With great joy, beloved, we inform you that we unanimously accept the temporary status of the Russian Church Abroad.. All our archpastors with our Metropolitan (Theophilus) at the head, join themselves to the Sobor of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, which is the highest Church organ for all our Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, which at the same time remains an integral part of the All-Russian Church" (Quoted, "The Historical Path of the Russian Orthodox Church in America," Novoye Russkoe Slovo, Feb. 7, 1970).
The Synod Abroad, therefore, considers both the Paris emigres and the Metropolia as "schismatic." Many United States civil courts agree with the contentions of the Synod. For example, the Opinion of the Superior Court of the State of California in and for the County of Los Angeles (Judge Joseph W. Vickers) stated in 1949 regarding the Metropolia, "In November 1946, at an All-American Sobor held in Cleveland, a resolution was adopted which purported to terminate the 1935 Provisional Agreement and to sever all relationship with the Church Abroad. The effect of the resolution was to declare the North American District (Metropolia) to be autonomous and subject only to such relationship as it could establish with Patriarch Alexy and his Holy Synod of Moscow." Elsewhere the Opinion continues, "If Metropolitan Theophilus and the Sobor had believed that Patriarch Alexy and his Synod was the Supreme Church Administration, they would have had no choice in the matter and would not have admitted that they had not theretofore been subservient thereto or attempted to place any conditions upon their recognition of its supremacy. In addition, the Holy Synod of the Church Abroad has repeatedly declared that a canonical Supreme Administration has not been restored in Russia. Since it appears from the pleadings, the evidence and the admissions and contentions of all parties that free church life has not been restored in Russia, the court must find that the Church Abroad is still the Supreme Administration of Russia." The Conclusion of the Opinion refers to the Metropolia as "a schismatic and unlawful faction or group." The Synod, consequently, was awarded the Holy Transfiguration church. Even if we chose not to accept this Opinion, it is, at least, significant that a disinterested third party found in favor of the Russian Synod. The picture which Father Schmemann paints may be a little distorted.
If the Synod "is still the Supreme Administration of Russia," then the Evlogian Parisian emigres are also "a schismatic and unlawful faction or group." Of course, the Synod Abroad never recognized either Sergius or Alexy as the legitimate successors to Patriarch Tikhon. There is some reason to believe she is correct if these men are puppets of the Soviet government. Sergius did publish an agreement on July 1629, 1927, in which he promised to be loyal to the Soviet regime both 'in word' and 'good conscience.' That Alexy has ever deviated from that promise cannot be demonstrated by the evidence. He has supported Communist policies in almost every instance, and there is some reason to think that many clergy in the Moscow Patriarchate are agents or, at least, selections of the Communist government. In the words of Metropolia Archbishop John (Shahovskoy) of San Francisco, "the Moscow Patriarchate is unable to express the voice of the Church of Christ freely" (see D. Grigorieff, "Historical Background of Orthodoxy in America," Saint Vladimir's Seminary Quarterly, vol. V, 1-2 (1961), 44). Under these circumstances, then, Father Schmemann is wrong and it is the Synod alone which may judge "the Russian ecclesiastical problem," for she is the only free part of the Mother Church, while the other "jurisdictions" are dissidents. Moreover, the entire matter seems to have been taken out of their hands, because the Moscow Patriarchate officially intends to give Holy Communion to Roman Catholics.1 Its status within Orthodoxy is open to review.
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1. The Holy Fathers forbid the giving of the Holy Communion to the heterodox "With all our strength, therefore, let us beware lest we receive communion from or grant it to heretics; Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, saith the Lord, neither cast your pearls before swine, lest we become partakers in their dishonor and condemnation For if union is in truth with Christ and with one another, we are assuredly voluntarily united also, with all those who partake with us..." (St John Damascus, De Fid. Orth., IV, 13)
I do not think Father Schmemann himself can draw any other conclusion from the facts. He instructed us at the seminary that "intercommunion" must presuppose a common faith and life. If he still believes what he taught us, he must further admit that "intercommunion" without this imperative implies an ecclesiology to which Orthodox cannot adhere. What, then, are the consequences for the Metropolia which seeks autocephaly from Moscow? But more important than this seven-year deception, is it to be denied that, underlying it, we find "the spirit of the times"? Is not ecumenism an offspring of the zeitgeist? Is it not the deleterious effect of ecumenism upon Orthodoxy which has drawn Moscow and the Metropolia together and away from the Russian Synod Abroad? Has it not so enervated the conscience of Orthodox that "forgiveness" has become a pretext to ignore Christian doctrines, canons and moral precepts?
I think Father Schmemann is cognizant of the role played by ecumenism in the new arrangement between the Metropolia and Moscow. He knows and resents the Synod's stinging criticism of that "arrangement." For example, was not the "secret meeting" between the Metropolia and Moscow at Geneva under the auspices of the WCC? Were not representatives of the WCC present at the recent meeting in New York? It follows, then, that his defense of the ecumenical movement had to involve the dissolution of Synodal opposition to it. Moreover, he has had to anticipate those serious and embarrassing questions which the people of the Metropolia will ask upon hearing that Moscow will grant autocephaly – why after so many years has the Moscow Patriarchate suddenly become acceptable to us? How can we believe that it can now act independently of its Communist masters? Why did we not receive autocephaly in 1946? What did we give away to get it? Then, the people might begin to believe that the answers to these questions are somehow connected with the changing mood of both hierarchies. It might occur to them that the ecumenical movement and the WCC is involved might be overrated, that the Synod might be right about everything, that 1946 was a mistake.1 Two Metropolia parishes have returned to the Synod already and others are threatening to do the same.
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1. It cannot be doubted that the Metropolia was part of the Russian Synod Abroad, but separated from her in 1946. The Cleveland Sobor, writes Dimitry Grigorieff, "promulgared the withdrawal of the American Metropolia from membership in the Russian Synod of Bishops Abroad Since then the Synodical group has become a distinctively separated church organization in America once again" ("The Historical Background of Orthodoxv in America." Saint Vladimir's Seminary Quarterly, Ibid., p. 41. Mr. Grigorieff gives no reason for the 'withdrawal'.
Therefore, Father Alexander must defend ecumenism and discredit the Synod. The first step must be to minimize her claim to virginal Orthodoxy, to the Fathers, the Bible and, particularly, to the canons. Strangely, citations from these sources are conspicuously absent from his article, except for one lonely quotation from the New Testament (I John 2:18). He does not even bother to quote modern authorities in support of his arguments. It is also strange that he deliberately avoids mentioning that the Synod's attitude toward ecumenism per se has never been closed, e.g., her representatives were present at the Faith and Order Meeting of 1937. She rejects only the heresy that ecumenism has become. Although he alludes to the fact that Metropolitan Philaret's "Sorrowful Epistle" admits conditions under which participation in this movement is possible, his article nowhere discusses either these conditions or the arguments by the Synod against participation without those conditions. In fact, he hesitates to concede anything without qualification – "she may be right or wrong, but...." Whenever the issue becomes sticky and it appears that he might have to surrender a point to the Synod, he makes a hasty retreat to the handy ecclesiastical cliche, "this is for the entire Church to decide." Throughout his attack upon the Synod and Metropolitan Philaret's Epistle one is struck by Father Schmemann's patent bias.
Father Alexander is forced, nonetheless, to admit that one should distinguish 'good' from 'bad ecumenism.' But he fails to define either. He does not, because he cannot. He has already argued that "there is no consensus on ecumenism." The contradiction is glaring: if there is no consensus at all, then it is impossible for him to distinguish 'good' and 'bad ecumenism.' No consensus means no criterion. Again, if there is no consensus whatsoever, then there is no consensus for ecumenism. Why, then, have we joined the WCC? On what basis? Why scold Metropolitan Philaret as if his opposition to ecumenism were wrong?
In any case, a consensus does exist and the Metropolitan employs it. One may contend that there is no formal spatial consensus, but there is an available temporal consensus, the judgement of history. The words of Saint Vincent of Lerins should be instructive:
"Now in the Catholic Church itself we take the greatest care to hold that which has been believed everywhere, always and by all... We shall hold to the rule if we follow universality, antiquity. consent. We shall follow universality if we acknowledge that one Faith to be true which the whole Church throughout the world confesses; antiquity, if we in no wise depart from the interpretations which it is clear that our ancestors and fathers proclaimed; consent, if in antiquity itself we keep following the definitions of all, or certainly nearly all, bishops and doctors alike.... What will the Catholic Christian do, if a small part of the Church has cut itself off from the communion of the universal Faith?... He will prefer the healthiness of the whole body to the morbid and corrupt limb. But what if some novel contagion try to infect the whole Church, and not merely a portion of it? Then, he will take care to cleave to antiquity which cannot now be led astray by any deceit of novelty. But what if in antiquity itself two or three men, or it may be a city, or even a whole province be detected in error? Then he will take the greatest care to prefer the decrees of the ancient General Councils.... But what if some error arises regarding which nothing of this sort can be found? Then he must do his best to compare the opinions of the Fathers.... And whatever he shall find to have been held, approved and taught, not by one or two only, but by all equally and with one consent, openly, frequently, and persistently, let him take this to be held by him without the slightest hesitation" (Commonitorium II: 3-III: 4).
