The Orthodox Word No. 59

THE ORTHODOX WORD

A Bimonthly Periodical OF THE BROTHERHOOD OF SAINT HERMAN OF ALASKA

 

Established with the blessing of His Eminence the late John (Maximovitch), Archbishop of Western America and San Francisco, Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia PLATINA, CALIFORNIA 96076

1974, Vol. 10, no. 6 (59)
November - December

CONTENTS

221 A Decade of the Blessing of Archbishop John

224 The Cry of the New Martyrs

235 The Catacomb Tikhonite Church 1974

[255 The Orthodox Word: Ten-Year Index of Articles]

COVER: The Royal Martyr-Children, the son and daughters of Tsar Nicholas II, martyred on July 4/17, 1918, placing the beginning of the child-martyrs of the Communist Yoke,

MICROFILM copies of all back issues and of individual articles are available from Xerox University Microfilms, 300 N. Zeeb Rd., Ann Arbor, MI., 48106.

Copyright 1974 by The Saint Herman of Alaska Brotherhood.

Published bimonthly by The Saint Herman of Alaska Brotherhood. Second- class postage paid at Platina, California. Yearly subscription $5, two years $9, three years $12. Office of Publication: Beegum Gorge Road, Platina, California.

All inouiries should be directed to:

THE ORTHODOX WORD, PLATINA, CALIFORNIA, 96076, U.S.A.


A DECADE OF THE BLESSING OF
Archbishop John

 
The Skete of the St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood at Platina in Northern California


WHEN ARCHBISHOP JOHN MAXIMOVITCH of blessed memory founded and named The Orthodox Word in 1965, he wrote the following words of blessing:

"May the Lord bless the preaching of the Orthodox Word. Christ commanded His disciples, Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. May this preaching serve for the strengthening of True Orthodox Faith and Christian life in North America, with the help and prayers of Blessed Father Herman of Alaska, whose sanctity was manifested on this continent, and the Aleut Martyr Peter, who suffered martyrdom in San Francisco."

From that day to this the Saint Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, in its often difficult labors of publishing The Orthodox Word, has lived on the blessing of Archbishop John, striving by every means to present the True Orthodox Faith and life as it has been handed down to American Orthodoxy first by St. Herman, and most recently by our own holy Archbishop John and others who have lived a God-pleasing life.

In these ten years we have been able to observe the astonishing "rapport" that exists between Archbishop John, a strict ascetic of the 2000-year-old school of Orthodox spirituality, and the young missionary movement of True Orthodoxy in America and other lands. It was he who foresaw and promoted the canonization of St. Herman of Alaska and already sang the "Magnification" to him as to an acknowledged Saint; who first brought to the awareness of American Orthodoxy the Aleut Martyr Peter; who resurrected for 20th-century Orthodoxy the forgotten Saints of Western lands, entering some into official lists of Saints and encouraging the veneration of others; who dearly loved the Orthodox Saints of all lands, and evoked love and emulation of them as an indispensable part of Orthodox spiritual life; who was afire with missionary zeal, inspiring converts in many lands from China to Western Europe to America, and founding several missionary Churches in the West; who was a heroic confessor of True Orthodoxy against pernicious Sergianism in China, risking his life to preserve the integrity of the Russian Church Outside of Russia and becoming one of the leading spokesmen of its firm confession of Orthodoxy; who was a zealot of True Orthodox Faith and piety; who never missed a Church service, and by his example awakened love for the Divine services and their Typicon; and who inspired most of all by his holy life of severe asceticism which flowered in unbounded love for his fellow men and a foolishness for Christ's sake that upset human formalities in order the better to communicate the Gospel of Christ.

In the early issues of The Orthodox Word, with the approval of Archbishop John, a tone was established of outspoken expression of the Truth. Plain words were spoken about the schism of the American Metropolia; about the lie of the Moscow Patriarchate; about the heresies and lack of grace of Roman Catholicism and her deceived modern "saints," even to the extent of comparing Pope Paul VI to Antichrist; about the heresy and impiety of ecumenism and the shameful participation of the "canonical" Orthodox hierarchs in them, and in particular about the blasphemies and deviation from Orthodoxy of Patriarch Athenagoras and his followers. This outspokenness aroused discontent and even anger among some Orthodox people, who protested that the Brotherhood had no right to "attack bishops." The brothers, therefore, as always, asked Archbishop John's counsel on this point. He replied with a smile that he fully approved of this outspoken tone and the "controversial" articles in The Orthodox Word, and he said that they breathed the same spirit as the articles in Orthodox Russia by Archbishop Averky of Jordanville. Thus the Brotherhood was assured by its holy founder of being on the correct path of speaking the word of Orthodoxy with boldness, and in addition it obtained Archbishop John's testimony of the correct Orthodox tone of another great hierarch of these days of almost universal apostasy: Archbishop Averky of Jordanville, who to this day has not ceased to thunder the word of Truth and call everyone — not to the path of a vague "Orthodoxy" which would unite heretics and apostates — but to the True-Orthodoxy which is the treasure only of those who truly value their Faith: the True-Orthodox Christians of Russia, Greece, and the Diaspora.

The life of Archbishop John was a joining together of the strictest monastic asceticism and an apostolic missionary activity, in the tradition of his beloved hierarchs of ancient Gaul, Sts. Martin of Tours, Germanus of Auxerre, and others whose lives he imitated in our spiritually barren 20th century. Inspired by him, the St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, which began with his blessing as a lay brotherhood, dreamed of reaching its fulfillment in a monastic brotherhood which would be both remote from the world and yet filled with missionary spirit and activity. When this dream was confided to him, he immediately understood it, approved, and spoke these encouraging and prophetic words: "I believe that there will be such a monastery in California." On another occasion he pushed the Brotherhood in this direction by calling it a "reflection of Valaam." After Archbishop John's repose, land was purchased for this purpose through his prayers, and when in 1970 the Brotherhood became a monastic one, his words were fulfilled. In the many trials of monastic life since then, he, together with St. Herman, has been the constant inspiration and guide of the Brotherhood, which regards as its sacred duty the fulfillment of his missionary testament to 20th-century Orthodox Christians.

