Prior to the revolutionary events of 1917, the parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad carried out mainly the function of caring for believers who had left the empire.
These were monks who served God in the monasteries of the holy lands (Palestine, Jerusalem, Greek Athos, Italian Bari), pilgrims who came to venerate shrines, officials of embassies in Germany, France, Italy, Turkey, Russian emigrants in North America, as well as residents of former possessions: for example, Poland, Alaska or the Aleutian Islands.
There was a Japanese spiritual mission in Tokyo, headed by pastor Nikolai of Japan. In 1897, the Russian Spiritual Mission was founded in Korea.
The organization of the ROC was strict: the Holy Synod, located in St. Petersburg, ruled over everything. The church was divided into metropolises, those into dioceses, and those, in turn, into parishes. In Europe there was a Western European Metropolis, on the American continent - an American one, which even included Syrian churches.
After the revolution
After the revolutionary events of 1917 and the long Civil War, officers, nobles, entrepreneurs, and clergy fled from Russia. The League of Nations stated that 958,500 refugees from Russia came to Europe in 1926.
About 200,000 internally displaced persons settled in France, 300,000 were accepted by Turkey, and 76,000 left for China. Another 40 thousand refugees found shelter in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Latvia and Greece. The main emigration centers were Harbin, Paris, Berlin (later, immigrants from Russia left en masse), Belgrade and Sofia. The Russians did their best to preserve their faith and roots, church parishes grew, new ones appeared.Since the homeland is Russian Orthodox Church subjected to terrible persecution, the connection with the patriarchy was lost.
According to the orthodox tradition, no matter what, the canonical authority should be at the head of the church, therefore, in 1921, in Sremski Karlovtsy (on the territory of the future Yugoslavia), the clergy convened the Karlovtsy Cathedral. And this Council decided: there will be a Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia! It included those believers whose monasteries and parishes were territorially outside the borders of Soviet Russia. Metropolitan Anthony was elected head of the church.
In Russia, the church was practically destroyed, some of its ministers went underground and organized the so-called Catacomb Church.
War
The fire of the Second World War did not bypass the believers. Some lived in the USSR, others - in the territories of the allied countries, others, living in Germany and Italy, were in the thick of things. The board and the main part of ROCOR fell into the occupation.
Some of the former White Guards were happy about the war with the USSR, but ROCOR Primate Anastassy did not support them and refrained from making speeches on this subject. On June 22, 1941, the Nazis ransacked his house. Anastasia's freedom was limited, but he was looking for an opportunity to send church books and utensils to the occupied territories of Russia. Despite the fact that the Germans did not like the Russian priesthood, with the approach of the Red Army, the First Hierarch retreated to Bavaria.
At the end of the war, West Germany briefly became the center of spiritual life. There were a lot of Russians here: driven to work, prisoners of war, escaped, left. At that time, ideas of reunification of churches arose in the United States, because after the end of World War II, Orthodox parishes in Eastern Europe and China were annexed to the Russian Orthodox Church. But this was not destined to happen.
A few years later, most of the emigrants left Germany for America and the Australian continent. The ROCOR Synod decided to move its center to the USA and moved to New York, to Manhattan. The center of ROCOR is still located there.
This church has come a long way. She printed church books and united Russian people all over the world, created libraries and parishes, she glorified John of Kronstadt, Xenia of Petersburg, Nicholas of Japan and John of Hankowsky. On October 19, 1981, the new martyrs, confessors and family of Emperor Nicholas II were canonized. In 1988 ROCOR organized the celebration of the millennium of the baptism of Rus'.
Our days
After the collapse of the Soviet Empire, spiritual life in Russia was revived, the process of rapprochement of churches began, which lasted almost 20 years, and on May 17, 2007, the Act on Canonical Communion was signed in Moscow, in accordance with which the separation of churches was overcome, and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia became a self-governing church of the Moscow Patriarch ata.
ROCOR continues to develop. Before the unification, it had 300 parishes, and now there are already 900. Development is associated with a wave of economic emigration of believers.
Now the head of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia is the Eastern American Metropolitan Hilarion, and the church itself counts eight dioceses: German, South American, British, Eastern American, Western European, Canadian, Australian-New Zealand and Middle -American.
It is difficult to count the number of parishioners. Usually believers are about 20% of the Russian population. According to the census of some countries, about four and a half million Russians live abroad in the 21st century. It can be assumed that almost 900,000 call themselves Orthodox.
Most of the functioning churches and monasteries of the Russian Orthodox Church are located on the territory of Russia - there are 17,725 of them, in neighboring Ukraine there are another 11,358 parishes and 929 churches and monasteries. Belarus has 1,437 parishes and 1,175 churches, and 82% of the population consider themselves believers. There are 28 churches in Kazakhstan, ten in Armenia, four in Latvia and six in Moldova. There are six more parishes in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.
There are 105 Orthodox churches in Germany, 21 in Great Britain, five in Ireland, seven in Belgium, two in Denmark, three in Austria, four churches each in Norway and Finland, six each in Portugal and Holland, ten in Hungary, 14 in Spain, and 18 in France. Serbia and Iceland have one functioning church each.
On the Asian continent, the Russian Orthodox Church is most represented in China - there are four churches, two are open in Singapore, one church each in Mongolia, India, Nepal and Cambodia, and two in Malaysia.
In the Middle East and Africa, the Russian Orthodox Church has concentrated its activities in Israel - seven temples and monasteries receive pilgrims there; in Morocco, Syria, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates - there is one temple each.There are only five churches of the Russian Orthodox Church in Australia and New Zealand.
In the USA, faith is brought to people by 25 large temples and churches, in Canada - sixteen, in Cuba - only one temple.In Argentina, the Orthodox are fed in ten churches, in Peru, Andorra and the Dominican Republic there is one parish each. There are four Orthodox churches in Brazil.
The southernmost temple of the Russian Orthodox Church is located on the coast of Antarctica. It is visited by employees of research stations.
- 6 016 0 culture June 17, 2016 | Rating: 9,6 | Votes: 74 For the second year in a row, the photo contest is held with the participation of the regional festival-marathon "Angel Wings" and the Center for Contemporary Christian culture"Blessing".
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June 15, 2016 | Rating: 9,9
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The head of the UOC calls on the deputies of the Rada not to interfere in church affairs. -
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May 27, 2016 | Rating: 9,5
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Russian monks on Mount Athos were provided with an intercom system. -
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May 25, 2016 | Rating: 9,6
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From May 27 to May 29, celebrations in honor of the 1000th anniversary of Russian monasticism at Mount Athos will be held on Mount Athos, which will be led by His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus'. -
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May 14, 2016 | Rating: 9,8
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On May 12, 2016, Thursday of the second week after Pascha, two of the oldest clerics of the Australian-New Zealand Diocese of the Russian Church Abroad, Mitred Archpriests Mikhail Li and Mikhail Klebansky, reposed in the Lord. -
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On April 21, 2016, an Internet conference was held with the participation of representatives of Orthodox youth organizations from North-Eastern Europe -
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December 6, 2015 | Rating: 9,6
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On Friday, December 4, on the great and twelfth feast of the Entry into the Temple Holy Mother of God in St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in the mountains. Howell New Jersey, numerous clergy, believers, guests from the USA and Russia gathered. Many, before entering the temple, went to the monument to two of our outstanding contemporaries - His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II and His Eminence Metropolitan Laurus, which was installed opposite cathedral.
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December 4, 2015 | Rating: 9,7
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The solemn consecration and opening of the monument in memory of the reunification of the two churches in 2007 will take place on the feast of the Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the temple -
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"The attacker smashed everything he could get his hands on and shouted obscene insults at the Russians," Nikolai Lukyanov, warden of the raided church of St. Tikhon, told Interfax-Religion on Friday. -
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In 2015, the Eastern American Diocese, together with the fullness of the Russian Orthodox Church, celebrated the 1000th anniversary of the repose of St. Equal-to-the-Apostles led. Prince Vladimir. Anniversary celebrations were traditionally held in the St. Vladimir Church-monument in the mountains. Jackson, pc. New Jersey, the foundation of which was dedicated to the 950th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus' in 1938. -
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Amazing Fact: Dashiel was born on April 1 - the day of memory of St. Daria of Rome (according to Orthodox calendar)!