There is, then, a consensus one which is to be preferred to spatial consensus: the consensus of time. Upon its scales, ecumenism stands in historical judgement, a judgement which Metropolitan Philaret's Epistle manifests. He appeals to the Orthodox episcopacy "knowing perfectly well" the consensus of historical Orthodoxy.
But let us assume for a moment that an Orthodox Council is convened to determine the attitude of the Church towards ecumenism. What will be its criterion in its evaluation of this movement? Will it not be the witness of the Holy Scriptures, Holy Councils and Fathers and, to be sure, recent declarations of our spokesmen at Lambeth, Amsterdam, Evanston, etc.? If not, then by what standard of judgement? Will it be extra-ecclesial? By what principle will this extra-ecclesial standard or criterion be chosen? By another principle itself extra-Orthodox? If the new Council finds new standards, then, either it must accept theological and/or cultural relativism or confess a new Revelation from God. In either case, it will render its decisions relative, open to continual revision and, consequently, discredit itself and the timeless truths of Christ. It will, then, also introduce a horrendous host of new problems, such as demonstrating its reasons for relativizing our past and, at the same time, justifying the truth, necessity and applicability of the new theological criteria and categories.
On the other hand, if the Council receives our Orthodox inheritance with honor, trust and obedience, its conclusions can be nothing other than that which has already been proclaimed by the Russian Synod. Thus, Protestants and Papists are heretics, because, to use the words of St. Basil the Great, their difference (he diaphora) with us relates directly to 'the faith in God itself' (peri tes autes tes eis Theon pisteous. Canon I). Father Alexander is surely aware of the innumerable conciliar decisions and patriarchal epistles (e.g., the Three Answers of Jeremiah II, Confessio Dosithei, the Encyclical of the Eastern Patriarchs (1848), the Council of Constantinople (1872), etc.) which have encouraged the heterodox to enter the Orthodox Church, 'the Ark of Salvation' (Holy Russian Synod, 1904). Indeed, our relationship to all heretics in all times has been clearly delineated by the Scriptures (Eph. 4: 14, II Tim. 2: 15-18, Tit. 2: 9-10, Gal. 1:8-9, and Heb. 13:9); by the canons (Apostolic Canons 10, 11, 45, 65; St. Timothy of Alexandria, Canon 9,etc.); and the writings of the Fathers, such as St. Iren;us, Adversus H;resus; St. Cyprian of Carthage, De Unitate Catholic; Ecclesi;; St. Athanasius, Orationes contra Arianos, etc. In other words, the consensus in time has determined and must determine the consensus in space if Orthodoxy is to remain faithful to her spiritual and doctrinal heritage. There is a judgement upon current ecumenism, and the "appeal" of Metropolitan Philaret to his episcopal brethren is no more than a call to confirm, formally and publicly. their obedience to that judgement.
The demand of that "judgement," the Metropolitan maintains. is that the ecumenical movement, as it is, must be condemned. To be sure, there is "good ecumenism," that is, to confront the heterodox with the Apostolic Tradition. to explain and defend it. Although we might assemble with the non-Orthodox for this purpose, neither common prayer or worship nor spiritual intimacy is possible. On the other hand. "bad ecumenism" is participation in this movement with little or no regard for the dictates of Orthodox life, law and doctrine. Therefore, we can participate in this movement only on the basis that our presence be understood as a testimony. a mission, not as a dialogue between equals. However, the WCC and the NCC. the entire "ecumenical movement" has become something incompatible with Orthodox ecclesiology. For example, the WCC is gradually being secularized. i.e., offering mankind the "social Gospel" instead of salvation in Jesus Christ. In its demeanor. utterances and its liturgies, the WCC gives clear indication that it has passed from the initial stage of definition or 'form' to the present stage of 'function.'
A propos this contention is the Ecumenical Service of the At-One-Ment, held at the First United Presbyterian Church, Tulsa, Oklahoma (Jan. 26, 1969). The liturgy begins with an Organ Prelude, then, The Call to Worship, the Processional Hymn. the Invocation, the Anthem, the Offertory and the Doxology. The entire Service is Protestant in structure and interdenominational in spirit. The clear impression is that all the 'churches' belonging to the WCC compose the Church. Thus, the 'Leader,' as he is called, reads a list of names – some of them are Orthodox Fathers, Confessors and Martyrs – but then follow such 'ecumenical saints' as Dante. Michelangelo. Bach. Martin Luther. John Calvin, Thomas Aquinas, Cranmer, John Knox, Milton, Fox. Wesley, Walter Rauchenbach, Albert Schweitzer. Kagawa, John XXIII, Martin Luther King, Eugene Carson Blake, Julian Bond, Karl Barth, Harvey Cox, Gandhi, etc. Then, the words of the People's response: "Reform your Church, Father, and give her the courage to be, to follow you and do your word" "May she cease in her attempts to dominate men" "May she make no more demands and claim no more privileges, but only try to contribute to men's happiness" "May she neither repel nor exclude anyone by the words she uses or the ideas she has, but be open to everyone who seeks to live a happy and creative life..." After a few more similar verses, the Leader and People together proclaim, "I saw the city of God, the new holy Jerusalem...." Then, the sermon by M. M. Thomas, an Anthem, Closing Hymn, Benediction, Recessional and the Organ Postlude, "Built on the Rock the Church Doth Stand."
As Father Schmemann is fond of saying, lex orandi, lex credendi "the law of worship or prayer is the law of belief"; or, in another way, worship is the 'epiphany' of faith. If he is correct, then the ecumenical Service of the At-One-Ment – in which Orthodox participated is the lex orandi of the ecumenical lex credendi. Hence, his statement that "the unity of 'ecumenism' is a myth which makes it impossible to use this term of a 'heresy' for it" – is nonsense. Its lack of 'unity' proves nothing. Neither the 'unity' nor 'disunity' of a sect has anything to do with its heterodoxy. Neither the ancient Gnostics nor modern Protestants are unified, nor were the ancient Nestorians or (until this decade) Papism without unity. Moreover, the lack of 'unity' in ecumenism may be the very nature of the heresy. (We must wait and see whether it becomes something other than a potpourri of denominations.) Ecumenism now is reminiscent of Freemasonry: a common-denominator deity, a common morality and worship, the peculiar theological beliefs of each member left to himself. The result, of course, is religious subjectivism.
Ecumenism. however, has a discernable substantia – it is a soteriological heresy which is at once the context and apex of all those heresies which preceded it. The triadological, christological, mariological, cosmological, ecclesiological and anthropological heresies each in its turn came forward to entice the Church and failed. Now, however, they are regrouped and united, led in their assault by ecumenism, the religious progeny of a long Western epistemological nightmare. Archbishop Vitaly of Montreal and Canada comes to a similar conclusion:
"Ecumenism is the heresy of heresies, because until now every separate heresy in the history of the Church has striven itself to stand in the place of the true Church, while the ecumenical movement, having united all heresies, invites them all together to honor themselves as the one true Church. Here ancient Arianism, Monophysitism, Monothelitism, Iconoclasm, Pelagianism, and simply every possible superstition of the contemporary sects under completely different names, have united and charge to attack the Church. This phenomenon is undoubtedly of an apocalyptic character...." ("Ecumenism," The Orthodox Word, July-August, 1969, p. 155.)
Since ecumenism is an encompassing perversion of Christian doctrine, it strikes at the very heart of the Christian Economy: salvation; and because it is the anti-type of the Catholic Church, it ironically relates 'salvation' and the 'Church.' But it is a 'salvation' and a 'Church' without the Truth. It denies to Orthodoxy, of course, and to itself the possession of the divine and saving Truth. To say as it was said, "To seek the Truth, which we have not known...." (Invoc.. Prayer, Uppsala, 1968) is to assert a belief utterly foreign to Orthodox experience. It is tantamount to denying the Church Her deifying powers. It offers an evolutionary, vitalist and utopian ecclesiology, abrogates the scandalon of the Church and prepares 'the Church' for her secular quest.
Yet, Father Schmemann refuses to call ecumenism a heresy or those 'Orthodox' who have become an organic part of the WCC, apostates. He is content to denounce Metropolitan Philaret and the Synod for calling Archbishop Iakovos and Patriarch Athenagoras pseudo-bishops. He contends that Metropolitan Philaret has 'prejudged' them and, therefore, characterizes his Epistle as 'hypocritical.' Why, Father inquires, call for a judgement upon those men when you have already condemned them? "The very purpose of the appeal is precisely to call the brother-bishops to judge and evaluate another bishop's action," he declares. But the Metropolitan nowhere in his Epistle states that he seeks a vote from his 'brother-bishops, only concurrence with the Orthodox Tradition. His 'appeal,' then, is no summation to the jury; it is an exhortation to obedience. Metropolitan Philaret wants agreement with the temporal consensus – not his own personal intuitions.
Anyone who teaches, as does the Ecumenical Patriarch, that the Church should be 'refounded' (Christmas Message, 1967) or espouses a crypto-branch theory of the Church, such as that propounded by Archbishop Iakovos (The Orthodox Observer, April, 1961) stands condemned. Metropolitan Philaret does not condemn them.