As the second decade under the blessing of Archbishop John begins for The Orthodox Word, the world-wide crisis of Orthodoxy in which the periodical was born has deepened and worsened, and there will be urgent need for the word of Orthodoxy to be uttered even more sharply and clearly than hitherto. The Index of articles at the end of this issue will indicate the subjects that will continue to be treated. The 2600 pages that have been printed so far have not begun to exhaust these subjects, wherein is contained an inexhaustible wealth for the True-Orthodox Christians of these last times. This is the offering of the St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood to the Orthodox missionary movement which will not end until the very consummation of the age.


 

THE CRY OF THE NEW MARTYRS

The True Christian is a warrior fighting his way through the regiments of the unseen
enemy to bis heavenly homeland.
—St. Herman of Alaska

LIFE ON EARTH is given to man in order to acquire the Holy Spirit. To do this one must learn also to distinguish the worship of the true Spirit of God from the counterfeit spirit, the spirit of this world whose prince is satan, the enemy of God. The whole earthly happiness of man consists in conscious growth in the knowledge and practice of the law of Christian spiritual life which, according to Bishop Theophanes the Recluse, is a realm into which the wisdom of this world does not penetrate. Christian life must be wholly devoted to "walking in the Spirit" (Gal. 5:16). For some, this may be a long, patient process up to old age and a blameless Christian death; but the martyrs have acquired their heavenly crowns in a brief moment when death found them with a sober heart entirely directed to God, confessing Christ even unto torture and death. For Christ has said, What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? (Mark 8:36.)

The first martyrs for Christ were the 14,000 Innocents, the children born at the time of Christ’s Nativity whose death was the immediate result of the hatred of the Prince of this world for the Divine Infant. Even without knowing it, these children were witnesses of Christ, and all the martyrs who have followed them, even until now, are the same victims of satan’s malice, and at the same time a sacrifice pleasing to God.

Today, as even worldly philosophers and historians have begun to admit, mankind has reached a dead-end, and the events of these times are unparalleled in all world history, as if pointing to the end of history itself. These terrible times began in earnest in 1917 with the taking away of that which restraineth the coming of Antichrist (II Thes. 2:7) — that is, the lawful Christian authority which was especially incarnated in the Emperors of Byzantium and Russia. At this time, again, the attack of the anti-Christian power took first the form of the slaughter of the Royal Innocents, the children of the Tsar who were martyred with their father, even as earlier the very first of Russia’s New Martyrs had been a simple-hearted pastor who was killed on the very eve of the feast of the 14,000 Innocents (Dec. 28, 1904), in front of his own children. Indeed, the innocent children who have been victims of the Soviet Yoke cannot be counted; there have even been special concentration camps in the USSR solely for children, as if to prove the satanic maliciousness of the Soviet system. For Orthodox Christians these are not "coincidences," but profound lessons: we Orthodox Christians of these last times must stand in Christ’s Truth in utter simplicity and childlikeness, not trusting our own wisdom in order to reply to the wise inquisitors of this evil world, for the Holy Spirit shall teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say (Luke 12:12).

Russian history in the 20th century has given the world something of incalculable value: Saints who have endured and triumphed over the greatest experiment in anti-theism, warfare against God, in the history of the world — the New Confessors and Martyrs of Russia. They have proved that for the human soul there are no higher values than: (1) FAITH in the purity of the Orthodoxy of Christ’s Church, (2) HOPE in everlasting life after death, and (3) the all-conquering power of LOVE both for men here on earth and for God in heaven. They have been tested in every conceivable trial and temptation and have withstood, being refined even as pure gold in the furnace, fit for the heavenly kingdom.

The New Martyrs of Russia fall into two periods: the period before and the period after 1927, the year of the infamous "Declaration" of Metr. Sergius. The album of portraits of the New Martyrs in this issue (a few out of millions!) is divided in this way, into two parts.

First, there were the martyrs who were made by the first wave of the Revolution, when the servants of satan were probing to see how they might snatch the very essence of Orthodoxy from the people’s hearts: they accused the faithful of "politics" and persecuted them ostensibly for this and not for their "religion"; they robbed the Church under the pretext of helping the victims of famine (a famine which was artificially created by the Soviets themselves); they instigated churchmen of weak conscience to "renovate" the Church (the "Living Church"). But these probings all failed. Millions lost their lives, churches were pillaged and destroyed, the holy things of Russia were desecrated — but the heart of the Church remained untouched, and the faithful stood as one man behind their Patriarch, the holy hieromartyr Tikhon.

Then, the Soviets having failed to gain their end, they sought a Judas to betray the Church from within by a kiss: a hierarch who would be "Orthodox," who would "violate neither dogmas nor canons," who would draw to himself the whole Church people and stand at their head — solely in order "to blow the Church up from within," as Metr. Cyril of Kazan has expressed it, by making the Church the servant of atheists who were conducting warfare against God. After many attempts, the Soviets finally found such a Judas in Metr. Sergius, whose "Declaration" in 1927 bound the Church to the atheist State and destroyed its power to confess the Truth. Then indeed did the winnowing of the chaff and the wheat begin in the Russian Church. Those who accepted the "Declaration" fell into a subtle trap from which it is scarcely possible to escape, sinning against the very dogma of the Church by identifying the Church with the church organization, binding the Church of Him Who is Truth to the Soviet lie. Thus they perpetrated a schism in the Russian Church, for the True Church of Christ cannot be so bound. The heroes of this second period of martyrdom are those who rightly distinguished between True Orthodoxy and its "outwardly correct" counterfeit, the Sergianist church organization, which is so brazen as to deny the very existence of the New Martyrs of Russia; they are greater than the confessors and martyrs of the first period of the Communist Yoke, for the temptation was greater.

This battle is still being waged today in Russia. On a "secular" level this battle has been described by A. Solzhenitsyn as "not living by lies" — but few are they who are capable of discerning the very subtle lie upon which the Sergianist church organization (the "Moscow Patriarchate") rests. To the lovers of this world, living in the Truth is an impossible Utopia or else something totally incomprehensible; after all, almost the whole of public life both in the USSR and in the free world is based upon lies of varying degrees, and it is not only the Sergianist church organization that is eaten through with them. The voice of the confessors against Sergianism is not for Russia alone; thanks to the Russian Diaspora the Cry of the New Martyrs can now be heard everywhere, and the opportunity to understand and live True Orthodoxy has become universal. The New Martyrs are the intercessors of all who stand in True Orthodoxy, wherever they may be or whatever the nature of their struggle against the counterfeit Christianity and counterfeit Orthodoxy of our times.