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In Shenyang, local authorities intend to move the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and repair it. -
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First Orthodox church in Nukus will be consecrated in honor of the holy great martyr and healer Panteleimon. -
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His Eminence Metropolitan Hilarion orders in all parishes to read thanksgiving prayer and commemorate the perpetrators of the great deed - Patriarch Alexy II and Metropolitan Laurus. -
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Dozens of believers came Friday to the Russian Church of St. John the Baptist in Washington. -
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This is a whole landscape project, where plants will be distributed according to zones and frequency of mention in the Bible. -
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The book, dedicated to the 1000th anniversary of Russian monasticism on Mount Athos, includes little-known documents stored in the Brussels Archive of the Russian Emigration and related to the history of the Russian St. Panteleimon Monastery on Athos.
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Doors open day was held in the Russian Hospice in Jordan
The hospice in Jordan was built in 2012. It is located on the territory of the "Place of the Baptism of Jesus Christ" nature reserve and allows up to 2,000 pilgrims to receive monthly.
The revolution of 1917 and the subsequent civil war in Russia led to the mass emigration of our compatriots. According to rough estimates, the number of Russian refugees in the early twenties amounted to 3-4 million people. Emigrants were scattered all over the world. A significant part of them ended up in China, other flows of refugees rushed to Constantinople, Western Europe and the Balkans. In addition, more than eight million Orthodox residents of the former Russian Empire ended up outside the Soviet state - in secessionist Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Finland, as well as in territories conquered by the enemy or transferred by the new government to neighboring states.
The Orthodox faith united the refugees, Political Views which differed in many respects, often to the point of contradiction. The exiles felt the need for organizing church life in a foreign land with particular acuteness.
At the same time, the Hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church, as a result of persecution, experienced great difficulties in providing spiritual guidance to communities that found themselves outside Russia. “The trouble is,” His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon wrote in the early 1920s, “that we have been cut off from the civilized world for a long time (and even “until this day”), and with difficulty and great delay we find out what is happening in the world.” The emigrants also had a vague idea of what was really going on in Russia. “It seemed,” recalled Metropolitan Eleutherius (Bogoyavlensky) of Lithuania and Vilna, “that between the Patriarchate and the Church Abroad lies such an impassable abyss that one could not even think of any personal communication. We, foreigners, had to be content only with random various news, the price of which, perhaps, a few gave in relation to our convictions, most often they trusted them.
The care of the emigrant flock was taken over by the bishops and priests who found themselves abroad along with the refugees. In such conditions, the Russian Church Abroad, originally called the foreign part of the Russian Church.
Its history dates back to 1919, when the Provisional Higher Church Administration of the Dioceses of Southeast Russia was organized in Stavropol. The main task of the new church body was to feed the flock in the territories controlled by the white army.
In November 1920, members of the Office left Russia. The most authoritative hierarchs who left Russia - Metropolitan of Kiev and Galicia Anthony (Khrapovitsky), Archbishop of Volyn and Zhytomyr Evlogy (Georgievsky) - were originally going to shut themselves up in monasteries, and stop the activities of the All-Russian Exhibition Center, leaving the care of the Russian flock abroad to the corresponding Local Churches. According to Vladyka Anthony's biographer, he decided to change his plans and preserve the Russian church organization after he learned of General Wrangel's intention to maintain a military organization to fight the Bolsheviks. The idea that a single Church Abroad should exist abroad was also supported by Archbishop (later Metropolitan) Evlogy (Georgievsky). “Many sheep are left without shepherds,” he wrote. – It is necessary that the Russian Church abroad receive leaders. Do not think, however, that I am putting forward my candidacy.”
On November 19, 1920, the first meeting of the All-Russia Exhibition Center in the south of Russia outside of Russia was held in the port of Constantinople on the ship "Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich". The hierarchs, headed by Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky), decided to continue their activities now among the emigrants. The decree issued by the Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne of Constantinople, Metropolitan Dorotheos of Brussk in December 1920, permitted the activities of the Administration on the territory of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, subject to the supreme authority of the Patriarch, who retained, in particular, judicial prerogatives.
The foreign hierarchs saw the canonical basis for their activities in emigration in the 39th rule of the Sixth Ecumenical Council. According to this rule, the Cypriot Bishop John in the Hellespont region was granted the right to continue the church administration of his people, who left Cyprus due to military events. The well-known canonist Professor S.V. Troitsky, who subsequently worked for many years as a consultant to the Synod of Bishops abroad.
As an indirect recognition of the new body by His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, the bishops abroad accepted Patriarchal Decree No. 424 of April 8, 1921, by which Saint Tikhon confirmed the temporary appointment of Archbishop Evlogy (Georgievsky) as administrator of Russian parishes in Western Europe, originally made by the Higher Church Administration in October 1920, while still in the Crimea.
Another document often mentioned abroad as the basis for the activities of the foreign Church Administration was the decree of His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, the Holy Synod and the Supreme Church Council of November 20, 1920, No. 362. For some reason, the diocesan bishop ceases his activity, the diocesan bishop immediately enters into communication with the hierarchs of neighboring dioceses on the subject of organizing the highest instance of church authority for several dioceses that are in the same conditions (in the form of a Provisional Higher Church Government or a metropolitan district, or otherwise).
On May 12, 1921, the Supreme Church Administration moved from Istanbul to the territory of the United Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. The government of this state showed hospitality to Russian emigrants, provided them with work and the opportunity to study. Representatives of the Russian Church also received a warm welcome in the kingdom. Serbian Patriarch Demetrius warmly welcomed the exiled Russian archpastors and gave them his residence in Sremski Karlovci. August 31, 1921 Bishops' Cathedral The Serbian Orthodox Church granted the Supreme Church Administration Abroad the right of jurisdiction over the Russian clergy who are not in the service of the Serbian Church.
The Supreme Church Administration at that time was recognized by the majority of over 30 Russian bishops who found themselves abroad. Among them were such prominent hierarchs as Hieromartyr John (Pommer), Metropolitan Platon (Rozhdestvensky), Archbishops Evlogy (Georgievsky), Anastasius (Gribanovsky), Seraphim (Lukyanov), Eleutherius (Bogoyavlensky) and others.
In order to strengthen their canonical position, the foreign archpastors repeatedly tried to contact St. Tikhon. In particular, in July 1921, Metropolitan Anthony submitted a report to His Holiness Patriarch with a proposal to establish a Supreme Administration of the Russian Church Abroad, uniting all foreign Russian parishes and dioceses of the Moscow Patriarchate, including Finland, the Baltic countries, Poland, North America, Japan and China, under the chairmanship of the Patriarchal Vicar. A blessing was also requested for the convening of a meeting of the Russian Church abroad. However, on October 13, 1921, His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, the Holy Synod and the Supreme Church Council of the Russian Orthodox Church found it inexpedient to establish the position of the Patriarchal Vicar “as uncalled for by anything”, the Higher Church Administration was left “with its former powers”, without extending its scope to Poland and the Baltic states, and the message about the upcoming meeting was taken into account.
On November 21, 1921, the All-Church Abroad Assembly of Bishops, Clerics and Laity opened in Sremski Karlovtsy, during the meetings it was renamed the All-Diaspora Council. The message of the Council "To the children of the Russian Orthodox Church, in dispersion and exile" contained a call for the return to the Russian throne of the legitimate Orthodox Tsar from the House of Romanov. The message sent on behalf of the Council to the international Genoa Conference, scheduled for April 1922 to discuss issues of Russia's state debts, called on all the peoples of the world to support the military campaign against the Soviet state with weapons and volunteers.
