A HISTORY OF THE FALL OF ROCOR,

2000-2007
Vladimir Moss

If you see lying and hypocrisy, expose them in front of all, even if they are clothed in
purple and fine linen.
Metropolitan Anastasy (Gribanovsky) of New York (1906)

Hold fast that which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.
Revelation 3.11; the last words of St. Philaret of New York (1985)

The Holy Flesh hath passed from thee.

Jeremiah 11.15

Copyright Vladimir Moss 2011. All Rights Reserved.

 CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION: THE 1990s ..............................................................................3

I. THE SECOND OCTOBER REVOLUTION................................................21
II. THE FALL OF THE NEW YORK SYNOD ...................................................26
III. THE CREATION OF THE MANSONVILLE SYNOD...............................36
IV. THE RUSSIAN TRUE ORTHODOX CHURCH.........................................46
V. THE PLOTTERS FALL INTO THEIR OWN PIT.........................................55
VI. HERESY AND CORRUPTION IN SUZDAL..............................................61
VII. THE END-GAME ..........................................................................................74
CONCLUSION: THE HOLY REMNANT .........................................................81

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 INTRODUCTION: THE 1990s

Who hath remained among you that has seen this House in its former glory, and
how do you see it now? Is it not in your eyes as it were nothing? But take heart now...
Haggai 2.3-4.

The return of the Russian Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) to Russia in

1990 after almost seventy years exile was undoubtedly one of the most
significant events in Church history, comparable to the return of the Jews to
Jerusalem after the seventy-year exile in Babylon. And yet this momentous
step was taken almost casually, without sufficient forethought or a clearly
defined strategy. Hence difficult problems arose, problems that had their
roots deep in ROCORs past history. These problems can be divided into three
categories: (A) ROCOR in relation to her own flock at home and abroad, (B)
ROCOR in relation to the Catacomb Church, and (C) ROCOR in relation to
the Moscow Patriarchate (MP) and the post-Soviet Russian State.

A. ROCOR in relation to herself. The problem here is easily stated: how

could the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad continue to call herself the
Church Abroad if she now had parishes inside Russia? After all, her Founding
Statute or Polozhenie stated that ROCOR was an autonomous part of the
Autocephalous Russian Church, that part which existed (i) outside the bounds
of Russia on the basis of Ukaz 362 of November 7/20, 1920 of Patriarch
Tikhon and the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, and (ii)
temporarily until the fall of communism in Russia. 1 With the fall of
communism and the creation of ROCOR parishes inside Russia in 1990-91, it
would seem that these limitations in space and time no longer applied, and
that ROCOR had ceased to exist as a temporary Church body existing outside
Russia in accordance with her own definition of herself in the Polozhenie.

The solution to this problem would appear to have been obvious: change
the Polozhenie! And this was in fact the solution put forward by ROCORs
leading canonist, Bishop Gregory (Grabbe). However, the ROCOR episcopate
declined that suggestion, and the Polozhenie remained unchanged.

Why? Although we have no direct evidence on which to base an answer to

this question, the following would appear to be a reasonable conclusion from
the events as they unfolded in the early 1990s. A change in the Polozhenie
that removed the spatial and temporal limitations of ROCORs self-definition

1 ROCORs Hierarchical Council of 1956 declared that the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad
is an unsevered part of the Local Russian Orthodox Church, being temporarily self-governing
on synodal bases, until the abolition of atheist rule in Russia, in accordance with the
resolution of the Holy Patriarch, the Holy Synod and the Higher Russian Church Council of
November 7/20, 1920, 362.

3
would have had the consequence of forcing ROCOR to define herself as the
one true Russian Orthodox Church, and therefore to remove the centre of her
Church administration from America to Russia and enter into a life-and-death
struggle with the MP for the minds and hearts of the Russian people.

However, the ROCOR bishops were not prepared to accept these

consequences. After all, they were well-established abroad, increasingly
dependent economically on contributions from foreign converts to Orthodoxy,
and with few exceptions were not prepared to exchange the comforts and
relative security of life in the West for the uncertainty and privations of life in
Russia, where, although communism was crumbling, the communist lites
were still in place in both Church and State. Of course, the whole raison dtre
of ROCOR was to return to her homeland in Russia (she was previously
called the Russian Church in Exile, and exiles by definition want to return to
their homeland); and it was in anticipation of such a return that she had
steadfastly refused to endanger her Russian identity by merging with other
Local Orthodox Churches or by forming local jurisdictions identified with
specific western countries (like the formerly Russian schism from ROCOR
calling itself the Orthodox Church of America). But generations had passed
since the first emigration, the descendants of that first emigration had settled
in western countries, learned their languages, adopted their ways, put down
roots in foreign soil, married non-Russians (and often, alas, non-Orthodox
non-Russians). The exiles were no longer exiles from, but strangers to, their
native land

B. ROCOR in relation to the Catacomb Church. Since 1927, when ROCOR

had broken communion simultaneously with the Catacomb Church from
Metropolitan Sergius MP, she had looked upon the Catacomb Church as the
True Church inside Russia with which she remained in mystical communion
of prayer and sacraments, even if such communion could not be realized in
face-to-face meeting and concelebration. Indeed, after the death of
Metropolitan Peter of Krutitsa, the last universally recognised leader of the
Russian Church, in 1937, ROCOR commemorated the episcopate of the
persecuted Russian Church, by which was undoubtedly meant the
episcopate of the Catacomb Church. After the war, however, a change began
to creep in. On the one hand, news of Catacomb bishops and communities
became more and more scarce, and some even began to doubt that the
Catacomb Church existed any longer (Archbishop Mark of Berlin declared in
the 1990s, when catacombniks were pouring into ROCOR, that the Catacomb
Church had died out in the 1950s!). On the other hand, some Catacomb
priests inside Russia, having lost contact with, and knowledge of, any
canonical bishops there might still be inside Russia, began commemorating
Metropolitan Anastasy, first-hierarch of ROCOR.

These tendencies gave rise to the not unnatural perception that the
leadership of True Russian Orthodoxy had now passed from inside Russia to

4
outside Russia, to ROCOR. Moreover, the significance of the Catacomb
Church began to be lost, as the struggle was increasingly seen to be between
the red church inside Russia (the MP) and the white church outside
Russia (ROCOR). Of course, the idea of the Catacomb Church remained
sacred. But the heroes of the past the great hieromartyrs of the 1920s and 30s
- looked more glorious than their present-day followers. And some even
began to look on the catacombniks, not as the True Church of Russia
clothed in the purple robes of hundreds of thousands of martyrs, but as a
spent force or as uneducated sectarians in need of rescue. They looked on
the humble catacombniks, serving, not in the splendid cathedrals of the
emigration, but in poor, dingy flats, if not as contemptible, at any rate as
unimportant. How could the Russian Church, so splendid in its pre-
revolutionary glory, be resurrected on the basis of such poverty?

Now it must be admitted that the Catacomb Church was desperately in

need of help. After several decades of constant persecution, her population
was aging and scattered, with fewer and fewer priests and almost no bishops,
while the infiltration of KGB plants tended to make different groups
suspicious of each other. ROCOR the one church authority that all
catacombniks agreed was true - could indeed provide an inestimable service
to them by restoring their apostolic succession, educating a new generation of
priests and helping them to adapt to and take advantage of the new
conditions of post-Soviet Russia. But much depended on how tactfully this
was done. When the first consecration of a bishop for the Catacomb Church
was performed by ROCOR on Archimandrite Lazarus (Zhurbenko), it was
said that this was done in order to regulate the church life of the Catacomb
Church.2 But what precisely did this regulation mean? If the ROCOR
bishops saw their role as providing help for the catacombniks in the same
way as they had helped the Greek Old Calendarists in 1969-71 that is, by re-
establishing them as an independent sister-church, to use the phrase of
Metropolitan Philaret of New York, - then there was hope for a truly
profitable cooperation. After all, it was not only the catacombniks who
needed help: since the death of the holy Metropolitan Philaret in 1985,
ROCOR was beginning to waver in her own faith and piety. Her members
needed, in the words of the Lord in Revelation (3.18) to buy gold tried in the
fire of persecution and the catacombniks who had passed through the fire
of the Soviet persecution had much to offer and instruct them. However,
already at a very early stage the impression was created that ROCOR had
come into Russia, not in order to unite with the Catacomb Church and work
with her for the triumph of True Orthodoxy in Russia, but in order to replace
her, or at best to gather the remnants of the catacombs under her sole
authority3

2 Zaiavlenie Arkhierejskago Sinoda Russkoj Pravoslvnoj Tserkvi Zagranitsej, Pravoslavnaia

Rus, 18 (1423), 15/28 September, 1990, p. 6.
3 Bishop Lazarus complained about this in a conversation with the present writer in Moscow

on July 5, 1990.

5
 Moreover, in the years to come the ROCOR Synod sometimes described
itself as the central authority of the True Russian Church in spite of the fact
that this central authority was based, not in Russia, but thousands of miles
away in New York!

C. ROCOR in relation to the MP. The Catacomb Church might have

forgiven such arrogance if ROCOR had shown herself capable of fighting
resolutely against the MP. But here certain compromising tendencies
developed abroad bore bitter fruit that was to lead to schism and the collapse
of ROCORs mission inside Russia. For the ROCOR bishops proved
themselves incapable of making up their minds whether it was necessary to
fight the MP or help her, whether she was their friend or their enemy, their
beloved mother or their hated step-mother!4

The root causes of this indecisiveness go back to the post-war period, when
large numbers of Christians fleeing to the West from Soviet Russia were
joined to ROCOR. In receiving these Christians, little difference was made
between those who had belonged to the Catacomb Church, and those who
had belonged to the MP. Some, even including bishops, turned out to be KGB
agents, and either returned to the MP or remained as moles to undermine
ROCOR. 5 Others, while sincerely anti-Soviet, were not sufficiently
enchurched to see the fundamental ecclesiological significance of the
schism in the Russian Church. Thus a certain dilution in the quality of those
joining ROCOR in the second emigration by comparison with the first and
the problem was to get worse with the third and fourth emigrations of the 70s,
80s and 90s began to affect the confessing stance of the Church as a whole.
Even members of the first emigration had proved susceptible to deception, as
when all the ROCOR dioceses in China except that of Shanghai (led by St.
John Maximovich) were lured back into the arms of the Soviet Fatherland
and its Soviet Church. It is not surprising, therefore, that later generations,
who had only known Soviet reality, should be still more susceptible to
deception.

Another reason for this diminution in zeal proceeded from the fact that
ROCOR did not break communion with the Local Orthodox Churches of
World Orthodoxy even after all of these (except Jerusalem) sent
representatives to the local Councils of the MP in 1945 and 1948. The reasons
for this depended on the Church in question. Thus communion continued
with the Serbian Church because of the debt of gratitude owed to the
hospitality shown by the Serbian Church to ROCOR in the inter-war years.
Communion continued with the Jerusalem Patriarchate because all churches

4 Fr. Timothy Alferov, O polozhenii rossijskikh prikhodov RPTsZ v svete itogov

patriarkhijnogo sobora, Uspensij Listok, 34, 2000.
5 This forced the ROCOR Synod to take special measures to ferret out potential spies. See

Bishop Gregory (Grabbe), Pisma, Moscow, 1999.

6
in the Holy Land, including the ROCOR monasteries, were required, under
threat of closure, to commemorate the Patriarch of Jerusalem. Communion
also continued in some places with the Greek new calendarists, who were not
only in communion with the MP but members of the ecumenist World
Council of Churches, because the Ecumenical Patriarchate was powerful in
the United States, the country to which ROCOR had moved its headquarters.

This ambiguous relationship towards World Orthodoxy in general

inevitably began to affect ROCORs zeal in relation to the MP in particular.
For if the MP was recognised by Serbia and Jerusalem, and Serbia and
Jerusalem were recognised by ROCOR, the conclusion was drawn that the
MP, while bad, was still a Church. And this attitude in turn affected ROCORs
attitude towards the Catacomb Church, which was no longer seen by many,
including several bishops, as the one True Church of Russia.

As ROCOR began to lose confidence in herself and the Catacomb Church

as the only bearers of true Russian Orthodoxy, the accent began to shift
towards the preservation, not of Orthodoxy as such, but of Russianness. This
was bound to fail as a weapon against the MP. For for a foreign Church,
however Russian in spirit, to claim to be more Russian than the Russians
inside Russia was bound to be perceived as arrogant and humiliating by the
latter (especially in the mouth of an ethnic German such as Archbishop Mark
of Berlin!). And so the MP was able to mount a successful counter-attack,
claiming for itself the mantle of Russianness as against the American
church of ROCOR.

As a result of all this, at the very moment that ROCOR was called by God
to enter into an open war with the MP for the souls of the Russian people on
Russian soil, she found herself tactically unprepared, hesitant, unsure of her
ability to fight this great enemy, unsure even whether this enemy was in fact
an enemy. And this attitude guaranteed the collapse of the mission. For if the
trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who will rise up and prepare for battle?
(1 Corinthians 14.8). Looking more at her enemies than at the Lord, she began,
like the Apostle Peter, to sink beneath the waves. Many even began to think
that it was time to forgive and forget and join the MP; for if you cant beat
them join them! And the MP which, at the beginning of the 90s had been
seriously rattled, recovered her confidence and her position in public opinion.

The problems began on May 3/16, 1990, when the ROCOR Synod under
the presidency of Metropolitan Vitaly (Ustinov) issued a statement that was in
general strongly anti-MP, but which contained the qualification that there
might nevertheless be true priests dispensing valid sacraments in the
patriarchate. The idea that there can be true priests in a heretical church is
canonical nonsense (Apostolic Canon 46, First Canonical Epistle of St. Basil
the Great), and Bishop Gregory (Grabbe) immediately obtained the removal
of the offending phrase. But the damage had been done.

7
 Then serious problems began to develop between ROCOR bishops living
inside Russia and those visiting from abroad. In 1993 the first schism took
place. This was patched up, but in 1995 there was a second, and the five
bishops and thousands of laity led by Bishop Valentine of Suzdal were
expelled from ROCORs ranks.6

In addition three events took place that accentuated the crisis: (i) the
adoption of a new ecclesiology, (ii) the return of the KGB to power, and (iii)
the MPs Jubilee Sobor of the year 2000.

Let us look at each of these in turn.

1. The Adoption of a New Ecclesiology. In 1994 ROCOR entered into

communion with the Cyprianite Greek Old Calendarists, so called because
of their leader, Metropolitan Cyprian (Kotsumbas) of Fili and Orope, who had
been defrocked by the True Orthodox Church of Greece under Archbishop
Chrysostomos (Kiousis) of Athens in 1986. The significance of the Cyprianites
lay in their espousal of an heretical ecclesiology, according to which heretics
remain inside the Church until they have been expelled by an Ecumenical
Council. This enabled them to claim that the ecumenist heretics of World
Orthodoxy, who belonged to the World Council of Churches (WCC), were
still inside the True Church in spite of the fact that they were heretics. When
ROCOR entered into communion with the Cyprianites, it officially accepted
this heretical ecclesiology. This enabled its leaders to affirm that the Moscow
Patriarchate, although heretical because of its submission to, and control by,
the communists (sergianism) and its membership of the WCC (ecumenism),
was still a True Church with the grace of sacraments.

The 1994 decision was far from unanimously approved. At the 1993
Council, when the subject was first discussed, Archbishop Anthony of Los
Angeles, Bishop Gregory (Grabbe) and Bishop Cyril of Seattle spoke against
the union, which would contradict ROCORs decision of 1975 not to enter into
union with any of the Greek Old Calendarist Synods until they had attained
unity amongst themselves. However, Archbishops Laurus and Mark said that
it was awkward to refuse communion with Cyprian when they were already
in communion with the Romanian Old Calendarists, with whom Cyprian was
in communion. (This was somewhat disingenuous, since it had been Mark
who had engineered the union with the Romanians in the first place.)

At the 1993 Council a commission was set up consisting of Archbishop

Laurus, Bishop Metrophanes and Bishop Daniel which prepared the way for
the eventual decision to unite with Cyprian at the 1994 Council. However, at

6 SeeV. Moss, New Zion in Babylon, part 6,

[Link]
RT_6.pdf.

8
the 1994 Council Bishop Daniel continued to express doubts, and Bishop
Benjamin of the Kuban, now the second hierarch of the Russian True
Orthodox Church, refused to sign the union together with Bishop Ambrose of
Vevey. And there were rumours that Metropolitan Vitaly and Archbishop
Anthony of Los Angeles had signed only under pressure.

The leaders of ROCOR tried to prove that this Cyprianite ecclesiology

had always been the ecclesiology of ROCOR and of her sister Church in the
Soviet Union, the Catacomb Church. But among the many facts that
contradicted their claim was a recent major decision of the ROCOR Sobor of
Bishops in 1983 under the leadership of the last Metropolitan, Philaret of New
York (+1985) its anathema against ecumenism. No impartial reading of this
anathema could fail to come to the conclusion that it anathematized all the
ecumenists of World Orthodoxy, including the Moscow Patriarchate.
Therefore the decision of 1994, with its acceptance of the Moscow Patriarchate,
contradicted the decision of 1983, with its rejection of the Moscow
Patriarchate. The future of ROCOR depended on which of these two
traditions in ecclesiology triumphed, the tradition of Metropolitan Philaret,
whose relics were found to be incorrupt in 19987, or the tradition of the new
leaders of ROCOR

After the decision Bishop Gregory (Grabbe) wrote that the Cyprianites
confess their own and by no means Orthodox teaching on the possibility of
the grace-filled action of the Holy Spirit in churches that have clearly become
heretical. Moreover he declared: In passing this Resolution on communion
with the group of Metropolitan Cyprian, our Council has unfortunately also
forgotten about the text of the Resolution accepted earlier under the
presidency of Metropolitan Philaret, which anathematized the ecumenical
heresy In fact, by not looking into the matter seriously and forgetting about
the anathematizing of the new calendarist ecumenists that was confirmed
earlier (and perhaps not having decided to rescind this resolution), our
Council, however terrible it may be to admit it, has fallen under its own
anathema Do we have to think that our Hierarchical Council has entered on
the path of betraying the patristic traditions, or only that out of a
misunderstanding it has allowed a mistake which it is not yet too late to
correct at the November session in France?8

7 Allthose present were greatly upset and grieved by the fact that during the pannikhida, as
during the All-Night Vigil and the Liturgy, the coffin with the relics of St. Philaret remained
sealed. In spite of the numerous requests of clergy and laity, who had specially come to
Jordanville so as to kiss the relics of the holy hierarch, Archbishop Laurus refused to open the
coffin. He also very strictly forbade making photocopies from the shots that had already been
taken of the incorrupt relics of the saint or even to show them to anyone.
8 Grabbe, The Dubious Ecclesiology of Metropolitan Cyprians Group, Church News, no. 5,

September-October, 1994, pp. 2-4; Arkhierejskij Sobor RPTsZ 1994 goda: Istoria Priniatia
Russkoj Zarubezhnoj Tserkoviu Yereticheskoj Ekkleziologii Mitropolita Kipriana, Sviataia
Rus, 2003; Vernost, 98, December, 2007.

9
 However, the mistake was not corrected at the second session of the
Hierarchical Council in Lesna in November, 1994. Instead, the decision was
made to initiate negotiations with the MP. Archbishop Anthony of Los
Angeles commented on this to the present writer: ROCOR is going to hell

2. The Return of the KGB. The former KGB Colonel Konstantin

Preobrazhensky writes: After the democratic reforms of the 1990s the KGB
officers managed to get everything back. All the Directorates of the Soviet
KGB are reunited now in todays FSB, except two of them: the First, which
managed intelligence, and the Ninth, which guarded the highest Communist
bureaucrats. Both are formally independent, but keep close connections with
the FSB The former First Chief Directorate of the KGB is now called the
Foreign Intelligence Service. It is successfully managing the
operation ROCOR9 that is, the absorption of ROCOR into the MP.10

The intelligence experts Christopher Andrew and Vasily Mitrokhin

confirm this assessment: Ridiculed and reviled at the end of the Soviet era,
the Russian intelligence community has since been remarkably successful at
reinventing itself and recovering its political influence. The last three prime
ministers of the Russian Federation during Boris Yeltsins presidency
Yevgeni Primakov, Sergei Stepashin and Vladimir Putin were all former
intelligence chiefs. Putin, who succeeded Yeltsin as President in 2000, is the
only FCD [First Chief Directorate] officer ever to become Russian leader.
According to the head of the SVR [Foreign Intelligence Service], Sergei
Nikolayevich Lebedev, The presidents understanding of intelligence activity
and the opportunity to speak the same language to him makes our work
considerably easier. No previous head of state in Russia, or perhaps
anywhere else in the world, has ever surrounded himself with so many
former intelligence officers. Putin also has more direct control of intelligence
that any Russian leader since Stalin. According to Kirpichenko, We are under
the control of the President and his administration, because intelligence is
directly subordinated to the President and only the President. But whereas
Stalins intelligence chiefs usually told him simply what he wanted to hear,
Kirpichenko claims that, Now, we tell it like it is.

The mission statement of todays FSB and SVR is markedly different from
that of the KGB. At the beginning of the 1980s Andropov proudly declared
that the KGB was playing its part in the onward march of world revolution.
By contrast, the current National Security Concept of the Russian Federation,
adopted at the beginning of the new millennium, puts the emphasis instead
on the defence of traditional Russian values: Guaranteeing the Russian
Federations national security also includes defence of the cultural and
spiritual-moral inheritance, historical traditions and norms of social life,
preservation of the cultural property of all the peoples of Russia, formation of

9 Preobrazhensky, Ecumenism and Intelligence.

10 Preobrazhensky, Hostile Absorption of ROCOR.

10
state policy in the sphere of the spiritual and moral education of the
population One of the distinguishing characteristics of the Soviet
intelligence system from Cheka to KGB was its militant atheism. In March
2002, however, the FSB at last found God. A restored Russian Orthodox
church in central Moscow was consecrated by Patriarch Aleksi II as the FSBs
parish church in order to minister to the previously neglected spiritual needs
of its staff. The FSB Director, Nikolai Patrushev, and the Patriarch celebrated
the mystical marriage of the Orthodox Church and the state security
apparatus by a solemn exchange of gifts. Patrushev presented a symbolic
golden key of the church and an icon of St. Aleksei, Moscow Metropolitan, to
the Patriarch, who responded by giving the FSB Director the Mother God
Umilenie icon and an icon representing Patrushevs own patron saint, St.
Nikolai the possession of which would formerly have been a sufficiently
grave offence to cost any KGB officer his job. Though the FSB has not, of
course, become the worlds first intelligence agency staffed only or mainly by
Christian true believers, there have been a number of conversions to the
Orthodox Church by Russian intelligence officers past and present among
them Nikolai Leonov, who half a century ago was the first to alert the Centre
to the revolutionary potential of Fidel Castro. Spirituality has become a
common theme in FSB public relations materials. While head of FSB public
relations in 1999-2001, Vasili Stavitsky published several volumes of poetry
with a strong spiritual content, among them Secrets of the Soul (1999); a book
of spiritual-patriotic poems for children entitled Light a Candle, Mamma
(1999); and Constellation of Love: Selected Verse (2000). Many of Stavitskys
poems have been set to music and recorded on CDs, which are reported to be
popular at FSB functions.

Despite their unprecedented emphasis on spiritual security, however,

the FSB and SVR are politicized intelligence agencies which keep track of
President Putins critics and opponents among the growing Russian diaspora
abroad, as well as in Russia itself. During his first term in office, while
affirming his commitment to democracy and human rights, Putin gradually
succeeded in marginalizing most opposition and winning control over
television channels and the main news media. The vigorous public debate of
policy issues during the Yeltsin years has largely disappeared. What has
gradually emerged is a new system of social control in which those who step
too far out of line face intimidation by the FSB and the courts. The 2003 State
Department annual report on human rights warned that a series of alleged
espionage cases involving scientists, journalists and environmentalists
caused continuing concerns regarding the lack of due process and the
influence of the FSB in court cases. According to Lyudmilla Alekseyeva, the
current head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, which has been campaigning for
human rights in Russia since 1976, The only thing these scientists, journalists
and environmentalists are guilty of is talking to foreigners, which in the
Soviet Union was an unpardonable offence. Though all this remains a far cry
from the KGBs obsession with even the most trivial forms of ideological

11
subversion, the FSB has once again defined a role for itself as an instrument of
social control11

The central figure in this spiritualization but at the same time re-
sovietization of Russia was Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. Coming to power
on January 1, 2000, he presented himself as all things to all men: a chekist to
the chekists, a democrat to the democrats, a nationalist to the nationalists, and
an Orthodox to the Orthodox. Putins propagandist Yegor Kholmogorov has
written: Putins power was, from the very beginning, non-electoral in origin,
it was not a matter of being appointed by Yeltsin, but of what the Chinese
call the mandate of heaven, an unquestioned right to power... 12 Putin was
indeed resembling a Chinese emperor more than a democratic politician, not
only in his political style, but also in his fabulous personal wealth, calculated
at $40 billion 13

Putin is no believer. On September 8, 2000, when asked by the American

television journalist Larry King whether he believed in God, he replied: I
believe in people Moreover, as George Spruksts writes,

1) he lights menorahs when he worships at his local synagogue;

2) he has worshipped the mortal remains of Kin Il Sung in North Korea;

3) he has worshipped the mortal remains of Mahatma Gandhi;

4) he believes not in God, but in Man (as he himself has stated);

5) he was initiated into an especially occult form of knighthood (read:

freemasonry) in Germany;

6) he has restored the communist anthem;

7) he has restored the bloody red rag as the RFs military banner;

8) he has not removed the satanic pentagram from public buildings

(including cathedrals);

9) he has plans of restoring the monument to Butcher Dzerzhinsky [now

fulfilled];

11 Andrew and Mitrokhin, The KGB and the World. The Mitrokhin Archive II, London: Penguin,
2006, pp 490-492.
12 Kholmogorov, Kremlevskij Mechtatel (Kremlin Dreamer), Spetnaz Rossii (Russias Special

Forces), 2000/2.
13 See Luke Harding, Putin, the Kremlin power struggle and the $40bn fortune, The

Guardian, December 21, 2007, pp. 1-2.

12
 10) he has not removed the satanic mausoleum in Red Square nor its
filthy contents.14

Preobrazhensky points out that Putin began his career not in the
intelligence ranks but in the Fifth Branch of the Leningrad Regional KGB,
which also fought religion and the Church. Putin carefully hides this fact from
foreign church leaders, and you will not find it in any of his official
biographies The myth of Putins religiosity is important for proponents of
the union. It allows Putin to be characterized as some Orthodox Emperor
Constantine, accepting the perishing Church Abroad under his regal wing.
For his kindness we should be stretching out our arms to him with tears of
gratitude15

For those who claim, writes Professor Olga Ackerly, that the CIS is
different from the USSR and Putin is a practising Orthodox Christian, here
are some sobering facts. The first days and months Putins presidency were
highlighted by the reestablishment of a memorial plaque on Kutuzovsky
Prospect where Andropov used to live. The plaque was a symbol of
communist despotism missing since the 1991 putsch, bearing Andropovs
name a former head of the KGB, especially known for his viciousness in the
use of force and psychiatric clinics for dissidents. On May 9, 2000, Putin
proposed a toast to the genius commander Iosif Stalin and promoted many
former KGB officers to the highest state positions

Important to note is that the Eurasian movement, with ties to occultism,

ecumenism, etc. was recently revived by Putin, and a Congress entitled The
All-Russian Political Social Movement, held in Moscow in April of 2001, was
created on the basis of the Eurasist ideology and inter-confessional [sic!]
harmony in support of the reforms of President Vladimir Putin. The
movement is led by Alexander Dugin, a sexual mystic, National Bolshevik
Party member, son of a Cheka cadre, personally familiar with the so-called
Black International, advisor to the State Duma, and participant in Putins
Unity movement.16

Banking on the high price of Russian oil, Putin began to rebuild Russias
economic and military might. But the corruption (often State-sponsored)
within the Russian economy hindered the diversification of the economy that
he needs. From 2003 Putin moved to reverse the main gains of the liberal
1990s religious freedom, and a more open and honest attitude to the Soviet
past. Churches were seized from True Orthodox Christians and their websites

14 Sprukts, Re: [paradosis] A Russian Conversation in English, orthodox-

tradition@[Link], 24 June, 2004.
15 Preobrazhensky, KGB/FSBs New Trojan Horse: Americans of Russian Descent, North Billerica,

Ma.: Gerard Group Publishing, 2008, p. 97; KGB v russkoj emigratsii (The KGB in the Russian
Emigration), New York: Liberty Publishing House, 2006, p. 102.
16 Ackerly, High Treason in ROCOR: The Rapprochement with Moscow, pp. 21, 25.