Nevertheless, Father Alexander will admit only that these men have "provoked serious controversy" in the Church. The value of their opinions (and Metropolitan Philaret's) must await conciliar decision which, he says, the Metropolitan urges while, at the same time, 'prejudging' the issue. Again, Father Schmemann errs, for he fails to reckon with the explicit teaching of the Church that a council is unnecessary when a bishop 'publicly preaches heresy and with bared head teaches it in the Church. And, to be sure, those who withdraw from him or sever relations with him before synodical clarification' are not 'subject to canonical penalty' and 'have not fragmented the Church's unity with schism, but from schisms and divisions have they sought earnestly to deliver Her' (Council of Constantinople, 861, Canon XV). What is commended and sanctioned by this canon is the immediate concurrence with temporal consensus and separation from a 'false bishop.' Metropolitan Philaret clearly acted in the spirit of this canon.
But who is it that Father Schmemann accuses of 'schism'? – the Synod. How strange it is that a church whose "fidelity to the teachings of the Orthodox Church... Apostolic Succession...the piety of the clergy or laity" cannot be denied, as St. Vladimir's Professor Bogolepov wrote in his Towards an American Orthodox Church (New York, 1963), should find herself ostracized by Orthodox for the sake of ecumenism and heretics. And is it not curious that those 'Orthodox' who openly and blatantly break the canons, advocate the 'branch theory' or some form of it, who offer Holy Communion to non-Orthodox, are honored as great Christians and good sons of the Church? Now Father Alexander, not unaware of the Synod's faithfulness to Orthodoxy, cleverly seeks to sidestep the real problem. He states not that the Synod has been declared 'schismatic' and, therefore, uncanonical but has of her own volition' withdrawn from the Universal Church – I assume he means the Orthodox Church. Then, he compares the Synod to the Donatists of the 4th century, an analogy which is inapplicable. The Donatists were in fact heretics, because they departed from the traditional sacramentology of the Church and identified themselves as the Catholic Church. Blessed Augustine made this same observation and refuted them in eleven different treatises.
Another indication of the Synod's 'schismatic mentality, according to Father Schmemann, is the presumption with which she 'rebaptizes' heretics coming to Orthodoxy. He says that the "leaders of 'the Russian Church Outside of Russia' know perfectly well that the Russian Church, whose tradition they claim to maintain, for the last three hundred years did not rebaptize the heterodox whose baptism in the name of the Holy Trinity she could ascertain...." His statement is misleading for many reasons: (1) that the Synod may 'rebaptize' Christian converts is permissable, since, as Father 'knows perfectly well, the heterodox have no 'baptism.' Thus, Saint Cyril of Jerusalem wrote, "None but heretics are rebaptized, because their former 'baptism' was no baptism" (Procat., 7); and (2) that 'the Russian Church' has not 'rebaptized' the heterodox for three hundred years is unimportant. The Orthodox Church of Russia has 'rebaptized' heretics in the past – a canonical and theological precedent exists; (3) that 'the Russian Church' has received heretics without immersion is not the same as accepting them without baptism, for, as Father Alexander 'knows perfectly well, the entire rite of initiation, the sacramental rite of incorporation into the Church – baptism – includes not only sanctified water, but also chrism and Holy Communion; (4) the Orthodox Church has applied the principles of canonical akrebia (strictness) and economia (accomodation) according to her needs. Those principles have not always been applied uniformly; thus, the Orthodox Church of Greece may use one while the Orthodox Church of Russia employs the other. In times of greatest danger, the Churches invariably turn to akrebia, as the Ecumenical Patriarchs, Cyril V and Paisius II, did in the face of the 18th-century Jesuit menace. The Synod looks upon ecumenism as a threat; therefore, some of her clergy are following a traditional practice of the Church by 'rebaptizing' Christian converts; and (5) Father Alexander speaks of 'the Russian Church' as if she were not a member of the Universal Church, as if the 'tradition' of 'the Russian Church' were distinct from the Apostolic Tradition which governs all Orthodox Churches. It is true that the Tradition has circumstantial application, but the 'tradition' of 'the Russian Church' remains the Tradition of the Universal Church. Consequently, even if the Russian Church during some 300 years had no local precedent on 'rebaptism,' the Synod could appeal to the Church at large.
Ignoring such facts, Father Schmemann, throughout his polemic against Metropolitan Philaret, continues to misrepresent the position of the Synod. These misrepresentations arise often from his own ambivalence and uncertainty. Thus, Father Alexander's article tends to oscillate between whether the Synod is ab initio uncanonical or uncanonical by virtue of her ostensible withdrawal from communion with the universal Orthodox episcopate. He may not in fact know that originally the canonicity of the Synod was accepted by virtually every other Orthodox Church. Not even Archbishop Iakovos questioned it until Metropolitan Philaret's Open Letter to him in 1968. From the very first, the Synod was invited to become a member of the Standing Conference of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in America. It was only when a similar invitation was extended to the Moscow Exarch that she declined to join. "We never and nowhere will sit at one table with them," writes Archpriest George Grabbe, "but by this our spiritual communion with the Universal Church is not broken."1
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1. "An Answer to Archbishop John and Fr. Joseph Pishtey," Orthodox Life, I (1970), 29.
Evidentally, Father Grabbe is right, because, despite the eventual recognition of the post-1927 Moscow Patriarchate by the other Orthodox churches and the ban it placed upon the Synod, the latter remained within the Universal Church. For example, in the Near East, Synodal priests served in Greek churches and vice-versa. In 1955, His Beatitude, Christopher, the Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria, requested that the late Metropolitan Anastassy take part in the consecration of a bishop for his jurisdiction. In 1968, Metropolitan Ignatius of Latakia (Antioch) participated in the consecration of Bishop Nicander as Suffragan Bishop of Sao Paolo, Brazil. Elsewhere, the Greek Bishop Dionysius of New Zealand collaborated in the order by which Metropolitan Philaret was designated Bishop of Brisbane (1964). In the United States, Archbishop Vitaly (Maximenko) of New York assisted at the elevation of the late Syrian Metropolitan, Antony Bashir (1936), on the request of the Patriarch of Antioch. On the death of Metropolitan Anastassy, Patriarch Athenagoras sent the people of the Synod a telegram of condolence, and Archbishop Iakovos chanted a Trisagion over the remains of the late Metropolitan.
Now with the spread of ecumania and the vocal opposition of Metropolitan Philaret to it, the Synod is viewed as 'schismatic' and 'uncanonical.' It is true that she has 'voluntarily' broken communion with some Orthodox churches, but it is likewise not inaccurate to say that the Synod has been isolated. Therefore, the idea that the Synod has 'of her own volition' gone into schism is false. Rather should it be said that she has followed the Biblical injunction – We command you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourselves from all brethren that walk disorderly, and not after the tradition that you have received from us (II Thes. 3:6). The Synod has 'withdrawn' from apostasy – or been separated from it.
But Father Schmemann construes that 'separation' as a schism of the Russian Synod and therefore inquires: "One may ask, to which 'brothers,' to which 'Primates' is the 'Sorrowful Epistle' addressed? Since the Synod believes all other Orthodox bishops to be in schism and heresy – as a result of their ecumenism – and, therefore, no longer Orthodox, no longer members of the Church, no longer Bishops, the 'appeal' to the Orthodox episcopate as 'brothers' is, to say the least, illogical and meaningless. One cannot pretend to uphold the canons and at the same time deny canonical protection to those whom she has already condemned." He then lists four steps by which a 'church' falls into 'schism' and, eventually, 'heresy' through her denial of 'the action of the Holy Spirit' in the body from which she has seceded. The suggestion here is that the Synod has fallen or will fall into heresy if she refuses to desist from her present course.
Father Alexander's theology here is poor. In the first place, that some Orthodox bishops have succumbed to the heresy of ecumenism, that many have violated the canons, does not constitute a Synodal schism. Again, that some Orthodox bishops have apostacized or gone into schism is not a verdict of the Synod, but of the Apostolic Tradition. Neither is it the Synod which denies those bishops 'canonical protection, but the canons themselves. Furthermore, Father Alexander fails to distinguish between 'heresy' – theological departure from the Faith – and 'schism' – an administrative rupture. Although heretics are not members of the Church, schismatics retain their membership (I Const., Canon 6). Thus, violation of canon law which may, in some instances, lead to schism does not necessarily involve apostasy. To break a canon law may be impious, but in itself it is not heretical. As far as I know, the Synod has accused only a few 'Orthodox' ecumenists of heresy, others of schism; she remains in communion with a number of Orthodox Churches and is looked to as a beacon of Orthodoxy by the Catacomb Church of Russia, by the monks of Mount Athos, and by the Greek Old Calendarists. Therefore, it may be said that despite the 'ecumenism' of the Orthodox episcopacy in general, her individual members are within the Orthodox Church, that is to say, so long as those ecumenists do not consciously repudiate the teachings of the Church nor adopt ecumenical ecclesiology and soteriology. Since most of our bishops are misguided and not heretical, it would seem that Metropolitan Philaret's 'Sorrowful Epistle' is logical, meaningful and urgent.