These appeals were used by the Soviet authorities to exacerbate the persecution of the Church in Russia and fundamentally changed the relationship of the foreign center with the Moscow Patriarchate. The documents adopted in Karlovtsy contradicted the principle of non-intervention of the Church in political affairs, clearly expressed in the Patriarchal Message of October 8, 1919. “We declare with determination,” wrote St. Tikhon, “that<…>the establishment of this or that form of government is not the business of the Church, but of the people themselves. The Church does not associate itself with any particular form of government, for this has only a relative historical significance. The Patriarch noted that the servants of the Church “by their rank should stand above and beyond any political interests, they should remember the canonical rules of the Holy Church, with which she forbids her servants to interfere in political life countries, to belong to any parties, and even more so to make liturgical rites and sacred rites an instrument of political demonstrations.
The authorities in Moscow demanded that St. Tikhon defrock foreign bishops, but the Patriarch did not want such measures. On May 5, 1922, decree No. 348 (349) of His Holiness the Patriarch, the Holy Synod and the Supreme Church Council followed. According to the decree, the messages of the Karlovac Council were recognized as not expressing the official voice of the Russian Orthodox Church and, due to their purely political nature, without canonical significance. In view of the political statements made on behalf of the Church, the Higher Church Administration abroad was abolished, and the power over parishes in Europe was retained by Metropolitan Evlogii. The question was also raised about the ecclesiastical responsibility of clerics abroad for their political statements made on behalf of the Church.
The day after the signing of the decree, His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon was arrested. Information about the arrest of the saint came abroad before the decree, by the time of which the Renovationist schismatics had already made an attempt to usurp power in the Russian Church. As a result, most of the representatives of the foreign episcopate feared that the legitimate Church authority in Russia was completely destroyed. Largely for this reason, Decree No. 348 was carried out only formally.
On September 2, 1922, the Council of Russian Bishops Abroad abolished the Supreme Church Administration in its former composition, but instead formed a temporary Synod of Bishops headed by Metropolitan Anthony. The archpastors called the basis for this decision the decree of St. Tikhon, the Holy Synod and the Supreme Church Council No. 362 of November 20, 1920 on the dioceses that, as a result of the movement of the front or changes in the state border and similar circumstances, found themselves out of any communion with the Higher Church Administration of the Russian Orthodox Church. Foreign bishops considered that the decree gave the right to create a church organization outside the canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox Church, where its dioceses had not previously existed. The Council of Bishops Abroad in June 1923 confirmed the decision to establish the Synod.
After the death of St. Tikhon on March 7, 1925, the foreign bishops did not immediately recognize the powers of the Patriarchal Locum Tenens, the Hieromartyr Peter (Polyansky), which was largely due to the uncertainty abroad about the intentions of the Locum Tenens and his further actions in relation to the Renovationists. On April 9, 1925, the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Church Abroad considered it expedient, “in the event that the Soviet government in Russia does not allow the election of a new Patriarch, but instead imposes and strengthens the power of the Renovation Synod through violence and deceit or violates the archpastoral conscience of the Locum Tenens or the new Patriarch, to provide the Chairman of the Synod of Bishops, His Eminence Metropolitan Anton with the rights of temporary, until the convening of the canonical All-Russian Holy Council, deputy Patriarch, to represent the All-Russian Orthodox Church and, as far as conditions and circumstances permit, to lead church life and the Church not only outside of Russia, but also in Russia.” However, in the fall of the same year, the Synod of Bishops suspended this definition. Metropolitan Peter's speeches against the Renovationists, his refusal to participate in the Renovationist Council contributed to the recognition by the bishops abroad of the authority of the future Hieromartyr as Patriarchal Locum Tenens.
The relations of foreign archpastors with the Deputy Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky), who headed the Russian Church after the arrest of Metropolitan Peter on December 10, 1925, were initially confidential. However, after the bishops in Western Europe, to give a subscription about loyalty in relation to the Soviet regime, as well as after the publication to the Epistles to the pastors and the flock of Metropolitan Sergius and the Provisional Patriarchal Synod of July 29, 1927 (the so -called "Declaration of Metropolitan Sergius"), the bishop Synod on September 5, 1927 decided to interrupt the communication of the deputy patriarch of the loco.
“The message of Metropolitan Sergius,” said the District Epistle of the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad dated September 9, 1927, “is not archpastoral and not ecclesiastical, but political, and therefore cannot have ecclesiastical canonical significance and is not necessary for us, free from the oppression and captivity of the God-fighting and Christ-hating authorities<…>Such a decision cannot be recognized as legal and canonical.” The Council, from which Metropolitans Evlogy and Platon had already separated by that time, with the parishes they headed in Western Europe and North America, decided to stop relations with the Moscow church authorities, continuing to recognize as the head of the Russian Church the Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan Peter, who was in exile. At the same time, the Epistle says that “the part of the Russian Church abroad considers itself an inseparable, spiritually united branch of the great Russian Church. She does not separate herself from her Mother Church and does not consider herself autocephalous.” Similar statements were repeated in other documents of the Russian Church Abroad, including the Regulations on the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia adopted in 1956, which defines it as “an inseparable part of the local Russian Orthodox Church, temporarily self-governing on a conciliar basis until the abolition of godless power in Russia.”
Communication between the Hierarchy of the Church in the Fatherland and hierarchs abroad was thus interrupted for many decades. In 1934, Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky), Deputy Patriarchal Locum Tenens, issued a decree banning Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky) and several foreign hierarchs from serving. The Synod of Bishops of the Church Abroad did not recognize this decision.
The division continued even after the death of the First Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad, Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky), which followed in 1936. The successors of Metropolitan Anthony as Chairman of the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Church Abroad were Metropolitans Anastassy (Gribanovsky) (1936-1964), Filaret (Voznesensky) (1964-1985), Vitaly (Ustinov) (1985-2001), Lavr (Shkurla) (since 2001).
The All-Diaspora Councils played an important role in the life of the Russian Church Abroad. In August 1938, the Second All-Diaspora Council was held in Sremski Karlovtsy; in September 1974, the Third All-Diaspora Council was held at the Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville;
During the Second World War, some of the representatives of the Russian Church Abroad expressed the hope that Russia would be liberated from Bolshevik rule by force of arms. Other archpastors, on the contrary, expected the victory of the Red Army. Thus, the well-known ascetic of piety, canonized in 1994 by the Bishops' Council of the Russian Church Abroad, Bishop John (Maximovich) of Shanghai, collected money for the needs of the Red Army, served thanksgiving prayers after its victories over the Nazis. Strongly refused to bless the Russian emigrants to fight against Russia and Archbishop Bogucharsky Seraphim (Sobolev), who ruled the Russian parishes in Bulgaria.
During the Second World War, the Synod of Bishops left Sremski Karlovtsy and since 1946 was located in Munich. WITH1950 The Synod of Bishops resides in New York.
At the end of the war, on August 10, 1945, His Holiness Patriarch Alexy I of Moscow and All Rus' sent a message to the archpastors and clergy abroad, calling them to unity with the Moscow Patriarchate. During this period, Metropolitan Melety (Zaborovsky), Archbishops Dimitry (Voznesensky), Seraphim (Sobolev), Victor (Svyatin), Nestor (Anisimov), Yuvenaly (Kilin) and Seraphim (Lukyanov) were accepted into the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate.
It is worth noting that His Holiness Patriarch Alexy I of Moscow and All Rus', while in Yugoslavia in 1945, served a memorial service for Metropolitan Anthony.
Archbishop John (Maximovich) of Western America and San Francisco (1896-1966) said: “Every day I commemorate Patriarch Alexy at the proskomedia. He is a Patriarch. And our prayer still remains. Due to circumstances we were cut off, but liturgically we are united. The Russian Church, like the entire Orthodox Church, is united eucharistically, and we are with her and in her. But administratively, for the sake of our flock and for the sake of certain principles, we have to follow this path, but this does not in the least violate the mysterious unity of the entire Church. In the mid-1960s, Archbishop John wrote: “The Russian Church Abroad is not spiritually separated from the suffering Mother. She lifts up prayers for her, preserves her spiritual and material wealth, and in due time will unite with her when the reasons that separate them disappear.