13
hacked; elections were rigged, independent journalists were killed, and
independent businessmen imprisoned on trumped-up charges. New history
books justifying Stalinism were introduced into the classrooms. Youth
organizations similar to the Hitler Youth were created.17 Putins Russia began
to resemble Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

The MP has shown complete loyalty to Putinism, and takes an enthusiastic

part in the criminal economy. This is illustrated by the activities of the
recently elected patriarch, Cyril Gundiaev, who imports tobacco and alcohol
duty-free and is now one of the richest men in Russia.18 And so it is Putin who
personally brokered the union of the MP and ROCOR, an idea first mooted by
Archbishop Mark in 1997 and by Archbishop Laurus on July 17, 199919

3. The MPs Jubilee Council. Following the instructions of the KGB, in

August, 2000 the MP held a Jubilee Hierarchical Council whose main
purpose was to remove the obstacles towards ROCORs unification with it.
These obstacles, as formulated by ROCOR during the decade 1990-2000 were:
(a) Ecumenism, (b) Sergianism, and (c) the Glorification of the New Martyrs,
especially the Royal New Martyrs.

(a) Ecumenism. In the document on relations with the heterodox, it was

declared that the Orthodox Church is the true Church of Christ, created by
our Lord and Saviour Himself; The Church of Christ is one and
unique; The so-called branch theory, which affirms the normality and
even the providentiality of the existence of Christianity in the form of separate
branches is completely unacceptable. However, wrote Protopriest
Michael Ardov, the patriarchal liberals will also not be upset, insofar as the
heretics in the cited document are called heterodox, while the Monophysite
communities are called the Eastern Orthodox Churches. And the dialogues
with the heterodox will be continued, and it is suggested that the World
Council of Churches be not abandoned, but reformed20

17 Edward Lucas, The New Cold War, London: Bloomsbury, 2008, p. 102.
18 After the fall of the Soviet Union, the church received official privileges including the right
to import duty-free alcohol and tobacco. In 1995, the Nikolo-Ugreshky Monastery, which is
directly subordinated to the patriarchate, earned $350 million from the sale of alcohol. The
patriarchates department of foreign church relations, which Kirill ran, earned $75 million
from the sale of tobacco. But the patriarchate reported an annual budget in 1995-1996 of only
$2 million. Kirills personal wealth was estimated in Moscow News in 2006 to be $4 billion.
([Link] February, 2009).
19 Fr. Benjamin Zhukov, Appeal to the West European Clergy, December 15, 2000; Church

News, vol. 12, 9 (91), p. 4 . There were strong suspicions that both Laurus and Mark were
KGB agents. For more on Putin and his relations with ROCOR, see Peter Budzilovich,
Vstrecha so Stalinym, [Link] , and Preobrazhensky,
KGB/FSBs New Trojan Horse, op. cit., chapter 2.
20 Ardov, The Jubilee Council has confirmed it: the Moscow Patriarchate has finally fallen

away from Orthodoxy (Report read at the 8th Congress of the clergy, monastics and laity of
the Suzdal diocese of the Russian Orthodox [Autonomous] Church, November, 2000).

14
 The MPs Fr. (now Metropolitan) Hilarion (Alfeyev) explained the origins
of the document on ecumenism: The subject of inter-Christian relations has
been used by various groups (within the Church) as a bogey in partisan wars.
In particular, it has been used to criticise Church leaders who, as is well
known, have taken part in ecumenical activities over many years. In
Alfeyevs opinion, ecumenism has also been used by breakaway groups,
such as the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and the Old Calendarists, to
undermine peoples trust in the Church. Therefore there was a need for a
clear document outlining the theological basis of the Russian Orthodox
Churchs attitude towards heterodoxy, i.e. the question of why we need and
whether we need dialogue with the non-Orthodox confessions, and if so
which form this dialogue should take. Fr. Hilarion refused to answer the
question whether the Council would discuss the matter of the participation of
the MP in the WCC, but said that the patriarchate felt obliged to continue
negotiations with Protestant and Catholic representatives in the WCC and to
be a part of the ecumenical committee.21

After the Council, there was no let-up in the MPs ecumenical activities.
Thus on August 18, Patriarch Alexis prayed together with the Armenian
Patriarch. And on April 21, 2005, he congratulated the new Pope Benedict
XVI on his accession, and expressed the hope that he would strive to develop
relations between the two churches. When asked how he evaluated Pope John
Paul IIs ministry, he replied: His Holiness teachings have not only
strengthened Catholics throughout the world in their faith, but also borne
witness to Christianity in the complex world of today.22 After ROCOR joined
the MP in 2007, the MP noticeably increased its ecumenical activities and its
relationship with the Vatican continued to improve

(b) Sergianism. The MP approved a social document which, among other

things, recognised that the Church must refuse to obey the State if the
authorities force the Orthodox believers to renounce Christ and His Church.
As we shall see, enormous significance was attached to this phrase by
ROCOR. However, on the very same page we find: But even the persecuted
Church is called to bear the persecutions patiently, not refusing loyalty to the
State that persecutes it.23 We may infer from this that the MP still considers
that its loyalty to the Soviet State was right and the resistance to it shown by
the Catacomb Church was wrong. So, contrary to first appearances, the MP
remained mired in sergianism.

21 Church News, vol. 12, 6 (88), July-August, 2000, p. 8. Alfeyev had already shown his
ecumenist colours in his book, The Mystery of Faith (first published in Moscow in Russian in
1996, in English by Darton, Longman and Todd in 2002), which was strongly criticised from
within the MP by Fr. Valentine Asmus.
22 Associated Press, April 21, 2005; Corriere della Sera, April 24, 2005.
23 Iubilejnij Arkhierejskij Sobor Russkoj pravoslavnoj tserkvi. Moskva 13-16 avgusta 2000 goda (The

Jubilee Hierarchical Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, Moscow, 13-16 August, 2000),
St. Petersburg, 2000, p. 159.

15
 Indeed, sergianism as such was not mentioned in the document, much less
repented of. This is consistent with the fact that the MP has never in its entire
history since 1943 shown anything other than a determination to serve
whatever appears to be the strongest forces in the contemporary world. Until
the fall of communism, that meant the communists. With the fall of
communism, the MP was not at first sure whom she had to obey, but
gradually assumed the character of a populist church, trying to satisfy the
various factions within it (including nominally Orthodox political leaders)
while preserving an appearance of unity.

Since Putin came to power in January, 2000, the MP has appeared to be

reverting to its submissive role in relation to an ever more Soviet-looking
government, not protesting against the restoration of the red flag to the armed
forces and approving the retention of the music of the Soviet national anthem.
There has even been an official justification of Sergianism. Thus on July 18,
2002, the Moscow Synod ratified a document entitled The relationships
between the Russian Orthodox Church and the authorities in the 20s and 30s,
which declared: The aim of normalising the relationship with the authorities
cannot be interpreted as a betrayal of Church interests. It was adopted by the
holy Patriarch Tikhon, and was also expressed in the so-called Epistle of the
Solovki Bishops in 1926, that is, one year before the publication of The
Epistle of the deputy patriarchal locum tenens and temporary patriarchal
Synod. The essence of the changes in the position of the hierarchy consisted
in the fact that the Church, having refused to recognise the legitimacy of the
new power established after the October revolution in 1917, as the power
became stronger later, had to recognise it as a state power and establish
bilateral relations with it. This position is not blameworthy; historically, the
Church has more than once found herself in a situation in which it has had to
cooperate with non-orthodox rulers (for instance, in the period of the Golden
Horde or the Muslim Ottoman Empire).24

However, Soviet power was very different from the Tatars or Ottomans,
and bilateral relations with it, unlike with those powers, involved the
betrayal of the Orthodox Faith and falling under the anathema of the Church.
Moreover, if the Church at first refused to recognise Soviet power, but then
(in 1927) began to recognise it, the question arises: which position was the
correct one? There can be no question but that the position endorsed by the
Moscow Council of 1917-18, when Bolshevik power was anathematized, was
the correct one, and that the sergianist Moscow Patriarchate, by renouncing
that position, betrayed the truth and continues to betray it to the present day
through its symbiotic relationship with a government that openly declares
itself to be the heir of the Soviet State.

24Moskovskij Tserkovnij Vestnik (Moscow Church Herald), 14-15, pp. 243-244; quoted by
Fr. Michael Ardov, [Link]

16
 (c) The New Martyrs. With regard to the New Martyrs, the major problems
from the patriarchate's point of view were the questions of the Royal Martyrs,
on the one hand, and of the martyrs of the Catacomb Church who rejected
Metropolitan Sergius, on the other. Non-royal martyrs killed before the
schism with the Catacomb Church could be "safely" canonized. Thus in 1989,
the MP canonized Patriarch Tikhon, and in 1992 it canonized three more
martyrs and set up a commission to inquire into the martyrdom of the Royal
Family, about which an MP publication wrote in 1998: No less if not more
dangerous as an ecclesiastical falsification is the MPs Canonization
Commission, headed by Metropolitan Juvenal (Poiarkov), which has
suggested a compromise glorification of Tsar Nicholas Alexandrovich: Yes,
he was guilty of the tragedy on Khodynka field, he hobnobbed with Rasputin,
he offended the workers, the country became backward. In general as a ruler
of a state he was completely useless. Most important, he brought the country
to revolution. But he suffered for Christ Such a falsification will only
continue that dirty stream of slander which the Christ-fighters began to pour
out already long before 191725

After nearly a decade of temporising, the MP finally, under pressure from

its flock, glorified the Royal New Martyrs and many other martyrs of the
Soviet yoke at the Jubilee Council. The glorification of the Royal New Martyrs
was a compromise decision, reflecting the very different attitudes towards
them in the patriarchate. The Royal Martyrs were called passion-bearers
rather than martyrs, and it was made clear that they were being glorified,
not for the way in which they lived their lives, but for the meekness with
which they faced their deaths. This allowed the anti-monarchists to feel that
Nicholas was still the bloody Nicholas of Soviet mythology, and that it was
Citizen Romanov rather than Tsar Nicholas who had been glorified - the
man rather than the monarchical principle for which he stood.

As regards the other martyrs, Sergius Kanaev writes: In the report of the
President of the Synodal Commission for the canonisation of the saints,
Metropolitan Juvenal (Poiarkov), the criterion of holiness adopted for
Orthodox Christians who had suffered during the savage persecutions was
clearly and unambiguously declared to be submission to the lawful
leadership of the Church, which was Metropolitan Sergius and his hierarchy.
With such an approach, the holiness of the sergianist martyrs was
incontestable. The others were glorified or not glorified depending on the
degree to which they were in separation from the lawful leadership of the
Church. Concerning those who were not in agreement with the politics of
Metropolitan Sergius, the following was said in the report: In the actions of
the right oppositionists, who are often called the non-commemorators,
one cannot find evil-intentioned, exclusively personal motives. Their actions
were conditioned by their understanding of what was for the good of the
Church. In my view, this is nothing other than blasphemy against the New

25 Pravoslavie ili Smert (Orthodoxy or Death), 8, 1998.

17
Martyrs and a straight apology for sergianism. With such an approach the
consciously sergianist Metropolitan Seraphim (Chichagov), for example,
becomes a saint, while his ideological opponent Metropolitan Joseph of
Petrograd, who was canonized by our Church, is not glorified Metropolitan
Seraphim was appointed by Sergius (Stragorodsky) in the place of
Metropolitan Joseph, who had been banned by him.26

Other Catacomb martyrs were glorified by the MP because their holiness

was impossible to hide. Thus the relics of Archbishop Victor of Vyatka were
found to be incorrupt and now lie in a patriarchal cathedral although he
was the very first bishop officially to break with Sergius and called him and
his church organization graceless! Again, the reputation of Metropolitan Cyril
of Kazan was too great to be ignored, in spite of the fact that by the end of his
life his position differed in no way from that of St. Victor or St. Joseph.

Some, seeing the glorification of the Catacomb martyrs by their opponents,

remembered the Lords words: Ye build the tombs of the prophets and adorn
the sepulchres of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our
fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the
prophets. Therefore ye bear witness against yourselves that ye are sons of
those who murdered the prophets. Fill up the measure of your fathers!
(Matthew 23.29-32).

This blasphemous canonisation of both the true and the false martyrs,
thereby downgrading the exploit of the true martyrs, had been predicted by
the ROCOR priest Fr. Oleg Oreshkin: "I think that some of those glorified will
be from the sergianists so as to deceive the believers. 'Look,' they will say, 'he
is a saint, a martyr, in the Heavenly Kingdom, and he recognized the
declaration of Metropolitan Sergius, so you must be reconciled with it and its
fruits.' This will be done not in order to glorify martyrdom for Christ's sake,
but in order to confirm the sergianist politics."27

The main thing from the MPs point of view was that their founder,
Metropolitan Sergius, should be given equal status with the catacomb martyrs
whom he persecuted. Thus in 1997 the patriarch said: Through the host of
martyrs the Church of Russia bore witness to her faith and sowed the seed of
her future rebirth. Among the confessors of Christ we can in full measure
name his Holiness Patriarch Sergius.28

26 Kanaev, Obraschenie k pervoierarkhu RPTsZ (Address to the First Hierarch of the

ROCOR), in Zhukov, Otkliki na deiania Arkhierejskogo Sobor RPTsZ 2000 goda i na prochie
posleduischie za nim sobytia (Reactions to the Acts of the Hierarchical Council of the ROCOR in
2000 and to other events that followed it), part 2, Paris, 2001, pp. 3-4 ; Iubilejnij Arkhierejskij
Sobor, op. cit., pp. 43, 44.
27 "Ierei o. Oleg otvechaet na voprosy redaktsiii" (The Priest Fr. Oleg Replies to the Questions

of the Editors), Pravoslavnaia Rus' (Orthodox Russia), 23 (1452), December 1/14, 1991, p. 7.
28 Quoted by Fr. Peter Perekrestov, The Schism in the Heart of Russia (Concerning

Sergianism), Canadian Orthodox Herald, 1999, 4.

18
 By the time of the council of 2000, the MP still did not feel able to canonize
Sergius probably because it feared that it would prevent a union with
ROCOR. But neither did it canonize the leader of the Catacomb Church,
Metropolitan Joseph of Petrograd. This suggested that a canonization of the
two leaders was in the offing, but depended on the success of the negotiations
between the MP and ROCOR.

The patriarch's lack of ecclesiastical principle and ecclesiological

consistency in this question was pointed out by Fr. Peter Perekrestov: "In the
introduction to one article ("In the Catacombs", Sovershenno Sekretno, 7,
1991) Patriarch Alexis wrote the following: 'I believe that our martyrs and
righteous ones, regardless of whether they followed Metropolitan Sergius or
did not agree with his position, pray together for us.' At the same time, in the
weekly, Nedelya, 2, 1/92, the same Patriarch Alexis states that the Russian
Church Abroad is a schismatic church, and adds: 'Equally uncanonical is the
so-called "Catacomb" Church.' In other words, he recognizes the martyrs of
the Catacomb Church, many of whom were betrayed to the godless
authorities by Metropolitan Sergius's church organization, and at the same
time declares that these martyrs are schismatic and uncanonical!"29

For in the last resort, as Fr. Peter pointed out, for the MP this whole matter
was not one of truth or falsehood, but of power: "It is not important to them
whether a priest is involved in shady business dealings or purely church
activities; whether he is a democrat or a monarchist; whether an ecumenist or
a zealot; whether he wants to serve Vigil for six hours or one; whether the
priest serves a panikhida for the victims who defended the White House or a
moleben for those who sided with Yeltsin; whether the priest wants to baptize
by immersion or by sprinkling; whether he serves in the catacombs or openly;
whether he venerates the Royal Martyrs or not; whether he serves according
to the New or Orthodox Calendar - it really doesn't matter. The main thing is to
commemorate Patriarch Alexis. Let the Church Abroad have its autonomy, let
it even speak out, express itself as in the past, but only under one condition:
commemorate Patriarch Alexis. This is a form of Papism - let the priests be
married, let them serve according to the Eastern rite - it makes no difference,
what is important is that they commemorate the Pope of Rome."30

It is open to question whether the patriarchate's canonisation of even the

true martyrs is pleasing to God. Thus when 50 patriarchal bishops uncovered
the relics of Patriarch Tikhon in the Donskoj cemetery on April 5, 1992,
witnesses reported that "it was even possible to recognise the face of the
Patriarch from his incorrupt visage, and his mantia and mitre were also
preserved in complete incorruption. Witnesses also speak about a beautiful

Perekrestov, "Why Now?" Orthodox Life, vol. 44, 6, November-December, 1994, p. 44.
29

Perekrestov, Why Now? op. cit., p. 43. Unfortunately Perekrestov, contradicting his own
30

witness about the MP, joined it in 2007.

19
fragrance and an unusual feeling of reverential peace at that moment. But
then, as some patriarchal clerics confirm, on contact with the air the relics
crumbled, or - as the Catacomb Christians remark - the relics were not given
into the hands of the Moscow Patriarchate. Then they buried them in plaster -
a blasphemous act from an Orthodox point of view..."31

The ROCOR clergy of Kursk wrote about the MP council as follows:

Everywhere there is the same well-known style: pleasing the right and the
left, the Orthodox and the ecumenists, yours and ours, without the
slightest attempt at definiteness, but with, on the other hand, a careful
preservation of the whole weight of the sins of the past and present.32

The Jubilee Sobor was final proof, if proof were needed, that the MP had
not repented and could not repent unless its higher echelons were removed
and the whole church apparatus was thoroughly purged.

The question now was: how was ROCOR going to react?

31Eugene Polyakov, personal communication, April 5, 1992.

32Obraschenie kurskogo dukhovenstva k mitropolitu Vitaliu (Address of the Kursk Clergy
to Metropolitan Vitaly), Otkliki, op. cit., part 3, p. 80.

20
 I. THE SECOND OCTOBER REVOLUTION

In October, 2000, a Hierarchical Council of ROCOR took place in New York

under the presidency of Metropolitan Vitaly. In almost all its acts it
represented a reaction to, and to a very large extent an approval of, the acts of
the Moscow council. The most important were three conciliar epistles
addressed: the first to the Serbian Patriarch Paul, the second To the Beloved
Children of the Church in the Homeland and in the Diaspora and the third
To the Supporters of the Old Rites.

The first of these epistles, dated October 26, declared that ROCOR and the
Serbs were brothers by blood and by faith and that we have always valued
the eucharistic communion between our sister-Churches and the desire to
preserve the consolation of this communion to the end of time. And towards
the end of the Epistle we read: We beseech your Holiness not to estrange us
from liturgical communion with you.

It should be remembered that this was written only two years after
ROCOR had officially reissued its anathema on ecumenism, and only a few
months after the Serbian Patriarch himself had said that there was no
communion between his Church and ROCOR, calling ROCOR a church
only in inverted commas! Moreover, as recently as September, 2000, the
official publication of the Serbian Church, Pravoslave, had reported that, at the
invitation of the patriarchate there had arrived in Belgrade a Catholic
delegation, which had made a joint declaration witnessing to the fact that
Serbian hierarchs had been praying together with the Catholics for the last
three weeks! So, having justly anathematised the Serbs as heretics, and having
witnessed the continuation of their heretical activity, ROCOR was now
begging to be brought back into communion with the heretics!

Why? The reason became clear later in the Epistle: A miracle has taken
place, the prayers of the host of Russian New Martyrs have been heard: the
atheist power that threatened the whole world has unexpectedly, before our
eyes, fallen! Now we observe with joy and hope how the process of spiritual
regeneration foretold by our saints has begun, and in parallel with it the
gradual return to health of the Church administration in Russia. This process is
difficult and is not being carried forward without opposition. Nevertheless, a
radiant indicator of it is the recent glorification of the New Martyrs of Russia
headed by the slaughtered Royal Family and the condemnation of the politics
of cooperation with the godless authorities which took place at the last
Council of the Russian Church in Moscow.

There still remain other serious wounds in the leadership of the Russian
Church which hinder our spiritual rapprochement. Nevertheless, we pray
God that He may heal them, too, by the all-powerful grace of the Holy Spirit.

21
Then there must take place the longed-for rapprochement and, God willing,
the spiritual union between the two torn-apart parts of the Russian Church
that which is in the Homeland, and that which has gone abroad. We pray your
Holiness to grant your assistance in this.

So the ROCOR bishops this letter was signed by all of them without
exception - were asking a heretic anathematised for ecumenism to help them
to enter into communion with other anathematised ecumenists their old
enemies in Moscow, whom they now characterised in glowing and
completely false terms as if they had already returned to Orthodoxy! Why,
then, should the ROCOR bishops continue to speak of ecumenism as an
obstacle to union with the MP? As the Kursk clergy pointed out: It is not
clear how long, in view of the declared unity with the Serbian patriarchate,
this last obstacle [ecumenism] to union with the MP will be seen as vital.33

The second of the epistles, dated October 27, made several very surprising
statements. First, it again spoke of the beginning of a real spiritual
awakening in Russia. Considering that less than 1% of the Russian
population goes to the MP, then, even if the spiritual state of the MP were
brilliant, this would hardly constitute awakening on any significant scale.

However, as Demetrius Kapustin pointed out, the signs of this awakening

the greater reading of spiritual books, the greater discussion of canonical
and historical questions in the MP are not good indicators of real spiritual
progress: It is evident that the reading of Church books can bring a person
great benefit. However, a necessary condition for this is love for the truth. The
Jews also saw Christ, and spoke with Him, but they did not want humbly to
receive the true teaching, and not only were they not saved, but also took part
in the persecutions and destroyed their own souls. It is the same with many
parishioners of the MP. On reading books on the contemporary Church
situation, many of them come to the conclusion that sergianism and
ecumenism are soul-destroying. However, these doubts of theirs are often
drowned out by the affirmations of their false teachers, who dare to place
themselves above the patristic tradition. Satisfying themselves with a false
understanding of love (substituting adultery with heretics and law-breakers
for love for God, which requires chastity and keeping the truth) and
obedience (substituting following the teaching of false elders for obedience to
God and the humble acceptance of the patristic teaching, and not recognizing
their personal responsibility for their own Church state), they often take part
in the persecutions and slander against the True Orthodox. In a word, even
such good works as the veneration of the Royal Martyrs are often expressed
in a distorted form (by, for example, mixing it with Stalinism, as with the
fighter from within Dushenov). Kapustin then makes the important point
that an enormous number of people have not come to Orthodoxy precisely

33Obraschenie kurskogo dukhovenstva k mitropolitu Vitaliu (Address of the Kursk Clergy

to Metropolitan Vitaly), Otkliki, op. cit., part 3, p. 79.

22
because they have not seen true Christianity in the MP (alas, in the
consciousness of many people in Russia the Orthodox Church is associated
with the MP). In my opinion, the MP rather hinders than assists the spiritual
awakening of the Russian people (if we can talk at all about any awakening in
the present exceptionally wretched spiritual condition of Russia).34

Secondly, ROCORs epistle welcomed the MPs glorification of the New

Martyrs, since the turning of the whole Russian people in prayer to all the
holy New Martyrs of Russia and especially the Royal new martyrs had
become possible now thanks to the recognition of their holiness by the
Hierarchical Council of the Moscow Patriarchate. As if the Russian people
had not already been praying to the Holy New Martyrs in front of icons made
in ROCOR for the past twenty years!

Moreover, as Protopriests Constantine Fyodorov and Benjamin Zhukov

wrote, the possibility of turning in prayer to the Russian New Martyrs was
opened to the people not by the Moscow Patriarchate (as is written in our
Hierarchical Councils Epistle), but by the martyric exploit of these saints themselves,
who were glorified by our Church in 1981. The prayer of the Russian people to
these saints never ceased from the very first day of their martyric exploit, but
was strengthened and spread precisely by the canonization of the Church Abroad.35

Thirdly: We are encouraged by the acceptance of the new social

conception by this council, which in essence blots out the Declaration of
Metropolitan Sergius in 1927. 36 And yet in the MPs social conception
Sergius declaration was not even mentioned, let alone repented of. In any
case, how could one vague phrase about the necessity of the Church
disobeying the State in certain exceptional cases (which was contradicted on
the same page, as we have seen) blot out a Declaration that caused the greatest
schism in Orthodox Church history since 1054 and incalculable sufferings and
death?! Two years later, as we have seen, in July, 2002, the Synod of the MP,
far from blotting out the declaration, said that Sergius relationship to the
Soviet authorities was not blameworthy, so not only has the MP not
repented for sergianism, but it has continued to justify it, contradicting the
position of the Catacomb new martyrs whom it has just glorified and who
gave their lives because of their opposition to sergianism.

34 Kapustin, Raziasnenia Episkopa usilili somnenia (The Explanations of the Bishop have
increased Doubts), Otkliki, op. cit., part 3, p. 66. Kapustin was actually commenting on Bishop
Eutyches report to the Council. However, since the Council in its epistle accepted Eutyches
report almost in toto, and repeated many of his points, the remarks on the bishops report
apply equally to the conciliar epistle.
35 Fyodorov, Zhukov, Ispovedanie iskonnoj pozitsii RPTsZ (The Confession of the Age-Old

Position of the ROCOR), Otkliki, op. cit., part 3, p. 46.

36 Again, it was Bishop Eutyches report that played the vital role here: We simply no longer

notice it, one phrase from the Social Doctrine is sufficient for us (A. Soldatov, Sergij
premudrij nam put ozaril (Sergius the Wise has Illumined our Path), Vertograd, 461, 21
May, 2004, p. 4).

23
 The epistle, which was signed by all the bishops except Barnabas, obliquely
recognised this fact when it later declared: We have not seen a just
evaluation by the Moscow Patriarchate of the anti-ecclesiastical actions of
Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) and his Synod and their successors. If
so, then how can we talk about Sergius Declaration being blotted out?!

The third epistle, addressed to the Old Ritualists without distinguishing

between the Popovtsi and Bespopovtsi, was similarly ecumenist in tone,
beginning with the words: To the Believing children of the Russian
Orthodox Church in the Homeland and in the diaspora, who hold to the old
rite, the Council of bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad sends
greetings! Beloved brothers and sisters in our holy Orthodox faith: may the
grace and peace of the Man-loving Saviour be with you to the ages!

It was one thing to remove the bans on the old rites, as ROCOR had done
in its Council in 1974: it was quite another to recognise the schismatics as
Orthodox. And in such terms! For later in the epistle ROCOR compares the
persecutions of the Old Ritualists to the persecutions of St. John Chrysostom,
and begs forgiveness of the Old Ritualists as the Emperor Theodosius the
Younger had begged it of the holy hierarch! But, as Bishop Gregory Grabbe
pointed out after the 1974 Council, the sins of the Russian State in persecuting
the Old Ritualists in the 17th century should not all be laid on the Church of
the time, which primarily condemned the Old Ritualists not for their
adherence to the old rites (which even Patriarch Nicon recognised to be
salvific), but for their disobedience to the Church. To lay all the blame for the
schism, not on the Old Ritualists but on the Orthodox, even after the Old
Ritualists had proudly refused to take advantage of the many major
concessions made by the Orthodox (for example, the edinoverie) while
stubbornly continuing to call the Orthodox themselves schismatics, was to
invert the truth and logically led to the conclusion that the Orthodox Church
was not the True Church!