WE, ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS TODAY, ARE PERISHING! We need the New Martyrs to call us to authentic spiritual life. They touch in us something so deep and elemental that our souls and minds, made shallow by modern "enlightenment," can scarcely grasp it; and yet we know it.

Let us join their army in the march to eternal bliss, making the resolve to stand for the Truth even unto the death of the body. This stand, if only we knew it, contains the secret to the deepest happiness possible on earth, because it is natural for the soul created by God.

Let us listen to the cry of the New Martyrs! Let us hear their clarion call and follow their beacon and become, in the words of St. Herman:

TRUE CHRISTIANS: WARRIORS FIGHTING OUR WAY THROUGH THE REGIMENTS OF THE UNSEEN ENEMY TO OUR HEAVENLY HOMELAND. Amen.

 
Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev

MARTYRED JANUARY 25, 1918

AS THE HOLY PRINCE VIrdimir baptized Russia in Kiev, so also did this new Vladimir in Kiev (in the Caves Lavra) put a beginning to Russia's new baptism in the blood of martyrdom. When the Patriarch and the Fathers of the All-Russian Council, then meeting in Moscow, heard the news of his brutal murder, they sang "Eternal Memory" for him and established the day of his martyrdom as the day of commemoration for him and all the New Martyrs, thus placing an official beginning for the veneration of Russia's New Martyrs.

 
Child Proto-New-Martyr Alexis Crown Prince of Holy Russia

MARTYRED JULY 4, 1918

THIS HOLY INNOCENT was born just seventy years ago in answer to the fervent prayer of the Royal Family at the canonization of St. Seraphim; Blessed Pasha of Sarov prophesied to the Tsar that the much-desired heir to the Throne would be born. He suffered all his life and died a pure child, becoming a patron saint of children. To this day he is deeply revered in the Catacomb Church of Russia as an intercessor for the whole of the suffering Russian land.

 
Priest Proto-Martyr Vladimir Troepolsky

SLAIN ON THE EVE OF THE 14,000 INNOCENTS, DEC, 28, 1904

FOR HIS FEARLESS apostolic preaching of pure Orthodoxy against the revolutionaries and the Protestant sect of Stundites, who worked together. he was stabbed to death in his home before the eyes of his wife and children after being warned to stop his flaming sermons. At his funeral these prophetic words were uttered: "We believe that the blood of this pastor-martyr will not only not lessen the strength of the Church, but on the contrary, will be a seed from which will grow forth hosts of equally fear- less pastor-martyrs, ready to receive a martyr's crown for the work of Christ."

 
Bishop Barnabas of Tobolsk

MARTYRED IN PRISON IN 1919

RISING TO THE RANK of bishop from among the simple people, having been a gardener by profession, the young Bishop Barnabas proved to be an unwavering apostle in Siberia and a promoter of the canonization of St. John of Tobolsk, who was working many miracles then and even appeared to Bishop Barnabas from another world, asking for his canonization at a cru- cial time for Russia, which was then at war with enemies both foreign and domestic on the eve of the Revolution. It was by the personal initiative of Tsar Nicholas II that St. John was glorified in 1916, while otherwise he would have remained forgotten, as are hundreds of other holy men and women of recent centuries. In prison before his death Bishop Barnabas gave encouragement to his fellow prisoners, until he himself was shot.

 
Bishop Isidore of Balakhnin

Vicar of Nizhni Novgorod

MARTYRED BY IMPALEMENT IN SAMARA IN 1919

THE SON of a renowned ascetic and holy man, Fr. Alexis Kolokolov, and a spiritual man himself, he was in contact with the best spiritual circles in Petersburg. Being banished for some reason to Valaam in 1912, he learned there by revelation of the future sufferings of Russia, covered with blood; he shared this revelation with several bishops who were there, and they wept together in this knowledge and later all were martyred.

 
Bishop Simon of Ufa

MARTYRED JULY 6, 1921

FATHER S. SHLEYEV in the world, he was a chief leader and inspirer of the movement of reunion of the Old Believers to Orthodoxy at the turn of the century, which was supported by Tsar Nicholas II and actively promoted by the later Metropolitans Anthony Khrapovitsky and Anastassy, leading to a genuine revival of the ancient traditions of Orthodoxy and the restoration of the veneration of St. Anna of Kashin, and culminating in the All-Russian Conference of 1912-at which the Tsarevich Alexis appeared in ancient imperial regalia which proclaimed the principles of ancient tra- dition for all of Russia. After the Revolution he was a missionary bishop in the Old Believer territory of Ufa, where he was shot in his apartments by someone instigated by the Revolutionary spirit.

 
Archpriest Alexis Stavrovsky

SHOT IN OCTOBER, 1918

HEAD CHAPLAIN of the Russian Army and Navy, he was revered throughout Russia. Arrested in 1918 at the age of 84, he was placed in a row with other prisoners, every tenth one of whom was to be executed, according to a whim of the Soviets. Next to him was a young priest, and to him the lot of death fell. Fr. Alexis turned to him and said: "I am old, and in life

I received everything. Go with God; I will take your place." And thus he received his martyr's crown, dying for his brother.

 
The Holy Patriarch Tikhon

MARTYRED ON MARCH 25, 1925

ELECTED to the restored Patriarchal Throne at the beginning of the most agonizing period of Russian history, he became the true Father of the believing Russian people, anathematizing the Communists and all who would ever cooperate with them, and remaining to this day a symbol of the lost free- dom and manliness of the Russian Orthodox people. The True-Orthodox Church still calls itself the "Tikhonite" Church after this sole authentic Patriarch of 20th-century Russian Orthodoxy.

 


The Catacomb Tikhonite Church 1974

FIRST PUBLIC INFORMATION IN THE WEST CONCERNING

Metropolitan Theodosius

CHIEF HIERARCHY OF THE TRUE-ORTHODOX CHURCH OF RUSSIA

 

MANY TRUE ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS in the free world were shocked and disturbed when the world-renowned Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, now living in exile in Switzerland, wrote in his Letter to the Third All-Diaspora Council of the Russian Church Outside of Russia, meeting at Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville, New York, in September of this year, that “one should not substitute in imaginary fashion a catacomb church for the real Russian Orthodox people,” denied the very existence of a “secret church organization,” and warned the hierarchs of the Church Outside of Russia that they should not “show solidarity with a mysterious, sinless, but also bodiless catacomb.” The enemies of True Orthodoxy and defenders of the Sergianist Moscow Patriarchate were quick to take advantage of these phrases for their own propagandistic purposes, reporting them under such headlines as No “Catacomb” Church.1 It would indeed benefit greatly the progress of renovationist “Orthodoxy” if it could be “proved”—or at least shouted loudly enough—that there is no “Catacomb Church” in Russia, that the only Orthodoxy in the USSR is the renovated, Sergianist version of it presented to the world by the Moscow Patriarchate—which indeed, Solzhenitsyn believes, is not at all “fallen” but is the real Orthodox Church of Russia. These statements of Solzhenitsyn raise important questions of two kinds: of fact, and of theology.