For decades, the Russian Church Abroad zealously preserved the traditions of Orthodox piety dating back to pre-revolutionary Rus', and was actively engaged in publishing and educational activities. continued and monastic life. The monastery of St. Job in Ladomirov (Czecho-Slovakia), founded in 1923, became a new embodiment of the Pochaev monastic traditions. In 1946, the brethren of the monastery moved to the United States of America, where they joined the Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville (New York), founded in 1930. Holy Trinity Monastery for a long time became the main spiritual center of the Russian Church Abroad. Here the publishing business started in the monastery of St. Job was resumed. Through the efforts of the brethren, many newspapers, magazines and books have been published. Some of these publications, with great difficulty, could sometimes be sent to Russia.
In the Motherland, where at that time the publication of spiritual literature was extremely limited, such works of authors from the Russian Church Abroad as "Law of God" by Archpriest Seraphim Sloboda, "Explanation on the Four Gospels" and "Explanation on the Apostles" by Archbishop Averky (Taushev), "Dogmatic Theology" by Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky were well known.
On the territory of the monastery in Jordanville, the Holy Trinity Theological Seminary, founded in 1948, became the spiritual and educational center of the Russian Church Abroad. The seminary has students from all over the world. After five years of study, graduates receive a Bachelor of Theology degree.
In the Church of the Sign at the Synod of Bishops in New York, the miraculous Kursk-Root Icon is kept Mother of God exported from Russia in 1920. The icon is often transferred for veneration to various dioceses and parishes of the Russian Church Abroad. In 2005 miraculous icon was temporarily delivered for prayer veneration to the Patriarchal Cathedral of St. Nicholas in New York.
The relics of the Holy Martyrs Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna and Nun Varvara, who were killed by the Bolsheviks in 1918, are also precious relics of the Russian Church Abroad. The remains of the venerable martyrs were transferred to Jerusalem in 1921, where they now rest in the church of St. Mary Magdalene. In 2004-2005, the holy relics of the martyrs were brought to Russia. The relics of the holy ascetics were brought to 61 dioceses in Russia and other CIS countries. In total, about 8 million people bowed to the venerable martyrs.
In 1988, the Church in the Fatherland and the Church Abroad solemnly celebrated the 1000th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus'. At this time, freedom for the Church was breathed in the Motherland. The Local Council of 1988 canonized Patriarch Tikhon and a number of ascetics of the Russian Church. Churches began to gradually return temples and monasteries.
These changes gave hope for an early unity with the Church Abroad. Members of the Local Council of 1988, in their appeal "To the children who do not have canonical communion with the Mother Church," called on representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad to dialogue. “Such a dialogue,” the Address says, “by the grace of God, could lead us to the much-desired restoration of church communion, would help to destroy the barriers that are now separating us. We assure you that in no way do we want to hinder your freedom or gain dominion over the inheritance of God (1 Pet. 5:3), but with all our hearts we strive to end the temptation of separation between brothers and sisters of the same blood and of the same faith, so that we can give you thanks to God in one mind with one heart at the one Lord's Table.
At the same time, hopes for a speedy development of dialogue suffered significant damage when, in 1990, despite the disagreement of a number of archpastors, the Council of Bishops of the Russian Church Abroad decided to open parishes of its jurisdiction on the canonical territory of the Moscow Patriarchate. In October 1990, the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church issued an appeal “To the archpastors, pastors and all the faithful children of the Russian Orthodox Church”, in which it called for preserving the unity of the Church, and addressed the hierarchs abroad with a fraternal request not to create new obstacles to the unity of the Church. “And now,” the document says, “we are still ready to understand everything and forgive everything. Even though the leadership of the Russian Church Abroad has strengthened the existing division by forming a parallel hierarchical structure and facilitating the creation of their parishes on the canonical territory of the Moscow Patriarchate, we once again extend our hand to them, calling for an open and honest dialogue on all issues that cause differences between us.<…>We call on all our Orthodox compatriots to seek peace and love among themselves, leaving everything that cannot, and, therefore, should not serve as a reason for division among those who profess one saving right faith.
In October 1991, His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus', in his open letter to the participants in the Congress of Compatriots, said: “The external shackles of aggressive atheism that have bound us for many years have fallen. We are free, and this creates the prerequisites for dialogue, for it was precisely the freedom of our Church from the yoke of totalitarianism that was the condition for meeting with brothers and sisters abroad, which the Hierarchy of the Russian Church Abroad has repeatedly spoken about. Today you need to overcome bitterness, irritation, personal hostility<…>I say with all sincerity: we are ready for dialogue. As soon as the Hierarchy of the Russian Church Abroad expresses the same willingness, we will immediately meet with its representatives to discuss what concerns them and us.”
A definite stage in the development of the dialogue was the regular interviews that began in 1993 between representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate, headed by Archbishop Feofan of Berlin and Germany, and clerics of the Berlin Diocese of the Russian Church Abroad, headed by Archbishop Mark. There were nine interviews in total. In a joint statement of the participants of the ninth interview, held in December 1997, it was noted: “We all perceive ourselves as children of the spiritual foundations of the Russian Church. She is the Mother Church for all of us… We agree and note that the grace of the sacraments, the priesthood and church life should not be called into question… If at the present moment there is no Eucharistic communion between the clergy of the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Church Abroad, then this does not affirm the ‘gracelessness’ of the other side.”
An important milestone on the path to unity was the Jubilee Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, held in Moscow in August 2000. The Council glorified the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, adopted the Fundamentals of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church, which clarified the position of the Moscow Patriarchate in relation to state power. The document “Basic principles of the attitude of the Russian Orthodox Church towards heterodoxy” was also adopted, which clearly sets out the position of the Moscow Patriarchate on the issue of interfaith dialogue. The decisions of the Council were positively received in the Russian Church Abroad. Since that time, the desire for dialogue has intensified.
His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus', in his speech at the Jubilee Bishops' Council in 2000, called the division between the Church in the Fatherland and the Church Abroad "a historical tragedy of the Russian people" and called the Russian Church Abroad to unity. “The Russian Orthodox Church,” said His Holiness the Patriarch, “again and again calls for the acquisition of canonical unity of all Orthodox believers in the Diaspora, who associate their church life with the spiritual ideals of historical Russia.” In October of the same year, His Holiness Patriarch Alexy again called the division "historically obsolete."
On September 24, 2003, a meeting of the President took place at the Consulate General of Russia in New York Russian Federation V.V. Putin with the Chairman of the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Church Abroad, Metropolitan Laurus of New York and Eastern America. V.V. Putin gave Metropolitan Laurus a letter from His Holiness Patriarch Alexy. On his own behalf and on behalf of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy of Moscow and All Rus', the President invited Metropolitan Laurus to visit Russia.
In November 2003, at the invitation of the Moscow Patriarchate, a delegation of the Russian Church Abroad visited Moscow, including Archbishop Mark of Berlin and Germany, Archbishop Hilarion of Sydney and Australia and New Zealand, and Bishop (now Archbishop) of San Francisco and Western America Kirill. During the visit, foreign hierarchs met with His Holiness Patriarch Alexy of Moscow and All Rus', and negotiations were held with members of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church. At the same time, the will of the parties to establish prayer-eucharistic communion was clearly expressed. It was also recommended that commissions be created to help resolve the problems that have accumulated over the years of separation. November 21, the day of the Holy Archangel of God Michael members of the delegation of the Russian Church Abroad prayed at a service in the Archangel Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. At the end of the service, His Holiness Patriarch Alexy of Moscow and All Rus' said: “It is with special joy that we greet the delegation of the Russian Church Abroad, whose members prayed with us today. It is gratifying that after many decades of separation, we have embarked on the path leading to church unity. With the fall of the communist regime and the establishment of religious freedom in Russia, the prerequisites appeared to begin the path to unity ... The main task that we set ourselves is to achieve prayerful and Eucharistic communion.”