We suggest, therefore, a serious re-appraisal of the Russian Synod and of our participation in the so-called 'ecumenical movement.' It should be clear to all that the only effect of our current involvement with the heterodox is a scandal to those who wish their Orthodoxy pristine, further confusion to weak Orthodox, greater comfort to the indifferent, and continued compromise by the 'liberal mentality' whose ecumenical posture the continuous stream of ugly polemic against the Synod seeks to justify. Despite whatever sins she may have, the Synod is correct. Father Schmemann cannot shake this fact by falsely accusing the Synod of "adding new divisions to our Church, for creating an atmosphere of suspicion and ultimately schism." Such imprecations might more profitably be leveled at Athenagoras of Constantinople, Iakovos, Athenagoras of London, Nikodim of Leningrad-Novgorod, the Metropolia's John Shahovskoy, etc. There is no justification for Father Alexander's diatribe against the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, save that her bold witness to Orthodoxy is a constant reproach to those who seek to revise "the faith once delivered to the saints."
Likewise, it would be advisable not to charge the Synod with negating "canons and procedures, jurisdictional rights and due process." Whatever may be the ecumenists' concern for such things, their own actions prove that they use them arbitrarily, selectively, and when it suits their own convenience. Again, Father Alexander argues that the Synod behaves as if there were a consensus against ecumenism when in fact, he says, there is none. But ecumenists act as if there were a consensus for ecumenism – and behave as if the canons did not exist. He maintains that the Synod condemns such hierarchs as Iakovos and 'the Ecumenical Patriarch' without 'due process,' but he and the other anti-Synodalists have pronounced the Synod schismatic – virtually heretical – without 'due process.' He says that the Synod raids other jurisdictions, pilfering their priests, when Father Alexander 'knows perfectly well' that she has the duty to receive those in flight from apostasy; and he should know that the Synod otherwise never accepts other clergy without an official and canonical release. He mentions the irregular conduct and attitude of the Synod towards other Orthodox jurisdictions, but he utters not a word about the members of the Standing Conference of Orthodox Bishops who do not recognize each others' 'canonicity. He likes to think of the Synod as trouble-maker, but he overlooks the 'trouble-makers' who undermine the entire episcopal structure of the Orthodox Church by their contempt for canon law and the spiritual life.
One may very well call it ironical that a Church which has produced such men as Archbishop Leonty of Geneva, Archbishop John Maximovitch, Archbishop Tikhon of San Francisco, Metropolitan Anastassy – all of whom reposed with divine odor – a Church which has innumerable monastic centers, which publishes journals such as Orthodox Life, The Orthodox Word, La foi transmise, etc., which has translated countless liturgical, ascetical and patristic works into various languages, which has organized missions in America and abroad and which has suffered persecution and slander for the sake of our Holy Faith, should be branded 'uncanonical,' 'schismatic,' 'trouble-maker' by her own brethren. There is no explanation but the devil working through this present age. The Scriptures have rightly said that in Godless times, in the last days, 'righteousness' will be called 'unrighteousness,' 'light, darkness,' 'truth, falsehood,' and 'good, evil'...
DOCUMENTS OF THE CATACOMB CHURCH
THE CATACOMB CHURCH
By PROFESSOR I. M. ANDREEV
EDITORS' INTRODUCTION
In recent years a marvellous witness has come out of the enslaved Soviet Union: a long series of protests from Orthodox laymen and a few of the clergy-against the continued persecution of the Christian faithful by the Soviet Government and by its 'State Church, the Moscow Patriarchate.
But how can this be? a 'Church' that persecutes its own faithful? The layman Boris Talantov, now in prison in the USSR for 'anti-Governmental activity, has carefully analyzed this question and found its solution to lie in 'Sergianism,' i.e., the attitude of those who accept the principle of the 'Declaration' made by Metropolitan Sergius in 1927 that the Soviet Union's "joys and successes are our joys and successes, and its misfortunes are our misfortunes," which in effect made the Moscow Patriarchate the obedient tool of Communist purposes, which function it has continued to serve down to the present day. Boris Talantov in a recent article has stated that "the roots of the serious ecclesiastical crisis which has now been revealed were planted precisely by Patriarch Sergius.... Objectively, this address (the Declaration of 1927) and the ensuing activity of Metr. Sergius was a betrayal of the Church." Further, according to Talantov, most of the churches that remained open after the persecution of the '30's no longer recognized Metropolitan Sergius as their head.1
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1. John B. Dunlop, The Recent Activities of the Moscow Patriarchate, St. Nectarios Educational Series, no. 46, 1970, pp. 109, 113-4.
It is these clergy and laymen who do not recognize the official 'Moscow Patriarchate'who comprise the underground or 'Catacomb Church' in the USSR. It is today an 'illegal' Church in the USSR and for obvious reasons very little can be said about its present extent, organization, etc. But there are nonetheless at least three sources of reliable information about it: (1) the letters and petitions of bishops and delegations of clergy and laymen who protested the Declaration in 1927 and broke off communion with the official Soviet Church – these hierarchs and faithful were apparently in the majority, and the Soviet Church attained its present ascendancy and 'canonicity' in the USSR through the Government's arrest and murder of the leading anti-Sergianists; (2) statements in the recent Soviet press concerning the arrest and imprisonment of members of underground churches and monasteries belonging to the 'True Orthodox Church' of 'Tikhonites' who refuse to recognize the Moscow Patriarchate; the Communist Government considers this Church of such importance that it published a general account and historical summary of it in the 'Atheist Dictionary,' printed in Moscow in 1964 for the guidance of antireligious activists; (3) the statements of those who have been members of the Catacomb Church in the USSR and have then come to the West. The united testimony of these sources leads one to the conclusion that the Orthodox Church in the Soviet Union is a submerged iceberg, a reality of which only a small portion is visible on the surface. Only when Russia, in God's time, will be freed of the tyranny of Communism and its obedient 'Patriarchate' will the secret life of Russian Orthodoxy be made fully known.
The following two accounts fall into the third category of testimony. They were written by a Doctor of Medicine and Psychiatry who was confined for five years at Solovki – the renowned monastery of the Far North which the Bolsheviks converted into their most feared concentration camp-and was a member of the Catacomb Church there and when he was at freedom in Petrograd (until 1941) before falling behind the German lines and thus eventually reaching the free world. Since 1950 he has been an instructor at Holy Trinity Seminary at Jordanville, New York, frequently giving lectures and writing articles in fulfilment of his life's aim: to inform the free Orthodox faithful of the existence of the Catacomb Church in the Soviet Union, which in its thousands and millions of members has not bended the knee to Baal.
These articles, although written twenty years ago, have perhaps an even greater urgency today, when 'Sergianist' hierarchs, at the dictation of their Soviet masters, have become a major factor on the international ecclesiastical and political scene, having recently achieved a crucial goal for which they have striven for 43 years -the 'spiritual' submission of the American Metropolia. (Text from ORTHODOX RUSSIA, 1950, no. 13.)
THE REALITY OF LIFE in the Soviet Union is a frightful nightmare that can be neither understood nor believed by those who have not experienced it. And the most frightful thing is not the material deprivations, arrests, and banishments, but rather the fact that there a conscious, systematic, and diabolically ingenious battle is being waged for the possession of the human soul, against God. This is the chief aim, and every. thing else is subordinated to it.
Qualitatively the forerunners of Antichrist have already made his kingdom a reality there. The actual Antichrist will devise nothing new: it will only remain for him to disseminate the methods of the Soviet NKVD (Secret Police) to the other five-sixths of the earth's surface. The only bright, joyful, and encouraging phenomenon there is the existence of the Catacomb Church, the Church of the wilderness. It permits us to evaluate optimistically the battle of the Russian soul with atheism: there, the infallible Church has been preserved, against which, as Christ has promised us, the gates of hell shall not prevail.
I cannot name many names and events. For understandable reasons ] cannot describe much in detail. I can only say very briefly or hint. But I also cannot be silent altogether; I do not have the right and I do not wish to, since by my silence I would betray the Truth and the memory of the priest-martyrs whom I have seen, with whom I have spoken, and with whom I shared five frightful years of imprisonment in the concentration camp at Solovki.
Patriarch Tikhon wisely conducted the ship of the Church on the sea of life, which had become agitated by the Revolution. His situation was extraordinarily difficult, not only because he was constantly threatened by physical danger, not even because for all seven years of his patriarchate he passed every day through moral tortures, but chiefly because there has never been such a situation in the Church's history. He had to lay out a completely new road across unknown country. This is why his errors are so understandable and so forgiveable. And his merit is all the greater in that he foresaw and laid the foundation of the Catacomb Church: while alive he blessed the physician-psychiatrist, Professor Zhizhilenko, to found the Catacomb Church. Later Professor Zhizhilenko, working under the Soviets as a physician, received a secret tonsure and was a bishop of the Catacomb Church, being subsequently arrested, imprisoned, and, in 1930, shot.
After the death of the Patriarch, his successors one after the other were banished. And then Metropolitan Sergius, becoming head of the Church, published the Declaration known to everyone, which acknowledged the joys and sorrows of the Soviets as his own and declared all martyrs political criminals.
All Orthodox Russia was shaken, and delegations with protests extended to Metr. Sergius from all corners of the land.
As a member of such a delegation from the Petrograd Diocese I too came to Moscow. In the Metropolitan's reception room forty people were waiting, and everyone of whom I asked his reason for coming replied that he had come as a delegate to see the Metropolitan. Russia had not accepted this Declaration!