___
1 So The Orthodox Church, official organ of the American Metropolia, November, 1974, p. 2.


To be sure, at the beginning of his Letter Solzhenitsyn writes: “Realizing my unpreparedness for stepping out on an ecclesiastical question before a gathering of priests and hierarchs who have devoted their whole life to the service of the Church... I only beg condescension for my possible mistakes in terminology or in the very essence of my judgments”; and at the end he again apologizes: “I do not fancy myself called to decide ecclesiastical questions.” It would therefore surely be no offence to Solzhenitsyn, who speaks so convincingly and truthfully on other questions, to point out, for those who wish to hear the truth, his mistakes both in fact and theology regarding the True-Orthodox Church of Russia.

These mistakes of Solzhenitsyn, as it turns out, have had one fortunate consequence: they have caused several persons who have more accurate information than he about church life in the Soviet Union to speak out and directly refute his claim that there is no “secret church organization” there:

1. One revealing glimpse of the continuing life of Russia’s Catacomb Church is contained in the brief biography of the young Vladimir Osipov, editor for four years of the now-defunct Samizdat periodical Veche, which was noted for its strong nationalist and Orthodox intent, expressing the “Slavophile” position in contemporary Russia. According to an article of Alexei Kiselev, based on an interview with Anatoly Levitin (Krasnov),1 when Osipov was in a concentration camp in the 1960’s “he met a strange old man whom all the prisoners called ‘Vladika.’ This was Michael, a bishop of the True-Orthodox Church. He made a powerful impression on Osipov and this encounter, it may be, is what turned him to religion.” This very mention of a True-Orthodox (Catacomb) Bishop in the contemporary Soviet Union, and of his influence on the young generation of religious seekers, is already an important sign for those thirsting for every scrap of information on True Orthodoxy in Russia; but fortunately, from the same Krasnov and other sources, we now have a much better idea than this of the existence of Catacomb Bishops in the Soviet Union today.

___
1 Russian text in Novoye Russkoye Slovo, about Feb. 1, 1975, p. 3.


2. The monthly bulletin Religion and Atheism in the USSR (in Russian), published in Munich by N. Theodorovich, has printed portions of three letters it has received from persons of German origin who recently emigrated from the Soviet Union and who, independently of each other, have reacted to Solzhenitsyn’s statements on the Catacomb Church. One of them writes:

“A. I. Solzhenitsyn has not happened to meet any members of this Church. I was with them in prison and worked together with them in a corrective-labor colony. They are deeply believing people and very firm in faith. They are persecuted for belonging to this prohibited Church.”

The second writes: “‘Catacomb’ or ‘Secret’ Church is the named used here [outside of Russia]. In the USSR it is called the ‘True-Orthodox’ or THE CATACOMB TIKHONITE CHURCH
‘Tikhonite’ Church. To it belong deeply-believing Orthodox people who do not recognize the official church. For this the regime persecutes them. I know many of them who are now free, but I will not give their names or places of residence.”

The third writer gives a more complete description of the life of the True-Orthodox Church, whose services are sometimes conducted by monks, nuns, and laymen: “The True-Orthodox Church has a hierarchy, but the majority of it is in prison or in corrective colonies. Members of the True-Orthodox Church conduct their services according to the rituals of the Orthodox Church. If they have no priest, the services are conducted by someone who knows most about them. I know of some who have not married and have dedicated themselves to God from childhood; they also conduct services. These are, as a rule, absolutely honest people who lead a morally pure life. In the USSR members of the True-Orthodox Church are cut off from the influences of the world on their life and are absolutely dedicated to God. The greater part of the believers of the True-Orthodox Church conduct their services under ordained priests. Your suppositions that the members of the True-Orthodox Church are only old people who remain from the time of the schism of 1927 brought a smile to my lips. Those whom I personally knew were born after 1927. Of course, there are also those who remember 1927. They also have non-liturgical gatherings for prayer, when they read the Holy Scripture and spiritual books. Their prayer, for the most part, amounts to petitions for the awakening of faith in the Russian people. They sometimes allow young people at their Divine services if they know that they will not betray them to the militia or the KGB. The less publicity there is about them, the better for them. But it should be known that they need books of Holy Scripture and spiritual literature.”1

___
1 Religion and Atheism in the USSR, December, 1974, p. 9.


3. The most striking information about the True-Orthodox Church of Russia to be given in recent months comes from the well-known fighter for “civil rights” in the Soviet Union, Anatoly Levitin (Krasnov), who left the USSR for exile in Switzerland in September of this year. In his youth he took an active part as a Deacon in the “Living Church” schism, and even today, long after repenting and returning to the Orthodox Church, his views can only be described as extremely “liberal” and “ecumenical.” His testimony of the True-Orthodox Church is all the more valuable in that he cannot be accused of any preconceived sympathy for it; for him it is a “sect,” and therefore it is as deserving of as much respect and freedom as any other “sect” in the contemporary Soviet Union.

The first statement of Krasnov’s that we shall quote comes from his Samizdat declaration to the Committee on Human Rights in Moscow, made on September 5, just before his departure from the Soviet Union. Here, together with his protests against the persecution of Uniats, Baptists, Adventists, Pentecostalists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses, there is a section on “Persecutions Against the True-Orthodox Church (TOC).” Here he writes: “This Church has been subjected to persecutions for the course of 47 years.” He continues with an historical account of the Declaration of Metropolitan Sergius in 1927 and the protests of a number of bishops against it; of how all the bishops who took part in the “Schism of 1927” perished in the 1930’s in the concentration camps; and of how they managed to ordain a number of bishops in the camps as their successors, from whom the present secret hierarchy of the True-Orthodox Church derives its existence. He continues: “The number of members of the TOC is not subject to reckoning. However, according to information received from members of this Church, it has from eight to ten bishops, about 200 priests, and several thousand laymen. The activity of the TOC is strictly persecuted. The regime fears its spread.”1