The issue of canonical unity was discussed at the Bishops' Council of the Russian Church Abroad, which took place on December 13-17, 2003. His Holiness Patriarch Alexy, in his message to this Council, noted that the words and actions of both representatives of the Russian Church Abroad and representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate did not always correspond to the high calling of the Church, which was “determined by the external circumstances of church life, and sometimes by direct pressure from non-church forces.” The primate declared: “The Lord saved His Church from deviating into heresy, preserved dogmatic unity and apostolic succession of ordinations. The external robe of the church was torn apart by enemies, but the Body of Christ preserved its innermost unity. Coming to the chalice of the Holy Eucharist, the people of God in Russia and beyond its borders partake of the single source of life-giving grace.” In the opinion of His Holiness, “already now the Russian Orthodox Church in the Fatherland and the Russian Church Abroad essentially share and defend before the face of the whole world a common perception of spiritual and moral values.”
The Council of Bishops of the Russian Church Abroad responded to the words of His Holiness the Patriarch. The message of the Council says: “The true ecclesiastical unity preserved in the depths must be revealed to us. The Body of Christ is the Church and the Sacrament in all the sacraments is one - the Body of Christ. We have been entrusted with the responsibility: despite all the obstacles that we may meet on the way to overcome obstacles, to open our hearts to perceive God's providence for His Church. The Council decided to create a commission to discuss issues that impede the unification.
The decision to establish a commission for dialogue with the Russian Church Abroad in December 2003 was also taken by the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church.
In December of the same year, the All-Diaspora Pastoral Conference of the Russian Church Abroad was held, which discussed issues of church unity. Clerics of the Moscow Patriarchate also took part in the meeting. In their address, the participants in the Pastoral Conference declared that they welcome the steps towards the unity of the Russian Church. The Epistle of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy to the Council of Bishops of the Russian Church Abroad was also received with great satisfaction abroad. “In this letter,” the address of the Pastoral Conference said, “we are encouraged by the words that testify to the understanding of the Russian Church Abroad as part of the Russian Church.”
The importance of the unity of the Church in the Fatherland and the Church Abroad was noted in one of his public speeches by the First Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad, Metropolitan Laurus. The archpastor noted that the unification "will save our Church from self-isolation and the inevitable fragmentation and divisions associated with it, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, from dissolving it in the heterodox environment surrounding it." The First Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad condemned those members of the Russian Church Abroad who doubt the grace of the Church in the Fatherland. “Instead of love for God,” Metropolitan Laurus said, “and love for one’s neighbor, instead of love for our Motherland, Russia, they plant hatred and contempt in their hearts. Those who persist in such an opinion fall into pride and the heresy of neo-Pharisees.”
A significant event in the relationship between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Church Abroad was the visit to Russia of a delegation of the Russian Church Abroad, headed by the First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, Metropolitan Laurus of Eastern America and New York. The official delegation included Archbishop Mark of Berlin and Germany, Chairman of the Commission for Negotiations with the Moscow Patriarchate, Archbishop Kirill of San Francisco and Western America, and six clerics of the Russian Church Abroad. Together with Metropolitan Laurus, a pilgrimage group of 12 clerics of the Russian Church Abroad arrived. The official visit of the First Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad was the first in all the years of separation between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Church Abroad and was a significant step towards unity.
The head of the Russian Church Abroad arrived in Moscow on May 14. On the same day, His Holiness Patriarch Alexy met with Metropolitan Laurus.
The symbolic event of this visit was the laying of the temple on the site of mass executions at the Butovo training ground, which took place on May 15. The delegation of the Russian Church Abroad took part in laying the foundation stone for this church.
On May 16, a ROCOR delegation traveled to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. Members of the delegation prayed at the divine service in the Assumption Cathedral, visited the church-archaeological study, met with students of the Moscow Theological Schools.
On May 17, Metropolitan Laurus and other members of the delegation visited the Donskoy Monastery and the Martha and Mary Convent. Then the delegation went to the Moscow Kremlin, where they met with the Plenipotentiary of the President in the Central federal district G.S. Poltavchenko.
On the same day, negotiations between the delegation of the Russian Church Abroad and the delegation of the Moscow Patriarchate took place at the Department for External Church Relations. Metropolitan Yuvenaly of Krutitsy and Kolomna, Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, Archbishop Innokenty of Korsun, and clerics of the Russian Orthodox Church took part in the meeting from the Moscow Patriarchate. During the meeting, the issue of restoring canonical unity between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Church Abroad was discussed.
On May 18, at the Patriarchal residence in St. Daniel's Monastery, the interviews continued under the chairmanship of His Holiness the Patriarch. It was determined that the goal of the rapprochement process is the restoration of Eucharistic communion and canonical unity. The commissions, formed in December 2003, were instructed to start working together and indicated topics for discussion.
On May 19, the delegation attended the consecration of the Church of the Holy Trinity at Borisov Ponds, and the next day, May 20, on the feast of the Ascension of the Lord, the delegation prayed at the service in the Church of the Ascension at the Nikitsky Gates. On May 21, the trip of the delegation around Russia began, during which Metropolitan Laurus and the persons accompanying him visited Yekaterinburg, Alapaevsk, Nizhny Novgorod, the Diveevo monastery, Kursk and St. Petersburg.
On May 27, the final meeting of Metropolitan Laurus with His Holiness Patriarch Alexy took place. On the same day, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin met with His Holiness Patriarch Alexy of Moscow and All Rus' and First Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad Metropolitan Laurus in Novo-Ogaryovo. Metropolitan of Krutitsy and Kolomna Juvenaly and the Chairman of the Department for External Church Relations Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad also took part in the meeting on behalf of the Moscow Patriarchate, and Archbishop Mark of Berlin and Germany on behalf of the Russian Church Abroad.
An important stage in the restoration of canonical communion was the work of the commission of the Moscow Patriarchate for dialogue with the Russian Church Abroad and the commission of the Russian Church Abroad for negotiations with the Moscow Patriarchate. The Commission of the Moscow Patriarchate was formed by the decision of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church in December 2003. It was composed of Archbishop Innokenty of Korsun (Chairman of the Commission), Archbishop Eugene of Vereya, Archpriest Vladislav Tsypin, Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov), Archpriest Nikolai Balashov (Secretary of the Commission).
The Commission of the Russian Church Abroad was formed at a meeting of the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Church Abroad. The Commission included Archbishop Mark of Berlin and Germany (Chairman of the Commission), Bishop Ambrose of Vevey, Archimandrite Luka (Muryanka), Archpriest Georgy Larin, Archpriest Alexander Lebedev (Secretary of the Commission). Subsequently, Archpriest Georgy Larin was replaced by Archpriest Nikolai Artemov, and Bishop Ambrose, due to his illness, was replaced by Archbishop Kirill of San Francisco and Western America.
The first joint working meeting between the commission of the Moscow Patriarchate for dialogue with the Russian Church Abroad and the commission of the Russian Church Abroad for negotiations with the Moscow Patriarchate took place in Moscow (DECR) on June 22-24, 2004.
Further meetings were held in Munich (14-17 September 2004), Moscow (17-19 November 2004), near Paris (2-4 March 2005), Moscow (26-28 July 2005), Nyack, New York (17-20 February 2006), Moscow again (26-28 June 2006) and Cologne (2 4 - 26 October 2006).
During the first working meeting, a conversation took place between the Chairman of the Department for External Church Relations, Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, and the head of the commission of the Russian Church Abroad for negotiations with the Moscow Patriarchate, Archbishop Mark. Metropolitan Kirill also met with members of the commissions of the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Church Abroad during subsequent meetings.
In October 2004, the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church took place, which approved the already achieved results of the work of the commissions and recognized the unity of Russian Orthodoxy as a matter of exceptional importance. The Council of Bishops, on the basis of the discussion that took place, entrusted the approval of the act of canonical communion to the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church.