As clergy of the Kursk diocese pointed out: The conciliar epistle to the
Old Ritualists, in our opinion, is not only an extremely humiliating document
for the Orthodox Church, but also contains signs of a heterodox ecclesiology.
Effectively equating the Old Ritualists with the confessors of Orthodoxy, the
Hierarchical Council, first, leaves them with their convictions, thereby
blocking the path to repentance, and secondly, either teaches that outside the
Orthodox Church there can exist true confession, or considers that the Church
can be divided into parts which for centuries have not had any eucharistic
communion between themselves. Both in form and in spirit the epistle in
question represents a complete break with the patristic tradition of the
Orthodox Church. It seems that all that remains to be added is the request:

24
We humbly beseech you to receive us into your communion and be united to
the Holy Church.37

The feelings of the protestors was summed up by Fr. Stefan Krasovitsky

and Roman Vershillo, who said that a revolution had taken place, and that
if we are to express the meaning of the coup shortly, then there took place,
first, a moral disarmament, and secondly, the self-abolition of ROCOR as a
separate part of the Russian Local Church Alas, [it] is composed in such a
way that it is not actually clear who has really fallen into schism from the
Church: we or our errant Old Ritualist brothers!38

For ROCOR the writing was now on the wall. The October, 2000 Council
constituted a clear break with the traditional attitude towards the MP and
World Orthodoxy adopted by Metropolitans Anthony, Anastasy and Philaret.
Only a clear renunciation of that clear break could keep the children of
ROCOR within the Church and Faith of their fathers

The October, 2000 Council was dubbed the second October revolution by
its critics. And soon, in imitation of the MPs own behaviour, suspensions and
bans were being placed on the dissidents without any pretence of correct
canonical procedure. Bishop Gabriel of Manhattan banned Hieromonk Paisius
of Richmond Hill, New York; Bishop Michael of Toronto banned Hieromonk
Vladimir of Mansonville, Canada; Bishop Agathangelus of the Crimea banned
Priest Nicholas Furtatenko of Kiev; and Bishop Eutyches of Siberia banned
three priests from St. Petersburg and two from Omsk. It was clear that
opposition to the false council of 2000 was increasing both inside and outside
Russia. The question was: would this opposition finally break with ROCOR
and, together with those who had already broken with ROCOR or been
unlawfully expelled from it, form a coherent and united force capable of
regenerating the Russian Church?

37 Obraschenie kurskogo dukhovenstva k mitropolitu Vitaliu (Address of the Kursk Clergy

to Metropolitan Vitaly), Otkliki, op. cit., part 3. pp. 81-82, 76.
38 Krasovitsky, Vershillo, Esche raz o sergianstve (Once More about Sergianism), Otkliki, op.

cit., part 2, p. 52.

25
 II. THE FALL OF THE NEW YORK SYNOD

On November 21 / December 4, 2000, writes Vitaly Shumilo,

Metropolitan Vitaly, in reply to the numerous appeals, published his Epistle
to the Clergy and Flock in which he gave his evaluation of the Moscow
Patriarchate and its Sobor of 2000, in particular with regard to the
canonization in the MP of the New Martyrs and the Royal Family. The
Moscow Patriarchate has decided to carry out a political capitulation and to
perform its glorification with one aim only: to pacify the voice of its believers
and thereby gain some continued existence for itself. In his Epistle Vladyka
Metropolitan also gives a critical evaluation of the decree accepted by the
ROCOR Sobor concerning the creation of a Reconciliatory commission for
unity with the MP and recalled how and with what aim Stalin created the
contemporary Moscow Patriarchate. And here he speaks about the
Catacomb Church, which did not enter upon the path of serving the God-
fighting authorities, and about the Soviet church, which submitted to the
authorities: The silent response to this on the part of the believers in Russia
was that they began to pray in their homes, and in every such flat a house
church with an iconostasis was created This kind of church exists to this
day. In his Epistle the First-Hierarch affirmed that our Church, which
already now for 80 years has gone along the straight path of Christ, will not
deviate into any dubious holes, and the fact that I have signed this Epistle
[the conciliar decision of 2000 authors comment] by no means signifies that I
agree with every point in it, and I know that there are other hierarchs who
thought the same as I. At the end of the Epistle Metropolitan Vitaly once
more declared: And so know, faithful children of the Russian Orthodox
Church Abroad, that our Church has not changed its path, and we also, if we
wish to be saved, must go along this path, and he called on them to remain
faithful to the Lord and His Church.39

The most organized resistance outside Russia came from the West
European diocese. The clergy there were unhappy with the appointment of
the pro-MP Bishop Ambrose (Cantacuzne) as head of the diocese to replace
the anti-MP Archbishop Seraphim, who was retiring. Moreover, on October
17 a letter to the Council of Bishops signed by Bishop Barnabas, 7 archpriests,
7 priests, the Abbess of the Lesna convent and other lower clergy protested
against the plans, announced in a letter by two Geneva priests, to transfer the
Geneva parish of the Elevation of the Cross to the MP in exchange for
stavropegial status and administrative and financial independence.

Shumilo, Apostasia v Russkoj Zarubezhnoj Tserkvi (Apostasy in the Russian Church

39

Abroad), [Link]

26
 The role of Bishop Ambrose of Geneva in this affair was not immediately
obvious.40 Although he had been conducting negotiations with the MP for the
last five years, he appeared at first to distance himself from the two priests.
However, on October 27 he was elevated to the rank of diocesan bishop of the
Western Europe diocese, and immediately, at a parish meeting, said that he
was very happy with the parish councils decision to join the MP 41

There were stirrings in Russia also. On January 21 / February 2, 2001,

Bishop Benjamin (Rusalenko) of the Kuban and Black Sea made the first open
declaration by a bishop withdrawing his signature from the unorthodox
decisions of the Council of the year 2000. In June he was followed by
Archbishop Lazarus. Now all the Russian bishops except Bishop Eutyches of
Ishim and Siberia42 were on the side of the protesters.

On February 6-8 there took place a meeting of the Hierarchical Synod in

New York under the presidency of Metropolitan Vitaly that confirmed all the
decisions of the Council. We are very upset, said the Synod, by the
disturbances that have taken hold of some parts of our church organism. In
connection with this we affirm that we all the members of the Hierarchical

40 Several years before, Archbishop Anthony of Los Angeles had written to Metropolitan
Vitaly when the consecration of Bishop Ambrose was first mooted: I am worried by the
words of Vl. Anthony [of Geneva]: Both candidates are my faithful friends, they have the
same opinions as I. We all remember the words of Vl. Anthony on Russia, we know his
attitude towards the ecumenists of the Serbian church and to the Paris archiepiscopate. God
forbid that his candidates, especially the younger one, should be of the same opinion as him
in this. I would like to meet them personally, so as to be able to take part in a discussion of
their consecration. Since there is no time for this, and the consecration is already decided, let
my reply remain as a reminder concerning those irreparable consequences which have
already taken place more than once in our Church as the result of hasty and uncanonical
consecrations.
Concerning Fr. Peter Cantacuzne, whom I dont know at all, I have negative
information from the clergy in France, to the effect that he is not firm in all things.
In conclusion I very fervently and ardently ask you not to hurry with the ordination of Fr.
P. Cantacuzne. There is a great risk of our receiving an unwanted hierarchical voice, and we
are obliged to foresee this. (undated letter, original in the archive of Archbishop Anthony
(Orlov) of San Francisco).
41 Church News, November, 2000, vol. 12, 8 (90), pp. 8-10.
42 Moreover, just to keep him on side, Metropolitan Cyril (Gundiaev) called him in March,

2004 and gave him an ultimatum: either become a vicar of Patriarch Alexis II, or leave
Russia (Konstantin Preobrazhensky, Ecumenism and Intelligence). In the same year,
according to Roman Lunkin, Bishop Eutyches became a member of the commission for the
unification of ROCOR and the MP, declaring that he had already for a long time been striving
for unity with the MP. In a press interview he asserted that 70% of the clergy of ROCOR were
ready to unite with the patriarchate even now, and that the very unification of the churches
could become an event signifying the changes that had taken place in the MP and the
shedding of its sovietism. In the summer of 2004, after a meeting between Bishop Eutyches
and Archbishop Demetrius (Kapalin) of Tobolsk and Tyumen arranged by the vice-governor
of the Tyumen district, Sergius Smetaniuk, Archbishop Demetrius declared that there were
no contradictions between the two branches of the Russian Orthodox Church (Rossijskie
zarubezhniki mezhdu dvukh ognej (The Russians of the Church Abroad between two fires),
[Link]

27
Synod, headed by the president, his Eminence Metropolitan Vitaly, -
unanimously stand by the decisions and declarations accepted at the
Hierarchical Council and we cannot agree with the attempt to introduce a
spirit of doubt and disagreement into our midst.

In response to this, on February 24 / March 9 Bishop Benjamin and the

clergy of the Kuban and Black Sea diocese wrote to Metropolitan Vitaly and
the Synod, saying: We insistently ask you to convene a new Council with the
participation of clergy, monastics and laity. Because by your decisions you
have introduced strong dismay and disturbance into the whole of our Church.
We are expecting a positive response to our Address from the next meeting of
the Hierarchical Synod. But if our voice is not heeded by the Archpastors,
then we shall be forced, in accordance with the holy canons that forbid joint
prayer with heretics, to step on the path of decisive actions (depart from evil
and do good) We have not lost hope that our Hierarchical Synod will
review these decisions and by the conciliar mind of the Russian Church
Abroad will correct the errors that have been made.

Meanwhile, the clergy of the West European diocese were continuing to

refuse to accept Bishop Ambroses authority. Fr. Nicholas Semeonov of
Brussels and Fr. Constantine Fyodorov of the Lesna convent in France were
suspended. On February 28, 2001, Bishop Barnabas withdrew his signature
from the October Councils letter to the Serbian patriarch. The next day
Bishop Ambrose released the clergy and the flock of the French vicariate [of
Cannes] from submission to Bishop Barnabas. 43 Then, on April 24 the
ROCOR Synod, on the basis of a report by the Protopriests George Larin and
Stefan Pavlenko, suspended the French clergy for their refusal to
commemorate Bishop Ambrose, and told them to meet Archbishop Laurus in
Munich on May 2. This suspension was signed by Metropolitan Vitaly and
Archbishop Laurus, secretary of the Synod. The French clergy, meeting with
Bishop Barnabas, unanimously rejected the suspensions as uncanonical, and
did not go to the meeting in Munich. But on April 25, Bishop Barnabas was
also placed under ban. These acts were signed by Metropolitan Vitaly and
Archbishop Laurus.44

None of the banned clergy was able to arrive at such short notice for the
meeting on May 2. In their absence a broadened Hierarchical Synod
confirmed the April decisions to ban Bishop Barnabas and his clergy.45 On

43 Church News, March-April, 2001, vol. 13, 2 (94), pp. 5-6.

44 Tserkovnie Novosti, May-June, 2001, 3 (94), pp. 1-3.
45 Fr. Luca (Michellin) argues that Bishop Barnabas was partly responsible for this tragedy in

that, at the Council of 2000, when the appointment of a bishop to replace the retired
Archbishop Seraphim of Brussels had been discussed, his own name had been put forward
by Bishop Gabriel, but he had refused, saying that he had been ordained in 1982 solely in
order to carry out a secret episcopal consecration for the Catacomb Church. As a result,
Bishop Ambrose was appointed, while Bishop Barnabas remained in the rank of a vicar-
bishop. Bishop Barnabas did not oppose Bishop Ambroses appointment at that time.

28
May 5 Bishop Barnabas and his clergy signed an Address in which they
evaluated the activity of the Synod and Bishop Ambrose in the last few
months. They pointed out that they had made several appeals to the Synod to
review the ecumenist and pro-MP activity of Bishop Ambrose and to remove
him from administering the diocese. In reply, instead of investigating the
complaints and initiating an ecclesiastical trial, the Synod had banned the
appealers until repentance. Referring to Bishop Benjamins Declaration
(the voice of Bishop Benjamin of the Black Sea and Kuban has sounded out
in a confessing manner, they said), the West European clergy appealed to the
like-minded clergy and flock in Russia and abroad to unite and form a
powerful opposition to the new course in our Church.

On May 6/19 another Address of the West European clergy appeared on

the internet, in which their position was explained and bewilderment
expressed with regard to the bans placed on them by the Synod. The essence
of the question is not in some crude and enigmatic disobedience to the
hierarchy, but in the acceptance or non-acceptance of the Moscow
Patriarchate. The question was clearly put at the Council of the year 2000,
which established a Commission for the Unity of the Russian Church and
turned to the Serbian Patriarch with a request that he intercede on the path
to this unity. The hierarchs deliberately ignore this question and cover it with
a supposed violation of church discipline. The appointment of Bishop
Ambrose as the ruling bishop, although he is a supporter of rapprochement
with Moscow and in spite of all the warnings, has brought the diocese into
complete disorder In recognizing the Moscow Patriarchate as the genuine
Russian Church, the hierarchs have condemned themselves as schismatics,
falling under the Moscow Patriarchates condemnation of the Church
Abroad. At the end of the Address the banned clergy declared that this kind
of action on the part of the members of the Synod has no real ecclesiastical
significance, and all their decisions bear only a party character. The crisis in
the West European diocese had reached the point where formal synodical
decrees and bans were no longer able to resolve it.

But perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the whole affair was the fact that
Metropolitan Vitaly had signed these bans

On May 22 / June 4 Archbishop Lazarus withdrew his signature from the

decisions of the Council of 2000. In his Address (which he had begun in
January, 2001, but had been prevented from completing because of illness) he,
following Bishop Benjamin, called for an extraordinary Council of ROCOR to
review several points in that Councils documents. And he went on: In no
way am I thinking, and never have thought, of leaving ROCOR and causing a
schism, but, on the contrary, by this step of mine I guard myself and the flock
entrusted to me by the Holy Church from deviating from the only true path of
confession along which ROCOR and RTOC (as two parts of one Russian
Church) have unwaveringly gone since the very moment of their origin.

29
 Archbishop Lazarus also warned against premature breaking with the
Synod. He was probably thinking of the action of the Paris Protopriest
Benjamin Zhukov, who in the previous month of May, had attempted to have
Archimandrite Sergius (Kindyakov) consecrated and had unsuccessfully tried
to draw Lazarus into his plot. 46 But he did succeed in enrolling Bishop
Barnabas, who travelled with the aim of consecrating Sergius to Mansonville
in Canada, but was deterred from carrying out the consecration by
Metropolitan Vitaly. However, Bishop Barnabas and Fr. Benjamin went on to
register a new church group under the name of The Russian Orthodox
Church in Exile in the Paris prefecture as a public, non-commercial
corporation. It appeared that already these two were plotting a church coup,
with the replacement of Vitaly by Barnabas as metropolitan and with Zhukov
as the real controller behind the scenes

At this point, Metropolitan Vitaly, seeing the chaos being created in the
Church, began to step back from the course he had undertaken together with
the other hierarchs. In an epistle dated June 7/20, he rescinded the bans on
Bishop Barnabas and the French clergy. He had the right to do this as a
temporary measure, in accordance with article 38 of the ROCOR Statute,
pending the convening of a new Sobor that alone could make a final decision.
Then, in an encyclical dated June 9/22, which he ordered to be read from the
ambon of all the churches, the metropolitan subjected many positions
adopted in the recent Sobor to just criticism, and called for the convocation of
a new Sobor. Although the metropolitan did not personally repent of his part
in the creation of this chaos (as recently as the Synodal session on February 8
he had upheld the decisions of the October 2000 Council47), his willingness to
review the disastrous decisions of the October Sober was very welcome. On
June 25 / July 8 Archbishop Lazarus expressed his support and profound
gratitude for the encyclical.

However, the encyclical was forbidden to be read on the orders of Bishop

Gabriel48 of Manhattan, the deputy secretary of the Synod, who declared that
the metropolitan had probably not composed the encyclical but had been
pressured into signing it by unknown persons (the first of several such
accusations in the months to come). Bishop Gabriels claim was supported in
letters by Archbishop Mark and Bishop Ambrose. But then Bishop Barnabas
weighed in on the side of the metropolitan, pointing out that the encyclical
had been thrashed out in the course of three days of talks in Mansonville and
expressed the freely expressed opinions of the metropolitan himself.49

46 V. Zhukov, Mysli o Rossii, October, 2005.

47 Zaiavlenie Arkhierejskogo Sinoda Russkoj Pravoslavnoj Tserkvi za Granitsej,
[Link]
48 Dr. Olga Ackerly, High Treason in ROCOR: The Rapprochement with Moscow,

[Link]
49 Tserkovnie Novosti, June- July, 2001, 4 (95), pp. 1-4.

30
 On July 10, a critical session of the Hierarchical Synod was held. The event
turned into a very crude and rude attempt to force the metropolitan to retire
only two or three days before the fiftieth anniversary of his service as a
bishop. The metropolitan said that he could retire only as the result of the
decision of a Sobor; but the other bishops said that that was not necessary.
The metropolitan then closed the session, declaring that he had nothing in
common with the other bishops, and that he would see them at the Sobor.

However, two documents dated the same day and signed, as it would
seem, by Metropolitan Vitaly as well as by the other ten bishops, declared that
the metropolitan had submitted a petition that he be allowed to retire in
view of age and illness (he was 92), that his petition had been accepted with
understanding, that Archbishop Laurus was appointed deputy of the first
hierarch with all proxy powers (protocol 9) until a Sobor could be
convened, and that a Sobor to elect a new metropolitan would be convened in
October!50 The decision was taken that any official documents coming from
the Synod without the signature of the deputy of the First-Hierarch,
Archbishop Laurus, are invalid (article three of the Act). And it was also
decreed that a Hierarchical Sobor should be convened in October to elect a
new First-Hierarch (article 4). Archbishop Laurus was appointed Deputy of
the First-Hierarch, and his name was to be commemorated in all the parishes
after the name of the First-Hierarch

Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin did not submit to these decrees,
and continued to commemorate Metropolitan Vitaly without commemorating
Archbishop Laurus.

On July 12 a triumphant liturgy and moleben was celebrated in honour of

Metropolitan Vitalys jubilee, after which a number of hypocritical speeches
praising the metropolitan were uttered by hierarchs who had been treating
him with such disrespect only two days before.51

On July 13 the Synod declared, in an attempt to assuage the fears of

Metropolitan Vitalys supporters: None of the hierarchs of ROCOR is
pushing towards a unification with the MP. There is no pro-MP faction
amongst us. The falseness of these words was already evident, but would be
demonstrated even more clearly in the coming years

Shortly after the forced removal of Metropolitan Vitaly, writes Professor

Olga Ackerly, the MP began to voice its endorsement: We welcome the
fact that the more healthy forces in the Church Abroad have predominated
and are now for all practical purposes in charge of it.52

50 Tserkovnie Novosti, June- July, 2001, 4 (95), p. 6.

51 Trusost, izmena i obman, [Link]
52 Ackerly, op. cit.

31
 On September 4-5, a Conference of the Hierarchs, Clergy and Laity of the
Russian Parishes of ROCOR took place in Voronezh under the presidency of
Archbishop Laurus, and with the participation of Bishops Benjamin,
Agathangelus and Eutyches. At this meeting the Kursk and Belgorod clergy
declared their break of communion with the New York Synod and addressed
their bishops Lazarus, Benjamin and Agathangelus with a suggestion that
they appeal to Metropolitan Vitaly and Bishop Barnabas that they unite with
them on the basis of the pre-2000 dogmatical and canonical position of
ROCOR. Bishop Agathangelus reacted by demanding that the Kursk clergy
renounce their break of communion with the New York Synod. Otherwise, he
would not sign any proposed documents. And he showed the clergy the
door Archbishop Lazarus did not support his colleagues hardline attitude
to the Kursk clergy, but agreed with him about not breaking with the Lavrites.
Bishop Benjamin adopted a neutral position. Although the majority of the
Conference agreed with the Kursk clergy, they now tried to persuade them,
for the sake of the good of the Church to withdraw their words about a
break of communion with the New York Synod. Fr. Valery Rozhnov said that
the Synod had fallen under their own anathema. Archbishop Lazarus retorted
that nobody had anathematized them. When the Kursk clergy refused to back
down, Bishop Agathangelus said that he was not in communion with them.
And so they left the meeting Finally, the Conference accepted an Address to
the forthcoming Sobor in which support was expressed for Metropolitan
Vitalys encyclical and for the banned Bishop Barnabas and the West
European clergy, while the practice of this kind of ban was condemned. Then,
addressing Metropolitan Vitaly personally, the Conference besought him not
to abandon his post of First-Hierarch.

On reading this Address in New York, Metropolitan Vitaly raised his right
hand and said: There is the True Church. Here everything is finished53
And on September 8/21 Bishop Barnabas and the West European clergy
(including Fr. Benjamin Zhukov) expressed their gratitude to the Russian
hierarchs and their complete support for their position.

Bishop Agathangelus signed all the decrees and addresses of the Voronezh
Conference, and was entrusted with representing its views to the Sobor in
New York. He assured the participants that he would not vote for the new
course of rapprochement with the MP, and that if Metropolitan Vitaly refused
to take part in the Sobor and left the hall, he would follow him. However,
having arrived in New York, he changed course and joined the uniates. And
then, on returning to Russia, he raised a persecution against Archbishop
Lazarus and his colleagues. He denounced them to the civil authorities, tried
to have their registration rescinded and their churches taken from them. He
even tried to seize the church of St. John of Kronstadt in Odessa that belonged
to Archbishop Lazarus

53 Witness of Hieromonk Anthony (Rudej).

32
 At the first session of the Sobor in New York, on October 10/23,
Archbishop Laurus was elected metropolitan a decision welcomed by
Patriarch Alexis of Moscow. Metropolitan Vitaly was present at this session,
but only in order to hand in the following declaration, dated October 5/18,
after which he left the hall:

Recognizing the depth of the sinful fall of certain members of the

Hierarchical Council of our Church in their intensive, but not yet expressed
desire to unite with the Moscow Patriarchate, I, with full responsibility before
God, the Russian people and my conscience, consider it my archpastoral duty
to declare that the coming Hierarchical Sobor, which is due to open on
October 23, 2001 cannot be called anything other than a collection of
irresponsibles.

This Sobor undoubtedly intends to discuss questions relating to a possible

union with the false-church of the Moscow Patriarchate. The other day I
received a Fraternal Epistle from Patriarch Alexis II, which, to my profound
sorrow, elicited a joyful reaction from many clerics of our Church. They even
sent a triumphant address to the Sobor, asking the Sobor to react positively to
this epistle of the patriarch. Their address was signed by 18-odd clerics of our
Church. But how many more are there who do not dare to express themselves
openly? Seeing no other way out of the situation that has been created, and
not wishing to bear responsibility for the final destruction of the Russian
Orthodox Church Abroad that has been entrusted to my care, I declare:

I consider myself the lawful heir of all the preceding metropolitans of our
Holy Church Abroad: first Metropolitan Anthony, then Metropolitan
Anastasius, and finally Metropolitan Philaret. I am the fourth Metropolitan of
our Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and until the most recent time, I have
continued, with the help of God, to lead this ship on the straight path amidst
the threatening waves of the sea of this world, avoiding underwater rocks,
sudden storms and deep pits that suck ships to the bottom of the sea.
Unfortunately, a fateful time has come, when I have understood and
appreciated the sad fact that between me and the other hierarchs of our Synod
there is no longer oneness of mind and soul. I said this at the last Synod, when
after the first session I, distressed and fully conscious of my isolation among
the other hierarchs, left the gathering. On this basis and only on this basis, I
agreed to retire and will be considered the Metropolitan of the Russian
Orthodox Church Abroad in retirement. In this Church I was born, was
baptized and will die when the time comes.

I wish to declare for all to hear that as First Hierarch of the Russian
Orthodox Church Abroad, I completely reject and condemn any
rapprochement whatsoever and union in the future with the false-church, the
Moscow Patriarchate.

33
 I also wish to declare that I remove my signature from the following
documents signed by me:

1. My signature on the address to the Serbian Patriarch Paul.

2. My signature on the agreement to form a commission for the

establishment of negotiations with the Moscow Patriarchate

On the same day Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin again

addressed the Sobor and Metropolitan Vitaly personally. They called on the
Sobor to review the unacceptable documents accepted in the previous Sobor,
and asked the metropolitan not to retire, saying that they recognized only him
as First-Hierarch. They said that they were not able, for objective reasons, to
be in New York, but were ready to take part in the work of the Sobor by
telephone on condition, however, that all the bishops withdrew their
signatures from the documents of the Council of 2000.

On October 11/24, Bishop Barnabas also wrote to Metropolitan Vitaly

expressing his support. Before that he and Protodeacon Herman Ivanov-
Trinadtsaty had phoned him, appealing to him not to retire. On the same day
Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin once again wrote to the
metropolitan, asking him to review his decision to retire. Archbishop Lazarus
even repeated the request in a phone call to Mansonville. No, replied the
metropolitan firmly , I am a metropolitan in retirement. How then is it to
be with us now in Russia? asked the archbishop. Place your hope on God.
God will bless, replied the metropolitan

On receiving this reply, Archbishop Lazarus decreed that for the time
being only the name of the ruling bishop should be commemorated in his
cathedral church of St. John of Kronstadt in Odessa. With the retirement of the
metropolitan, the ruling organ of the Russian Church now became the
Hierarchical Conference of Russian Bishops, first created with the blessing of
the ROCOR Hierarchical Council in 1994 with Archbishop Lazarus at its head.

On October 11/24, having discussed the declarations of the Russian

bishops, the Sobor in New York elected Archbishop Laurus as metropolitan
by a majority of votes and confirmed its adherence to the decisions of the
robber council of 2000.

On October 12/25, Metropolitan Vitaly came into the hall, congratulated

the new First-Hierarch Metropolitan Laurus and said that he was going
into retirement and is handing over the reins of the Churchs administration.
From what is written in the Protocol, the conversation was friendly. The
metropolitan congratulated Archbishop Laurus and wished him to guide the
ship of the Church in the same way that it had always been guided, on the

34
straight path of True Orthodoxy. On his part, Archbishop Laurus in the
name of the Sobor thanked Metropolitan Vitaly for his labours for the good of
the Church, and asked him for his help in bringing order to Church life.
The metropolitan once again emphasized that by reason of his health and in
view of his advanced age he could not longer administer the Church. He had
never been ambitious. He truly needed rest. The session continued without
the metropolitan, and they discussed the participation of Vladyka Vitaly at
the enthronement of Archbishop Laurus and the provision of a pension for
him in his retirement.

The Sobor wanted Metropolitan Vitaly to hand over all his property in
Canada to the Synod. To this end, fearing the interference of his secretary,
Liudmilla Rosnianskaia, it was decreed, already on October 11/24, to remove
her immediately from the Synodal house, bringing to an end her position as
a servant of the Hierarchical Synod. Then, on the evening of the same or the
following day (that is, on October 11/24 or 12/25), she was unceremoniously
thrown out of the Synodal building, and the contents of her handbag,
containing the metropolitans Canadian passport, medication and $20,000,
were stolen. The next day, the metropolitan himself fled, first to the house of
Fr. Vladimir Shishkov (where Metropolitan Valentine of Suzdal happened to
be staying), and then to Canada. The ROCOR hierarchs gave an order to
detain him at the border, but he successfully arrived at his Transfiguration
Skete in Mansonville. The next day ROCOR sued Fr. Vladimir for assisting in
the supposed kidnapping of the metropolitan, and Rosnianskaia was accused
of kidnapping him, of giving him drugs to destroy his memory, and of
exploiting his senility to her advantage.

As a result of these events, through the greed of the Synodal hierarchs,

Metropolitan Vitaly was prevented from taking part in the enthronement of
Archbishop Laurus and of praying together with the uniate hierarchs. On the
day after his departure for Canada there was an earthquake in New York
And on the very night that Metropolitan Laurus arrived in the Holy Trinity
monastery in Jordanville, a fire broke out in the monastery54 The fire was
stopped at the seminary building in which was house the cell icon of the
Iveron Mother of God that had belonged to Metropolitan Philaret.55

On November 13, President Putin met Bishop Gabriel, secretary of the

ROCOR (L) Synod, and invited him and Metropolitan Laurus to visit Moscow.
He must have agreed this invitation with Patriarch Alexis. So with the
blessing of the KGB leaders of both Church and State, the real negotiations on
union, a process that was called structuring 56 by its supporters, could begin.