___
1 Religion and Atheism in the USSR, December, 1974, p. 2.


4. Yet more detailed information on the True-Orthodox Church was given by Krasnov after his arrival in the West, where he discovered that, once again, a part of the Russian “liberal” intelligentsia was rejoicing over the “non-existence of the Catacomb Church,” which this time had been “proved” by Solzhenitsyn. This is what Krasnov said in an interview with the Paris Russian weekly, La Pensee Russe (December 5, 1974, p. 5):

“As for the Catacomb Church — it exists, it is not an invention. According to my information, it has about ten bishops. These bishops have their hierarchical succession from the Josephites, the bishops who separated from Metropolitan Sergius in 1927... At the present time there are, as far as I know, perhaps twelve, perhaps eight bishops. They were all ordained in the camps by the hierarchs who were there, and all of them are developing their own activity. There are also priests. But all the same, this is a very small layer of the population. In the first place, all of this is so profoundly secret that it is very difficult to find out anything for sure. I know one nun who came to an Orthodox archimandrite in order to persuade him to go over to the ‘True-Orthodox Church.’ When he began to ask her more details, she replied to him: ‘When you come over to us, they will tell you everything.’ I know that there is an underground Metropolitan Theodosius — he is their head, and in connection with the election of Patriarch Pimen he published [in Samizdat] his own proclamation, which went about Moscow, Peter,1 and Kiev, under the signature of ‘Metropolitan Theodosius,’ where in the name of the ‘True-Orthodox Church’ a negative attitude was declared toward the Patriarchate. In private conversations they usually say that they consider the closest current to themselves to be the Orthodox Synodal Church, the so-called ‘Karlovitz’ Church [the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia]. They usually say: strictly speaking we are not against the regime; we are monarchists, but we are not against the regime, inasmuch as every authority is from God.2 They only cannot accept the hierarchy, inasmuch as it is in dependence on the atheists. Well, they consider Patriarch Tikhon their last head [i.e., patriarch], which is why usually in the camps they are called ‘Tikhonites.’ It should be said that their adherents are usually old people, or those released from the camps. Their Divine services usually occur in private apartments, and at these secret Liturgies three or four people are present.... The True-Orthodox Church hides itself too much in the underground; it has the character of something so secret, so mysterious, that literally no one can find it; although, to be sure, one cannot refuse to respect these people who are very firm, very sincere.”

___
1 A pre-Revolutionary nickname for St. Petersburg (now “Leningrad”).
2 This is probably not an accurate statement about the position of the True-Orthodox Church in Russia on this point. See the Samizdat Catacomb document “Church and Authority” (The Orthodox Word, 1972, no. 3 pp. 133—135), where the Soviet regime is called an “anti-authority.”


EVEN BEFORE THIS it was not possible to deny at least the existence of Catacomb True-Orthodox Christians in Russia, about whom even the Soviet press speaks; and now no objective observer can well deny the existence of their “secret church organization,” either. Solzhenitsyn’s “facts” in the matter are clearly mistaken; his very position in the Soviet Union as a world-famous writer constantly under the close watch of the Secret Police has effectively insulated him against contact with the secret life of the True-Orthodox Church.

Even when his mistaken facts have been corrected, however, the main contention of Solzhenitsyn remains: Orthodox Christians of the West, he believes, should not show solidarity with perhaps some thousands (or tens of thousands) of Catacomb Christians, but rather with the “many millions” of the “real Russian Orthodox people.” To justify this position he hazards a bold ecclesiological statement (of whose full implications he is doubtless unaware): “The sins of submission and betrayal allowed by the hierarchs have lain as an earthly and heavenly responsibility upon these leaders, but they do not extend to the church body, to the numerous conscientious priests, to the mass of those who pray in the churches — and they can never be transmitted to the church people; the whole history of Christianity persuades us of this. If the sins of the hierarchs were relayed to the faithful, the Church of Christ would not be eternal and invincible, but would depend entirely on the accidents of character and conduct.”

Here Solzhenitsyn doubtless speaks for all those who defend and justify the Moscow Patriarchate, and if he were speaking only of the personal sins of hierarchs, he would be speaking the truth. But the Catacomb hierarchs and faithful have not in the least separated from the Moscow Patriarchate because of the personal sins of its hierarchs — but rather because of their apostasy from Christ, which does indeed involve not merely the hierarchs, but also the whole of the Church’s faithful.

Let us here make clear several points, because the proponents of a “liberal” Orthodox theology and ecclesiology have so clouded the issue with their emotional arguments that it has become very difficult to see things clearly and calmly as they actually are.

Let it be said first of all that those, whether in Russia or outside, who accuse the hierarchs of the Moscow Patriarchate not of any personal sins, but of apostasy, do not in the least “curse” or condemn the simple people who go to the open churches in the Soviet Union, nor the conscientious priests who serve as well as they can under the inhuman pressures exerted by the Communist Government, nor even the betraying hierarchs themselves; people who say this are, purely and simply, slandering the position of the True-Orthodox Christians. While considering the clergy and faithful of the Moscow Patriarchate as participants in apostasy and schism, True-Orthodox Christians view them with sympathy and love, but also speak the truth about them and refuse to participate in their deeds or have communion in prayer and sacraments with them, leaving their judgment to the future free All-Russian Council, when and if God should grant that it might be convened. In previous Councils like this in the history of the Church, those most guilty for schism have been punished, while the innocent followers of schism have been forgiven and restored to communion with the Church (as indicated in the Epistle of St. Athanasius the Great to Rufinianus).

Secondly, True-Orthodox Christians do not at all regard the Moscow Patriarchate simply as “fallen” and its followers as equal to heretics or pagans. There are degrees of schism and apostasy, and the fresher is the break with the true Church of Christ, and the more it has been caused by outward rather than inward causes — the greater is the possibility for the eventual restoration of the fallen-away body to the Church. True-Orthodox Christians, for the sake of the purity of Christ’s Church, must remain separate from the schismatic body and thereby show it the way of return to the True Church of Christ. Solzhenitsyn speaks, not with the voice of Christian truth, but only with the voice of human common sense, when he writes in his Letter: “The majority of people are not saints, but ordinary men. Both faith and the Divine services are called to accompany their usual life, and not to demand every time a super-heroic act.” Yes, it is true: True-Orthodox Christians today are the heroes of Orthodoxy in Russia, and the whole history of Christ’s Church is the history of the triumph of Christ’s heroes. “Ordinary” people follow the heroes, not vice versa. The standard is heroism, not “ordinary life.” The confession of the True-Orthodox Church is absolutely indispensable for the “ordinary” Orthodox Christians of Russia today, if they hope to remain Orthodox and not go further on the path of apostasy.