The Metropolitan received us out of order. Finding out the reason why we had come, he reaffirmed everything written in the Declaration, and in answer to our convictions called us 'counter-revolutionaries' and 'schismatics.' Not taking his blessing, we left without obtaining anything.
Soon the churches that did not accept the Declaration began to be closed. In Petrograd only one remained, but everyone who entered it was registered and later arrested. This was the time when the atheist Soviet power demanded of believers that they go to churches of the official Church.
I, too, was arrested and banished for five years. At Solovki I encountered many hierarchs of the true Church. And there we already had our Catacomb church.
In the concentration camps the persecution against faith was completely open: priests were shorn and shaved, forbidden to wear cassocks and crosses. For making the sign of the cross a new term of imprisonment was given. Of course there was no question of any open services. The relics of saints were exhibited for mockery in an anti-religious museum with blasphemous inscriptions – even the saints suffered with us! The monks of Solovki who remained there as specialist-laborers were forbidden to have any contact with the prisoners under penalty of death. It was especially difficult before great feasts: it was impossible to gather even in twos, no one was allowed anywhere without special passes, night rounds were made more frequent, sentries were doubled. In order to pray one had to be ready at any minute for a martyr's death. And we were ready for it, always carrying with us, like the first Christians, a Particle of the Holy Gifts. I brought such a Particle abroad and gave it to Metropolitan Anastassy.
And not only were we ready to die, but many did die, confident that somewhere there, outside the reach of the Soviet authorities, where there is freedom – there the Truth was shining in all its purity. There people were living by it and submitting to it. There people did not bow down to Antichrist. And what terror overwhelmed me when, fairly recently, I managed to come abroad and found out that some people here 'spiritually' recognize the Soviet Church. Spiritually! Many of us there fell, 'for fear of the Jews, or giving in to the temptation of outward cooperation with the authorities. I knew priests of the official Church who, at home, tore their hair out, who smashed their heads making prostrations, begging forgiveness for their apostasy, calling themselves Cain but nonetheless they did not have the strength to decide upon martyrdom. But even they spiritually did not recognize the Red Church. But these others abroad it is precisely spiritually that they submit to it. What good fortune that our priest-martyrs, in dying, did not find out about this betrayal!1
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1. The Soviets, in connection with the recent triumph of their Sergianist Church in gaining recognition from the American Metropolia, have tried to deprive the faithful even of this consolation. Two young hierarchs of the Metropolia, Bps Vladimir of Tokyo and Theodosius of Sitka, have visited the "Mother Church" in the USSR, the latter as the Metropolia press reports – being followed everywhere by great crowds of people, as if to tell the faithful: abandon hope in any free Russian Church abroad its hierarchs are with your oppressors!
When I returned from banishment (to Leningrad) I found the Catacomb Church. I personally know about 200 places where services were conducted. Twelve travelling priests and two bishops served them. These places were quite diverse: from peasant huts right to Soviet institutions, to which one was admitted only by pass. But at that time the Catacomb Church did not have any general interconnecting organization.
Having gotten abroad, I naturally began to seek out people who had belonged to the Catacomb Church. Most of the refugees knew nothing about it. But almost every year I have encountered at least one representative of it, even priests, and I have had written contact with a bishop.
According to my information the Catacomb Church now has not only become stronger, but has also obtained some kind of organizational forms. According to one bishop, although there are comparatively few active members of the Catacomb Church, the vast majority of the people sympathize with and help them. Without this sympathy in Soviet conditions the Catacomb Church could not exist at all.
Abroad I have been struck by the circumstance that most of the clergy of the Catacomb Church who have come here continue to remain in secret, not entering even the true Synodal Church. This greatly disturbed me: was I then mistaken in entering the Russian Church Outside of Russia? And if not, then why do they remain in secret? And then, recently, I received an answer to my perplexity: A bishop of the Catacomb Church, unknown to me, who is living abroad, sent me through a third person a letter. He speaks first in principle about my articles, which he has read in Orthodox Russia, and in general about the correctness of my position. Then he gives an answer, as it were, to my doubts. He says that the clergy of the Catacomb Church often do not enter the Russian Church Outside of Russia – which has not erred in its relationship to atheistic Communism – because the battle is still raging, and who can say whether it will not be necessary for them to apply their experience here, in the West. The forerunners of Antichrist have already appeared and no one knows when the time will come when every believer, without entering the house, will have to flee into the mountains, i.e., go into the Catacombs. And he is right: are there not those who wish to annihilate the Russian Church Outside of Russia? Concerning this, those who have gone away from her have already spoken the first word. And if this were to happen – we pray that the Lord will not allow this! – where would we then find refuge, where would we find the infallible Church? Already almost all the Local Orthodox Churches have either bowed down to the forerunners of Antichrist or give a 'brotherly embrace' to his loyal servants!
Today there is not and there cannot be any separation between ecclesiastical affairs and politics. Politics pretends to universality, i.e., it wishes to take into its hands the resolution of questions concerning spiritual life also. This means that political actions cannot be indifferent for the Church as well. Furthermore, when Antichrist shall have power on the earth, he will naturally be a political figure. This means that the Church also will have to oppose his political persecution. And so as, even now, to weaken this opposition, his forerunners, taking advantage of the idea that the Church should be above politics, conceal their warfare against God under a political cloak: the martyrs are 'political criminals.' To be sure, the Church should not intrigue, but as soon as politics touches on questions of spiritual life, the Church cannot close her eyes to this.
This is why the question of the battle against Communism is a question of the spirit, and not of politics. This is why the question of our jurisdictional divisions is not a question of quarrels of bishops over portfolios' No, it is a question of cooperation (or tacit agreement) with the forerunners of Antichrist, or else uncompromising battle against them. This alone separates us from those who have broken away from the Truth; but it does not separate us from the Russian people, for there the soul, even if it is invisible, even if it has retreated within itself, is still alive, is not spiritually enslaved; it is drawn to the light of Truth. And a testimony of this is the existence, in the frightful conditions of the Soviet Union, where there are many Judases out of fear and others out of conscience, of a Catacomb Church that has not fallen.
MARTYROLOGY OF THE COMMUNIST YOKE
BISHOP MAXIM OF SERPUKHOV
FIRST BISHOP OF THE CATACOMB CHURCH
By PROFESSOR I. M. ANDREEV
"Even if all the world shall enter into communion with the (heretical) Patriarch, I will not."
ST. MAXIMUS THE CONFESSOR
BISHOP MAXIM OF SERPUKHOV, Diocese of Moscow, was in the world Michael Alexandrovich Zhizhilenko and was born on March 2, 1885. His parents lived at that time in Kalisha (in Poland), where his father was procurator of the Circuit Court of Kalisha for 25 years and enjoyed a great respect among the people. The family was large, patriarchal, harmonious; all nine children grew up and studied in the city of Kalisha. The mother brought up all in a religious spirit, inspiring in the children love for God, Church, and fellow man.
He was the younger brother of the well-known Professor of Criminal Law at the Petersburg University, Alexander Alexandrovich Zhizhilenko, who in 1922 appeared for the defense in the famous trial of Metropolitan Veniamin. In the words of Vladika Maxim, his brother was not a religious man, and at his appearance at the trial of 'church figures' he declared at the beginning of his testimony that he was appearing, being an atheist, solely as a representative of the law and a defender of justice. However, when he found out about the secret tonsure of his younger brother, Alexander Alexandrovich came to his quarters and received his blessing. In the words of the widow of A. A. Zhizhilenko (who died soon after his brother's tonsure) this event (secret monasticism and episcopacy) produced a tremendous impression on him and, while dying, he said in delirium: "They say that there is no God, but He does exist after all."
After finishing preparatory school, Michael Alexandrovich entered Moscow University in the Department of Medicine. This surprised his relatives, because his father and three brothers were lawyers. This was approximately in 1908. About 1911, being a student, he married a fellow student, but he lived with her only half a year. Having gone to her parents in the city of Eysk, she died there, being unable to bear her first pregnancy. The couple desired in no way to terminate this pregnancy artificially, even though both knew that the girl was in danger of death. Vladika called his deceased wife a 'righteous one.' At that same time he too was very ill and underwent an operation for appendicitus and was so bad that people were afraid to tell him of the death of his wife. When he began to recover, great was his grief and despair over this loss.
THE SOLOVETSK MONASTERY.
As his sister related, it was just at this time that her brother had a dream that very much affected his later life. He saw his deceased mother, who told him to pray to Saint Panteleimon the Healer, whom she had greatly venerated while alive. On the very next day Michael went to the chapel of Saint Panteleimon in Moscow, bought there a small icon of the Saint and never parted with it, and prayers to Saint Panteleimon the Healer helped him in his later life. He became religious, extraordinarily kind, responsive to the grief of others, and helped the poor.
It should also be noted that the Lord gave him great musical talents. He played the piano superbly, himself composed music, and, as a psychiatrist, used music in the treatment of his patients.
After completing the university, Michael was a psychiatrist in the Sokolniki district of Moscow. When war broke out in 1914 he became a physician in the Kuban Plastan Batallion and was on the Austrian front. Here he almost died of typhus, having become infected by sick Austrian prisoners.
For a short time he was a professor of psychiatry in a provincial university, and then became a practicing physician-therapist. For the next several years he was chief physician of the "Taganka' prison in Moscow.