In May 2006, the Fourth All-Diaspora Council, held in San Francisco, approved in principle the course towards unity between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Church Abroad. The corresponding decisions were taken by the subsequent Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.
The commissions completed their work in November 2006. During this time, draft documents were developed that determined the canonical status of the Russian Church Abroad as part of the Moscow Patriarchate, the attitude of the parties to the problems of relations between the Church and the state, the Orthodox Church and heterodoxy. All these documents were subsequently approved by the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.
Simultaneously with the negotiations, the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Church Abroad carried out a number of joint undertakings, which testify that the union finds a lively response among the Orthodox flock.
Over the past few years, delegations from the Russian Church Abroad have repeatedly made trips to Russia. Thus, in the summer of 2005 a group of students from the Holy Trinity Theological Seminary in Jordanville visited Russia, and a large pilgrimage group from Australia headed by Archbishop Hilarion of Sydney and Australia and New Zealand visited Russia. In the autumn of 2005, the Secretary of the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Church Abroad, Bishop Gabriel of Manhattan, visited the holy places of Russia. Repeatedly visited Russia and the Archbishop of Berlin and German Mark.
In the spring of 2005, representatives of the Russian Church Abroad took part in the reburial at the cemetery Donskoy Monastery the remains of General A.I. Denikin and philosopher I.A. Ilyin with their spouses, and in 2006 - in the reburial of the remains of Empress Maria Feodorovna.
Since 2005, representatives of the Russian Church Abroad have also taken part in the work of World Russian People's Councils.
The joint project of the Berlin-German Diocese of the Russian Church Abroad and the Stavropol and Vladikavkaz Diocese of the Moscow Patriarchate to build a monastery and a rehabilitation center in Beslan also became a symbol of the coming unity.
Finally, on May 17, 2007, the solemn signing of the Act of Canonical Communion between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Church Abroad will take place at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. After the signing, the first joint service will take place.
On May 19, a delegation from the Russian Church Abroad will take part in the consecration of the Church of the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia at the Butovo training ground. On May 20, the First Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad, Metropolitan Laurus, and a delegation of the Russian Church Abroad will concelebrate with His Holiness Patriarch Alexy of Moscow and All Rus' at the Liturgy at the Dormition Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin.
At present, the Russian Church Abroad has 8 dioceses and over 300 parishes.
By the great mercy of God, the division of Russian Orthodoxy has been overcome. Ahead is the time of joint fruitful work for the good of the Holy Church. And joint labors performed in the spirit of the love commanded by Christ will serve to strengthen the Holy Church.
Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia(abbreviated ROCOR; other titles Russian Church Abroad, Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia; English TheRussianOrthodoxchurchoutsideofRussia;ROCOR; fr. Église orthodoxe russe hors frontières) is a self-governing part of the Russian Orthodox Church (since May 17, 2007).
It arose in the 1920s as a Russian Orthodox emigre church organization that emerged from the administrative subordination of the Moscow Patriarchate as a result of the 1917 revolution in Russia and the civil war; united a number of bishops of the Orthodox Russian Church, who found themselves in exile and emigration, who did not want to obey the “Declaration” of Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) of July 29, 1927, considering him not free in his decisions in the conditions of atheistic and political persecution of the church and being enslaved by the Bolshevik regime.
In the Soviet Union, it was considered by the authorities and official propaganda as a counter-revolutionary, anti-Soviet monarchist "emigrant religious and political group"; in the literature of the Moscow Patriarchate, until 2007, it was usually referred to as the “Karlovtsy schism”.
On May 17, 2007, in the Moscow Cathedral of Christ the Savior, Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and ROCOR First Hierarch Metropolitan Laurus signed the Act of Canonical Communion, stating that "The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad<…>remains an integral self-governing part of the Local Russian Orthodox Church” (p. 1 act).
The amendments to the Statute of the ROC (dated 2000) adopted on June 27, 2008 by the Council of Bishops of the ROC define ROCOR as one of the self-governing Churches of the Moscow Patriarchate.
Story
In the 1920s-1930s
In May 1919 in Stavropol Caucasian - on the territory controlled by the White movement - was formed Provisional Higher Church Administration of the South-East of Russia under the chairmanship of Archbishop of Novocherkassk and Donskoy Mitrofan (Simashkevich). Subsequently, the establishment of the VVCU was legitimized by the publication Decrees of Patriarch Tikhon, the Holy Synod and the Supreme Church Council of November 7/20, 1920 No. 362— The Act, considered by ROCOR canonists as the main legal document.
Earlier, in November 1918, the Provisional Higher Church Administration was created by the Siberian Church Conference in Tomsk, which united 13 bishops of the dioceses of the Urals and Siberia.
After the defeat of Anton Denikin's army in the Kuban in March 1920, Archbishop Mitrofan remained in Russia, shutting himself up in a monastery in Starocherkassk. On October 2/15, 1920, the VVTsU of the South of Russia, at that time already in Simferopol, appointed Archbishop Evlogy (Georgievsky) as administrator of the Western European Russian churches as a diocesan bishop, which appointment was confirmed by the Decree of Patriarch Tikhon of March 26/April 8, 1921 (“in view of the decision of the Supreme Russian Church Administration Abroad") - "temporarily, until the resumption of correct and unhindered relations between the aforementioned churches with Petrograd" (since parishes abroad were historically subordinate to the St. Petersburg diocese).
By November 6/19, 1920, in Constantinople, then occupied by the troops of the Entente, under the leadership of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia in the Crimea, General Pyotr Wrangel, over 125 ships of the Russian and foreign fleets arrived and concentrated on the Bosphorus, overflowing with refugees from the Crimea, including about 150 thousand. Among them was a group of bishops headed by Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky). On the advice of the Bishop of Sevastopol Veniamin (Fedchenkov), on November 19, the first foreign meeting of the All-Russian Exhibition Center of the South-East of Russia was held on board the steamer "Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich" (in December of the same year it was transformed into Higher Russian Church Administration Abroad (VRTSUZ)); in particular, it was decided to "communicate with the Patriarchate of Constantinople to clarify the canonical relationship." On December 2, 1920, Metropolitan Anthony was sent a Letter of the Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate (at that time the Synod was headed by the Locum Tenens of the Ecumenical Patriarchal Throne, Metropolitan Dorotheos of Prussia (Mammelis)), which granted the “Russian hierarchs” the right to “perform for Russian Orthodox refugees everything that is required by the Church and religion for the consolation and encouragement of Orthodox Russian refugees.” They were allowed to “form a temporary church commission for the pastoral ministry ( Epitropia) under the pre-administration of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to oversee and guide the general church life of the Russian church colonies, within Orthodox countries, as well as for Russian soldiers<…>».
The last meeting of the VRCUZ in Constantinople took place on April 29 (May 12), 1921. In 1921, at the invitation of the Serbian Patriarch Dimitry Pavlovich (Serb. Dimitri Pavlovitch), the Supreme Church Administration of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia moved to Serbia, to Sremski Karlovci, where it remained until evacuation in 1944. The Serbian Patriarch Dimitri († 1930) placed his residence at the disposal of the Russian bishops. Even earlier, on February 5, 1920, 5 Russian bishops arrived in Serbia, who had been evacuated from Novorossiysk in January 1920. The first meeting of the VRCU in Sremski Karlovtsy took place on July 21, 1921 under the chairmanship of Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky). On August 31, 1921, the Council of Bishops of the Serbian Church granted the HCU Abroad the right of jurisdiction over the Russian clergy who were not in the service of the Serbian Church.
On November 8-20 (old style), 1921, the All-Border Russian Church Assembly was held in Sremski Karlovtsy, later renamed the Cathedral (in modern literature it is often referred to as First All-Diaspora Church Council). At the council, the Order to the Council was heard, an Appeal to the soldiers of the Russian army was adopted, Message to the children of the Russian Orthodox Church, in dispersion and exile, as well as the Message to the World Conference (Genoa). A number of the Council's statements were purely political in nature, in particular the call for the restoration of the "legitimate Orthodox tsar from the house of the Romanovs" on the Russian throne and a direct appeal to the world powers to provide assistance for the armed overthrow of the regime in the RSFSR. Decisions and participants in the Soviet press named Karlovytska Cathedral were condemned in Soviet Russia.