54 Pravoslavnaia Rus, No 1692. December 1/14, 2001.

55 Shumilo, op. cit.
56 See the prayer appointed in all churches of ROCOR during the Divine Liturgy: O All-

Good Master, watch over Thy flock and all the children of the Russian Church Abroad, that
we may bring about the structuring of our Church in a manner well-pleasing to Thee.

35
 III. THE CREATION OF THE MANSONVILLE SYNOD

Meanwhile, in Mansonville Hieromonk Vladimir (Tselischev), an ally of Fr.

Benjamin Zhukov, finally convinced Metropolitan Vitaly to come out of
retirement. According to the witness of Fr. Vladimir, the argument that
prevailed with him was the support of the Russian bishops and the question:
Vladyka, to whom are you leaving the Russian bishops and flock?

This represented a striking volte face on the part of Hieromonk Vladimir.

Only a few months before he had dismissed the metropolitan, saying: there
is no more metropolitan (letter of November, 2000). He said that the
metropolitan was no longer able to administer the Church because he was
deprived of orientation and memory and remained in an unhealthy state
of mind and reasoning (letter of May, 2001). He completely depended on
his secretary, L.D. Rosnianskaia, who had control of his signature, his writing
paper and his seal. One should have no illusions about this, he wrote (letter
of July, 2001). Such inconsistency raised suspicions about Fr. Vladimirs real
motivation suspicions that were to be confirmed quite soon

Indeed, if the main body of the bishops led by Archbishops Laurus and
Mark were preparing a revolution on the left against the authority of the
metropolitan, there is strong evidence that a revolution on the right was
also being prepared. The real leader of these rightist revolutionaries was the
Paris Protopriest Benjamin Zhukov. In May, 2001, he asked the metropolitan
to bless Bishop Barnabas of Cannes (his creature at the time) to consecrate
Archimandrite Sergius (Kindiakov) to the episcopate. The metropolitan
refused, and Zhukov, annoyed, then tried to persuade Archbishop Lazarus of
Tambov and Odessa to carry out the consecration in secret, suggesting that he
would become metropolitan and first-hierarch. Lazarus refused, thereby
earning the hatred of Zhukov with dire consequences for the Church.57

Persuaded by rightist revolutionaries such as Tselischev and Zhukov, on

October 14/27, the metropolitan issued an Extraordinary Declaration on the
internet: In view of the unwillingness on the part of the majority of the
bishop to reconcile and pacify the unheard-of disturbance among our clergy
and flock, and also taking into account the requests of some of the bishops
and many of the children of the Church Abroad, I with all responsibility
declare that, in accordance with paragraph 34 of the Statute on the ROCOR, I
remove my signature concerning my voluntary retirement and handing over
of my powers to Archbishop Laurus. My name must be commemorated as
before at services in all the churches of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad.
In case of unforeseen circumstances, Bishop Barnabas of Cannes is entrusted

57Ocherednie chistki i raskol v mansonvillskom sinode vikariev (Yet more purges and a
schism in the Mansonville Synod of Vicars),
[Link]

36
with temporarily bearing the powers of Deputy of the First-Hierarch of
ROCOR until the election of a new First-Hierarch of the Church Abroad by
hierarchs who have remained faithful to the Orthodox faith. 58

This news was greeted with joy, but also with some perplexity, by the
opponents of union with the MP. After all, only three days before the
metropolitan had refused to revoke his decision to retire even after several
earnest entreaties from hierarchs, clergy and laity both within and outside
Russia. Moreover, there was considerable concern whether the metropolitan
had the right to come out of retirement and resume the leadership of the
Church without the decision of a Sobor of bishops. 59 Paragraph 34 of the
Stature on ROCOR did not provide him with that authority.

The only justification that the metropolitan could give for his action was
the fact that he had been coerced to retire in July. As he himself said: I
hereby declare that, at that time [July 2001] I was coerced by violence to put
my signature on documents prepared and written by the Synod... I have been
the object of outrages and of high and repeated psychological pressures from
the bishops. These tortures have exhausted me. That Metropolitan Vitaly
had indeed been coerced was witnessed by two participants in the July

58 Tserkovnie Novosti, October, 2001, 7 (99), pp. 2-4.

59 As A. Shatilova wrote: The Epistle of the Third Ecumenical Council on the matter of
Metropolitan Eustathius of Pamphylia is amazingly analogous to Metropolitan Vitalys
retirement, which was truly elicited by violence in July. However, his giving a second
declaration to the Sobor in October this year was, according to all the signs, voluntary. In the
Epistle on the matter of Metropolitan Eustathius it says that he was troubled by certain
persons and found himself faced with unforeseen circumstances. Then, later on, because of
too much inertia, he refused to face the troubles which assailed him, even when he was able
to turn aside the slanders of those who were fighting against him. He thus submitted his
written resignation we do not know how. The Council goes on to declare that since he
showed himself, in this case, negligent rather by inertia than by laziness or indolence, it
considered that it would be possible to forgive the old man, - but, nevertheless, the Epistle of
the Third Ecumenical Council orders that the enthronement of Bishop Theodore instead of
the retired Metropolitan Eustathius should be recognized as lawful. The Council clearly and
precisely explained the new position of the retired bishop: Without any questioning, he
should have the name, honor and communion of the episcopate without, however,
performing any ordinations or taking over a church and officiating in it at his own will. Let
him celebrate only if a brother and bishop invites him or allows him according to his
disposition and love in Christ.
In his extraordinary declaration of October 14/27, 2001, Metropolitan Vitaly removed his
signature to my voluntary retirement and transfer of my rights to Archbishop Laurus. How
easy it has now become to remove (ones) signature after a day or even a year! Until now,
people who renounce their word, and still more their signatures, have lost all respect among
those around them. However, in our age it is possible (without offering repentance for ones
blunder or lack of civil courage) not only with impunity to renounce ones words and even
signature, but even to become for some the heroes of the day! (Tserkovnie Novosti,
November, 2001, 8 (100), pp. 2-3).

37
meeting, Archimandrite Sergius (Kindiakov) and Priest Anthony (Orlov).60 As
against this, however, is the fact that by October the metropolitan appears to
have been completely reconciled with his retirement, refused to withdraw it
when asked to on many occasions, and voluntarily congratulated Archbishop
Laurus on his election as the new metropolitan, reaffirming that he was
retiring because of his health and old age and because he truly needed rest.

Here it is appropriate to note a similar precedent, writes Vitaly Shumilo:

it was for precisely this reason that the pre-revolutionary Russian Church
did not recognize the canonicity of the so-called Belokrinitskaya Old Ritualist
hierarchy, which traced its origins to Metropolitan Ambrose of Bosnia and
Sarajevo, who was in retirement. The Old Ritualists references to the fact that
Metropolitan Ambrose had been sent into retirement not in accordance with
his will, but on the demand and under the pressure of the Turkish
government, and that the metropolitan did not recognize the decision of the
Constantinopolitan Patriarchate were not accepted by the Holy Synod.

The fact that Vladyka Vitaly was in the situation of a bishop in retirement
is confirmed by consideration of what rights he actually enjoyed in the
Mansonville Synod of Vicar-Bishops. With the seizure of power in
Mansonville by Protopriest B. Zhukov, Hieromonk V. Tselischev and Priest N.
Orlov, Metropolitan Vitaly was de facto retired for the second time (the first
time was by the plotters from New York headed by Archbishop Laurus and
Archbishop Mark): all the parishes in Canada were removed from the direct
administration of Vladyka Vitaly as the ruling Bishop of Montreal and
Canada and transferred to the administration of the vicars, who proclaimed
themselves to be ruling. From this time and until his blessed death,
Metropolitan Vitaly had not one single parish under his administration in
Canada. From a canonical point of view, this was a possible situation for a
hierarch only if he was in retirement. The remarks that the Metropolitan was
weak and unable to administer the parishes are not honest. If the
Metropolitan was not able to administer his parishes, was he able to
administer the Church? It is clear that the people who kept the Metropolitan
in captivity were inconsistent not to say, cunning.61

There was a similar canonical problem with regard to the metropolitans

appointment of Bishop Barnabas as his deputy. Barnabas was under a ban
signed by the metropolitan himself. That ban could removed only by a Sobor
of bishops. Therefore the Metropolitans decision to appoint him as his
deputy without the authority of a Sobor, and later to allow him to ordain
bishops and be raised to the rank of archbishop, was uncanonical.

60 Their testimony, dated July 23, 2001, is cited in English by John Chaplain, [paradosis]
When Did Metropolitan Vitaly Retire? (Lie not against the truth James 3.14), orthodox-
tradition@[Link], May 16, 2005.
61 Shumilo, Apostasia v Russkoj Zarubezhnoj Tserkvi (Apostasy in the Russian Church

Abroad), [Link]

38
 The only way in which what we shall now call ROCOR (V) could correct
these canonical deficiencies was to turn to the Russian hierarchs Archbishop
Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin in order to convene a canonical Sobor. For they
were in fact the only ruling bishops opposed to the New York synod who did
not need a Council of bishops to reinstate them as fully functioning bishops.
These bishops were very eager to help in this way. On October 27, the very
day of his Extraordinary Declaration, they had declared their loyalty to
Metropolitan Vitaly.62 And on October 28th, 29 th or 30th they made their
declaration of loyalty to Metropolitan Vitaly by telephone. This phone call
was received by Bishop (then Hieromonk) Vladimir in Mansonville in the
presence of Protopriest Spyridon Schneider and Priest Andrew Kencis. When
Bishop Vladimir finished his phone call with Archbishop Lazarus he
enthusiastically proclaimed: Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin are
with us, they are commemorating Metropolitan Vitaly.

The Mansonville group were happy to welcome the Russian bishops in

October, when they were desperately in need of support against the uniate
Synod under Metropolitan Laurus (ROCOR (L). However, the tragedy was
that within a few days they no longer felt any need for them and in effect
broke communion with them. For Zhukov wanted to rule the Synod on his
own: he cared nothing for the canonical scruples of the Russian bishops, who
wanted the convening of a canonical Sobor in order to correct the canonical
deficiencies of the Mansonville Synod, but wanted with the aid of Bishop
Barnabas alone to promote his protg priests

On November 1, 2001, writes Shumilo, an event took place greatly

perplexed many Orthodox Christians. On the initiative of the New York
Synod, Metropolitan Vitaly, accompanied by police, was forcibly sent to a
psychiatric hospital for testing. This was a great indignity for the person of
the Metropolitan, a mockery of his rank and age, but Vladyka Vitaly humbly
and with dignity bore it all

[On November 3], immediately on the return of Vladyka Metropolitan

from hospital, taking advantage of his distraction and under the excuse of
saving the Church, on the initiative and under the direct pressure of
Protopriest V. Zhukov (who shouted down the phone to Bishop Barnabas:
Consecrate a bishop immediately, even if its with a rope around his neck
this is witnessed by clergy from France and Russia who were present at the
conversation), the Vicar-Bishop Barnabas carried out the consecration of
Archimandrite Sergius (Kindiakov). The decision to carry out this
consecration was taken hastily, it was not discussed in council, and none of
the acting hierarchs was informed about it (not to speak of the necessity that
they should give their written consent to the carrying out of a hierarchical
consecration, as is demanded by the church canons and the Statute of ROCOR,

62 Fr. Spyridon Schneider, internet communication to Theophan Costello, January 2, 2008.

39
see paragraph 11, and the note to this paragraph, also Canon 4 of the First
Ecumenical Council: and those who are absent must compose an
agreement by means of letters: and then the consecration can take place, etc.).
Only one consent was obtained to this consecration, together with the
Metropolitans oral blessing but not immediately, but after some pressure
on him (the decisive argument was: You can be arrested and the Church will
remain without bishops)

As many sources witness, the ninety-year-old Metropolitan, by reason of

his health had not been able to serve a liturgy since 1999, was very weak and
unable to take full part in the consecration of Archimandrite Sergius. He was
present at it clad only in a mantia (this is witnessed by photographs: on them
Bishop Barnabas and Bishop Sergius are in full hierarchical vestments, but
Metropolitan Vitaly is in a mantia), whereas neither a liturgy nor a
hierarchical consecration can be carried out in a mantia. The consecration of
Archimandrite Sergius was carried out by Vicar-Bishop Barnabas on his own

This consecration laid the foundations for the creation of a new church
organization the ROC in Exile (ROCiE, it was under that name that it was
registered in France, Canada and the USA)

If, taking into account the exceptional circumstances, for the sake of love
and peace and with the aim of averting a schism in the Church, it would have
been possible, in a conciliar fashion, with the application of the broadest economy, to
accept the consecration of Archimandrite Sergius at a Hierarchical Sobor with
a consequent laying of hands [cheirothesia] on him, then all the later
Mansonville consecrations [of Bishops Vladimir, Bartholomew, Anthony and
Victor] carried out by Bishop Barnabas and Archimandrite Sergius in secret
even from Metropolitan Vitaly (without the participation and contrary to the
will of the metropolitan) were openly unlawful, and it is impossible to accept
them.63

On November 5, the Mansonville Synod published an ukaz stating that the

metropolitan was now to be commemorated as First-Hierarch of the Russian
Orthodox Church in Exile. It was decided that the Church should be
incorporated under this name (we recall that Zhukov had already done this in
France), and Fr. Joseph Sunderland was appointed as legal advisor to carry
this out. However, since a change in name usually signifies a change in
Church, the ukaz disturbed many believers and was rejected by the Russian
bishops. Archbishop Lazarus even orally forbade the commemoration of the
metropolitan for a few weeks. But then, on November 20, the Mansonvillians
recognized their mistake and reversed their previous decision, restoring the
name Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. As emerged only later,
Metropolitan Vitaly had always been against the change of name. With the
original name restored, on November 24 Archbishop Lazarus ordered that the

63 Shumilo, op. cit.

40
metropolitans name be commemorated again. Bishop Benjamin issued a
similar ukaz. 64

Also on November 5, the new Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church in

Exile raised Bishop Barnabas to the rank of archbishop with the title of
Cannes and Europe. Strangely, Archbishop Barnabas signature was not on
this document. However, he was all too willing to accept the power it gave
him. Thus already on or about November 7, he declared that he would not
accept Archbishop Lazarus as senior to himself.65 And later he claimed that,
as deputy to the metropolitan and Archbishop of Europe, he should have
control over the whole of European Russia, thereby excluding Lazarus and
Benjamin from the administration of their sees!

Later, the Mansonvillians would describe the meeting at which these

decisions were made as the first Hierarchical Sobor of the regenerated
ROCA. And yet much later, on May 20, 2003, they decreed the
establishment of the Hierarchical Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church
Abroad! The absurdity of establishing the Synod already eighteen months
after the first Hierarchical Sobor of the regenerated ROCA appears to have
escaped the notice of these rightist revolutionaries.

After this first Hierarchical Sobor, Metropolitan Vitaly left Montreal with
his secretary, L. Rosnianskaia, who reported him as having been against the
consecration of any more bishops after Archimandrite Sergius, so that they
dont say that we bake bishops like pies. He arrived in Mansonville on the
evening of November 6. We can imagine his astonishment, therefore, when,
that same evening, he saw Hieromonk Vladimir (Tselischev) coming to him
with a hierarchical panagia on his breast. For Archbishop Barnabas and
Bishop Sergius had ordained him as Vicar-Bishop of Sacramento that day,
claiming falsely in the ordination certificate that this had been done with the
metropolitans blessing. The metropolitan refused to recognize this
consecration.

However, as in the case with Archimandrite Sergius, they persuaded him

to recognize it for the sake of the good of the Church. So as to hide the
illegality and give the consecration an appearance of lawfulness, the
signature of the metropolitan was added to the ordination certificate under
the printed resolution: I confirm.66

That this consecration was performed against the will of the metropolitan
was confirmed on July 12/25, 2004 by Archbishop Barnabas, when he wrote:
I repent of taking part in the consecration of Bishop Vladimir without your

64 Shumilo, op. cit.; Fr. Spyridon Schneider, letter of November 5, 2007,

[Link]
65 Schneider, op. cit.
66 Shumilo, op. cit.

41
permission. He had good reason to repent, for the consecration violated the
Sixth Canon of the First Ecumenical Council, which says: If anyone is made a
bishop without the permission of the metropolitan, this Great Council has
defined that he must not be a bishop.

This administrative chaos was compounded by yet another uncanonical

episcopal consecration. On November 11, Bishops Sergius and Vladimir,
without the agreement or blessing, not only of Metropolitan Vitaly, but also,
this time, of Archbishop Barnabas also, consecrated Archimandrite
Bartholomew (Vorobiev) as Bishop of Grenada.

Later, on July 12/25 Archbishop Barnabas wrote in his penitential letter to

Metropolitan Vitaly: I repent that I did not express my protest in connection
with the consecration of Bishop Bartholomew, which was carried out by
Bishop Sergius and Bishop Vladimir in spite of your and my decision. And a
lie was added to the lack of canonicity: in Bishop Bartholomews ordination
certificate it was asserted that the consecration had been carried out by
Metropolitan Vitaly.

So all three consecrations of Sergius, Vladimir and Bartholomwe - were

carried out contrary to the canons, without the convening of a canonical
Hierarchical Sobor, by vicar bishops without the participation of the only two
ruling bishops of the Russian Church that were not under ban or in retirement
(Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin), in two cases against the will of
their metropolitan, and in one case secretly from him. We therefore come to
the conclusion that if ROCOR (L), at its October Sobor, fell away from the
confessing path of the true Russian Church Abroad by its declared intention
to unite with the MP and World Orthodoxy, only a few days later ROCOR (V)
fell in the opposite direction through its violation of the conciliar norms of the
Holy Church as enshrined in the holy canons. Taking advantage of the
infirmity of Metropolitan Vitaly and his personal ascendancy over the
Mansonville Synod of Vicars, Protopriest Benjamin Zhukov accomplished a
coup dglise that left Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin as the only
canonical survivors of the pre-2001 Bishops of ROCOR.

On November 22 a second attempt to kidnap Metropolitan Vitaly and take

him to New York was made by Bishop Michael (Donskov) of Canada, as a
result of which the metropolitan anathematized him. 67 When the attempt
failed (Canadian judges refused to allow the kidnapping), the Synod of
ROCOR (L) issued a statement condemning the action and claiming that it
had always wanted to persuade the metropolitan to return by peaceful means.

67 Metropolitan Vitalys own certified account of this incident can be found at

[Link] and in English at [paradosis] Met
Vitalys certified account, orthodox-tradition@[Link], June 8, 2002. See also
Sergius Agu, Krestnij Put Mitropolita Vitalia,
[Link]

42
Bishop Michael was freed from governing the Canadian diocese and sent to
Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville.68

On December 7, Metropolitan Vitaly wrote to all the clergy and flock of the
Church Abroad: The supporters and followers of the so-called self-styled
Metropolitan Laurus, who tried to seize ecclesiastical power in our Church
Abroad, have departed into complete spiritual tracklessness.

Seeing the disturbances in our Church, I have returned to myself the

rights of head of the Church. In reply to this, the Synod, with the participation
of Bishops Michael and Hilarion, raised a real persecution against me. I was
subject to arrest at the hands of the civil authorities without the slightest
indication of any reason for my guilt. Exclusively in order to cleanse the
Church from such apostates, with my blessing and participation the
ordinations of new bishops have been carried out: Bishop Vladimir of
Sacramento and Bishop Bartholomew of Grenada

The apostates headed by Archbishop Laurus cannot be considered to be

within the bounds of the Church69

Evidently Patriarch Alexis was speaking the truth when he later said in the
media that Metropolitan Vitalys removal had been a necessary condition of
the rapprochement of the MP and ROCOR70

Let us return to the beginning of November. At that time a group of priests

led by Protopriest Victor (Melehov), exarch of the flock of the Holy Orthodox
Church of North America (HOCNA) in Russia, left HOCNA and were
received in their existing rank by Metropolitan Vitaly into ROCOR (V). Fr.
Victor was then nominated by Fr. Anatoly Trepatchko, and unanimously
elected by all the clergy and bishops, as Secretary of the newly incorporated
Russian Orthodox Church in Exile, while Fr. Michael Marcinovsky was
voted Treasurer.

Later, Fr. Benjamin Zhukov, seeing in Melehov a potential enemy to his

plans to take over the Synod, inserted the words in North America (USA and
Canada) after the word Secretary on the ROCiE official website, and also
fraudulently claimed that he himself had been made secretary of the Synod
on November 5.71

68 Tserkovnie Novosti, November, 2001, 8 (100), p. 5.

69 Tserkovnie Novosti, December, 2001, 9 (101), p. 8. See Plody luka vstva,
[Link]
70 Shumilo, Kratkaia Istoria Istinno-Pravoslavnoj Tserkvi Rossii, 1927-2007,
[Link]
71 Schneider, op. cit.

43
 Having been appointed secretary, Fr. Victor immediately made his
presence felt. As Fr. Spyridon Schneider writes: Within a few days [on
November 8] Fr. Victor came to Mansonville, and asked them to: 1.
renounce the MP and Sergianism; 2. renounce any relationship with the
Serbian Church, 3. reaffirm the 1983 anathema against ecumenism, and 4.
renounce Cyprian of Fili and his heretical ecclesiology which had been
accepted in 1994 by the Synod of Bishops. These issues were discussed for
about two and one half hours and when the Metropolitan, the Bishops and Fr.
Victor were finished with these discussions they were all very happy that
complete agreement had been reached. Soon after the meeting a statement
was written by Vladika Vladimir that addressed these four points and faxed
to Fr. Victor with all of the Bishops signatures including Archbishop
Barnabas.72

This Declaration of the Hierarchical Synod of ROCiE appeared on the

internet, and declared that (i) that ROCiE had no canonical or Eucharistic
communion with the Moscow Patriarchate, and (ii) that there would be a
cessation of the badly thought out establishment in 1994 of Eucharistic
communion with the Synod of the Resisters under the Presidencey of
Metropolitan Cyprian of Orope and Fili. The latter resolution was signed by
Metropolitan Vitaly, Bishop Sergius for Archbishop Barnabas with his
agreement, Bishop Sergius, Bishop Vladimir. Later Archbishop Barnabas,
who had left Canada for France the previous day, declared that he had not
given his agreement to the placing of his signature under this resolution.

However, to the distress of the American clergy, some French clergy began
to criticise the condemnation of Cyprian. And on November 7/20 the decree
on cessation of communion with the Cyprianites was halted.

But on December 16/29, at a Pastoral Convention of the North American

clergy, under the signatures of all the bishops except Archbishop Barnabas,
who was not present, the Cyprianite ecclesiology was formally condemned.73

72 Fr. Spyridon Schneider, [ROCElaity] Statement concerning Fr. Victor Melehov, 24

January, 2003.
73 The decree read: Metropolitan Cyprian and his Synod, while recognizing world

Orthodoxy to be heretical, nevertheless considers it to be a part of the Church of Christ, thus

contradicting the teaching and tradition of the Church, which clearly bears witness in
conciliar decrees and the writings of the Holy Fathers to the effect that heretics are fallen
away from the Church Calling for a walling-off from these ailing members, Metropolitan
Cyprian nonetheless considers them to be within the Church. However, to permit
membership in the Church outside an Orthodox confession of faith is by no means possible;
hence, those ailing in faith cannot be members of the Church, which is also confirmed by the
teachings of the Holy Fathers. Without a doubt, says the venerable John Cassian the Roman,
he who does not confess the faith of the Church is outside the Church. The same is
confirmed also by Patriarch Jeremias II of Constantinople: Members of the Church of Christ
are wholly devoted to the truth, and those not wholly devoted to the truth are not members
of the Church of Christ. Metropolitan Cyprian declares in his thesis that the Orthodox
Church has become divided into two parts: those who are ailing in the faith and those who

44
Barnabas did not protest the decision to break with Cyprian, although he
introduced one qualification. However, rumblings of discontent continued
from some of the lower French clergy, especially Protodeacon German
Ivanov-Trinadtsaty,74 and two priests with links to the Cyprianites, Michael
and Quentin Castelbajac, who joined ROCOR (L). On the other hand, there
was support for the decision from others in Western Europe and elsewhere. 75

The decision to renounce Cyprianism was important, for it signalled a

return to the ecclesiology of Metropolitan Philaret, which had been jettisoned
when ROCOR joined the Cyprianites in 1994. Formally speaking, it could be
argued that this decision was incorrect, since only a canonical Hierarchical
Council could overturn the decision of another Hierarchical Council and, as
we have seen, several of the hierarchs at this Council were not canonical, nor
were the canonical bishops in Russia allowed to participate.76 However, it
expressed the truth and that was the main thing.

The opposition of the French had its roots in the fact that they had lived for
many years under the omophorion of Archbishop Anthony of Geneva, the
most ecumenist hierarch of ROCOR for at least 20 years until his death in 1993,
whom even now they called their great Abba and he who restrained [the
coming of the Antichrist]. And Archbishop Barnabas himself had had a very
chequered career. Therefore a root-and-branch examination of the past, with
repentance for all mistakes, - conducted, moreover, on the initiative of
American clergy, some of whom had broken with ROCOR in 1986 precisely
because of their opposition to ROCORs ecumenist tendencies under
Metropolitan Vitaly and Archbishop Anthony of Geneva - was deeply
threatening to them.

This led Fr. Victor and the group of North American clergy to call for: (i)
the introduction of order into the administrative chaos of ROCOR (V), which
required the convening of a Sobor; and (ii) the introduction of a clear
ecclesiology which would help to avoid the mistakes in ecclesiology made by
ROCOR in the past and provide a firm foundation for her development in the
future.

are healthy (ch. 3, p. 4). But then he immediately goes on to speak of restoring to
Orthodoxy those ailing in the faith (ch. 3, p. 5), whereby he clearly falls into a doctrinal
contradiction. For how is it possible to receive into Orthodoxy those who already are
Orthodox?!
74 Ivanov-Trinadtsaty, Po povodu Rezoliutsii Kanadskogo Pastyrskogo Soveschania,

[Link]
75 V. Kirillov, Zametki ob uchenii Mitropolita Kipriana o Tserkvi, v sviazi s Zaiavleniem

Arkhierejskogo Sinoda RPTsI ot 26 oktiabria / noiabria 2001 goda,

[Link] Kommentarii na statiu protodiakona Germana
Ivanov-Trinadtsagogo Po povodu Rezoliutsii Kanadskogo Pastyrskogo Soveschania,
[Link]
76 Shumilo, Apostasia v Russkoj Zarubezhnoj Tserkvi, op. cit.

45
 IV. THE RUSSIAN TRUE ORTHODOX CHURCH

Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin, while rejecting the decisions of

the Mansonville Sobor of November, 2001 as uncanonical, remained in
communion with Metropolitan Vitaly and continued to call for a canonical
Sobor in which they would take part. Knowing that this would expose his
own nefarious activity, Zhukov tried hard to discredit them and the whole
idea of a Sobor. Thus on December 2/15, 2002 he wrote in an Explanation:
In the conditions that arose at the beginning of 2002, when Archbishop
Lazarus was actively trying to acquire the whole of the Russian flock faithful
to Metropolitan Vitaly (and consequently the removal of ROCOR from all
missionary work in Russia which was equivalent to its end), the convening
of a Sobor became for Her a dangerous undertaking. Only when order would
reign in the Church and all her members would know their place, would the
participants in the Sobor come with a constructive intention. Then they would
be able to say that truly the Grace of the Holy Spirit has brought us together
today and would think, not of themselves, but about the Preservation of the
Church of Christ. A hasty convening of a Council would have led to a
catastrophe, and for that reason Vladyka Barnabas addressed the
Metropolitan with a request that he defer this initiative.