In 1921 his sister in Belgrade received the only and last letter from her brother. In this letter, which began with the sign of the cross, he wrote that we are all sinful in the misfortunes that have come upon us, that we must pray to the Lord and beg His forgiveness and help. Only a year or two later did another letter come from friends, in which in a disguised manner it was said that Michael had received the priesthood without leaving his first position, i.e., of prison doctor. Thus he became both a spiritual and bodily physician; for the time being the enemies had not found this out. Later she was likewise informed that he had been sent for three years "to one of the Northern resorts" (i.e., prison camps).
The physician of the prison hospital was known by all those confined in this fearsome prison, which was overfilled beyond all measure primarily with criminals, but to a significant degree also with political prisoners; they well knew and remembered him who had long been known as the guardian angel of this prison.
In his difficult post he was not only a physician, but also a great master of the heart, a comforter and father. Before him, a physician, not infrequently as before a priest the most inveterate and incorrigible criminals confessed, finding for themselves not only comfort, but often also a return to honest life. Many in Moscow knew that he slept on bare boards, that he ate prison food, that he unfailingly distributed all his salary to the prisoners. He acted in this way not only now, under the Bolsheviks, but earlier as well, under the Imperial government.
BEING A DEEPLY religious man, Vladika, while still a layman, made the acquaintance of His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, whom he deeply revered. The Patriarch greatly loved Dr. Zhizhilenko and often made use of his advice. Their relationship in time took on the character of the most intimate friendship. In the words of Vladika Maxim, the Patriarch confided in him the most secret thoughts and feelings. Thus, for example, in one of their conversations His Holiness expressed to Vladika Maxim (then still simply a doctor) his painful doubts as to the benefit of further concessions to the Soviet power. In making these concessions, he became more and more convinced, with horror, that the boundary of the 'political' demands of the Soviet power lay beyond the bounds of faithfulness to Christ and the Church. And not long before his death the Patriarch expressed the thought that apparently the only way out for the Russian Orthodox Church to preserve her faithfulness to Christ would be, in the near future, to go into the catacombs. Therefore Patriarch Tikhon blessed Dr. Zhizhilenko to accept secret monasticism and then, in case in the near future the higher church hierarchy were to betray Christ and concede to the Soviet power the spiritual freedom of the Church, to become a secret bishop.
While telling us, physicians imprisoned at Solovki and true 'Tikhonites,' of Patriarch Tikhon's refusal once to bless one of the participants in the White Movement, Vladika related in detail concerning the extreme caution of Patriarch Tikhon, who did not show to those around him his authentic deepest relationship to questions of politics, but who revealed this in strict confidence to his no less cautious friend, and concerning the immense joy he had in connection with the activity of Metropolitan Anthony abroad. "How they there well understand everything and do not, apparently, judge me," the Patriarch once expressed himself with tears, having in mind the activity of the so-called 'Karlovchany.1
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1. I.e., the Russian Church Outside of Russia, led until his death in 1936 by Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky.
Vladika Maxim told us in detail of the many attempts to kill Patriarch Tikhon. Once a supposed madman threw himself with a knife upon the Patriarch as he was coming out of the altar. Unexpectedly, however, instead of Patriarch Tikhon someone else came out, and the 'madman,' being 'sanely surprised,' delivered no wound to the one who came out. Another time, when the cell-attendant of the Patriarch was killed, the murderer ran about the Patriarch's apartments without noticing Patriarch Tikhon sitting in an armchair. Several attempts to poison His Holiness were made with the aid of medicines sent to him.
Vladika Maxim also told us of some disagreements with Patriarch Tikhon. The chief of these lay in the fact that His Holiness was optimistically inclined, believing that all the terrors of Soviet life could yet pass, and that Russia could still be reborn through repentance. Vladika Maxim, however, was inclined to a pessimistic view of the events that were occurring and believed that we had already entered into the final days of the apocalyptic period. "Apparently," Vladika Maxim concluded, smiling (which happened rarely), "we infected each other a little with our attitudes: I infected him with pessimism, and he me with optimism."
His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon died on March 25, 1925, being, in the words of Vladika Maxim, unquestionably poisoned. The Patriarch's 'Testament,' according to Vladika Maxim's categorical assertion, was a counterfeit. At the same time he cited the authoritative opinion on this question of his brother, a professor of Criminal Law.
Michael Alexandrovich fulfilled the will of the late Patriarch Tikhon and in 1927, when Metropolitan Sergius published his well-known Declaration, he received a secret tonsure with the name Maxim, and became the first secret Catacomb bishop.
When the new illegal bishop appeared secretly in Serpukhov, having been consecrated in Petrograd by the 'rebellious' and 'suspended' Bishop Dimitry (of Gdov), who then, in succession from Metropolitan Joseph, headed the whole of the opposition to Metr. Sergius, and when the faithful of Moscow recognized in the person of the new bishop the doctor of 'Taganka,' this event produced a great impression. In Serpukhov in a very short time all 18 parishes went over to the new bishop, i.e., to the opposition. In neighboring Kolomna the same thing happened. In Zvenigorod, Volokolamsk, Pereyaslav Zalessky, and other cities a significant number of the parishes followed the example of Serpukhov.
Of great interest is the following document – a declaration sent to Metr. Sergius by the clergy and laity of Serpukhov on December 30, 1927, which one must presume to have been written not without the influence, editing, or even authorship of Bishop Maxim.
"In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
"Finding it no longer possible to remain on that slippery and ambiguous path on which You, by Your Declaration and decrees, have placed the entire Orthodox Church, and submitting to the voice of conscience and duty before God and the faithful, we the undersigned break off canonical and prayerful communion with You and the so-called 'Patriarchal Synod' and refuse to acknowledge You as Deputy of the Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal See, for the following reasons:
"1. Your Declaration of July 16, Your Ukase of October 20, and everything that is known of Your direction of the Church, manifestly speaks of the fact that You have placed the Church in dependence on the civil authority and have deprived her of inner freedom and independence, thereby also violating church canons and going against the decrees of the civil authority.
"2. Thus, You are nothing other than a continuation of the so-called 'Renovationist' (Living Church) movement, only in a more refined and very dangerous form, for, while declaring Your firmness of Orthodoxy and preservation of canonicity, You fog over the minds of the faithful and consciously conceal from their eyes that abyss toward which all Your decrees are irrepressibly leading the Church.
"3. The result of Your politics is before us. The faithful of the city of Serpukhov, disturbed by Your decrees, are seized by a most powerful alarm and perplexity over the destiny of the Holy Orthodox Church. We, their pastors, placed by You upon an ambiguous path, not only cannot set their hearts and minds at rest, but rather evoke on their side suspicion of betraying the work of Orthodoxy and going over to the camp of 'Renovationism.'
"All this imperatively compels us boldly to raise our voice and cease our now already criminal silence over Your mistakes and incorrect actions and, with the blessing of Dimitry, Bishop of Gdov, to disassociate ourselves from You and those who surround You. Leaving You, we do not depart from the lawful Locum Tenens Metropolitan Peter, and we shall give ourselves over to the judgement of a future council. May this desired council, our sole competent judge, not place to our guilt our boldness. May it judge us not as disdainers of the sacred canons of the Holy Fathers, but only as fearful to violate them."
The influence of Bishop Maxim constantly grew, and it increased especially when there was introduced into the Liturgy in Petrograd the famous "Prayer for the Holy Church," which however received among the faithful the title of "Prayer concerning the Bolsheviks." Rumor ascribed the authorship of this prayer to no one else than Bishop Maxim. His fate was sealed. The Soviet authorities knew him as a physician, as a Soviet employe. His appearance in a black ryassa at the head of a confessing Church seemed to them the highest brazenness.
In his new post Vladika did not last long. He was arrested in the middle of 1929, and therefore he spent two whole years in prison before winning his martyr's crown.
The secret bishop conducted himself so cautiously, and when arrested on the report of an informer he answered the interrogations so wisely, that the investigating authority of the Secret Police could not incriminate him in anything except for the very fact of his secret tonsure while at the same time working as Chief Physician of the Taganka prison, and they limited themselves to a punishment of "three years in the Solovki Camp" (in accordance with Art. 58, Pt. 10, i.e., for counter-revolutionary propaganda).
BLESSED NEW MARTYR MAXIM
Commemorated June 23/July 6
The towers of the Solovetsky Monastery in the winter of about 1930, after the Monastery had been turned by the Communists into a concentration camp.
AT THE END of October, 1929, a new new physician came to the fourth section of the Solovki Camp of Special Assignment, on the island of Solovki in the White Sea, together with one of the groups of new prisoners. The Commandant of the Camp brought him to the 10th Company, where the workers of the Sanitarium Division were located, led him into the physicians' cell and introduced him: "Here is a new physician for you, Professor, Doctor of Medicine, Michael Alexandrovich Zhizhilenko." We, the imprisoned physicians of the Sanitarium Division of the Camp, went up to our new comrade in confinement and introduced ourselves. Our newly-arrived colleague was tall in stature, with a Herculean frame, a thick gray beard, and gray brows that hung severely over kindly blue eyes.