On March 3 (March 16), 1922, Patriarch Tikhon officially thanked Serbian Patriarch Dimitri for providing asylum to Russian bishops.
On May 5, 1922, in Moscow, in the joint presence of the Holy Synod and the Supreme Church Council, under the chairmanship of Patriarch Tikhon, a resolution was passed, which, in the form of a decree of the Patriarch, was sent to the elevated Metropolitan Evlogii (Geogrievskii) for transfer to the Higher Educational Center for Higher Education. The Patriarchal Decree read:
Upon familiarization with the decree, the majority of the members of the VCUZ came to the conclusion that it was signed under pressure from the Bolsheviks. In Russian parishes abroad, a collection of signatures began under appeals to Metropolitan Anthony with a request not to retire.
The Council of Bishops, held on September 2, 1922, decided to formally fulfill the will of Patriarch Tikhon: the Council abolished the VTsUZ and formed the Provisional Holy Synod Abroad. The Council's decision read:
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1. In pursuance of the Decree of His Holiness His Holiness Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' and His Most Holy Synod under him of April 24 (May 5), 1922, No. 348, the existing Supreme Russian Church Administration should be abolished; 2. To organize the new Supreme Church Authority, to convene the Russian All-Diaspora Council on November 21, 1922; 3. In order to preserve the succession of the Supreme Church authority, to form a Provisional Synod of Bishops Abroad of the Russian Orthodox Church abroad with the obligatory participation of Metropolitan Evlogii, to which Synod, and to transfer all the rights and powers of the Russian Church Administration abroad; 6. Bring to the attention of His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon and all the heads of the Autocephalous Churches, as well as Russian envoys, about the formation of the Provisional Synod of Bishops. |
On September 13, 1922, the Council of Bishops decided to form the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia under the omophorion of the Serbian Patriarchate, which meant a break with the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople without proper, from the point of view of the latter, coordination with it.
Metropolitan Platon (Rozhdestvensky) was appointed administrator of the North American diocese in accordance with the Decree of Patriarch Tikhon of April 14 (27), 1922.
At that time, ROCOR included not only emigrant bishops, but also those parts of the Russian Church that found themselves outside the boundaries of the former Russian Republic: numerous parishes in Western Europe, a diocese in America, two dioceses in the Far East (Vladivostok and Beijing), and from the Vladivostok diocese, which until November 1922 was under white rule, a third Far Eastern diocese was allocated - Harbin in Man Churia. The Orthodox Spiritual Mission in Palestine and the parish in Tehran also entered the Church Abroad.
The ROCOR Council of Bishops, which opened on June 5, 1923, rejected the use of liturgical life new style and other reforms adopted at that time at the Pan-Orthodox Congress in Constantinople, under the chairmanship of Ecumenical Patriarch Meletios IV.
In 1927, the ROCOR Council of Bishops, on September 5, after hearing the Message of the Deputy Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan Sergius and the Provisional Patriarchal Holy Synod dated July 16/29, 1927 (“Declaration of Metropolitan Sergius”), decided: “The foreign part of the All-Russian Church must stop relations with the Moscow church authorities due to the impossibility of normal relations with her and in view of her enslavement by the godless Soviet authorities, depriving her of freedom in her will and canonical governance of the Church.
On May 9, 1928, by the decision of the Provisional Patriarchal Synod No. 104, “the Higher Administration of Russian Orthodox dioceses and communities abroad, which arose in Sremsky Karlovtsy, was declared abolished, and its actions and orders were declared null and void. It was proposed to the bishops and clerics who are subordinate to the Administration (regardless of whether they give or not give a certain obligation of loyalty) to make a decision on the liquidation of the Administration, or at least to each individually break with this Administration and with the entire group headed by it (para. VII). Those who refuse to fulfill our decree (again, “regardless of whether the above obligation is given or not”), it is proposed “to bring to the conciliar court as disobedient to the legitimate hierarchy and instigators of a schism, with a ban (depending on guilt and stubbornness) in the priesthood until judgment or until repentance” (VIII-c).
In practice, this order could not have any real consequences.
Decree of the Deputy Patriarchal Locum Tenens and under him of the Patriarchal Holy Synod About the Karlovac group dated June 22, 1934, No. 50, it was decided:
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1. Russian hierarchs and clerics abroad of the so-called Karlovac group, as having rebelled against their legitimate Hierarchy and, despite many years of exhortations, persisting in schism, bring them to trial in the church court on charges of violating the rules of the Holy Apostles 31, 34, 35; Double Council 13-15 and others with the removal of the accused until they repent or until the decision of the court from church positions (if they hold). 2. On the grounds indicated in the proposal, in addition to that and at the same time, to ban from the priesthood the following Bishops: the former Metropolitan Anthony of Kiev, the former Archbishop of Chisinau Anastassy, the former Archbishop of Transbaikal Meletius, the former Archbishop of Finland Seraphim, the former Bishop of Kamchatka Nestor, as well as Bishop Tikhon (Lyashchenko), Bishop Tikhon, who heads Karlovtsy in America, and Bishop Victor in Beijing. 3. To warn Orthodox archpastors, clergy and laity that those who enter into prayerful communion with schismatics, who receive from the forbidden Sacraments and blessings are subject to church rules the same punishment as them. |
On September 10, 1934, the Council of Bishops in Sremski Karlovtsy rejected the Decree of Metropolitan Sergius by a special resolution; The decree was signed by 17 bishops, not counting the signature of Metropolitan Anthony.
On April 24, 1936, the Reichsministry of Church Affairs of Germany informed Count Anthony about the decision of the Prussian government and the possibility of building a new cathedral in Berlin (Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ on the Hohenzollerndamm), partly at the expense of the ministry. In response, Metropolitan Anthony wrote in a letter of thanks to Minister Hans Kerl: “At a time when the Orthodox Church in our Motherland is being subjected to unprecedented persecution, we are especially touched by the attention of the German government and yours personally, it awakens in us a feeling of deep gratitude to the German people and its glorious leader Adolf Hitler and encourages us to heartfelt prayer for his and the German people’s health, well-being and for Divine Help in all their affairs.”
In September 1936, the Conference of ROCOR Bishops, convened by the Serbian Patriarch Barnabas, adopted Temporary Regulations on the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, which, in particular, established the Far Eastern and North American metropolitan districts. The North American District was headed by Metropolitan Theophilus (Pashkovsky). First chapter Regulations defined the Russian Church outside the USSR as follows:
At the end of 1936, news came (incorrect, as it turned out much later) of the death in the GULAG of the Patriarchal Locum Tenens, Metropolitan Peter (Polyansky). In Moscow Deputy Locum Tenens mt Sergiy assumed the title of Patriarchal Locum Tenens. In view of the non-recognition of the latter by ROCOR, the last connection (commemoration of the name of the Locum Tenens) between ROCOR and the Patriachia is cut off, although the Synod of Bishops considered Matthew Kirill (Smirnov) for several years, not knowing about his execution on November 20, 1937, as the legitimate head of the Russian Church.
On February 25, 1938, a decree was issued by the German government on the transfer of all church property to the Reich Ministry of Church Affairs.
The Second All-Diaspora Council of the Church Abroad met in August 1938 in Sremski Karlovtsy under the chairmanship of Metropolitan Anastassy (Gribanovsky), who until then had been in charge of the Russian Orthodox Mission in Jerusalem since 1924. In addition to considering current affairs, the Council addressed two messages: To the Russian People in the Fatherland suffering And To the Russian flock in the dispersion. The Council also condemned the teaching of the priest Sergius Bulgakov about Sophia, confirming the previous qualification of his teaching as heresy by the Council of Bishops in 1935.