Finally, the True-Orthodox Church of Russia, as far as we know, has made no official proclamation as to the Grace, or lack of it, of the Sacraments of the Moscow Patriarchate. Individual hierarchs of the Catacomb Church in the past have expressed different opinions on this subject, some actually allowing the reception of Holy Communion from a Sergianist priest when in danger of death, and others insisting on the new Baptism of those baptized by Sergianist clergy. This question could be decided only by a Council of Bishops. If the schism of the Moscow Patriarchate is only temporary, and if it will eventually be restored to communion with the True-Orthodox Church in a free Russia, then this question may never need to be officially decided at all. Individual cases of True-Orthodox Christians in Russia receiving or not receiving Holy Communion in Sergianist churches do not, of course, establish any general rule or decide the question. The strict rule of the Russian Church Outside of Russia forbidding her members from receiving Sacraments from clergy of the Moscow Patriarchate is not founded on any statement that these Sacraments lack Grace, but rather on the sacred testament of Metropolitan Anastassy and other great hierarchs of the Diaspora forbidding any kind of communion with the Patriarchate as long as its leaders betray the Faith and are in submission to atheists.

Now that these points have been made clear, let us return to the belief of Solzhenitsyn and all the defenders of the Moscow Patriarchate that the betrayal of her hierarchs does not affect the Church’s faithful. This view is based on an entirely false view of the nature of the Church which artificially separates the hierarchs from the believing people and allows “church life as normal” to go on no matter what happens to the Church leaders. On the contrary, the whole history of the Church of Christ persuades us of the exact opposite. Who else was it but the Bishops of Rome who led the Church of the West into apostasy and schism and heresy? Is it the fault of ordinary believing Roman Catholics that they, the largest group of “Christians” in the world, are today outside the Church of Christ, and that in order to return to the true Church they must not only reject the false doctrines of Rome, but also completely reform their religious mentality and unlearn the false piety which has been transmitted to them precisely by their bishops? Today, it is true, the Moscow Patriarchate allows Roman Catholics to receive its Sacraments and implicitly already teaches the ecumenist doctrine that these Catholics too are “part of the Church.” But this fact only shows how far the Moscow Patriarchate has departed from the universal Orthodox tradition of the Church into an erroneous ecclesiology, and how correct the True-Orthodox Church is in refusing to have communion with an ecclesiastical body which not only allows its policies to be dictated by atheists, but openly preaches the modern heresies of ecumenism and chiliasm. If normal Orthodox Church life is not restored to Russia, the Moscow Patriarchate will follow the path of Roman Catholicism and eventually wither and die in apostasy, and the innocent people who follow it will find themselves beyond any doubt outside the Church of Christ. And then it will only be those who are one with the True-Orthodox Christians of Russia who will still be in the Church’s saving enclosure.

Solzhenitsyn and the Russian intelligentsia in general, whether inside or outside Russia, are obviously quite unaware of the real crisis of Orthodoxy today. It is, of course, in itself a good thing to boldly challenge the inhuman Soviet tyranny, to speak up for the oppressed, to call for “moral renewal” and preach “not living by lies”: but this is not yet Orthodox Christianity, this is not what the Christian martyrs died for and the Orthodox confessors suffered for. Baptists are doing this much today in the Soviet Union, as also are well-meaning agnostics and atheists; but this does not make them belong to the Church of Christ. In general one may say that the unparalleled sufferings of contemporary Russia have caused many of us to be rather too loose with our use of the words “martyr” and “confessor”. These words have a specific meaning for Orthodox Christians: they refer to those who consciously suffer and die for Christ and His True Church, not for “humanity” or “Christianity in general” or even for “Orthodoxy” if it is not true Orthodoxy.

The real crisis of Orthodoxy today—not only in Russia but throughout the world—has not been caused by submission to orders from atheists, and it will not be overcome by refusing to accept these orders. The crisis of Orthodoxy lies in the loss of the savor of True Christianity. This savor has been largely lost not only by the Moscow hierarchs, but by most of the Russian “dissidents” as well, as likewise by the “Paris” school of emigre theologians, by the apostate Patriarch of Constantinople and all who follow him, by new calendarists and renovationists and modernists of every sort, and by the simple people everywhere who imagine they are Orthodox because their fathers were or because they belong to a “canonical church organization.” Against this loss of the savor of Orthodoxy there has arisen one great movement of protest in the 20th-century: that of the True-Orthodox Christians whether of Russia, Greece, Mount Athos, or the Orthodox Diaspora. Among these True-Orthodox Christians are to be found the authentic Orthodox confessors and martyrs of our times.

A veritable “unity-fever” has gripped emigre circles in recent months, partly under the influence of Solzhenitsyn. Solzhenitsyn himself wants to be “one” with the millions of ordinary Orthodox believers in Russia, and with all Russian Orthodox believers abroad. May God grant that he be one with them in the Truth. But if it be not in the Truth, but by means of some compromise in the Truth—such unity is abhorrent to God and His Holy Church; better for Russia to perish than to be “one” not in the Truth. The great confessors of Orthodox history have been precisely those who rose up against false unity, preferring, if necessary, to be alone against the world if only they might be with Christ and His Truth. Let us take only one example.

The Church of Christ knows no greater champion than St. Maximus the Confessor, to whom the partisans of “church unity” offered all the same arguments that are offered today to the True-Orthodox Christians who refuse to be in communion with those “Orthodox” who have left the path of piety and truth. Of St. Maximus only two things were asked: that he accept a compromise statement of faith (the “Typos”) and receive communion with the Patriarchs and bishops who accepted it. The emissaries of the Byzantine Emperor explained to St. Maximus that “the Typos does not deny the two wills in Christ, but only obliges one to be silent about them for the sake of the peace of the Church”; they told him: “have in your heart whatever faith you want, no one forbids you this”; they accused him of causing disturbance in the Church out of his stubbornness: “You alone are grieving everyone, for it is precisely because of you that many wish not to have communion with the local Church”; they threw in his face the favorite argument of “Christian liberals” of all times: “You mean that you alone are being saved and everyone else is damned?” and they culminated their argument with the appeal so powerful today: you will be left behind, for not only have all the Eastern Patriarchs accepted the Typos, even the emissaries of the Pope of Rome, the last Orthodox Patriarch then in the world — “tomorrow, Sunday, will receive communion of the Holy Mysteries with the Patriarch of Constantinople.” And to this St. Maximus, a simple monk who for all he knew might be the only Christian left to believe as he did, replied in words that should be written in gold for every True-Orthodox Christian today to read: “Even if the whole world should receive communion with the Patriarch, I will not.” All of this is stated quite clearly in the Life of St. Maximus (Lives of Saints, Jan. 21); but those who have lost the savor of Orthodoxy seldom read the lives of Saints, and if they do they most certainly do not base their lives on this primary source of true Orthodox Christianity.