While putting off the convening of a Sobor, Zhukov incited Archbishop

Barnabas to seize as much of Archbishop Lazarus flock as possible. Thus on
December 16, 2001 he accepted under his omophorion the Kursk, Belgorod
and some of the Voronezh clergy who belonged to Archbishop Lazarus
diocese. Lazarus reacted fiercely. In a telephone conversation with the warden
and treasurer of one of the Voronezh parishes, he declared that Archbishop
Barnabas was defrocked, that the new Synod under Metropolitan Vitaly
consisted of people unknown to him, who had simply solicited the Episcopal
rank, for which reason he did not recognize it, and that in general they should
from now on commemorate only him, Archbishop Lazarus. 77 Lazarus anger
was fully justified. 78

A full breakdown in relations between the Russian bishops and the

Mansonville Synod was averted after a phone call by Bishop Benjamin to
Bishop Vladimir on December 20.

77 A. Lebedev, Proiekt Obraschenia kurskogo dukhovenstva (2002 g.) k Arkh. Soboru RPTsZ
(V), [Link] ; Tserkovnie Novosti, June- July, 2001, 4 (95), p.
10.
78 And his anger continued. On February 5, 2002, while declaring to Metropolitan Vitaly that

he remained with him in prayerful, canonical and eucharistic communion, he likened the
Kursk, Belgorod and Voronezh clergy to Core, Dathan and Abiram. The next day he went
on to call on the clergy to cease their anticanonical activity, called Protopriest Oleg Mironov
a wolf in sheeps clothing and the sacraments performed by him graceless. (Lebedev,
op. cit.)

46
 However, this partial reconciliation was accepted only grudgingly by
Archbishop Barnabas. Thus in January he wrote to Bishop Vladimir: It is
necessary to stop the organization with Vladyka Lazarus and Benjamin. Now
action is being taken to destroy our Church in which these bishops
involuntarily participate. Therefore it is necessary to keep them in the most
limited rights. I, on the other hand, as the deputy of Metropolitan Vitaly, must
be given the broadest care for Russia.79

It is necessary to remind ourselves that while remaining in communion

with Metropolitan Vitaly, the Russian bishops never accepted the canonicity
of the consecrations of the Mansonville vicars. Later Zhukov himself
recognized this fact. He said that the Russian hierarchs did not enter our
Church, but attached themselves only to Metropolitan Vitaly. 80 This was
quite true. For the Mansonville Synod of Vicars was an uncanonical
organization of uncanonically consecrated bishops. At the same time Zhukov
accused the Russian bishops of trying to obtain a Sobor. A strange
accusation! According to Orthodox tradition, all Church conflicts and major
Church questions can only be resolved at Councils of Bishops. So trying to
obtain a Sobor was quite natural and praiseworthy. It was Zhukovs
(successful) attempt to put off the Sobor that required explanation and
justification

On December 15/28 or 16/29 Metropolitan Vitaly declared at the Pastoral

Convention of North American Clergy in Mansonville: After many long,
hard years of trying to manage the Church in Russia from New York, I have
learned that it is impossible to manage the Church in Russia from Abroad. We
do not know and understand their problems and we do not know their
people and possible candidates for the clergy. Without a knowledge of their
people and their problems the best that we can do is give them Apostolic
Succession and Grace and allow them to organize while maintaining
communion with them and praying that they will be able to do something for
themselves There must be a separate administration in Russia, another
administration in Europe and a third administration in North America

Shortly after this, on December 25 / January 7, 2001/2002, Metropolitan

Vitaly issued his Nativity Epistle and Spiritual Testament in which he
hinted that he was in captivity, and that people should be very careful in
trusting everything that was published in his name: We live in such a time
when they can steal men away and in my name begin to try and convince you.

79 Shumilo, Apostasia v Russkoj Zarubezhnoj Tserkvi (Apostasy in the Russian Church

Abroad), [Link] Again, in
another letter to Vladimir dated March 17 he wrote: After your insistent request that Bishop
Lazarus and Benjamin be received into the bosom of our Church, early in January, 2002 I
agreed to their reception on condition that they be given definitely limited authority in the
new ecclesiastical organization.
80 Zhukov, Mysli o Rossii, October, 2005.

47
Know that from captivity I will not convince you of anything. Believe only my
living word

On January 8/21, 2002 (835/65) Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop

Benjamin wrote an Epistle on the Contemporary Situation of the Orthodox
Church to Metropolitan Vitaly. In it they gave a short characterization of the
situation of the Church in the contemporary apostate world, beginning from
the time of the God-fighting revolution and until ROCORs October, 2000
Council. At this Council non-Orthodox decisions were taken on union with
the MP and Eucharistic communion with the ecumenist Serbian patriarchate;
the council of 2001 did not repeal these decisions, therefore the hierarchs of
ROCOR had fallen under their own anathema and the 45th Apostolic Canon,
which categorically forbids communion in prayer with heretics: Let a bishop
[] who has only prayed with heretics be excommunicated /.../ from the
Church the Epistle said. Also, reasons were given why the falling of the
hierarchs of ROCOR into apostasy had become possible: sergianism and
ecumenism have poisoned the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. The
Epistle went on to say: The Holy Patriarch Tikhon, applying all his strength
to preserve the Orthodox Church from the blows of the God-fighters, in his
God-inspired Ukaz 362 of November 7/20, 1920 foresaw the form that
Church administration would take if the activity of the organs of the Higher
Church Authority should cease. The essence of this ukaz can be reduced to
this: if the activity of the Higher Church Administration ceases [] the
diocesan bishops takes upon himself the whole fullness of power in his
diocese until the formation of a free ecclesiastical administration.

The Russian Orthodox Church existed on the foundation of this Ukaz. In

Russia, after the issuing in 1927 [] of the declaration of Metropolitan Sergius,
the Catacomb Church began to be created [] With the blessing of Patrairch
Tikhon and the Locum Tenens Metropolitan Chril, and also on the foundation
of Metropolitan Agathangels Epistle of June 5/18, 1922, communities of the
True Orthodox Church (TOC) were formed under the leadership of the most
eminent hierarchs. These communities preserved original Orthodoxy. They
suffered especially terrible persecutions. The Bolsheviks ferreted out the
catacombniks wherever they could, often with the help of priests of the
patriarchate, who denounced the true bishops and priests to the organs.
Those who fell into the camps for belonging to the TOC generally did not
come out again.

The whole episcopate of the Russian True Orthodox Church was

destroyed. In spite of this, by 1982 quite a few communities of the True
Orthodox Christians remained scattered over the whole territory of the Soviet
Union, creating an extensive widowed diocese. Archimandrite Lazarus (now
Archbishop) was secretly ordained to the Episcopal rank by a ROCOR bishop
who came specially from abroad, to rule this diocese.

48
 After the fall of the Bolshevik regime, the Russian True Orthodox Church
acquired a legal status and was officially registered in the Ukraine
(registration 356 of June 19, 1993).

Until October, 2000 no insoluble problems in administration arose. But

after the publication of the documents of the October 2000 council of ROCOR
a wave of contradictory ukazy, bans and the most varied kinds of false
information was poured out upon the Orthodox living on the territory of the
former Soviet Union, and chaos, unclarity and confusion was created in
administration.

We, the Russian bishops, on the foundation of ukaz 362 of November

20, 1920 of Patriarch Tikhon, in connection with the complicated situation in
ROCOR, on the basis of multiple addresses of the First-Hierarch of ROCOR
Metropolitan Vitaly to the Council of Bishops, in 1998 and 2000, on the
provision of independence to the Russian Bishops (of which we are witnesses),
and also in connection with all that has been said above, ask the at present
lawfully acting Metropolitan Vitaly to provide us with temporary
administrative-canonical independence.. We do not refuse to be in spiritual,
prayer and Eucharistic communion with those who have not fallen into
sergianism, ecumenism or any other heresy, and we also call to repentance all
those whom the Lord has not deprived of this great gift.

We turn to you, beloved in the Lord Vladyko Metropolitan Vitaly. We

turn to you as to the eldest First-Hierarch of ROCOR, chosen by lot, who has
preserved the purity of Orthodoxy. We raise your all-honourable name in
services and ask your blessing on our beginning.

Since the Russian bishops were never allowed to speak personally to

Metropolitan Vitaly, Archbishop Lazarus entrusted this letter to Protopriest
Vladimir, now Bishop Irenaeus, to deliver personally to the metropolitan in
Mansonville. Bishop Vladimir refused to allow Fr. Vladimir to see the
metropolitan (you have arrived without warning), but Vladyka Vitaly,
hearing that a priest from Archbishop Lazarus in Russia had come to see him
personally, immediately accepted him and gave him hospitality for several
days.

In these days Fr. Vladimir managed to convince the metropolitan that

Archbishop Lazarus was unanimous with him on all important questions of
Church life. So the metropolitan wrote a small letter to Archbishop Lazarus in
which he said: With all my heart I wish you spiritual and archpastoral
success in our great common archpastoral stand in the Truth. Then, three
days later, on February 26 / March 11, on the official notepaper of the First-
Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad, Metropolitan Vitaly wrote to
Archbishop Lazarus in his own handwriting: May God bless you to carry out
the consecration of new bishops. You must create your own Hierarchical
Synod which would be in concord with our Hierarchical Synod. At the next

49
Hierarchical Sobor I will inform all our hierarchs about this situation. Let us
be with Russia of one mind and of one soul, while having separate
administrations. Church life itself virtually dictates this to us.

This was good and important news. And so on April 4/17 5/18, at the
Second All-Russian Conference of hierarchs, clergy and laity of RTOC in
Voronezh under the presidency of the head of the Hierarchical Conference
Archbishop Lazarus and his deputy Bishop Benjamin, the decision was
taken, on the basis of the Holy Canons, the Decree of the Holy Patriarch
Tikhon no. 362 and the Directive-Testament of Metropolitan Vitaly of
February 26 / March 11, 2002, to carry out hierarchical ordinations for RTOC
and to transform the Hierarchical Conference of Russian Bishops of RTOC
that had been created with the blessing of the Hierarchical Council of ROCOR
in 1994 into the Hierarchical Synod of RTOC.81

Maintaining their continued devotion to Metropolitan Vitaly, the

Conference reproached Bishop Barnabas for the various anticanonical actions
conducted against them in the past, but nevertheless called for peace and
cooperation between them.82

On April 19, Archbishop Barnabas replied angrily, calling the Conferences

address to him shame and deception, and saying that the Lazarite
schism foreseen by us is trying to wipe her [ROCOR (V)] finally off the face of
the earth.83

On April 20, Metropolitan Vitaly met Bishops Sergius and Vladimir and
four North American priests, including Fr. Victor Melehov, in Mansonville.
They decreed that in spite of the fact that his Eminence Metropolitan Vitaly
gave his personal agreement, the decision on the creation of an ecclesiastical
administration in Russia is in the competence of the whole of the Hierarchical
Council. Before and without a conciliar decision, in spite of the 34th Canon of
the Holy Apostles [which decrees that nothing should be done by the
hierarchs without the agreement of the first-hierarch, and vice-versa], that is,
in view of its uncanonicity, no separate administration in Russia can be
formed. Consequently, hierarchical consecrations can take place in Russia
only after a decision of the Hierarchical Council of ROCOR.

The irony of this statement consisted in the fact that the Lazarites had
been calling for a Hierarchical Council consistently since the very foundation

81 Shumilo, op. cit.

82 Obraschenie rasshirennogo Eparkhialnogo sobrania Odessko-Tambovskoj i
Chernomorsko-Kubanskoj eparkhij k Ego Preosviaschenstvu Preosviannejshemu Varnave
Arkhiepiskopu Kannskomu i Evropejskomu, [Link] See
also A. Ter-Grigorian, Rasshirennoe Eparkhialnoe Sobranie Odessko-Tambovskoj i
Chernomorsko-Kubanskom Eparkhii RPTsZ (V) v Voronezhe vyrazhaet nedoverie RPATs,
[Link]
83 Vertograd, 241, 20 April, 2002; Tserkovnie Novosti, 4 (105), May, 2002, p. 4.

50
of ROCOR (V), but Zhukov, followed by his puppet Bishop Barnabas84, had
always argued against it!

Bishop Benjamin then asked Metropolitan Vitaly: Should we carry out

hierarchical consecrations, or should we refrain from this until a final
conciliar decision on the basis of the 34th Apostolic Canon? He also informed
him that Archbishop Lazarus had three candidates for hierarchical
consecration and that the consecrations were appointed for Bright Week.
Metropolitan Vitaly replied that this question was exceptionally important
and needed a conciliar decision.85

In May Archbishop Lazarus and his Diocesan Council asked again for the
summoning of a Council, but with the following necessary preconditions: (i)
the cessation of all hostile actions and propaganda against the Russian
Bishops, and an apology for the latest public insults; (ii) the cessation of
attempts to usurp ecclesiastical power by exploiting the difficult position of
the first hierarch; (iii) respect for the rights of the Russian Bishops, including
those that were given them by the decree of Metropolitan Vitaly in March; (iv)
a clear declaration by the non-Russian bishops whether they were intending
to establish a Church in Russia, or join Suzdal or the Greek Old Calendarists.

It should be pointed out that the fact that the Russian bishops were ready
to join with ROCOR (V) in a common Council did not mean that they
accepted any of the consecrations carried out by ROCOR (V) since they were
contrary to the holy canons and the ROCORs Statute. And so Archbishop
Lazarus continued not to recognize the Mansonville Synod of Vicars. 86

Spring passed into summer, and still no Sobor was convened. Finally, in
August, despairing of the possibility of the convening of a Sobor that would
discuss all these questions as well as the consecration of bishops for Russia,
the Russian bishops consecrated four new bishops: Tikhon of Omsk and
Siberia, Hermogen of Chernigov and Gomel, Irenaeus of Verney and
Semirechiye and Dionysius of Novgorod and Tver. 87 They felt that they had

84 As Zhukov said to the present writer in Paris in November, 2002, Bishop Barnabas is the
heart of this diocese, but I am the head!
85 Tserkovnie Novosti, 4 (105), May, 2002, p. 5.

86 Only in his declaration with regard to the Resolution of the Conference of the North

American Bishops of ROCOR on April 7/20, 2002, did he declare himself ready to accept it
as a temporary ecclesiastical administration, carrying out chancellery duties attached to the
Metropolitan.(Lebedev, op. cit.)
87 Eugene Sokolov writes: In an interview for radio given to me by Vladyka Tikhon during

his recent visit to the USA, the president of the Russian True Orthodox Church told me that
Vladyka Lazarus at first demanded the convening of a Council at which it would be possible
to discuss all questions, including the ordinations, but certain forces slowed down [the
convening of] this Council. In the words of Vladyka Tikhon, the new ordinations were carried
out only after it became evident that the promised Council would not take place (S Bolnoj
Golovy na Zdorovuiu, Nasha Strana (Argentina), N 2821, June 2, 2007, p. 4).

51
the right to do this, on the basis not only of Metropolitan Vitalys blessing, but
also of Patriarch Tikhons ukaz no. 362 of November 20, 1920.

On August 21, however, Metropolitan Vitaly and four ROCOR (V)

hierarchs condemned the consecrations as uncanonical and the initiators of
it as being outside the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad.88 Archbishop
Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin were then condemned without a trial or
summons to a trial. For, as Zhukov argued, to summon Bishops Lazarus and
Benjamin to a Sobor would be a crime against our Church. Since any variant
of their presence at the Sobor, whether to recognize or not to recognize the
consecrations carried out by them, or for a trial on them themselves, would
lead to the annihilation of our Russian Orthodox Church Abroad.89

So, according to this logic, to expel the Russian bishops through a lawful
canonical trial would be more destructive of the Church than to expel them
uncanonically and without a trial!

Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin never received official

notification that they were banned from serving. 90 They continued to
recognize Metropolitan Vitaly as head of their Church, declaring that his
signatures were being forged and that he was in captivity to Protopriest
Benjamin Zhukov and L.D. Rosnianskaia and in complete isolation from the
external world. 91 The present writer has personal experience of this. In
January, 2003, in Mansonville, Rosnianskaia blocked his and Hieromonk
Augustine Lims access to the metropolitan, although Bishop Sergius of
Mansonville had given his blessing

Having finally succeeded in manipulating the expulsion of the Russian

bishops, Zhukov now proceeded to further purges within the church
organization that he controlled. The American priests led by Fr. Victor
Melehov had been shown alarming signs of a concern for canonical order. So
it was now their turn

The movement to oust Melehov had begun some months before. In June,
2002 he was informed by Bishop Vladimir that he was the secretary only of
North America. In July, he was told by Bishop Vladimir that he recalled that
Fr. Benjamin Zhukov was in fact the secretary of ROCiE. In September, Fr.
Victor made preparations for Metropolitan Vitalys visit to Russia, but the

88 [Link] Tserkovnie Novosti, 10 (111), October,

2002, pp. 3-5. On November 1/14 Metropolitan Vitaly and Archbishop Barnabas confirmed
the decree of August 8/21 expelling the Russian bishops from the Church (Church News,
December, 2002, vol. 13, 12 (113), p. 5).
89 Zhukov, Open Letter to Fr. Stefan Krasovitsky, September 14/27, 2002.

90 Sokolov, op. cit.

91 Zaiavlenie Kantseliarii Arkhierejskogo Sinoda RPTsZ (V-L) o nedavnikh pismakh

mitropolita Vitalia, Vertograd, 376, 22 August, 2003. See also the declaration of June 2 4,
published in Vertograd , 369, June 28, 2003; Church News, vol. 14, 66 (120), pp. 3-5.

52
visit was stopped by Zhukov. In October, he began to receive anonymous
letters telling him that he would be suspended and defrocked.92

And so, writes Fr. Victor, when, in October, 2002, there was published on
the official site of ROCOR (ROCiE) the preconciliar report of the secretary of
ROCOR (ROCiE), Protopresbyter Victor Melehov, on the situation of the
ROCOR, together with a projected confession of faith to be sent to the flock,
Protopresbyter Victor Melehov did not only not receive any response from
the hierarchs on the ecclesiological questions, but was subjected to reproaches
by Bishop Vladimir for publishing this report.

Some hope that the hierarchs would be able to come out with an
Orthodox confession of faith appeared after Bishops Bartholomew and
Sergius, at the beginning of November, 2002, in response to the worries of the
North American clerics, signed a letter-appeal demanding the immediate
convening of a Hierarchical Council, the removal of the commission that was
blocking its convening, the resolution of the problem with Archbishop
Lazarus and the necessity of the acceptance of a confession of faith by the
clergy of ROCOR (ROCiE). Bishops Bartholomew and Sergius also signed the
text of this confession of faith. However, after talking to Bishop Vladimir and
Archbishop Barnabas, they withdrew their signatures.

Bishop Bartholomew decided to compose a new appeal to all the clergy

and faithful of ROCiE on the catastrophic situation of ROCiE and the
necessity of accepting a confession of faith. This letter of November 13/26,
2002, together with the former text of the confession of faith, was again signed
by Bishop Bartholomew. However, on the very day when the letter should
have been placed on the official site, Bishop Bartholomew again withdrew his
signature, fearing, in his words, to bite the bullet.

This letter was nevertheless published on the official site of ROCiE signed
only by the secretary of ROCiE, Protopresbyter Victor Melehov, and the dean
of the Western American deanery, Protopriest Joseph Sunderland. The
confession of faith was signed by these clerics and by Priests Michael
Martsinovsky, Andrew Kencis and Mark Smith.

The letter had not been on the official site of ROCiE for one day before it
was removed on the demand of the episcopate of ROCiE, and many learned
of its contents from other sources.

On December 9, 2002, Bishop Bartholomew officially informed us that his

signature on the appeal of the North American clerics was invalid and was
being removed (and this in spite of the fact that the appeal had been
published without his signature)93

92 Nathanael Kapner, based on an interview with Fr. Victor.

93 Melehov, The French Ecclesiology and the Fall of ROCOR (MS).

53
 The final act in this shameful episode was the uncanonical expulsion of the
still-unyielding American clerics led by Fr. Victor Melehov. It was officially
announced on January 18, 2003 that he had never been secretary of the
ROCOR (V), that he had been admitted into the Church by an oversight
and that he was actually a defrocked ex-clergyman.94 In February, Fr. Victor
received a letter from Metropolitan Vitaly, Bishops Barnabas, Bartholomew
and others stating that ROCiE does not know Fr. Victor Melehov. This was
the height of anti-canonical arbitrariness: no trial, no summons to a trial, not
even a more or less plausible accusation, but only: We do not know you!

Fr. Victor summed up the situation well: Factually speaking, the ship of
our Church is without direction and is being borne along in complete
darkness and obscurity The main aim of the Synod of Laurus - to paralyze
the activity of the Metropolitan as First-Hierarch and not to allow the
restoration of our Synod has been attained Our brothers in France
apparently do not even realize that they are in the same camp as the Synod of
Laurus and the other opponents of our Church, who are abusing the
Metropolitan-elder in every way95

On June 22 / July 5, 2003, the canonical organ of administration of the

parishes of RTOC the Hierarchical Conference of Russian Bishops was
transformed into the Hierarchical Synod of the Russian True Orthodox
Church as a small constantly acting council of bishops (literally the word
synod in Greek means gathering, council). The oldest Russian hierarch,
Archbishop Lazarus of Odessa and Tambov, was elected as President of the
Hierarchical Synod of RTOC.96

On June 24 / July 7, 2005, shortly after the death of Archbishop Lazarus,

Bishop Tikhon of Omsk and Siberia was elected first-hierarch of the Russian
True Orthodox Church.

94 See the commentary on this by A. Ter-Grigorian, Liubov, smirenie, dobrota i chuvstvo

iumora, and Zhivie i mertvy, [Link]/aktualnoe.
95 Ocherednie chistki, op. cit.
96 Shumilo, Apostasia, op. cit.

54
 V. THE PLOTTERS FALL INTO THEIR OWN PIT

Archbishop Barnabas was now at the height of his power. However, his
fall was to be precipitate. Anton Ter-Grigorian writes: Soon after getting rid
of Fr. Victor [Melehov] and the priests and laity who supported him,
Archbishop Barnabas lost the need for the all-powerful cleric of his diocese,
Protopriest Benjamin Zhukov, who after the general victory over the
Melehov schism began to demonstrate too much independence He was
soon distanced from closeness with Archbishop Barnabas, and the closest
advisor of the deputy of the First Hierarch again became Protodeacon
German Ivanov-Trinadtsaty. 97

His power began to slip at the Sobor which Zhukov now graciously
allowed to convene from May 3/16 to 7/20, 2003. Three candidates were put
forward for the episcopacy: Archimandrite Anthony (Rudej), as vicar of the
European diocese with the title Bishop of Balt and Moldovia; Hieromonk
Anastasy (Surzhik), as ruling Bishop of the Far Eastern diocese with the title
Bishop of Vladivostok and the Far East; and Priest Victor Pivovarov, as a vicar
of the European diocese with the title Bishop of Slavyansk and South Russia.
These candidacies were confirmed, although Archbishop Barnabas was
opposed to that of Pivovarov. He asked instead that the candidacy of
Archimandrite Alexis (Makrinov) and Hieromonk Joseph (Philosophov) be
considered. He also asked that all priests and laymen coming from the
dioceses of Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Benjamin should be received by
repentance.98

On June 26, 2003 Archbishop Barnabas issued an ukaz criticizing Zhukov

for anti-canonical behaviour, and demanding that he return his diocesan seal
and facsimile signature, which Barnabas suspected he had been using
unlawfully. Zhukov rejected the ukaz and flatly refused to give back the seal
and signature. Instead, he stirred up such a vicious campaign against the
bishop that six out of the eight French parishes very soon began to demand
from the Synod the replacement of the Bishop and even the defrocking of
Archbishop Barnabas. Barnabas was forced to leave the parish. Taking
advantage of his masters absence, Zhukov summoned Bishops Vladimir and
Sergius from Canada, who, on Archbishop Barnabas canonical territory, and
against his will, proceeded to consecrate Fr. Victor Ponovarov - who was not
only a KGB agent with the nickname Ponomar 99 , but had also been

97 Ter-Grigorian, Kuriezy: Episkopy RPTsZ (v) pytaiutsa reshit svoi naibolee serieznie
kanonicheskie problemy, odnovremenno prodolzhaia oblichat melekhovskij raskol,
[Link]
98 Iz protokola Zasedanij Arkhierejskogo Sobora Russkoj Pravoslavnoj Tserkvi Zagranitsej,

[Link]
99 In January, 2004 the secretary of ROCiEs Diocesan Assembly, V. Cherkasov-Georgievsky,

quoted a KGB document describing a visit to a Christian Peace Conference in America by

Bishop Victor, then a cleric of the Moscow Patriarchate, and working for the KGB under the

55
defrocked by his former bishop, Benjamin of the Black Sea, and was
considered to be a heretic by Bishop Sergius and Fr. Anastasy (Surzhik) to
the episcopate. Several weeks after this scandalous event, Archbishop
Barnabas received his diocesan seal and facsimile signature in the post from
Zhukov they were no longer needed by him!100

Zhukov then proceeded to convene a Synod meeting from November

14/27 to 16/29, at which three independent dioceses were formed. The
Russian part of Archbishop Barnabas diocese was removed from him and
divided between Bishop Anthony of Moldova, who took Ukraine, Belorussia,
Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, and Bishop of Victor of South Russia, who took
the North-West, the Centre, the Volga and the Southern regions of Russia
with Georgia, while separating those parishes whose priests want to
continue commemorating Archbishop Barnabas. As for Barnabas himself, he
was confined to Western Europe. Bishop Anastasys Far Eastern diocese was
enlarged to include the Japanese islands, Korea and China (where there were
no ROCOR parishes!), while the Siberian diocese (including the Urals district
and Kazakhstan) was also entrusted temporarily to Bishop Anastasy.

Then the bishops declared Archbishop Barnabas acceptance of some

Romanian new calendarist parishes into his diocese as uncanonical 101 ,
removed Barnabas title of Deputy of the First Hierarch, and defrocked one
of his clerics, Hieromonk Seraphim (Baranchikov), for immorality.102

On November 6/19, 2004 the Synod issued the following anathematization:

To those who affirm the antichristian heresy of Sergianism; who teach that
the Church of Christ is supposedly saved by union with the enemies of Christ,
and reject the exploit of martyrdom and confession, and construct a false
church on the foundation of Judas, and for its sake permit the transgression
and distortion of Christian teaching, canons and moral laws; who command
Christians to bow down to the God-hating authorities as if they were given by
God, and to serve them not out of fear but for consciences sake, blessing all
their iniquities; who justify the persecutions against the True Church of Christ
at the hands of the God-haters, thinking thereby that they serve God, as was

code-name Sacristan (Ponomar) (Head of the fourth department of the Fifth

Administration of the KGB, Colonel V.I. Timoshevsky, f. 6, op. 12, N 110, d. III-175, t. 1;
quoted in [Link] )
100 Ter-Grigorian, op. cit.; Ocherednie chistki, op. cit.
101 In late 2003, writes Fr. Spyridon Schneider, it became apparent that Bishop Barnabas of

Cannes had nullified an ukaz by Metropolitan Vitaly which prohibited new calendar
churches from entering into communion with the Russian Church Abroad. When Bishop
Barnabas was confronted with the fact that he had new calendar Romanian parishes under
his omophorion in France, he denied the charges (e-mail to Theophan Costello, January 2,
2008)
102 Postanovlenia Arkhierejskogo Sinoda RPTsZ ot 14/27 po 16/29 noiabria 2003g.,

[Link]

56
done in fact by the continuers of the renovationist heresy, Metropolitan
Sergius and all his followers Anathema!