A week before the arrival of Dr. Zhizhilenko, we were informed by our friends in the office of the Sanitarium Division that the newly-expected physician was not an ordinary man, but was imprisoned with a special "secret" dossier and was in a special position, under special surveillance, and that he might not even be allowed to work as a physician but would be transferred to the special 14th Company, the so-called Company of "the interdicted," who are prohibited from working in their specialty and must spend the entire duration of their confinement in the so-called "general" heavy physical labor. The reason for such a "special" position was this: Dr. Zhizhilenko, while being Chief Physician of the Taganka prison in Moscow, was at the same time a secret bishop, having the monastic name of Maxim, Bish p of Serpukhov.
After an exchange of opinions on general questions, all three of us physicians told the newly-arrived one that we knew his past, the reason for his arrest and confinement in Solovki, and we went up to him for his blessing. The face of the physician-bishop became concentrated, his gray brows became yet more knit, and he slowly and solemnly blessed us. His blue eyes became yet kindlier, more gentle, and lighted up with a joyful light.
A whole week passed for all of us in oppressive waiting, until finally the position of the new physician was clarified. He was not transferred to the Company of "the interdicted." The head of the whole Sanitarium Division of the Solovki Camps, Dr. V. I. Yakhontov (a former criminal prisoner, who after the expiration of his term remained to serve as physician to the Political Police), even wished to assign Dr. Zhizhilenko, as an experienced physician, as the Chief of the Sanitarium Division of the 4th Section (i.e., for the whole island of Solovki), but this was opposed by the Chief of the Information-Interrogation Section, the most terrible Section in the camps, on which the fate and life of all prisoners entirely depended. The position of physician of the Central Infirmary was likewise forbidden Dr. Zhizhilenko. And so this experienced, mature physician was assigned to be in charge of one of the typhoid barracks and subordinated to a younger physician who had administrative authority. Soon, however, the exceptional talents and experience of Dr. Zhizhilenko as a healing physician were discovered, and they began to call him for consultations in all complicated cases. Even the great heads of the camp, important Communist-GPU agents, began to appeal to him for medical help for themselves and their families. Almost all the doctors, both young and old, began to learn from their new colleague, taking advantage of his advice and studying his method of diagnosis.
At the end of 1929 there was an outbreak on Solovki of typhoid fever which quickly assumed tremendous proportions: out of 18,000 prisoners on the island, at the end of January, 1930, there were 5000 sick. The mortality rate was extremely high, 20 to 30 per cent. And only in the section where Dr. Zhizhilenko was in charge did the mortality rate not exceed 8 to 10 per cent. The physician-bishop examined each new sick person in great detail, and the first entry in the history of his disease was always enormous. Besides the basic diagnosis of the main disease, the doctor always wrote diagnoses of all accompanying diseases and gave a detailed conclusion on the condition of every organ. His diagnoses were always precise and flawless, as was confirmed in autopsies of the dead: there was never observed the slightest discrepancy between his clinical diagnosis and the pathologico-anatomical report.
His medical prescriptions for the most part were few, but often to the Basic medication would be joined some additional ones, the role of which was not always clear even to the physicians. In serious and, from the medical point of view, hopeless cases, he sometimes prescribed a very complicated treatment, which he strictly required to be undeviatingly carried out, despite the fact that various medicines had to be given every hour for days at a time. Having once carefully examined a sick man and made a medical prescription for him, on his next round Dr. Zhizhilenko, it seemed, paid little attention to him and stopped at his bed no more than a minute, feeling his pulse and looking him intensely in the eyes. Most of the sick people did not like this, and there were many complaints of the doctor's "negligence." Once Dr. Zhizhilenko was even called on this account to explain himself to the head of the Sanitarium Division. In his justification the physician-bishop indicated the statistics on the mortality rate of the section entrusted to him (extremely low compared to the other sections and all the other physicians) and the exactness of his diagnoses. While "negligently" making the rounds of the sick, he would sometimes stop before some bed and carefully, as at his first round, examine the patient anew, changing his prescription. This always meant that there had occurred a serious worsening in the patient's condition, about which the patient himself had not yet complained.
The sick died always in his arms. It seemed that the moment of death's approach was always known exactly to him. Even at night he would come suddenly into his section to a dying man some few minutes before death. He closed the eyes of every dead man, folded his arms on his chest in the form of a cross, and stood in silence, without moving, for several minutes. Apparently, he would pray. In less than a year we, all his colleagues, came to understand that he was not only a remarkable physician, but also a great man of prayer.
In personal contacts the physician-bishop, whom we all, in our doctors' cell, called "Vladika," was very reserved, rather dry, at times even severe, closed within himself, taciturn, untalkative to an extreme. Concerning himself he preferred to say nothing. The topics of his conversation always concerned either the sick or (in the circle of those persons who were very near to him spiritually) the situation of the Church.
THE ARRIVAL of Vladika Maxim at Solovki produced a great change in the attitude of the clergy who were imprisoned. At this time in the 4th Section of the Solovki camps (i.e., on the very island of Solovki), among the imprisoned bishops and priests there was observed the same schism that occurred "in freedom" after the well-known Declaration of Metr. Sergius. One part of the episcopate and the secular clergy completely broke off all communion with Metr. Sergius, remaining faithful to the unwavering position of Metropolitans Peter, Cyril, Agafangel, and Joseph, Archbishops Seraphim of Uglich and many others who witnessed their faithfulness to Christ and the Church by confession and martyrdom. Another part, however, became "Sergianists," who accepted the so-called "new church politics" of Metr. Sergius, who founded the Soviet Church and produced a neo-renovationist schism. If among the prisoners who arrived at Solovki before the publication of the Declaration of Metr. Sergius, at first the majority were "Sergianists," among the new prisoners, those who came after the Declaration, on the contrary there prevailed the so-called "Josephites," named after Metr. Joseph, around whom for the most part the unwavering and faithful children of the Church grouped themselves. With the arrival of new prisoners the number of the latter increased more and more.
Just before the arrival of Vladika Maxim, on Solovki there were the following "Josephite" bishops: Bp. Victor Glazovsky (the first to come forward with an accusatory epistle against the Declaration of Metr. Sergius), Bp. Ilarion, Vicar of Smolensk, and Bp. Nektary Trezvinsky. To the "Sergianists" belonged: Archbp. Anthony of Mariupol and Bp. Ioasaph (Prince Zhevakov). Less violent, but nonetheless a "Sergianist," was Archbp. Ilarion Troitsky, who had condemned the Declaration of Metr. Sergius but had not broken off communion with him, as the "canonically correct" first hierarch of the Russian Church.
The arrival of Vladika Maxim tremendously increased the influence (which already prevailed before that) of the "Josephites."
When, after the harshest interdictions imposed by Metr. Sergius upon the "disobedient," these latter began to be arrested and shot, then the true Orthodox Russian Church began to go into the catacombs. Metr. Sergius and all the "Sergianists" categorically denied the existence of a Catacomb Church. The "Sergianists" at Solovki, of course, likewise did not believe in its existence. And suddenly – a living witness: the first catacomb bishop, Maxim of Serpukhov, arrived in Solovki.
Archbp. Ilarion Troitsky was soon taken away somewhere from Solovki, and together with him the "Sergianist" attitude also vanished in many. Only Archbp. Anthony and, especially, Bp. Ioasaph (Zhevakov) remained persistent "Sergianists." They did not wish even to meet and converse with Bp. Maxim. On the other hand Bps. Victor, Ilarion (of Smolensk) and Nektary rather quickly found the possibility not only to meet, but also to concelebrate with Vladika Maxim in secret catacomb services in the depths of the forests of Solovki. As for the "Sergianists," they conducted themselves with extreme caution and never organized any kind of secret services. In return the camp authority likewise treated them more condescendingly than the bishops, priests, and laity of whom it was known that they "did not recognize" either Metr. Sergius or the "Soviet Church."
All those arrested for ecclesiastical matters (and such, according to official secret statistics, in 1928-29 on Solovki were as many as 20 per cent) at interrogations were invariably asked what their attitude was to "our" Metr. Sergius, who headed the "Soviet Church." At the same time the exultant GPU-interrogators with malignant joy and sarcasm would demonstrate the "strict canonicity" of Metr. Sergius and his Declaration, which "violated neither canons nor dogmas."
In denying the Catacomb Church, the "Sergianists" of Solovki denied also the "rumors" that accusatory epistles had been written and protesting delegations from the dioceses had gone to Metr. Sergius. Discovering that I, a layman, had personally participated in one such delegation, Archbp. Anthony of Mariupol once, being sick in the infirmary expressed the desire to hear my account of my trip to Metr. Sergius together with representatives of the episcopate and the secular clergy. Vladikas Victor and Maxim blessed me to go to the infirmary where Archbp. Anthony was, and tell him about this trip. In case he, after my account, should display solidarity with those who protested against the "new church politics," I was permitted to receive his blessing. But if he persisted in "Sergianism," I should not receive his blessing.
My conversation with Archbp. Anthony lasted more than two hours. I related to him in detail of the historic Delegation of the Petrograd diocese in 1927, after which the church schism occurred. At the end of my account Archbp. Anthony asked me to tell him of the person and activity of Vladika Maxim. I replied very reservedly and briefly, and he noticed that I did not fully trust him. He asked me about this. I frankly replied that we of the catacombs feared not only the agents of the GPU, but also the "Sergianists," who many times had given us over to the GPU. Archbp. Anthony was very upset at this and paced for a long time in the physicians' room to which I had called him as if for an examination, being physician-consultant. Then suddenly he said decisively: "But all the same I will remain with Metr. Sergius." I got up, bowed, and was about to leave. He raised his hand for a blessing, but I, remembering the direction of Vladikas Victor and Maxim, avoided receiving the blessing and left.