A typical result of the anti-Orthodox mentality which St. Maximus combatted may be seen in the newest attempt of the Russian Metropolia in America to destroy the confessing stand of the Russian Church Outside of Russia. Solzhenitsyn in this same Letter to the Third All-Diaspora Sobor had expressed his discouragement at finding church disunity in the Russian Diaspora, and the Bishops of the Sobor expressed their willingness once more to seek unity with the American Metropolia and the Paris Exarchate — it being understood that this unity must be in the Truth and not by means of any compromise. With regard to the Metropolia, a chief obstacle to unity lies, of course, in the “autocephaly” it received in 1970 from the Moscow Patriarchate at the price of acknowledging to the world the complete “canonicity” and “Orthodoxy” of the Sergianist church organization. In an exchange of letters with the Metropolia, Metr. Philaret took due note of this obstacle, to which Metr. Ireney of the Metropolia replied: “In the Church there have always been disagreements, disputes, and searchings.... Let it be that we think differently about the path and aim of the Church in America, that we think differently about our participation in the battle for Christ’s righteousness in the world and in the suffering Russian land. Is all this really capable of violating our unity in Christ?... We offer nothing impossible... we offer only a renunciation of the prohibition from visiting each other’s churches, praying together, and receiving the Holy Mysteries together.”

Indeed, such a small step! Just as in the days of St. Maximus the Confessor, let us “have in our heart whatever faith we want,” but “be silent about our differences for the sake of the peace of the Church.” We can each interpret “Christ’s righteousness” as we please—a privilege we share with Baptists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and many others! With what “mercy” and “love” this offer of “eucharistic communion” is made, in the interest of bringing back the Russian Church Outside of Russia into communion with “world Orthodoxy” — that apostate “Orthodoxy” which has lost the savor of Christianity — and deprive it precisely of solidarity with the True-Orthodox Church of Russia. The devil himself could not have devised a slyer, more “innocent” temptation, which plays so strongly on the emotions and on humanitarian motives.

It is therefore undoubtedly a great mercy of God that, just at the hour of this temptation, we should receive reliable information, not only about the “secret church organization” of the True-Orthodox Church in Russia, but even about her chief hierarch, Metropolitan Theodosius. To be sure, the “Orthodox” wolves in sheep’s clothing will continue to take cruel advantage of the fact that those who do know more about the Catacomb Church, whether in Russia or abroad, will of course not reveal it so as not to betray the True-Orthodox Christians in any way. Even if the Catacomb Church did not exist at all, the Moscow Patriarchate would still be guilty of schism and apostasy, even as Roman Catholicism did not become Orthodox once the last Orthodox communities were finally wiped out in the West. But it is now surely beyond any doubt that the Catacomb Church does exist and is even to some degree organized; and so we Orthodox Christians in the free world are without any excuse if we fail to show precisely our solidarity with her and her fearless confession of God’s Truth and righteousness. The True-Orthodox Church is the standard of Orthodoxy in Russia today, and it requires no “imagination” or secret information for us to know that standard and measure ourselves by it. The standard of Holy Orthodoxy does not change; if we ourselves are struggling to be True-Orthodox Christians we are living by the same standard as the True-Orthodox Church of Russia. The True-Orthodox Christians of Greece already know this quite well, for their struggle is very similar to that in Russia; it is only we of the Orthodox Diaspora who are so slow to follow their confessing path, because we have not learned from suffering as they have.

Is it not time at last, then, for the True-Orthodox Christians of the free world to raise their voices in defence of the trampled-down Truth? Is it only the persecuted Orthodox in Russia who have the courage to speak boldly against the lies and hypocrisies of the Church leaders and proclaim their separateness, on grounds of Truth and Orthodox principle, from the apostate hierarchs? As a matter of Church principle, the question is in reality the same here as there; the only difference is that in the Soviet Union the hierarchs participate in apostasy ostensibly under the dictatorship of atheists, whereas in the free world the hierarchs do the same thing freely. And if any naively hold that the Paris and American “jurisdictions” abroad are still “conservative” and are largely unaffected by the ecumenical madness of “Greek Orthodoxy,” let him read the account in the Russian emigre newspaper La Pensee Russe (Feb. 20, 1975), under the headline “Ecumenism in the Cathedral of the Paris Mother of God” (Notre-Dame de Paris), of the “grandiose ecumenical prayer-service of Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants, headed by the Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Marty, the Exarch of the Ecumenical Patriarch, Metropolitan Meletios, and the representative of the Protestant Federation, Monsieur Courvoisier.” Here the choir and clergy of the Paris Russian (Eulogian) Cathedral took full part in the “grandiose ecumenical prayer-service” together with the heretics (for which sin, according to the sacred canons, they must be excommunicated), and the Protodeacon “thunderously, with a mighty bass voice,” read the Gospel, fully vested, after bowing to the three presiding dignitaries of the assembly, as if to Orthodox bishops. As a result, “hardly in the eight centuries of its existence has Notre-Dame Cathedral heard such a reading of the Word of God, and it is understandable that those present were shaken” — shaken by a dramatically effective voice which helped to close off salvation for those present by not daring to tell them that they are outside the Church of Christ.