But right-believing anathemas could not conceal the inner corruption of the
Synod. For Archbishop Barnabas, the coup de grce was not long in coming.
On December 7, 2003, striking out against his tormentors, he banned Zhukov
from serving.103 However, on January 19, 2004, brushing aside an explanatory
letter from Archbishop Barnabas 104 , Metropolitan Vitaly and the North
American bishops declared this act to be invalid, saying that Barnabas had
exceeded his rights (although Fr. Benjamin was a priest of Archbishop
Barnabas diocese, and directly subject to his authority), and placing him in
retirement.105 On July 8 the Synod banned him from serving.106 On July 25 he
wrote a penitential letter to Metropolitan Vitaly, repenting of many of his acts
in the last few years.107 But this repentance only enraged his enemies. At the
November Hierarchical Sobor he was defrocked - naturally, without a trial or
summons to a trial108

103 The reason, according to Vertograd ( 420, January 23, 2004) was as follows: Archbishop
Barnabas doubted the authenticity of the signature of the first hierarch Metropolitan Vitaly on
an ukaz of December 4/28 [sic], according to which a part of the West European diocese was
placed under the omophorion of Bishop Victor (Pivovarov) of Slaviansk and South Russia.
This served as a reason for the ban on Fr. Benjamin Zhukov, whom Archbishop Barnabas
accused of forging the document since he was secretary of the Synod. From the letters in
defence of Protopriest Benjamin Zhukov it appears that he could have been so bold as to sign
for Metropolitan Vitaly, although, as these declarations say in his justification, with the
knowledge of all the hierarchs of the Synod.
The ukaz banning Fr. Benjamin was issued by Archbishop Barnabas at the beginning of
December, 2003, but Fr. Benjamin was acquainted with it only at the beginning of January,
moreover completely by accident.
The true reason for the conflict between the hierarch and Protopriest Benjamin Zhukov
was the refusal of Archbishop Barnabas to take part in the consecration of a bishop for Russia
that is, of Bishop Victor of Slaviansk and South Russia. In June, 2003 in the church of the
New Martyrs of Russia near Paris, where Fr. Benjamin serves, consecrations of bishops for
Russia took place. The consecrations were carried out to a large extent at the request of the
Russian members of ROCOR (V) to give bishops and create new independent dioceses on the
territory of Russia. Earlier they were in the European diocese under the omophorion of
Archbishop Barnabas. Archbishop Barnabas ecclesiology and certain dubious actions of his
from a canonical point of view had long elicited the anxiety of the Russian flock. Fearing to
lose parishes on the territory of Russia, Archbishop Barnabas refused to take part in the
consecration of Vladyka Victor.
104 Obraschenie Arkhiepiskopa Varnavy k Episkopam Sergiu, Vladimiru i Varfolomeiu po

povodu Istinnogo Polozhenia v RPTsZ (V) (Vertograd, 439, March 6, 2004).

105 See the article by Zhukov and his supporters, Obzor Polozhenia v Zapadno-Evropejskoj

Eparkhii RPTsZ (V): Otkrytoe Pismo Klirikov, [Link]

Vertograd, 473, June 15, 2004.
106 [Link]
107 [Link]

108 A few clergy in France and Fr. Anatoly Trepatschko, his family and parish in the USA

joined Bishop Barnabas. Later, Bishop Barnabas, the founding hierarch of ROCiE finally
returned to ROCOR under the omophorion of Metropolitan Laurus When Bishop Barnabas
returned to the Synod of Metropolitan Laurus, Fr. Anatoly, his family and his parish went

57
 On January 27 / February 9, 2005 Archbishop Barnabas issued a
sorrowful epistle in which he said that he did not recognize the so called
Mansonville Synod as having any power or significance, since it had
shown its complete incompetence and its deeply uncanonical conduct of its
affairs. 109 Shortly after this, Barnabas joined the Synod of Metropolitan
Laurus, recognizing the original ban placed on him in April, 2001110

The further disintegration of the Mansonville Synod was now unstoppable.

On June 3, 2006 the Synods official site published a declaration of Zhukov,
Bishop Vladimir and Bishop Bartholomew, announcing that power in their
Synod had been seized by Archbishop Anthony (Orlov), Bishop Victor
(Pivovarov) and a certain Irina Mitse-Goldberg. Anthony declared
Metropolitan Vitaly to be incompetent, made charges against Bishops
Vladimir and Bartholomew, and took over the Church with Bishop Victor.

Archbishop Anthony was a married man who, secretly from Metropolitan

Vitaly and his own wife, had been consecrated to the episcopate in 2002 in
Paris by Bishops Barnabas and Sergius. For two years, this consecration had
been a secret, and was only revealed in 2004 on the internet. For a long time
Metropolitan Vitaly did not recognize this consecration, but Zhukov finally
forced him to give in. Although all the bishops knew that Anthony, as Priest
Nicholas Orlov, had been living in a church marriage with his wife at the time
of his consecration, they still recognized it, and even, at Zhukovs insistence,
raised him to the rank of archbishop and deputy of the First-Hierarch in
place of Barnabas. Anthonys church divorce was formalized two years after
his consecration. His civil marriage remained in force111

On June 22, 2006 Metropolitan Vitaly, under pressure from Archbishop

Anthony, Bishop Victor and Archimandrites Damascene (Balabanov) and
Stefan (Babaev), was invited to the local police station so that he could
officially, without outside influence, express his will regarding their presence
in Mansonville. When the police officer asked: Does Metr. Vitaly wish that
Orlov, Pivovarov, Balabanov, Babaev and Mitze leave the territory of the
Transfiguration Skete? the metropolitan replied firmly: Yes, I wish it.
Archbishop Anthony tried to persuade the metropolitan to change his mind,
but the police officer said: Enough. The answer has been received. The
group were then asked by the police to leave Mansonville before July 25. The
next day, June 23, Archbishop Anthony issued an ukaz saying that he counted
it his duty temporarily to take over the administration of ROCOR because
of the poor health of the metropolitan, who is not able sometimes even to

under the omophorion of Archbishop Tikhon of the Lazarus Synod. (Schneider, e-mail to
Theophan Costello, January 2, 2008.)
109 [Link]

110 [Link]
111 Ocherednie chistki, op. cit.

58
recognize his deputy and bishops because of the inconsistence and false
ukazy cancelling the previous ukaz signed by the First Hierarch and because
of the malicious isolation of the First Hierarch.112

The disintegration continued. In 2006 Bishop Victor broke from archbishop

Anthony and formed his own Synod together with Bishop Damascene
(Balabanov). These two were later to split again. Archbishop Anthony,
meanwhile, had taken to calling himself Metropolitan of Moscow, Los
Angeles and all Abroad!

On September 12/25, 2006 Metropolitan Vitaly reposed. Fr. Spyridon

Schneider writes that this marked a turning point in the life of ROCiE. When
Metropolitan Vitaly reposed there were four bishops remaining in the
Vitaly Synod. Bishop Vladimir of San Francisco and Western America, Bishop
Bartholomew of Edmonton and Western Canada (who is in the advanced
stages of Parkinsons disease and has severe dementia), Bishop Anthony of
Moldova and Bishop Anastassy of Vladivostok. Bishop Vladimir became
temporary acting First Hierarch on the basis of the fact that he, at the age of
thirty nine, was the oldest bishop by ordination.

In the early winter of 2006 Protopriest Benjamin Zhukov and Bishop

Anthony of Moldova sent Protopriest Nicholas Semenov from Brussels to
Edmonton, Canada with a document for Bishop Bartholomew to sign.
Through intrigue and deceit Bishop Bartholomew, not knowing and
understanding what he was signing, applied his signature to this document.
The document was an ukaz retiring Bishop Anastassy of Vladivostok. This
action was taken in a totally uncanonical and unethical manner, without due
process, without a meeting of the Synod, without the presence of the Acting
First Hierarch and without following the Regulations which govern the
Russian Church Abroad.113

On May 12, 2007, continues Fr. Spyridon, at a meeting with Bishop

Vladimir which included Archpriest Constantine Fyodorov, Archpriest
Spyridon Schneider and Priest Andrew Kencis, Bishop Vladimir explained
that he intends to call a Sobor of Bishops with the full knowledge and
expectation that Bishop Anthony of Moldova and the Secretary of the Synod,
Archbishop Benjamin Zhukov, will not attend. Bishop Vladimir explained
that he will call the Sobor in Edmonton, Canada so that Bishop
Bartholomew can participate in the first session of the Sobor. Bishop
Vladimir further explained that if Protopriest Zhukov and Bishop Anthony
do not come to the Sobor, as expected, then Bishop Vladimir, Bishop
Bartholomew and Bishop Anastasy will constitute a quorum. Therefore when
the meeting is convened the first item on the agenda will be to consider and
accept Bishop Bartholomews petition to retire from one year ago. This

112 Vertograd, N 53, June 25, 2006.

113 Schneider, e-mail to Theophan Costello, January 2, 2008.

59
decision will be made with the vote of Bishop Bartholomew. Once Bishop
Bartholomew is retired then he will no longer participate, nor will he be
counted as a member of the Synod. Consequently, Bishop Vladimir and
Bishop Anastasy will then have a two-third majority of the votes which
would allow them to go forward with their agenda for the future of the
Church. Bishop Vladimir further explained that Fr. Benjamin Zhukov,
although he is secretary of the Synod and has always voted in the Synod
meetings, will not have a vote because he is a priest and not a bishop114

Zhukov could never submit to such a demotion. On November 1/14, 2007,

at his inciting, Bishop Anthony (Rudej) of Moldova, secretly and on his own,
consecrated Archimandrite Seraphim (Skuratov) as Bishop of Birmingham,
and then with Bishop Seraphim ordained Fr. Roman Apostolescu as Bishop of
Brussels.115 Zhukov had now created his own catacomb church in the free
West!

With the departure of Zhukov from the scene of the Synod he both created
and destroyed, we shall end our account of ROCOR (V). The disintegration
has continued in recent years, as was only to be expected. For, as the Greek
Old Calendarist Confessor Papa Nicholas Planas said, Whatever has been
done uncanonically cannot stand it will fall 116

114 Schneider, e-mail to Theophan Costello, January 2, 2008.

115 [Link]
116 Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Boston, Papa-Nicholas Planas.

60
 VI. HERESY AND CORRUPTION IN SUZDAL

The second bishop to be consecrated for ROCOR inside Russia during the
1990s, after Archbishop Lazarus, was Bishop Valentine (Rusantsev) of Suzdal.
Having been unlawfully expelled by the ROCOR in 1996 together with three
other bishops consecrated by him and Archbishop Lazarus, 117 and having
taken part neither in the dogmatic errors of the shameful October Sobor of
2000, nor in the canonical violations of both ROCOR (L) and ROCOR (V) in
2001, the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church (ROAC) under
Metropolitan Valentine was in a relatively strong canonical position at the
beginning of the new millennium. However, strong suspicions had often been
voiced about the personality and history of the first hierarch himself, who
while in the MP had received many medals from the God-fighting state and
had two charges of homosexuality against him dropped through the
intervention of the KGB, as many thought. His relatively strong performance
in the 1990s had begun to dispel these suspicions; but now a new threat
appeared which exposed his real character, and the weakness of his Church
organization, in a glaringly unattractive light

The threat appeared in the form of a group of intellectualist refugees from

ROCOR in St. Petersburg, led by the Byzantinist (although some Byzantinists
would deny him that title) Basil Louri. From the beginning of their entrance
into ROAC in 1999, this group made no secret of their plans to reform it in
accordance with their perverted understanding of patristic tradition, which
involved: a heretical, Manichaean approach to marriage and sexuality; an
almost Nietzschean fascination with popular culture and rock music and its
cult of death and suicide 118 ; an extremely negative attitude to the pre-
revolutionary Russian Church; a cool attitude towards the Catacomb Church
and her martyrs and confessors; a positive attitude towards Stalin; an
approval of the name-worshipping heresy of Fr. Anthony Bulatovich; and
several other deviations.

However, Metropolitan Valentine was only too eager to use this group to
raise the educational standard of his clergy and the general profile of ROAC
in Russian society. He blessed their often interesting, but also often highly
controversial publications, especially Vertograd-Inform (which began life in
ROCOR), which the Petersburg group published in collaboration with other
near-Church intellectuals, such as Alexander Soldatov (the chief editor),

117 V. Moss, Rossijskaia Pravoslavnaia Avtonomnaia Tserkov kratkaia istoria (1992-1998),

Suzdal'skie Eparkhial'nie Vedomosti, N8, June-September, 1999, pp. 7-18; The Russian
Orthodox Autonomous Church - A Short History (1982-1998), Vertograd, NN16-17,
February-March, 2000, pp. 12-37.
118 On this, perhaps the most alarming of all the various aspects of Louries heresies, see

Hieromonk Nectarius (Yashunsky), Ne ktomu zmej,

[Link]

61
Egor Kholmogorov and Michael Kiselev. And, overlooking Louris
unscrupulous use of mafia connections119 and his uncanonical abandonment
of his wife and child, he ordained him to the priesthood.

Alarm-bells began to ring in 2000, when Louri published a book entitled

The Calling of Abraham, which claimed that sexual relations in marriage were
sinful, and that the celibate and monastics possessed the grace of the New
Testament, while the married were merely Old Testament Christians.
Alarmed by criticisms of this work, the metropolitan, instead of investigating
the book himself and coming to a decision about it in the Synod, blessed the
publication of a critique of Louris book by four authors (including the
present writer) entitled Marriage, the Law and Grace (Moscow, 2001).

In the winter of 2000-2001 further alarm was caused when a disciple of

Louri, Hierodeacon Theophanes (Areskin), began a series of lectures to
clergy in Suzdal in which he praised the name-worshipping heresy of Fr.
Anthony Bulatovich, who was condemned by Patriarch Tikhon and the
Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church. 120 The leader of the attacks on Louri
and Areskin was Protopriest Andrew Osetrov, the secretary of the Synod and
a close collaborator with Metropolitan Valentine. In March, the metropolitan
turned to the present writer, asking him to enter into a dialogue with Louri
in order to ascertain his true views on name-worshipping and other matters,
assuring him (Moss) that if he found his (Louris) views to be heretical, he
would bring him to trial before the Holy Synod.

The dialogue began, and would no doubt have continued peacefully if

Osetrov had not brought the issue to a head in a Synod meeting at the end of
April, during which, supported initially by the Catacomb Archbishop
Seraphim of Sukhumi, he demanded that the metropolitan condemn Louri.
When the metropolitan refused in a particularly crude form, Osetrov left
ROAC. The next day, at the glorification of Metropolitan Philaret of New
York as a saint of the Russian Church, Archbishop Seraphim served with the
metropolitan, demonstrating his loyalty to him for the time being and his
separation from Osetrov probably because Osetrov had not contented
himself with attacks on heresy within the Church, but had proceeded publicly
to accuse the metropolitan of paedophilia

Osetrov told parishioners in Suzdal that he had a video film showing

interviews of adolescents admitting to intimate relations with the
metropolitan. This film turned out to be less incriminating than Osetrov

119 See Deacon Nikolai Savchenko, Ob obstoiatelstvakh vykhoda iz redsoveta zhurnala

Vertograd, [Link]
120 For a detailed exposure of this heresy, see [Link], The Name of God and the Name-

worshipping Heresy,
[Link]
[Link]
_.pdf

62
claimed, and would in any case have been inadmissible as evidence in a court
of law. More serious was the accusation of the well-respected Hieromonk
Paisius (Gorbunov) that he personally had witnessed a homosexual act of
Metropolitan Valentine in 1995. Enormous pressure was brought to bear on Fr.
Paisius, who repented of his accusation, then reaffirmed it and fled into
hiding (with the help of his spiritual father, Archbishop Seraphim).

The metropolitan now demanded the defrocking of those clerics (about

five) who accused him of immorality, and eventually obtained the signatures
of the other bishops although Archbishop Seraphim delayed signing for six
weeks. Between June and August the Vladimir newspaper Prizyv printed a
series of eight articles in support of Osetrovs accusations. Fighting to stay out
of prison, the metropolitan claimed that Prizyv had received direct orders
from the Vladimir public prosecutors office and regional administration to
publish compromising material on Valentine.

In an interview with Keston Colleges Geraldine Fagan on March 26, 2002,

Osetrov maintained that, since Metropolitan Valentin had actively restored
churches whereas the Moscow Patriarchate had been quite incompetent in
that area, he had enjoyed some kind of protection from the Suzdal
authorities. Fr Osetrov admitted that he himself had been instrumental in
maintaining this state of affairs throughout the ten years during which he had
worked as synodal secretary to Metropolitan Valentin, initially having been
ordained in ROCA. When any accusations against the Metropolitan of
homosexual practice - a criminal offence in Russia until 1993 - or sexual abuse
were made, he said, he arranged everything so that they died away or got
lost in bureaucratic channels. Once he had been removed after protesting that
ROAC clergy who preached heresies were not being dealt with, said Fr
Osetrov, his protection of Metropolitan Valentin had ceased: This time I
gathered evidence and sent it to reliable people in the Lubyanka [the
headquarters of the FSB] and the Vladimir public prosecutor's office. Had the
affair been left to the Suzdal public prosecutor, he maintained, it would have
been completely covered up.

When Keston asked how Fr Osetrov had managed to serve in the ROAC
for ten years without suspecting Metropolitan Valentin, he replied that the
accusation of homosexuality (golubizna) was commonly used as an easy way
of discrediting a person in the Soviet period. While the rumours about
Metropolitan Valentin grew from year to year, he said, they were at first
vague and he was disinclined to believe them until some of his own children
began to relate details they had heard at school. Fr Osetrov said that he then
discovered that the Suzdal authorities' protection of Metropolitan Valentin
dated back to 1988 I was shocked, both the local police and administration
knew everything. In that year, said Fr Osetrov, local police investigated the
then criminal activities of 70 homosexuals in Vladimir region, including then
Archimandrite Valentin. An article in the May-September issue of Suzdal

63
Diocesan News, partially edited by Fr Osetrov, contains computer scans from
the original police files on Criminal Case No. 0543, including various witness
statements graphically describing homosexual activity involving
Archimandrite Valentin. According to Fr Osetrov, this was why the Moscow
Patriarchate attempted to transfer Archimandrite Valentin from the town of
Suzdal, in response to which he ultimately left the Moscow Patriarchate. In
his view, the only possible reason why Archimandrite Valentin was not
prosecuted by the authorities at that time was because he was working for
the KGB, who, he said, most probably used his sexual orientation to
compromise him.

When interviewed by Keston on 19 October, ROAC Archbishop Feodor

continued to maintain that the allegations against Metropolitan Valentin were
being fuelled by an alliance of the Vladimir authorities and the Moscow
Patriarchate. The parish priest of Suzdal's Kazan Church, Fr Dmitri Ledko,
and Archbishop Yevlogi (Smirnov) of Vladimir and Suzdal were the local
Moscow Patriarchate representatives present at the June 2001 meeting aiming
to sort out Valentin, thought the archbishop. While declining to confirm
whether such a meeting had indeed taken place, Fr Leonid did tell Keston
that there were anonymous persons in authority who wished to see
Metropolitan Valentin removed, without them there would be no court case
or publications or anything.121

Valentine now accepted the help of a very dubious new member of his
Church, the polittechnologist and close associate of Putin, Gleb Pavlovsky,
who had been introduced to him, coincidentally, by Louri! Pavlovsky
stopped a programme on ORT television attacking Valentine in September,
and offered to pay all the expenses of several lawyers who were employed to
defend the metropolitan; they were to be supervised by Louri and his closest
associate, Olga Mitrenina. Precisely why Pavlovsky should have chosen to
support the metropolitan at this time was not clear: perhaps, it was suggested,
he was trying to build up Suzdal as a counter-weight to the MP, in order to
frighten the latter and extract political concessions from it. In any case, what
was clear was that the metropolitans accepting the help of such a
compromised figure, deeply immersed in Kremlin politics and with a history
of betraying dissident enemies of the Soviet rgime122 , could only come at a
price. It soon became clear what that price was: the relaxation of pressure on
Pavlovskys childhood friend, Louri, and the expulsion by force, if
necessary - of those who persisted in raising the question of Louris heresies.
A vicious whispering campaign had already been started against Louris
(and Pavlovskys) main critic, the layman and editor of the internet server
Romanitas, Anton Ter-Grigorian. He was even punched outside the church by
one of Louris cronies, the former parliamentarian Michael Kiselev.

121 Geraldine Fagan, Russia - Special Report: State Persecution or Protection of Suzdals
Breakaway Orthodox?, Keston News Service, 12 April, 2002.
122 Vladimir Bukovsky, personal communication to the present writer.

64
 The present writer also experienced pressure in his efforts to clarify
Louris heresies a task that had been entrusted to him by the metropolitan
himself. In May, 2001, the metropolitan invited Egor Kholmogorov to mediate
between Moss and Louri in drawing up an agreed theological statement on
the issue of name-worshipping. When Moss rejected the statement
proposed by Kholmogorov and accepted by Louri as involving an
unacceptable compromise between Orthodoxy and heresy, the metropolitan
terminated the theological dialogue between Louri and Moss.

Then, in July, he issued an ukaz appointing Moss head of a theological

commission to investigate the long list of Louris blasphemous statements
that had caused commotion in the Church but stacked the rest of the
commission with all of Louris closest cronies, including Louri himself, with
only one of the six members, Protopriest Michael Makeev, being of
undoubted Orthodoxy. Moss refused to accept headship of a commission that
would in effect allow those accused of heresy to be judges of their own case,
and reminded the metropolitan of his promise that if he (Moss), after the
concluding of the now-aborted theological dialogue with Louri, were to
consider Louris views heretical, then he (the metropolitan) would bring him
to trial before the Holy Synod. The metropolitan angrily rejected any idea of
bringing Louri to account, saying that the issue of name-worshipping
interested only a few people and would disappear of itself.

On September 3 Louri conducted a press-conference in the House of the

Journalist arranged by Pavlovsky, in which he fawned before the government,
denying the involvement of either the state or the MP in Osetrovschina
(though this was manifestly untrue), and spoke about three branches of
Orthodoxy in Russia the MP, the ROAC and the Old Believers.123

On September 5, Metropolitan Valentine was formally accused of

committing forcible acts of a sexual nature, compulsion to commit acts of a
sexual nature and enticing minors into antisocial activity under Articles
132 (part 2), 133 and 151 (part 1) respectively of the Criminal Code. His trial
began on 7 February, 2002 in Suzdal District Court, but was adjourned on 13
February until August.

In October, 2001 the metropolitan made an attempt to be reconciled with

Moss and Ter-Grigorian and invited them to dinner in Suzdal. However, he
then proudly declared that he had been working for Christs Church for fifty
years! When Moss pointed out to him that by his own confession he had left
the Catacomb Church at the age of 19 to join the MP, and that it was ROACs
official confession that the MP was a false church, which he had left only in

123Ter-Grigorian, Vpechatlenia ot press-konferentsii v zaschitu RPATs, proshedshej 3

sentiabria 2001 g. v Moskve, v Dome Zhurnalista,
[Link]

65
1990, he became angry and insisted that he had been a true priest while in the
MP.124 In a private conversation the next day, trying to cover up the bad
impression he had made the previous evening, he told Moss that Louri was
not ours, strongly hinting that he was KGB and that for that reason he
could do nothing about him. After all, he said, Putin was replacing all the
mayors in Russia by communists, and the new mayor of Suzdal was one of
them

The metropolitan then departed for America. But before leaving he

accepted from Moss an open letter to the bishops and a few senior priests of
ROAC listing all Louris heresies and appealing for action to be taken against
them. Somehow this letter got into the hands of Louris associates, who
created a special web-site where the open letter was discovered and
announced by a certain Sergius Louri, as evidence of Mosss desire to
discredit ROAC publicly - although it was precisely this website that made
the matter public! Then, on November 2, Tatiana Senina, another of Louris
associates, created another website devoted exclusively to propaganda for the
heresy of name-worshipping. Shortly after, on November 7, the anniversary
of the revolution, Protopriest Michael Ardov published an open letter against
Mosss open letter in Vertograd, which, in addition to defending Louri and
name-worshipping publicly, made an astonishingly crude and completely
slanderous attack on Ter-Grigorian, forbidding him even to enter his church
in Moscow.

At this point, if the metropolitan were not to be accused of connivance with

the heresy of name-worshipping, he had to renounce Ardovs statement and
close down Seninas website. This he did not do. Indeed, since Ardov is a very
cautious man, it is very unlikely that he would ever have undertaken such a
step without a nod from on high that is, either from the metropolitan
himself, or from those who spoke in his name and by this time had effective
control over him, especially Alexander Soldatov, the editor of Vertograd.

But now Protopriest Michael Makeev, the second priest of ROAC in

Moscow, wrote to the metropolitan saying that he was very unhappy with the
heresies in the Church and that he intended to send a letter to that effect to the
bishops. Immediately, the metropolitan summoned a meeting in Moscow for
the next day, November 15. Present were Archbishop Theodore,
Archimandrite Irinarch, Protopriests Michael Ardov and Michael Makeev,
Soldatov, Kholmogorov, Ter-Grigorian and others. The metropolitan told all
sides to stop quarrelling and to forgive each other. He placed most of the
blame for the situation on Moss, who was a Judas and going along the
path of Osetrov. No rebuke was given to Louri, Senina or Ardov. It was
agreed that both Vertograd and Romanitas should remove all polemical articles
from their sites - Romanitas complied with this order: Vertograd did not.

A. Ter-Grigorian, Iz Suzdalia s liuboviu, [Link]

124

November 14/27, 2003.

66
 At a session of the ROAC Synod in December, 2001, another attempt was
made to stop all discussion of the heresies. 125 In May, 2002 the ROAC Synod
at last addressed the question of name-worshipping, only to deliver
judgement of the teaching of Hieroschemamonk Anthony Bulatovich to the
competence of a Local Council of the Russian Church. This gave the false
impression that Bulatovich and his teaching had not yet been judged by the
Russian Church

On July 26, 2002, Ter-Grigorian was excommunicated for violation of

Church discipline. Later, he was excommunicated six more times and even
anathematized! On September 9, 2003, an Official Communication of the
Editors of the Suzdalskie Eparkhialnie Vedomosti declared that the reason for
his excommunications was his open preaching of Nestorianism, refusal to call
Christ God and the Virgin Mary the Mother of God, a false teaching on the
presence of two Persons and two Hypostases in Christ and a false teaching on
the deification of Christians. Needless to say, all these accusations were
completely without basis in fact.126

And so the position of ROAC at the beginning of 2002 had changed

radically from a year earlier: her metropolitan was due for trial in the secular
courts on the most serious of moral charges; her senior priests in Moscow and
Petersburg were publicly proclaiming heresy and were not being rebuked for
it; a vicious campaign of slander and intimidation against her dissidents
was well under way; and her attitude to the Sergianism and the neo-Soviet
authorities had notably softened at least on the part of her spokesmen.127

Metropolitan Valentine and his supporters saw his trial as persecution by

the MP, as part of a general trend of increasing persecution of the True
Orthodox by the official Orthodox Churches. There is no doubt that the MP
was interested in humiliating him, and that Osetrovs campaign against him
was malicious. But there is also no doubt that he had a case to answer

And it was in order to win much-needed friends in high places that in the
autumn of 2002, just two days before the first session of the trial of
Metropolitan Valentine, ROAC published an Address to the state leadership
of the Russian Federation, the organs of the international community and the

125 Itogi Zasedania Arkhierejskogo Sinod ot 1 i 3 dekabria 2001 g.,

[Link] See also Uveschanie Arkhierejskogo Sinoda
RPATs, [Link]
126 Ter-Grigorian, Slovo o nestorianstve i bludopoklonnoj eresi,
[Link]
127 See, for example Anton Ter-Grigorian, Izvestnie publitsisty RPATs okryto priznaiut sebia

storonnikami Deklaratsii 1927 goda Sergia Stragorodskogo,

[Link] Priests Michael Makeev
and Roman Pavlov, The MP in the ROAC,
[Link]

67
rulers of the world analogous to the social doctrine accepted by the MP at
its Jubilee Sobor, in which it was written that as in the case of the
Christians of ancient Rome or the Soviet epoch, an increase in persecutions on
our Church will not lead to our civil disobedience, and still less to a rebellion
against the powers that be. We are ready humbly to bear any persecutions,
and, to the extent that we are able, to defend our lawful rights.128 This
statement of loyalty to the neo-Soviet regime, upon whose goodwill the fate of
the metropolitan now depended, was supposedly signed by a long list of
clergy but many knew nothing about the declaration, and protested the
inclusion of their names under such a sergianist document.