When I related what had happened to Vladika Maxim, he affirmed again that I should never take a blessing from persistent "Sergianists." "The Soviet and Catacomb Churches are incompatible," said Vladika Maxim with emphasis, firmly, with conviction, and after a silence added quietly: "The secret Catacomb Church of the wilderness has anathematized the 'Sergianists' and those with them."
DESPITE THE EXTREME strictness of the discipline of the Solovki camp, which meant that they risked being tortured and shot, Vladikas Victor, Ilarion, Nektary, and Maxim not only often concelebrated in secret catacomb services in the forests of the island, but also performed secret consecrations of several new bishops. These were performed in strictest secrecy even from those closest to the candidates, so that in case of arrest and torture they could not give away to the GPU truly secret bishops. Only on the eve of my departure from Solovki I found out from my close friend, a celibate priest, that he was no longer a priest, but a secret bishop.
The common spiritual father of the entire Catacomb episcopate and secular clergy on the island of Solovki was the remarkable confessor, and later also martyr, Archpriest Nicholas Piskanovsky (from the city of Voronezh). Vladika Maxim deeply revered him and called him an "adamant of Orthodoxy." Once Vladika Maxim, with great agitation of soul and heartfelt tears (he was rarely in such a state) showed me a postcard which Fr. Nicholas had received from his wife and young son. On this postcard was written: "We always rejoice, thinking of your sufferings in the camp for Christ and His Church. May you too rejoice that we also have become worthy again and again to be persecuted for the Lord."
At Solovki we had several secret Catacomb "churches," but our "favorites" were two: the "Cathedral Church" of the Holy Trinity, and the church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. The first was a small clearing in the midst of a dense forest in the direction of the "Savvaty" Assignment Area. The dome of this church was the sky. The walls were the birch forest. The church of St. Nicholas was located in the deep forest towards the "Muksolm" Assignment Area. It was a thicket naturally formed by seven large spruces. Most frequently the secret services were conducted here, in the church of St. Nicholas. In the "Holy Trinity Cathedral" services were conducted only in the summer, on great feasts and, with special solemnity, on the Day of Pentecost. But sometimes, depending on circumstances, doubly secret services were celebrated also in other places. Thus, for example, on Great Thursday of 1929, the service of the reading of the Twelve Gospels was celebrated in our physicians' cell in the 10th Company. Vladika Victor and Fr. Nicholas came to us, as if for disinfection. Then, catacomb-style, they served the church service with the door bolted. On Great Friday an order was read in all Companies informing that for the next three days no one would be allowed to leave the Companies after 8 p.m., save in exceptional circumstances and by special written permit of the Camp Commandant.
At 7 p.m. on Friday, when we physicians had just returned to our cells after a 12-hour workday, Fr. Nicholas came to us and told us that a Plashchanitsa (burial shroud with the image of Christ) the size of one's palm had been painted by the artist R. The service – the rite of burial was to be held and would begin in an hour. "Where?" Vladika Maxim asked. "In the great box for drying fish which is close to the forest, next to Camp N. The password: three knocks and then two. It's better to come one at a time."
In half an hour Vladika Maxim and I left our Company and started out for the indicated "address." Twice the patrols asked for our permits. We, as physicians, had them. But what about the others? – Vladika Victor, Vladika Ilarion, Vladika Nektary, and Fr. Nicholas? Vladika Victor worked as a bookkeeper in the rope factory. Vladika Nektary was a fisherman; and the others weaved nets... Here was the edge of the forest. Here was the box, about nine yards long, without windows, the door scarcely noticeable. Light twilight, the sky covered with dark clouds. We knock three times and then twice. Fr. Nicholas opens. Vladika Victor and Vladika Ilarion are already here... In a few minutes Vladika Nektary also comes. The interior of the box has been converted into a church. On the floor, on the walls, spruce branches. Several candles flickering. Small paper icons. The small Plashchanitsa is buried in green branches. Ten people have come to pray. Later another four or five come, of whom two are monks. The service begins, in a whisper. It seemed that we had no bodies, but were only souls. Nothing distracted or interfered with prayer... I don't remember how we went "home," i.e., to our Companies. The Lord covered us!
The bright service of Pascha was assigned to our physicians' cell Towards midnight, under various urgent pretexts arranged by the medical section, without any kind of written permit, all who intended to come gathered, about fifteen people in all. After the Matins and Liturgy, we sat down and broke the fast. On the table were Paschal cake and cheese, colored eggs, cold dishes, wine (liquid yeast with cranberry extract and sugar). About three o'clock we parted.
Control rounds of our Company were made by the Camp Commandant before and after the services, at 11 p.m. and 4 a.m. Finding us, four physicians headed by Vladika Maxim, on his last round, the Commandant said: "What, doctors, you're not sleeping?" And immediately he added: "Such a night... and one doesn't want to sleep!" And he left.
"Lord Jesus Christ! We thank Thee for the miracle of Thy mercy and power," pronounced Vladika Maxim movingly, expressing our common feelings.
The white night of Solovki was nearing its end. The delicate, rosecolored Paschal morning of Solovki, the sun playing for joy, greeted the monastery-concentration camp, converting it into the invisible city of Kitezh and filling our free souls with a quiet, unearthly joy. Many years have passed since that time, but the fragrant remembrance of this delicate Paschal morning is unforgettably alive; it was literally only yesterday. And the heart believes that among us then was a saint.
Vladika Maxim was especially friendly with Vladika Victor, who was the complete opposite of the bishop-physician. Vladika Victor was short of stature, stout, full of joy, open, accessible, friendly to all, talkative. "One must comfort every man with something," he said, and everyone he met he knew how to "comfort," to make happy, to evoke a smile from him. He came often and conversed long with Vladika Maxim on the destiny of the Russian Orthodox Church. Being an optimist, he constantly tried to "infect" Vladika Maxim with his faith in Russia's bright future; but the latter remained a pessimist, or as he defined himself in the words of K. Leontiev, an "optimistic pessimist." The tragic end of world history draws near, and therefore, according to the word of the Lord, one must "bow one's head" in expectation of the certain triumph of Christ's truth!
On January 21 (February 3), 1930, on the feast of St. Maximus the Confessor (Vladika Maxim's name's day), we physicians got together and bought in our camp store an immense "pontifical" porcelain teacup, of exceedingly fine workmanship, and solemnly presented it as a gift to our dear Vladika. Vladika ate little, but he loved to drink tea. The gift was a great success. This whole day we again spent, as on Pascha, together, in our cell, and Vladika Victor told us much concerning interesting details in the trial of St. Maximus the Confessor. "You are fortunate, Vladika, that you bear the name of such a great heavenly protector and confessor in our day," Vladika Victor concluded his account with heartfelt joy.
On July 5 (18), 1930, on the feast of St. Sergius of Radonezh, our friends in the office of the Sanitarium Division informed me that I would be arrested at night and sent with a "special convoy" to Leningrad, "on new business." Forewarned, I prepared myself, bade farewell to my friends, and, without lying down to sleep, began to await my arrest. Hearing at two in the morning a noise and footsteps downstairs (our cell was on the second floor), I bowed to the ground before Vladika Maxim (who also was not sleeping) and asked him to bless me and pray that the Lord would send me strength to bear the coming sorrows, sufferings, and perhaps torture and death. Vladika stood up, drew himself up in all his Herculean stature (it seemed to me that he had grown and become enormous), slowly blessed me, kissed me three times, and said with emotion: "You will have many sorrows and heavy trials, but your life will be preserved, and in the end you will go out into freedom. But as for me, in a few months they will arrest me also and... shoot me! And you too pray for me, while I am alive, and especially after my death."
Vladika Maxim's prediction was fulfilled precisely. In December of 1930 he was arrested and taken to Moscow. The Russian press abroad in 1931 printed the following notice: "Vatican, Nov. 30. Only today the Vatican Commission 'Pro-Russia' received news of the death of Maxim, Orthodox Bishop of Serpukhov. Bp. Maxim was shot on July 6 by the Bolsheviks for refusing to recognize Metropolitan Sergius, who as is known has been reconciled to the Soviet authority."
Grant rest, O Lord, with the saints, to the soul of Thy slave Maxim, first Catacomb bishop of the long-suffering Russian Orthodox Church.
Editors' note: The sanctity of Bishop-martyr Maxim – not only in martyrdom, but in his life as well – shines forth clearly in this first-hand account (text from ORTHODOX PATH, Jordanville, 1951). A recent proof of this is attested by his niece, who lives in New York. Only this year she was saved from a seemingly impossible situation by undoubted heavenly help, and she writes: "I firmly believe that this was because my uncle prayed for me before the Lord."
And thus we may believe that the Orthodox Christian of today has a special heavenly intercession in misfortunes and in the approaching trials of faith, both through the Bishop-martyr Maxim and through the whole choir of millions of new martyrs of the atheist communist yoke.
Holy New Martyr Maxim, pray to God for us! Amen.
The Orthodox Word No. 32
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