The same “ecumenical” message is proclaimed by Archbishop John Shahovskoy of the American Metropolia when he begs “forgiveness” of “our Catholic and Protestant brethren” because the Russian Church Outside of Russia continues to declare the Orthodox teaching that they are unbaptized.1

___
1 Novoye Russkoye Slovo, Feb. 18, 1975, p. 2.


True Orthodoxy is one and the same whether in outward freedom or outward slavery; it is free internally to preach the unchanging Truth of Christ’s Church, and the questions before it are one and the same here and there: Can we be with Christ and still be one with those who disdain the ecclesiastical calendar, renovate theology and piety, legitimize the Sergianist schism, pray with heretics, and by word and act proclaim that “nothing separates us” from those most miserable and unfortunate “Christians” of the West who for centuries have not known the grace of God? Metropolitan Philaret, Chief Hierarch of the Russian Church Outside of Russia, in his first “Sorrowful Epistle” to all Orthodox bishops in the world (1969) has already given the battle-cry for all True-Orthodox Christians against those who participate by word or act in the soul-destroying heresy of ecumenism: “We have already protested against the unorthodox ecumenical actions of Patriarch Athenagoras and Archbishop Iakovos.... But now the time has come to make our protest heard more loudly still, and then even yet more loudly, so as to stop the action of this poison before it has become as potent as the ancient heresies of Arianism, Nestorianism, or Eutychianism, which in their time so shook the whole body of the Church as to make it seem that heresy was apt to overcome Orthodoxy.”

We must obey God, not men; we must remain in the unchanging Orthodox Faith, which is Divine, and not listen to the rationalistic arguments of worldly men who only wish to please each other and conform the Faith to the humanitarian spirit of the age. Let all True-Orthodox Christians in the world remain unbending in the confession of Russia’s Catacomb Church, a confession whose very words the divine St. Maximus has given us:

Even if the whole world should receive communion with the apostate hierarchs, we will not. Amen.

 
Bishop Hierotheus of Nikolsk

MARTYRED IN MAY, 1928

A BISHOP who was close to Patriarch Tikhon, after separating from Metr. Sergius with a strong epistle protesting the infamous "Declaration" of 1927, he joined himself and his whole diocese to Metr. Joseph of Petrograd, the first factual head of the Catacomb Church. When Bishop Hierotheus was being arrested, his flock came to his defense, and he was shot and killed in their midst, thus giving his life for his sheep and becoming the first martyr of the True-Orthodox Church of Russia against Sergianism. (Here he is shown celebrating the funeral of his friend and fellow martyr, Father Seraphim. See his life and Epistle in The Orthodox Word, vol. VI, no. 6.)

 
Metropolitan Agathangelus

DIED OF HIS SUFFERINGS IN OCTOBER, 1928

THE SECOND of the three Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal throne named by Patriarch Tikhon, he was a fierce enemy of the "Living Church." He was given an opportunity by the Communists to sign a "Declaration" of submission to them, but Blessed Xenia the Blind of Rybinsk, whom he revered as a holy Fool for Christ, forbade him to do this, saying: "If you agree, you will lose everything which you acquired earlier." On his refusal he was exiled to Northern Siberia. When Metr. Sergius later issued his "Declaration," Metr. Agathangelus led the separation of the Yaroslavl hierarchs from him, issuing a firm document of protest against the "Declaration."

 
Archbishop Barlaam of Perm

DIED IN PRISON IN VOLOGDA AT THE END OF THE 1930's

A CO-SIGNER of the Yaroslavl document of separation from Metr. Sergius, together with Metropolitans Agathangelus and Joseph, Archbishop Seraphim of Uglich, and Bishop Eugene of Rostov, he alone remained in freedom to be with the dying Metr. Agathangelus, carrying on the latter's firm stand against Sergianism. Later he suffered banishment and imprisonment many times, enduring inhuman conditions in prison. His high spiritual stature is revealed in his letters, by which also he gave spiritual guidance to a convent of Catacomb True-Orthodox nuns.

 
Metropolitan Cyril of Kazan

MARTYRED BY SHOOTING IN 1936

PATRIARCH TIKHON'S first choice to be Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne, and in earlier years a close friend of St. John of Kronstadt, he was the candidate chosen to be Patriarch after Tikhon in a secret ballot taken of many banished and imprisoned hierarchs; but when the news of this reached Metr. Sergius, he gave the list of these hierarchs to the GPU, and all hierarchs who thus had voted were liquidated. When offered conditions under which to collaborate with the Soviets, Metr. Cyril refused, saying: "You are not the cannon and I am not the bomb with which you wish to blow up the Russian Church from within." He issued a major document of separation from Metr. Sergius after the latter's "Declaration."

 
Archbishop Theodore of Volokolamsk

Vicar of Moscow Diocese

EXECUTED IN EXILE IN 1935
A STUDENT of Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky and disciple of the holy Elder Gabriel of Pskov, he became Rector of the Moscow Theological Academy and Abbot of St. Daniel's Monastery, where the Academy was located. An unexcelled theological authority for many years, he actively fought the "Living Church" and was the first to come out with an Epistle against Metr. Sergius's "Declaration," forbidding his monks to commemorate his name even in his absence during his many arrests. Finally exiled to the Far North, he was shot together with other hierarchs and priests without any reason or warning.

 
Bishop Onuphrius, the Saint

PERISHED IN MAGADAN IN 1938

A CLAIRVOYANT ascetic and miracle-worker, this outstanding archpastor was a fearless fighter against the Renovationism of the "Living Church" and was in spiritual contact with the Optina Elder Nectarius. Once a criminal who was hired to kill him broke into Bishop Onuphrius' prison cell only to hear the hierarch's calm voice saying: "Go ahead and kill me"; struck by the Bishop's sanctity, the criminal dropped his axe, fell to his knees, repented, and was placed in the same prison cell to suffer with the holy Bishop.

 
Father Nicholas Zagorovsky

DIED OF HIS SUFFERINGS ON SEPT. 30, 1941

THIS CLAIRVOYANT exorcist of demons, a holy ascetic and monk in the world, was a confessor of pure Orthodoxy who suffered imprisonment for his refusal to accept the "Declaration" of Metr. Sergius. He was a God-bearing Elder in the Optina Monastery tradition, even while living in the midst of the world. He has appeared after his death to give supernatural help from another world. (Life in The Orthodox Word, vol. VIII, no. 4.)

 
Bishop Andrew of Ufa

SHOT IN THE YAROSLAVL PRISON IN 1937

THIS OUTSTANDING hierarch, with a heart burning with pastoral zeal, was an outspoken enemy of Russia's "liberals" and "democrats," whom he called "the betrayers of Holy Russia"; in his sermons and in his book, Tsar and People, he called on the Russian people to form brotherhoods to support the Tsar in the ancient way. After 1927 he was a champion of True Orthodoxy against Sergianism, keeping to and identifying for others the true path of Holy Russia.