Since many clergy, and in particular the Catacomb hierarchs Archbishop

Seraphim of Sukhumi and Bishop Anthony of Yaransk, were continuing to be
disturbed by the teaching of Louri and calling for his defrocking129 , on
October 18, at a session of the ROAC Synod he presented a report
expressing my deep regret regarding my public statements concerning
name-worshipping, which have become a reason for discord within our
Church. I hold to the teaching of the Holy Fathers and confess no heresy
about the name of God, which would have been condemned by previous
Fathers and Councils. I also hold to the resolutions of the All-Russian Local
Council of 1917-1918, which were confirmed by two resolutions of the Synod
of our Church, in accordance with which the decision on the essence of the
question of name-worshipping belongs exclusively within the competence of
a Local Council of the Church of Russia.130 Louri did not mention, or repent
of, any of his other heresies and blasphemies.

The craftiness of this statement is immediately evident from the fact that
the All-Russian Local Council of 1917-1918 did not in fact issue any
resolutions on name-worshipping these came both earlier and later.

Further craftinesses were exposed by Protopriest Alexander Lebedev, who

wrote: Very interesting phrasing here that has to be read carefully.

First of all, Fr. Gregory does not deny that he holds to the teaching of
name-worshipping, nor does he state that he considers it to be a heresy. He
has always maintained that it was not a heresy and that it was the true
teaching of the Holy Fathers.

The phrasing Fathers and Sobors seems to neatly set aside the
condemnations of the name-worshipping heresy that were made not by

128 [Link]
129 At a session of the ROAC Synod in November, 2003, it was admitted: Yes, we know that
four hierarchs are ready to leave the ROAC if Fr. Gregory is not deposed
(Zhertvoprinoshenie skimna, [Link]
130 Vertograd, 312, October 21, 2002.

68
Sobors but by the Holy Synod of the Church of Russia (and
Constantinople) and by Patriarch Tikhon.

His agreement with the concept that the final resolution of the question
belongs solely to the competence of a Local Council of the Russian Church
equally neatly puts off this final resolution almost indefinitely, as no full Local
Council of the Russian Church is contemplated in the foreseeable future,
perhaps decades, perhaps even longer.

And, finally, although he states that he will himself refrain from any more
public statements on this issue, he does not take any of his previous
statements back or renounce them, and he does not promise to direct his
followers to refrain from continuing to defend name-worshipping131

On October 30, the Parish Council of the Orthodox Parish of St. Michael,
Guildford, England under Hieromonk Augustine (Lim) wrote a letter to the
ROAC Synod asking for answers to twelve questions on the faith arising as a
result of the various heresies and blasphemies of Hieromonk Gregory
(Louri).132 Instead of replying, Metropolitan Valentine said that only a larger

131 Lebedev, [paradosis] ROAC Synod Meeting and Statement of Fr. Gregory Louri,
orthodox-tradition@[Link], October 22, 2002.
132 These twelve questions (supplemented by copious quotations from the works of the

heretics) were:-
1. Does the Holy Synod consider Fr. Gregory Louris book, The Calling of Abraham, to be
completely Orthodox, or does it accept, in accordance with the views of Marriage, Grace
and the Law, which was published with the blessing of Metropolitan Valentine, that it
contains heresy, specifically the heresy that only virgins and monastics, and not
married people, can be New Testament Christians?
2. Does the Holy Synod not condemn the teaching of Fr. Gregory Louri and Tatiana
Senina that the Holy Synod of the Russian Church fell into heresy specifically, the
heresies of Barlaamism and Name-fighting before the revolution? Does it not
condemn their opinion that all those who opposed the teaching of Fr. Anthony
Bulatovich, including Patriarch Tikhon, were name-fighting heretics?
3. Does the Holy Synod not agree with Patriarch Tikhons condemnation of the teaching
of Bulatovich, which decree has never been repealed, and does it not agree that it is
necessary that Fr. Gregory, following Patriarch Tikhon and his Holy Synod, must
specifically condemn the teaching of Bulatovich?
4. Does the Holy Synod not agree that the Christian Empire was not an Old Testament,
but a New Testament institution, and that it did not have to abolish itself
immediately St. Constantine accepted the New Testament [as Fr. Gregory Louri
teaches]?
5. Does the Holy Synod not condemn Fr. Theophan [Areskin]s teaching that the
hierarchy of the New Testament Church is in fact the hierarchy of the Old Testament
Church, according to the order of Aaron?
6. Does the Holy Synod not agree that, contrary to the teaching of Fr. Gregory, the
Russian Church did not fall into ecclesiological heresy, specifically the heresy of
Sergianism, before the revolution?
7. Does the Holy Synod not agree that the teaching of Fr. Gregorys disciple, Tatiana
Senina, that all the pastors and believers of the Russian Church would have suffered
eternal damnation as heretics if the revolution had not come, is false and an insult to
the holy new martyrs?

69
Synod or the Tsar himself could compel him to reply!, and Louri was
allowed to present his defence in a report to the metropolitan, which drew
no comment or criticism from the Synod. 133

In December, having received no answer to their questions, and seeing that

the metropolitan was determined to defend the heretics, who now had
complete control of all the official organs of ROAC, the Parish of St. Michael
left ROAC. Nine months later, when the Parish was already in another
jurisdiction, the metropolitan declared that Fr. Augustine had been banned
from serving, and that the present writer was excommunicated because of his
supposed opposition to monasticism, which was influenced, according to the
metropolitan, by the Jewish Cabbala!134 The latter false accusation is more
than a little curious in that Fr. Gregory Louri is a direct descendant of the
foremost cabbalist of sixteenth-century Europe, Isaak Louri Levi, and a
Jewish influence in his heresies has been suspected

In July, 2003 the ROAC Synod declared in an epistle: The old Christian
world has gone, never to return, and that which is frenziedly desired by
some, the regeneration of the Orthodox monarchy in some country, in which
the true faith will reign, must be considered a senseless utopia.

This epistle was almost certainly written by Fr. Gregory Louri. However,
it was signed, according to Vertograd for July 30, by the bishops: Valentine,
Theodore, Seraphim, Irinarch and Ambrose. Therefore unless Vertograd is
lying and one or more of these signatures were forged which is quite
possible, since Archbishop Seraphim in particular has said that he never
signed certain synodal decrees on name-worshipping which he is quoted by

8. Does the Holy Synod not condemn Fr. Gregorys participation in, and expressed
admiration for, rock culture, and in particular its culture of death and suicide?
9. Does the Holy Synod not agree that the Nietzschean ideas expressed by Fr. Gregory
concerning the impossibility of obeying God and his denigration of the Christian idea
of Paradise in favour of the Muslim idea, are worthy of anathema?
10. Does the Holy Synod not agree that the saints are not the primary sources of the
teaching of the Church, since Christ Himself, the Truth Incarnate, said: My teaching is
not Mine own, but the teaching of Him Who sent Me? (John 7.16)?
11. Does the Holy Synod not agree that public expressions of admiration for the greatest
persecutor of the faith in Christian history [Stalin] do not befit an Orthodox Christian,
and still less an Orthodox priest?
12. Does the Holy Synod not condemn Fr. Gregorys blasphemous comparison of the tears
of Christ to going to the toilet, which were spoken as if he does not really believe in the
God-man at all? (Full text in both English and Russian at Obraschenie k
Sviaschennomu Sinodu Rossijskoj Pravoslavnoj Avtonomnoj Tserkvi Tserkovnogo
Soveta Obschiny sv. Arkhangel Mikhaila v Gilforde,
[Link]
133 Vertograd, 322 , November 15, 2002.

134 Ter-Grigorian, Kuriezy: Ierom. Grigorij (Louri) obviniaiet Vladimira Mossa v

priverzhennosti drevneevrejskoj Kabbale, [Link]

Slovo o nestorianstve i bludopoklonnoj eresi,
[Link]

70
Vertograd as having signed, - then we must conclude that the ROAC has
officially rejected the hope of all truly Orthodox Christians in the resurrection
of Orthodoxy under an Orthodox Emperor, and in particular the resurrection
of Russian Orthodoxy under a Russian Tsar. According to it, the faith and
hope of many, many saints and martyrs is a senseless utopia, an object of
frenzied desire that cannot possibly be fulfilled and must be renounced!135

In August, 2003, the metropolitan was convicted of paedophilia by the

court, and given a conditional four-year prison sentence. The sentence was
upheld by the appeal court in the autumn. But in March, 2004 his conviction
was expunged. Although there had been no new evidence, and no new trial,
Vertograd immediately trumpeted this as an acquittal. However, one of the
lawyers of the metropolitan himself contradicted Vertograd, saying that this
legal whitewash was based on the metropolitans private acknowledgement
of his guilt and would be removed immediately if he misbehaved again

Opposition to the heretics continued, but in November, 2003 the ROAC

Synod was able to silence its critics in a clever way: both Fr. Gregory Louri
and one of his principal opponents, Fr. Roman Pavlov, were retired. No
matter that de facto this meant that Fr. Roman was able to serve only with the
explicit permission of the metropolitan, while Fr. Gregorys activities and
serving were in no way hindered or diminished. From now on, the ROAC
was not responsible for Louri because he had supposedly been retired136

Early in 2004 two priests (Protopriest Michael Makeev and Fr. Roman
Pavlov) and a parish of ROAC in Moscow, which included the seven-times
excommunicated and anathematised Anton Ter-Grigorian, left ROAC. They
joined the True Orthodox Church of Cyprus under Metropolitan Epiphanius
of Kition. It is reported that many Catacomb Church parishioners were also
leaving ROAC at this time

In March, 2004, the name-worshippers Yegor Kholmogorov and Fr.

Gregory Louri demonstrated that they deviated from True Orthodox
teaching in another important way. According to Vertograd, they publicly
recognized themselves to be supporters of the Declaration of Sergius
Stragorodsky of 1927, distinguishing, from their point of view, the
Declaration of Sergius Stragorodsky from sergianism as such. Yegor
Kholmogorov declared the following: The position expressed in the
Declaration by the formula [there follows a long quotation from the
Declaration, including the most contentious passage about our sorrows and
joys] seems to me to be absolutely just and faithful to the church-political
position in those conditions.

135 Ter-Grigorian, Vladimir Moss ob uprazdnenii v RPATs Very Sviatykh Novomuchenikov

otnositelno vosstanovlenia Rossii,
[Link]
136 Ter-Grigorian, [Link]

71
 Later, Ye. Kholmogorov declared the following: Thus if one considers
that sergianism is the recognition of Soviet power as the civil authority in
Russia, an authority that could aid the strengthening of lawfulness, the
flourishing of the country, etc., then sergianism is undoubtedly a justified
church position and there is nothing for which to reproach Metropolitan
Sergius.

Besides this, Comrade Kholmogorov affirms that Holy Hieromartyr

Joseph of Petrograd held to the principles reflected in Sergius Declaration on
loyalty to the Bolsheviks. While on ROCOR and the Catacomb Church he
writes the following: It is completely incomprehensible why the position
of the Orthodox Christian should be that of the political partisan. To justify
this political partisanship, both in ROCOR and in the catacombs, completely
made, absolutely heretical theories were created that turned a certain part of
the catacombniks into a new edition of the Priestless Old Ritualists with their
spiritual antichrist

Hieromonk Gregory (Lourie) completely agreed with him and declared

the following: Yes, its something like that. Especially important is the
distinguishing between the Declaration and sergianism as such.

In his time the chief ideologue of ROAC and the chief editor of Portal
[Link], Alexander Soldatov, expressed himself on the Declaration of
Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky). In an editorial article for [Link] dated
September 8, 2003 he referred to Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) as on a
par with the great hierarchs of the epoch of the Ecumenical Councils, while
the word sergianism he put in inverted commas.

Earlier, from very many judgements of comrades Kholmogorov, Soldatov

and Lourie it followed that they consider sergianism to be an insignificant
canonical transgression. But now they speak about it openly137

In July, 2005 Archbishop Anthony of Yaransk met Fr. Victor Melehov, who
had been expelled from ROCOR (V), in Dmitrov. As a result of their meeting,
at which the heresies of Louri were discussed, Archbishop Anthony blessed
Fr. Victor to commemorate him alone at the Liturgy. When Archbishop
Anthony arrived in Suzdal, Metropolitan Valentine secured the banning of
the American priests for creating a faction (Fr. Christopher Johnson was
banned for trying to become a bishop!138). However, Archbishop Anthony,

137 Ideologi RPATs Priznaiut Sebia Sergianami,

[Link]
138 Joseph Suiaden writes: Metropolitan Valentine stated at the Ipswich parish that there

were originally four candidates that he was going to consecrate before making a "diaspora
Metropolia" (a restored ROCOR?): Archimandrite Michael (Graves), Fr Christopher Johnson,
Archimandrite Andrei (Maklakov), and Archimandrite Ephraim (Bertolette). I was
specifically told by none other than Fr Spyridon that "there are four men he (Metropolitan

72
supported by the Catacomb Bishops Gerontius and Hilarion from the Ukraine,
secured the banning of Louri and the setting up of a commission to
investigate the matter of Fr. Gregory Louri.

On September 5, Louri, 2005 was defrocked without a trial - by the

Synod. 139 The heretic had at length been removed. But the uncanonical
manner it which it had been done allowed the heretic to paint himself as a
victim. Soon he managed to detach two bishops (Sebastian of the Urals and
Ambrose of Khabarovsk) from the ROAC Synod. They soon consecrated him
Bishop of St. Petersburg and Gdov and made him leader of their group. As
Louris influence has waxed, - he now poses as a focus of unity of the
different True Orthodox jurisdictions, - so that of Metropolitan Valentine has
waned. The only hope for members of ROAC would seem to reside in coming
under the omophorion of the only remaining canonical branch of the Russian
Church, RTOC under Archbishop Tikhon of Omsk and Siberia

Valentine) wants to make Bishops. We need our man (Fr Christopher) in first" (personal
communication, March 31, 2011).
139 Vertograd, N 532, August 2, 2005, pp. 1-2; N 533, August 7, 2005, pp. 1-2. Joseph Suaiden

writes: Lourie was in fact called to trial. In fact, he was pretending to ignore the period of
suspension and parish representatives were claiming he had never been present to receive the
suspension for two weeks. In fact, I know that one ROAC member had gone to the parish and
saw Lourie serving during that period. When Lourie realized he had been "caught", he
announced that afternoon that he had been suspended. He then disappeared for a number of
weeks, and had placed a picture of himself in Western Europe on his website, implying he
would not be served for trial, his whereabouts unknown until after the deposition. (personal
communication, March 31, 2011).

73
 VII. THE END-GAME

All this time ROCOR (L) was coming inexorably closer to official union
with the MP In May, 2003 it declared that it and the MP mutually
recognised each others sacraments, which was followed by cases of de facto
concelebration.140 And yet, if the Moscow Patriarchate now recognized the
sacraments of ROCOR (L), it had a strange way of expressing it. In 2003, a
book published by the Moscow Patriarchate called Strazh Doma Gospodnia (The
Guardian of the House of the Lord) not only justified the official Church's
capitulation to the Soviet regime, but also condemned the confessors in the
Catacomb Church and ROCOR who did not capitulate. True, the author,
Sergius Fomin, did make the startling admission: If Metropolitan Sergius, in
agreeing in his name to publish the Declaration of 1927 composed by the
authorities, hoping to buy some relief for the Church and the clergy, then his
hopes not only were not fulfilled, but the persecutions after 1927 became still fiercer,
reaching truly hurricane-force in 1937-38 (p. 262). But the book as a whole
sought to justify Sergius. Moreover, the foreword, which was written by
Patriarch Alexis, praised the heroic path taken by Sergius and viciously
castigated his critics. Those that did not follow Sergius in his submission to
Stalin were "schismatics", who, "not having reconciled themselves to the new
government, became a danger just as big as the persecutions." Sergius, on the
other hand, received only words of praise, and was credited with averting,
"maybe even the destruction of the Russian Orthodox Church itself."

In November, 2003 a delegation to Moscow led by Archbishop Mark kissed

the patriarchs hand and asked forgiveness for any harsh things ROCOR may
have said about the MP in the past. Since a great deal had been said in the
past, and by all the leaders of ROCOR, such an apology could only be
interpreted as capitulation to the MP. Again, on January 26, 2004, Archbishop
Mark said in answer to a question about the canonical status of the Moscow
Patriarchate: The Russian people has made its choice. It has recognized the
present Russian Orthodox Church in Russia and its hierarchy. We must take
account of this in spite of possible objections from members of the Church
Abroad. At the beginning of the 1990s we still could not see the processes that
were happening in Russia as the people there saw them. Life in Russia went
by a different path from how the migrs presented it141

In May, 2004 Metropolitan Laurus headed another ROCOR delegation on a

two-week visit to Russia. On May 15, the anniversary of Patriarch Sergius
death, Patriarch Alexis demonstratively served a pannikhida for the traitor-
patriarch, after which he said: May the Lord create for him eternal and
grateful memory. Then, during a liturgy at the Butovo polygon, where

140Puti apostasii RPTs(L), [Link]

141Archbishop Mark, in Peter Budzilovich, K 60-letiu Velikoj Pobedy, [Link]
talk/com/rf/[Link].

74
thousands of Christians, both True Orthodox and sergianist, were killed and
buried 142 , he had this to say to his foreign guests: Today is the 60th
anniversary since the death of the ever-memorable Patriarch Sergius. The
time of the service of this archpastor coincided with the most terrible years of
the struggle against God, when it was necessary to preserve the Russian
Church. In those terrible years of repression and persecutions there were
more sorrows. In 1937 both those who shared the position of Metropolitan
Sergius and those who did not agree with him suffered for the faith of Christ,
for belonging to the Russian Orthodox Church. We pay a tribute of respect
and thankful remembrance to his Holiness Patriarch Sergius for the fact that
he, in the most terrible and difficult of conditions of the Churchs existence in
the 1930s of the 20th century led the ship of the Church and preserved the
Russian Church amidst the stormy waves of the sea of life. 143

The idea that those who shared Sergius position and those who rejected
were equally martyrs is to mock the very idea of martyrdom for the truth.
Clearly, therefore, Patriarch Alexis, forgetting historical facts as accepted
even by MP historians, was determined to justify even the most shameful acts
of the ever-memorable Sergius, claiming that he truly saved the Church
by his agreements with the God-haters. There could be no doubt, therefore,
that he remained a dyed-in-the-wool sergianist. And there could similarly be
no doubt that Metropolitan Laurus, in listening to this speech in respectful
silence and without interjecting the slightest objection, was a sergianist, too.

The conclusions of the first two sessions of the joint commissions of the MP
and ROCOR (in June and September, 2004) were approved in the autumn by
the MP Council of Bishops, although very few details were made public.
However, on November 1 Patriarch Alexis revealed something, which was
published by Yedinoe otechestvo under the intriguing title: Wishing a
speedy union with ROCOR, Alexis II emphasises that it is wrong to judge
Metropolitan Sergius and his actions. The patriarch was reported as saying:
Two working meetings of the commission of the Moscow Patriarchate and
the Russian Church Abroad on the dialogue over the re-establishment of
ecclesiastical unity took place, and the projects of the following documents
were agreed: on the relationships between the Church and the State, on the
relationships between Orthodoxy and the heterodox communities and the
inter-confessional organization, and on the canonical status of ROCOR as a
self-governing Church. In other words, all the important issues have already
been agreed! But what was the agreement? And if it is in accordance with
Orthodoxy, why was it not being published?144

142 More precisely, 20,765 people were executed and buried in Butovo between August 8, 1937
and October 19, 1938 (Orthodox News, vol. 17, 4, Summer, 2004, p. 1).
143 Ridiger, in A. Soldatov, Sergij premudrij nam put ozaril, Vertograd, 461, 21 May,

2004, p. 4.
144 Chto soglasovano sovmestnaia komissia MP i RPTs (L) (What the Joint Commission of

the MP and the ROCOR (L) Agreed Upon), [Link]

3 November, 2004.

75
 While every attempt was made to pretend that the MP and ROCOR were
negotiating on equal terms, many facts indicated the opposite. Thus when Fr.
Constantine Kaunov left the Volgograd diocese of the MP and joined the
Siberian diocese of ROCOR under Bishop Eutyches, and was banned from
serving by the MP Bishop of Ekaterinburg (under whom he had never served),
he was told by Bishop Eutyches that he was banned because he had not
submitted to the ban of the MP bishop! In other words, already now, before
full, official union, ROCOR priests in Russia were under the power of the MP
with the full connivance of the ROCOR bishops!145

On January 24, 2005 Metropolitan Cyril (Gundiaev) of Smolensk, head of

the MPs Department of Foreign Relations and the future patriarch, confirmed
that the MP did not condemn Sergianism: We recognize that the model of
Church-State relations [in the Soviet period] did not correspond to tradition.
But we are not condemning those who realized this model, because there was
no other way of preserving the Church. The Church behaved in the only way
she could at that time. There was another path into the catacombs, but there
could be no catacombs in the Soviet space146

But there were many catacombs in the Soviet space. And it was precisely
the existence of those catacombs, and of the Holy New Martyrs and
Confessors of the Catacomb Church, that gave the lie to the MPs assertion
that there was no other way. That other way was the way of Christ, Himself
the Way, the Truth and the Life and for the true Christian there was no
other Way! 147

Meanwhile, Patriarch Alexis officially endorsed the communist view of the

Second World War. In February, 2005, there was a Worldwide Russian
Peoples Council in Moscow, to which several guests from ROCOR (L) were
invited. As Laurence A. Uzzell, president of International Religious Freedom
Watch wrote for The Moscow Times: The speeches at that gathering, devoted
to celebrating the Soviet victory in World War II and linking it to the
Kremlins current policies, suggest that the domestic church [the MP] is
counting on Russian nationalism to woo the migrs. Especially striking is the
distinctively Soviet flavor of that nationalism. The main speeches failed to
mention the victorys dark sides, for example the imposition of totalitarian

145 V Omsko-Sibirskuiu Eparkhiu RIPTs pereshli dvoe klirikov RPTsZ (L) (Two Clergy of
the ROCOR (L) Joined the Omsk Diocese of the RTOC),
[Link]
146 Gundiaev, in Vertograd-Inform, 504, February 2, 2005.

147 When Gundiaev became patriarch, his place as head of the Department for External

Relations was taken by Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev), who made this startling revelation to
the American ambassador in Russia, as revealed by Wikileaks: A (or the) main role of the
Russian Orthodox Church is in providing propaganda for the official politics of the
government (Otkrovenie Tovarischa Alfeyeva (A Revelation of Comrade Alfeyev), Nasha
Strana (Buenos Aires), N 2907, January, 2010, p. 4)

76
atheism on traditionally Christian societies such as Romania and Bulgaria.
Patriarch Alexey II made the incredible statement that the victory brought
the Orthodox peoples of Europe closer and raised the authority of the Russian
Church. If one had no information, one would think that the establishment of
Communist Party governments in the newly conquered countries were purely
voluntary and that what followed was unfettered religious freedom148

Uzzell continues: Sergianism is clearly still thriving, despite the Moscow

Patriarchates occasional abstract statements asserting its right to criticize the
state. The Patriarchates leaders still openly celebrate Patriarch Sergeis
memory, with some even favoring his canonization as a saint. With rare
exceptions, they still issue commentaries on President Vladimir Putins
policies, which read like government press releases. They seem sure that this
issue will not be a deal-breaker in their quest for reunion with the migrs.
Putins Kremlin will be hoping that they are right.149

Matushka Anastasia Shatilova noted: In the Moscow Patriarchate there

can be observed an elemental striving towards the glorification of a series of
very dubious personalities, including Ivan the Terrible (seven times married,
who killed his own son and sent Maliuta Skuratov to suffocate the holy
Hierarch Philip of Moscow for his rebuking of the Tsars cruelties) and
Rasputin (whose icons are even streaming myrrh). The crown of all this is
the icon of Stalin, which was put on the Live Journal on the internet on
June 5. On it this outcast of the human race is portrayed in hierarchical
vestments with an omophorion, a Gospel book and a sword in his hands!150

In June, 2005 four documents agreed by the joint MP-ROCOR commissions

were published on the same day that a delegation from the WCC visited the
patriarch in Moscow! These documents contained a more or less complete
submission to Moscows commands, including even a justification of Sergius
declaration.

On November 22, 2005 (old style) the Cyprianites, who, while accepting
that the MP had grace, still opposed union with it, broke communion with
ROCOR (L). In December, 2005 the Hierarchical Synod of ROCOR (L) broke
communion with the Cyprianites. The real reason was that the MP had laid it
down as a condition for the union of the MP with ROCOR that ROCOR

148 Uzzell, Reaching for Religious Reunion, Moscow Times, March 31, 2005, p. 8; Tserkovnie
Novosti (Church News), May, 2005. Again, in May, 2005, he wrote a congratulatory epistle to
the president of Vietnam on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the communist victory in
the Vietnam War. He called it a "glorious anniversary" and said that it opened up new
horizons for the Vietnamese people
([Link]
features/2007/01/04/feature-02). Similar letters were sent to the leaders of North Korea and
Cuba.
149 Uzzell, op. cit.
150 Tserkovnie Novosti (Church News), June, 2005.

77
regulates its relations with groups that have separated from their Local
Churches (Protopriest Nicholas Balashov).

In May a so-called Fourth All-Diaspora Sobor of the Russian Orthodox

Church Abroad was convened by ROCOR (L) in San Francisco. By dint of a
great deal of manipulation and the weeding out of dissenters, the Sobor
endorsed the union with the MP. Nevertheless, the dissenters who were able
to speak at the Sobor were still able to make some telling points, especially
about the continuing ecumenism of the MP.

Thus in his report to the Sobor Priest Victor Dobrov said: Just recently,
from February 14-23 of this year in Porto Alegre, Brazil the regular 9th
ecumenical Assembly of the WCC took place.

The Russian Church (MP) at this Assembly was unusually imposing with
more than 20 members in its delegation.

The Summary Document, adopted and ratified by the participants of this

ecumenical Assembly, and particularly by the Moscow Patriarchate in the
face of its representatives, is the Document PRC 01.1 entitled The Teaching
on the Church: Called to be a United Church.

A careful study of this Document casts doubt on the multitude of

statements made by the representatives of the Moscow side, that the objective
of the continued membership of the Patriarchate in the WCC is the
uncompromising witnessing to the Truth to the heterodox world. Moreover,
this document evokes doubt in the Orthodoxy of the confession of the faith of
the Moscow Patriarchate itself. The entire adopted Document is heretical from
beginning to end, but because of the lack of time for a thorough examination,
we will focus only on the most glaring evidence.

Let us refer to the text of the Document:

One may call the following assertion in the Document a theological

breakthrough, yet it is far from Orthodox thinking:

All who have been baptized into Christ are united with Christ in his
body. (III, 8) (i.e. in the Church of Christ!)

It is completely unequivocal, simple and comprehensible! Since nowhere

in the remainder of the Document is it stated that this implies baptism with
the obligatory participation of the one being baptized in the Eucharist which
is in the Orthodox Church, therefore now there is every basis to consider the
Moscow Patriarchate as already being of one body with Protestants

78
 Our Orthodox consciousness is amazed and startled by the ecumenical
statement adopted by the Moscow Patriarchate on recognizing the grace and
genuineness of baptisms carried out in heretical communities!151

The Council declared: Hearing the lectures read at the Council, the
reports made by the Commission on negotiations with the corresponding
Commission of the Moscow Patriarchate, and the various points of view
expressed during the discussions, we express our conciliar consent that it is
necessary to confirm the canonical status of the Russian Church Abroad for
the future as a self-governing part of the Local Russian Church, in accordance
with the Regulations of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia
currently in force.

A kind of autonomy of ROCOR within MP was granted her but it was

only a fig-leaf to hide her complete submission. The Patriarch still retained
veto power on appointments, the Orthodox Church of America remained
outside ROCORs control, and, most important, full communion with the
Local Russian Church, i.e. the Moscow Patriarchate, was established.

The declaration went on: From discussions at the Council it is apparent

that the participation of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow
Patriarchate in the World Council of Churches evokes confusion among our
clergy and flock. With heartfelt pain we ask the hierarchy of the Russian
Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate to heed the plea of our flock to
expediently remove this temptation.

We hope that the forthcoming Local Council of the One Russian Church
will settle remaining unresolved church problems.

This rather pathetic appeal to the conquerors to heed the heartfelt pain of
the vanquished was swept aside. Since the union between the MP and
ROCOR, the ecumenist activities of the One Russian Church has actually
increased, especially since the enthronement of Patriarch Cyril. In any case,
since ROCOR did not lay down the renunciation of ecumenism as a sine qua
non of union, and only asked that the remaining unresolved church
problems be settled at the forthcoming Local Council of the One Russian
Church, that is, after union, there was no real pressure placed on the MP:
ROCOR had surrendered

Protests continued to the very end. Thus former KGB Lieutenant-Colonel

Constantine Preobrazhensky reminded the ROCOR faithful of what they
already knew but had begun to forget: Absolutely all [my italics V.M.] the
bishops and the overwhelming majority of the priests [of the MP] worked
with the KGB 152 And very near the end, in February, 2007, Fr. Nikita

151 Dobrov, [Link]

152 Preobrazhensky, KGB v russkoj emigratsii, op. cit., p. 41.

79
Grigoriev, an instructor at Holy Trinity Seminary, Jordanville, produced one
of the most incisive exposs of the Moscow Patriarchate in the whole history
of its existence.153

But in vain. On May 17, 2007, deceived by the vain hope of retaining some
kind of real autonomy within the MP, and suppressing the unassailable
evidence that the MP was still sergianist and ecumenist to the core,
Metropolitan Laurus signed the union with the KGB-Patriarch while the KGB-
President beamed approvingly... The Russian Church Abroad, the last free
voice of the True Russian Church, had ceased to exist. Or so it seemed

Grigoriev, Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, The Beacon of Light (Revised), orthodox-
153

synod@[Link], February 24, 2007.

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 CONCLUSION: THE HOLY REMNANT

And the Lord said to satan: the Lord rebuke thee, O satan, the Lord rebuke thee
Who hast chosen Jerusalem! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?
Zachariah 3.2.

As the wise Solomon says, pride goes before a fall (Proverbs 16.18). The fall
of ROCOR was the result of pride pride in her own past virtues, and pride
in relation to the other bearers of True Russian Orthodoxy. This is not to say
that the achievements of ROCOR were not genuinely great. Apart from
providing spiritual food for her own large flock scattered over every
continent, and bringing many foreigners to the light of the true faith, she
faithfully preserved the traditions of the pre-revolutionary Russian Church
that were being destroyed with the utmost ruthlessness in the Homeland,
while providing a voice (and, in some cases, an omophorion) for the catacomb
confessors. Several of her conciliar declarations the condemnation of
sergianism (1928), the glorification of the New Martyrs and Confessors (1981)
and the anathema against ecumenism (1983) will stand forever as
monuments of the faith of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

Probably her greatest long-term achievement was that accomplished when

she was almost at the end of her strength: her creation of parishes inside
Russia in 1990, and her resurrection of the apostolic succession and hierarchy
of her sister-church in the Homeland, the Russian True Orthodox Church.
Paradoxically, however, it was this final achievement that brought about her
downfall; for the task of replacing the Moscow Patriarchate as the dominant
confession in Russia was beyond her strength, and the spiritual diseases and
temptations transmitted through the first face-to-face encounter with the old
enemy in the Homeland since the 1920s shook her faith and determination.
Forgetting their duty before God and their flock both in Russia and abroad,
the majority of the hierarchs wavered, began to listen to the siren-calls of
pseudo-Russian Soviet nationalism, and fell into a false union with the
Sovietized Moscow Patriarchate and apostate World Orthodoxy.

This is without doubt a profound spiritual tragedy whose consequences

are still reverberating among the Orthodox all over the world. However, all
things work for the best for those who love God (Romans 8.28), and the
Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of
trouble (Proverbs 16.4). So even in this terrible tragedy there is hidden the
hope and the means of spiritual healing and resurrection ROCORs fall by
no means excludes the possibility of a recovery. But that recovery must now
come primarily from within Russia, and not from abroad, especially since 95%
of ROCOR inside Russia refused to join the unia with the MP as opposed to 30

81
% outside Russia.154 And it must come with a full understanding of the causes
of the past failures, and a determination not to repeat them.

What are the lessons from this tragedy? Briefly, they are: that Soviet power
is not from God, but from the devil, and that neither with it, nor with its neo-
Soviet successor under KGB agent Putin, is any symphony of powers
possible; that the Moscow Patriarchate, having sold its soul to the devil in the
form of Stalin in the 1920s and not repented of it even after the fall of
communism, does not have the grace of sacraments and is no longer an ark of
salvation; that ecumenism is the heresy of heresies, and union with the
ecumenist churches in the World Council of Churches or other ecumenical
forums is spiritual death; and that the unity of the Russian people cannot be
bought at the expense of the betrayal of God and of the confession of the Holy
New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.

A further lesson, of a less dogmatic nature but still important, is that the
leadership of the Russian Church has now passed from Abroad back to the
Homeland. In a sense, this was inevitable, both from a historical and from a
canonical point of view. In her early years, the Russian migrs were always
looking to return to the Homeland; they felt themselves and their Church to
be truly in exile, and the purpose of their lives to be the resurrection of true
piety and the True Church in the Homeland. The hope of this resurrection
grew fainter with time, but the primacy in the hearts of the exiles of the
Church in the Homeland, of which the Church Abroad was merely a part
(and rather a small part - merely a drop in the ocean in the words of St.
Philaret of New York), remained. It was therefore entirely natural that the
return of the Church Abroad to Russia in 1990 should be seen as the
culmination of her existence, and the struggle with the MP that ensued as the
last battle.

But from a canonical point of view the whole existence of ROCOR was
highly anomalous. A part of the Russian Church that existed outside Russia,
throughout the world, and in many places on the territories of other Local
Churches, but as an autonomous, self-governing unit this was an
unprecedented phenomenon in Orthodox Church history. Strictly speaking,
the existence of such a global, floating Church body contradicted the basic
territorial principle of Church administration. It could be justified only on the
grounds that to merge with the other Local Churches, and still more with the
official Church in the Homeland, would be to the detriment of the Orthodox
Faith and the spiritual welfare of its flock. This justification was seen as
adequate by all zealots of the faith, both Russian and non-Russian and yet
the situation of the Church remained anomalous, and therefore necessarily
temporary, requiring a canonical resolution sooner or later. Moreover, the

154 Fr. Alexis Lebedev, Ottenki krasnogo (Shades of Red), [Link]

[Link]/site/?act=comment&id=1874; [Link]

82
anomaly became still more extreme when the Russian Orthodox Church
Outside Russia became contrary to the first paragraph of its own Statute
also the Russian Orthodox Church Inside Russia in 1990. How could the
Church Outside Russia be at the same time the Church Inside Russia?!

The anomaly could be resolved only by transferring the central authority of

the Church from Abroad to the Homeland. Such a solution had many obvious
and major advantages, whereas keeping the administration of the Church in
the hands of hierarchs living thousands of miles away with no knowledge of
the conditions in contemporary Russia was a recipe for disaster. This was at
least partially recognized by Metropolitan Vitaly himself, when he declared in
December, 2001: After many long, hard years of trying to manage the
Church in Russia from New York, I have learned that it is impossible to
manage the Church in Russia from Abroad. We do not know and understand
their problems and we do not know their people and possible candidates for
the clergy. Without a knowledge of their people and their problems the best
that we can do is give them Apostolic Succession and Grace and allow them
to organize while maintaining communion with them and praying that they
will be able to do something for themselves

And yet the leadership of ROCOR (V) strenuously resisted bestowing any
such autonomy on ROCOR inside Russia, let alone giving the leadership of
the Russian Church as a whole to hierarchs inside Russia; and this prideful
insistence that the Russian Church can only be governed from Mansonville or
Paris must be considered as the main reason for the fall of ROCOR (V).

However, the fall of ROCOR (V), and the emergence of RTOC under
Archbishop Tikhon of Omsk and Siberia as the only truly canonical Russian
Church jurisdiction, has now solved the problem. The leadership of RTOC
always insisted that the Russian Church Abroad and the Catacomb or Russian
True Orthodox Church should be seen as separate but closely related
organisms, sister-churches. Even when under extreme provocation, they
tried hard not to break the link with Metropolitan Vitaly. But once ROCOR (V)
had definitely fallen away, they created a Church structure that was the
mirror-image of the old ROCOR. That is, the central leadership of the Church
was now permanently inside Russia, while the Church Abroad existed as a
semi-autonomous body with its own bishop(s) in communion with the main
body inside Russia.

This ecclesiastical perestroika had its critics, however, even within RTOC
and even within that remnant of ROCOR about a third of the parishes
worldwide who refused to accept the unia with Moscow. They gathered
around the figure of Bishop Agathangelus of Odessa, the only bishop in
ROCOR (L) who rejected the unia, and who now proclaimed himself the sole

83
lawful successor-bishop of the old ROCOR. While continuing to live in the
Ukraine, he declared that the centre of the Church was still Abroad, and has
recently been given the title Metropolitan of New York.

We have met Bishop Agathangelus before, as the hierarch who, in October,

2001, betrayed his spiritual father and RTOC and jumped ship, joining
Laurus at just the moment that Laurus fell away from the faith. Little good
should have been expected from such a turncoat, and so it turned out. Only
three days after the May, 2007, RTOC sent an appeal to Agathangelus to unite
with them155. But Agathangelus rejected it. In fact, he not only refused to join
any of the existing splinters (oskolki) that had been saved from the
shipwreck of ROCOR: he vigorously claimed that they were all schismatics,
that the Lavrite Synod had been the only true Russian Synod until its fall in
May, 2007, and even that all the decisions of the Lavrite Synod until that date
were valid and correct including, presumably, all the decisions of the false
Council of 2000 and the decision to seek union with the MP!

Agathangelus now proceeded to repeat all the errors of the 1990s that had
undermined the strength of ROCOR in the 1990s, beginning with the union
with the Cyprianites and the acceptance of their ecclesiology. Thus in
November, 2007 he entered into communion with Metropolitan Cyprian and
his Synod. The Cyprianites claimed that there had never been a break in
communion between them and Bishop Agathangelus, but this was not true,
since the Lavrite Synod, of which Bishop Agathangelus was then a member,
broke communion with the Cyprianites in 2006. Then, early in December,
Bishop Agathangelus consecrated two further bishops for his jurisdiction with
the help of the Cyprianite Bishops Ambrose of Methone and George of Alania
(South Ossetia) in Odessa: Andronik (Kotliarov) for New York, and Sophrony
(Musienko) for St. Petersburg. So the Agathangelite Synod, thanks to the
Cyprianites, now has three dioceses: one each for the Ukraine, Russia and
North America.

Some hailed this expansion of the Agathangelite Synod as the resurrection

of ROCOR. Did this title correspond to the truth about the Agathangelite
Synod? It would have corresponded to the truth only if: (1) the confession of
faith of this Synod were purely Orthodox, (2) its apostolic succession were
undoubted, and (3) it were the only Synod that could reasonably argue that it
was the continuer of ROCOR. But the Agathangelite Synod failed to pass
this test on all three counts.

1. The Confession of the Agathangelite Synod is not purely Orthodox. The

present writer asked the Cyprianite Bishop Ambrose of Methone: Can we
take it that Bishop Agathangelus shares your ecclesiology in all respects? In
particular, does he, like your Synod, regard the Moscow Patriarchate as
having grace? His reply (the bishop was speaking only in his own name, not

155 [Link]

84
for the whole Cyprianite Synod) was: So far as I know, and so far as I have
discussed [it] with him, yes. We can assume that this was a correct answer,
because the Cyprianites and the Agathangelites have remained in communion
to the present day without any quarrels over the faith.

In other words, Bishop Agathangelus recognized the Moscow Patriarchate

and the whole of World Orthodoxy to be grace-filled. Moreover, he embraced
the false Cyprianite ecclesiology that heretics such as Patriarchs Alexis and
Bartholomew were sick members of the True Church. The immediate
reaction was: had Agathangelus learned nothing from the fall of Metropolitan
Laurus? Or rather, did he consider it a fall at all, since Laurus, according to
his and the Cyprianites understanding, was simply returning to union with
his Mother Church, the Moscow Patriarchate? Did he not understand that it
was precisely when ROCOR entered into communion with the Cyprianites, in
1994, that the Synod began negotiations with the Moscow Patriarchate and
began its rapid descent into union with heresy?

More recently, Agathangelus and his Synod (ROCOR (A)), while

continuing fiercely reject all jurisdictions to the right, such as ROCOR (V),
ROAC or RTOC, have shown increasing sympathy for jurisdictions located
to the left. Thus Agathangelus and the deposed Patriarch Irenaeus of
Jerusalem, who since 2005 has been living under house arrest, now recognize
each other and commemorate each other at the Great Entrance in the liturgy.
Moreover, as Protopriest Alexander Lebedev writes, the liberalism of
ROCOR (A) in its reception of communities and clerics serves the aims of
broadening its influence and increasing its numbers. In the words of
Metropolitan Agathangelus, we take everybody. The politics of careful
examination, which we see, for example, in RTOC, does not permit an
increase in the quantity of communities and clerics, while economy present
many opportunities for this. In unofficial Orthodoxy, besides the splinters of
ROCOR and the Greek Old Calendarist jurisdictions, which are known for
their serious attitude to questions of ecclesiology and faith, there exists an
enormous bank of jurisdictions and clerics who have dubious canonical
origins and a vague confession of faith. In ROCOR (A) they have already
shown long ago that in order to broaden their ranks they are ready to us this
diverse conglomerate. The first step was undertaken by the newly formed
jurisdiction already in 2007, when catacomb hierarchs of the Sekachite
tradition were received [by cheirothesia] into the ranks of their episcopate.
This autumn it became known that ROCOR (A) was reviewing the question of
receiving into their ranks the Orthodox Church of Ecuador, whose first-
hierarch, however, earlier managed to join the True Orthodox Church of [the
healer] Metropolitan Raphael (Motovilov)156

156Protopriest Alexander Lebedev, Rasshirenie po vsem napravleniam, 24 March, 2011,

[Link] -[Link]/site/?act=news&id=83134&topic=615.

85
 2. The Apostolic Succession of the Agathangelite Synod is doubtful for two
reasons: first, because their Cyprianite co-consecrators Synod was formed in
schism from the True Orthodox Church of Greece under Archbishop
Chrysostom (Kiousis) of Athens, and secondly, because Agathangelus has not
yet publicly renounced the false and heretical councils of 2000 and 2001 and
heretics do not have apostolic succession.

3. There are other Synods having an equal, or greater claim to be the

continuer of ROCOR especially RTOC. Bishop Agathangelus claim to be
the sole canonical successor of ROCOR is founded on nothing stronger than
the fact that he was the last to separate from the Lavrite Synod. But is that
anything to be proud of? Is it not rather something to be ashamed of? After all,
the Holy Canons in particular, the 15th Canon of the First-and-Second
Council of Constantinople do not praise procrastination in matters of the
faith, but rather praise those who separate immediately heresy is proclaimed.
And in the case of ROCOR that took place, not in 2007, as Bishop
Agathangelus likes to think, but in 2001, if not in 1994

Bishop Agathangelus position is similar to that of a person who criticizes

those who jump off a heavily listing ship that has been holed below the water-
line, and himself jumps only when the water has reached his neck And
yet his position is still worse. For he claims that the ship he jumped off,
ROCOR-MP, and which is now at the bottom of the ocean of this sinful world,
is in fact floating majestically on the surface with Christ Himself at its helm! If
that is what he believes, then we are entitled to ask: why did he jump in the
first place? And still more pertinently: will he not be tempted at some time in
the future to return to that ship, becoming one of those who, having thrust
away a good conscience concerning the faith, have made shipwreck (I
Timothy 1.19)?

Let us return, finally, to the one ray of true light to emerge from the dark
and stormy history that is the subject of this small book the emergence of
the Russian True Orthodox Church under Archbishop Tikhon of Omsk and
Siberia.

This is the only Church body that the present writer can recommend as
having preserved both the faith and the apostolic succession of the Russian
Orthodox Church Abroad in the period before it began to fall away, while at
the same time preserving the traditions of the Church of the Holy New
Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, the Catacomb Church. It is a relatively
small Church, and compared with uncanonical bodies such as ROCOR (A), it
is growing slowly. However, slow but steady growth is no bad thing after the
recent period of extreme turmoil.

86
 Moreover, in its Sobor in Odessa in November, 2008 it demonstrated a
model of what true Church Sobornost, or Conciliarity, should be in an age
when that quality has been very hard to find. The Sobor issued a large
number of documents on a wide range of subjects. And it canonized
Metropolitan Philaret of New York and 49 Catacomb confessors, thereby
demonstrating its veneration for the faith and piety both of the Russian
Church Abroad and of the Catacomb Church.

Let us conclude, then, by quoting one of the Sobor documents, Definition

of the Sacred Council on the Confessional and Ecclesiological Foundations of
the Russian True Orthodox Church, a statement of that Faith that alone can
serve as the rock on which the future Russian Church will be built 157:-

The Russian True Orthodox Church confesses and holds the Orthodox
Christian Faith as it has been preserved by Holy Tradition from the
foundation of the Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Orthodox Church of Christ,
and as it was until 1927 in the Local Russian Church, as the Catacomb Church
kept it in a confessing spirit, and as the Russian Church Abroad kept it right
until the year 2000.

We believe in the Triune God, the Holy Trinity, as expounded in the

Nicaeo-Constantinopolitan Symbol of faith, and in the One, Holy, Catholic
and Apostolic Church vwhich our Lord Jesus Christ founded, and which is
the pillar and ground of the Truth (I Timothy 3.15). We believe that the
Church is the Body of Christ, a Divino-human organism, in which we, the
faithful, constitute Its Body, while the Head of the Church is the Lord Jesus
Christ (Colossians 1.18). We believe that the gates of hell cannot prevail over
Her (Matthew 16.18). Like the Lord Himself, She cannot be destroyed,
annihilated or divided, and for that reason does not need to be saved by
human forces.

In full unanimity with the Symbol of faith, we confess one baptism for the
remission of sins. The Russian True Orthodox Church strictly holds to the
ecclesiastical laws which prescribed that it be carried out by three-times and
complete immersion in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit.

That which the Holy Apostles and Holy Fathers of the Church accepted
and confirmed, we also accept and confirm, and that which they rejected and
anathematized, we also reject and anathematize, without adding or
subtracting anything. And together with the Fathers of the Seventh
Ecumenical Council, we proclaim: We follow the ancient traditions of the
Ecumenical Church, we keep the laws of the Fathers; we subject to anathema
those who add or take away anything from the Ecumenical Church.

157For all the documents of the Sobor, see

[Link]

87
 The Russian True Orthodox Church is an indivisible part of the Local
Russian Church, and governs itself on conciliar bases in accordance with the
decree of his Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, the Holy Synod and Higher Church
Council of the Russian Church of November 7/20, 1920, 362. We have
canonical succession from the Catacomb Russian Church and the Russian
Orthodox Church Abroad as two equal-in-honour and spiritually united parts
of the True Russian Church remaining in Eucharistic and canonical
communion under different ecclesiastical administrations, as it was in the
time of the Holy Martyr Metropolitan Peter of Krutitsa, and as was blessed by
the last lawful First Hierarch of ROCOR, Metropolitan Vitaly. We confess our
spiritual and ecclesiological unity with the Holy New Martyrs of Russia and
the Father-Confessors of the Catacomb Church, and also with the First
Hierarchs of ROCOR and Her outstanding hierarchs and pastors.

Confessing that the Church saves man, and not man the Church, we
reject the sergianism confessed by the Moscow Patriarchate, which is so-called
from the name of Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky), as a special form of
apostasy and ecclesiological heresy. This false teaching is not compatible with
the teaching of the Holy Fathers on the Church and on political authority, for
sergianism is the inner preparedness of the Orthodox Christian for compromise
with antitheism, and in a broader sense, for compromise with lies, with any evil,
with the elements of this world. This preparedness proceeds from the heart,
from the spiritual condition of man himself, and for that reason we affirm that
the Moscow Patriarchate is being cunning when it calls sergianism a
temporary phenomenon conditioned by a political situation. In raising
sergianism that is, compromise with antitheism into a norm of
ecclesiastical life, the Moscow Patriarchate is thereby preparing its flock to
recognize the power of the Antichrist as a lawful power, and to accept the
seal on their right hand (Revelation 13.16). We affirm that true Orthodoxy in
our suffering Fatherland cannot be regenerated without a consciousness of the
sergianist fall and without repentance for this fall.

We are unanimous with the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia
and the Catacomb Father-Confessors, and also with the outstanding holy
hierarchs and pastors of the Church Abroad, that sergianism is a heresy,
which the Moscow Patriarchate that was born from it is a neo-renovationist
schism which entered into symphony with the antitheist authorities and to
which are applicable the definitions and canonical bans of the Russian Church
that were laid on renovationism and its hierarchy. Having been formed as a
schism, the Moscow Patriarchate unlawfully calls itself the Mother Church.

Our faith in the oneness and uniqueness of the Holy Catholic and
Apostolic Church is incompatible with ecumenism, and for that reason we
recognize ecumenism to be a heresy that has trampled on the Orthodox Faith.
Confessing our unity with the heritage of ROCOR, we confirm the
condemnation of ecumenism made by the Council of the Church Abroad in

88
1983 and the proclamation of a conciliar anathema on this heresy and on
those who have communion with these heretics or help them, or defend their
new heresy of ecumenism. The participation of the Moscow Patriarchate in
the ecumenical movement is not a private apostasy of individual hierarchs,
but was conciliarly confirmed as the Churchs course in 1961 at the Hierarchical
Council of the MP. Having joined the World Council of Churches, the
Moscow Patriarchate has defined itself not only as a neo-renovationist
schism, but also as a heretical community that has fallen both under the
anathema of the Holy Patriarch Tikhon and the All-Russian Council on the
communists and all their co-workers, and under the anathema of the ROCOR
Council.

Also falling under the anathema on the 1983 heresy of ecumenism are all
the hierarchs and clergy of the official Local Churches that confess their
Eucharistic unity but at the same time participate together in the pan-heresy
of ecumenism, in the acceptance of the new calendar, in modernism, and in
the construction of the new world order. For that reason the Russian True
Orthodox Church can have Eucharistic communion and unity with none of
them; and, following the patristic teaching, it decrees that official World
Orthodoxy has fallen away from the Church of Christ, and that its sacraments
are ineffective [nedejstvenny] for salvation. By this we confess the witness of
Church Tradition that the grace of the Holy Spirit works in a saving manner
only in the True Church of Christ, to which heretics and schismatics do not
belong.

We reject the destructive opinion that heretics and schismatics have not
fallen away, but are so-called sick members of the Church, in whom the
grace of God works in an equally saving manner as on the members of the
True Orthodox Church. We confess that all the members of the Church who
live in the world and bear flesh are sick through their sins, and only in the
True Church of Christ can they receive true healing and salvation. But
deviation into heresies and schisms is nothing else than falling away from the
Body of the True Orthodox Church. That is why, as the Holy New Martyrs of
Russia taught, the Moscow Patriarchate is not the True Church of Christ and
its sacraments cannot be effective for salvation.

However, we do not thereby usurp the Judgements of God and do not

boldly declare that the Lord is not able to turn to repentance and save a
sincere Christian soul that remains in the official church, but affirm that
salvation is possible only through entering the Church of Christ.

We decree that clergy coming into the True Church from the MP must be
received through repentance and the carrying out on them of an additional
laying on of hands (kheirothesia) by the hierarchs of the True Orthodox
Church with the aim of completing the ordinations (kheirotonia) that the
arriving clergy received from the apostate hierarchy of the MP.

89
 Concerning the rite of reception from heretical and schismatic
communities, the Russian True Orthodox Church, as a part of the once united
Local Russian Church, continues to preserve Her heritage, Her historically
formed local traditions and conciliar decrees, at the basis of which was laid
the principle of ecclesiastical condescension (oikonomia), in order that,
according to the word of the holy Hierarch Philaret (Voznesensky), First
Hierarch of ROCOR, many should not be driven from the Church.

In spite of the fact that there now exists an admissible variety of

differences in the rites of reception of laymen practiced by some True
Orthodox Churches, we consider that it is necessary to proceed towards the
overcoming of these differences, basing ourselves on the dogmatic teaching of
the Church. For the time being it is possible to relate to these differences in the
rites of reception in same way as did St. Cyprian of Carthage in his letter to
Jubian: But someone will say: what will happen to those who, before this,
having converted from heresy to the Church, were received into the Church
without baptism? The Lord by His mercy is powerful to give them
forgiveness, and not to deprive of the gifts of His Church those who, having
been received into the Church, reposed in the Church.

A basis for changing the rite of reception of laymen from the MP could be,
for example, facts concerning the open, official concelebration of the hierarchy
of the MP with Roman Catholics or other heretics.

Confessing the RTOC to be the True Russian Church and the canonical
successor in law of the Catacomb and Abroad Churches, we do not isolate
ourselves and do not dare to think of ourselves as the only true Church.

We confess unity of Faith with our brothers, the Old Calendarist

Orthodox Christians in Greece and other countries, who reject the unia with
ecumenical and new calendarist official Orthodoxy, and who do not accept
the heresy of ecumenism either in its open confession or in its hidden form in
the teaching on the sick in faith members of the Church.

The Sacred Council of the Russian True Orthodox Church confirms the
validity [dejstvennost] of the decree of the ROCOR Council of August 15/28,
1932, which decreed the condemnation of Masonry as a teaching and
organization hostile to Christianity, and the condemnation also of all
teachings and organizations that are akin to Masonry. In accordance with
this conciliar decree, the idea of the new world order begotten by Masonry
is subject to condemnation, as well as the processes of globalization
introduced with this aim in mind, and the systems of global control over
mankind that are directed to preparing society for the establishment of the
power of the Antichrist in the future.

Remaining faithful to the heritage of the Holy New Martyrs and

Confessors of the Catacomb Church, we witness that for True Orthodox

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archpastors and pastors participation in the processes of world apostasy, one
of the forms of which is contemporary political activity, is not permitted. In
his service the Orthodox pastor must guard his flock from the destructive
influence of this world, and the official Orthodoxy that goes in step with it,
as well as from the imitation artificially generated by it so-called
alternative Orthodoxy, explaining to his flock the destructive essence of
these phenomena. Both these phenomena, which surround the Church on the
left and on the right, derive their origin from one and the same apostate
source of this world, and are foreign to True Orthodoxy.

Following the outstanding holy Hierarchs of the Ecumenical and Russian

Church, we believe that the power established by God is the Orthodox
kingdom. We sorrow over the loss of this God-given Orthodox kingdom by
our ancestors, and pray to the Lord for its restoration. However, we also
witness to the fact that a truly Orthodox kingdom can be restored in Rus only
after the repentance of the Russian people and its return to the True Church,
for there can be no genuine repentance, nor restoration of an Orthodox
monarchy, in a false church. A monarchy founded with the blessing of the
church of the evil-doers will have craftiness at its very foundation. Such a
kingdom is not pleasing to God; even if great and powerful, it will only
prepare the ground for the coming of the Antichrist.

We call on all Orthodox Christians to stand in the Truth, to increase their

penitential prayer and union around our Holy Mother the True Orthodox
Church. The spiritual regeneration both of every individual human soul and
of society in general is possible only through repentance and the conciliar
participation of all of us in the Body of Christ, in Which the Holy Spirit, the
Spirit of Truth and Love, acts. The loss by the community of men of true
conciliarity [sobornost] brings with it the loss of participation in the Body of
Christ, which means the loss also of the beneficial action upon this
community of the grace of the Holy Spirit. This grace-filled action is possible
only through the True Church of Christ.

Understanding this, the contemporary world is trying to substitute

artificial spiritual fakes and false-churches for the True Church. For that
reason there is nothing dearer for the Orthodox Christian than the genuine
regeneration of the True Orthodox Church, the pure Bride of Christ, Who
remains faithful to Her Heavenly Bridegroom. Outside the Church salvation
and the true spiritual healing of the soul damaged by the passions is
impossible. Amen.

March 18/31, 2011.

St. Edward the Martyr, King of England.

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