ROCOR during World War II
As Germany progressed during World War II, Metropolitan Anastassy began to consider the possibility of moving the church center to Switzerland. After the occupation of Belgrade by German troops in April 1941, repressions against the leadership of the Serbian Church followed; On April 25, Patriarch Gabriel was arrested. The attitude of the military administration in Yugoslavia towards the Synod of Bishops was more benevolent.
According to the research of Mikhail Shkarovsky, on June 22, 1941, the chambers of Metropolitan Anastassy were searched by the Gestapo, in which he was known as an Anglophile. Searches were also carried out in the chancery of the Synod of Bishops and in the apartment of Grigory Grabbe, the ruler of the affairs of the synodal office. Metropolitan Anastassy refrained from issuing any message in connection with the outbreak of war on the territory of the USSR, although a significant part of Russian emigrants welcomed the outbreak of war between Germany and the USSR, linking it with the imminent collapse of the Bolshevik regime in Russia. Some hierarchs, such as Metropolitan Seraphim (Lukyanov) of Western Europe in his message of June 22, 1941, as well as Archbishop (later Metropolitan) Seraphim (Lade) of Berlin and Germany, who was an ethnic German, and some other ROCOR clerics supported the Wehrmacht’s “liberation campaign” against the USSR, considering the communist regime a much greater evil for Russia. In the United States, in July 1941, the Russian-American Committee addressed a statement to US President F. D. Roosevelt, signed, among others, by Archbishop Vitaly (Maximenko) of North America and Canada (ROCOR), which stated, in part: “<…>Germany has invaded Soviet Russia, and in other circles the opinion is expressed that America should immediately come to the aid of the USSR.<…>This Committee, which represents loyal Americans of Russian descent, notes with great concern and deep regret the clearly visible desire of certain ranks of the Administration to provide America with assistance not to Russia, not to Russians, but to the red dictatorship in the person of Stalin. We believe that it would be a fatal mistake for the United States to defend the Soviets for the following reasons: First, modern Russia is under the rule of a vile cabal of international conspirators known as the Comintern, which seeks to overthrow legitimate governments throughout the world by means of corrupt propaganda or by force.<…>»
The main goal of the Synod in relations with the German departments was the task of participating in the church revival in the territory of the USSR occupied by the Wehrmacht. But on June 26, 1941, a request sent to the Reich Ministry of Church Affairs by Anastassy for permission to travel to Berlin to discuss the issue of organizing church authority in the "eastern territories" was rejected due to the rejection of such proposals by other departments of the Third Reich.
On October 1, 1941, Anastassy sent to Berlin the opinion of the Synod of Bishops on the state of church affairs in Russia, which provided for "the resumption of church life in the regions liberated from communist power" and "the restoration of legitimate all-Russian church authority"; It was proposed to provide the Synod with the opportunity to send bishops to Russia, as well as in the future, convocation “in Moscow in the near future to free it” of the cathedral “From all cash bishops of the Russian Church, not compromised by cooperation with Metropolitan Sergius and especially participation in its synod, led by the oldest of the Supreme Church Administration, which would subsequently call the All -Russian Council of Council To restore the patriarchate and judgments about the further structure of the Russian Church. ”
However, despite the policy of religious and jurisdictional pluralism pursued by the German leadership in the occupied territories of the USSR, the attitude towards ROCOR was distrustful and its activity on the territory of the USSR was extremely limited; Metropolitan Anastassy himself was under virtual house arrest.
On September 14, 1943, after the election of Sergius (Stragorodsky) as Patriarch of Moscow in Moscow, Metropolitan Anastassy made a statement about the non-recognition of the election of the Patriarch. The statement was positively evaluated in the German Foreign Ministry and the petition of the Synod of Bishops, in which by that time there were only 2 bishops (Anastassy and Seraphim himself), for a meeting of bishops to decide personnel issues was satisfied: it was allowed to hold an entire episcopal conference in Vienna. The Bishops' Conference of the Hierarchs of the Orthodox Russian Church Outside of Russia, which was attended by 14 people (including 2 representatives of the Belarusian Church), took place in Vienna on October 21-26, 1943. The meeting adopted a resolution on the non-recognition of the election of the “Patriarch of All Russia in Moscow”, due to its non-canonicity, and called on “all believers of the Orthodox Russian Church in the Motherland and in the diaspora” to fight communism; the third document adopted by the Meeting - "Resolution on the question of how the Church can contribute to the fight against Bolshevik atheism" - actually contained criticism of the German policy towards the Russian Church and included demands aimed at granting her greater freedom, including in the occupied territories.
In September 1944, the Synod left Belgrade and on November 10 the employees and members of the Synod settled in Karlsbad.
In Germany, Metropolitan Anastassy had several meetings with General Vlasov, blessed the creation of the Russian Liberation Army (ROA). On November 18, 1944, he was present in Berlin at a solemn meeting that proclaimed the establishment of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (KONR) and on November 19 in the Berlin Cathedral delivered a speech on the establishment of the committee. In connection with the approach of Soviet troops, Metropolitan Anastassy and the staff of the Synod, with the assistance of General Vlasov, left for Bavaria.
ROCOR after World War II
Since 1945, the ROCOR leadership, headed by Metropolitan Anastassy, has been in Munich. In structural, organizational and other respects, after the end of the Second World War, ROCOR found itself in a crisis due to the recognition by the foreign episcopate of the Moscow Patriarchate as the legitimate successor of the Orthodox Russian Church and the transfer to the jurisdiction of the Moscow church authority of some ROCOR parishes in the Far East, as well as some parishes in Europe and other regions.
By the decision of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate of August 10, 1945, the episcopate and clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad were brought to trial by a council of bishops and banned from serving.
In early September 1945, Metropolitan Evlogy with 75 parishes in Western Europe and North Africa (Western European Exarchate), as well as Metropolitan Seraphim (Lukyanov) (about 30 parishes), head of the Western European Diocese of ROCOR, moved to the Moscow Patriarchate.
The 7th Council of the North American Metropolitanate, chaired by Metropolitan Theophilus (Pashkovsky), held in June-August 1946 in Cleveland, decided to "ask His Holiness the Patriarch of Moscow to reunite us into his fold... subject to the preservation of our full autonomy." After fruitless negotiations with the envoy of the Moscow Patriarch, the status of the Metropolis turned out to be completely uncertain and could be characterized as a de facto self-proclaimed autocephaly.
In 1950 the ROCOR Synod of Bishops moved to New York, USA.
On November 1, 1964, John of Kronstadt was canonized in ROCOR, and on September 24, 1978, Blessed Xenia of Petersburg.
On October 19 (November 1), 1981, the canonization of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian and Royal Martyrs became the most important ecclesiastical and political act of ROCOR.
On May 15, 1990, the ROCOR Council of Bishops adopted the "Regulations on Free Parishes", which provided for the legal existence of ROCOR dioceses and parishes on the territory of the USSR, that is, on the territory under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate.
In August 1991, Patriarch Alexy II in Moscow received a prominent ROCOR figure, G. A. Rar, through him conveying to the ROCOR hierarchy a proposal for the reunification of the Russian Church while maintaining full autonomy for ROCOR. The Council of Bishops of ROCOR, however, rejected this proposal.
Shortly after the collapse of the USSR, in January 1992, the Synod of Bishops sent a vicar of the Western European Diocese of ROCOR, Bishop Barnabas (Prokofiev) of Cannes, to Russia with instructions to organize a permanent Synodal Metochion in Moscow, which would exercise the authority of the Synod of Bishops in Russia. Upon arrival in Moscow, at the invitation of the former cleric of the Moscow Patriarchate Alexy Averyanov, he opened the ROCOR courtyard in one of the buildings of the former Martha and Mary Convent on Bolshaya Ordynka, which belonged to the city clinic; the unofficial headquarters of the National Patriotic Front “Memory”, headed by Dmitry Vasiliev, was also located there, which led to a number of scandalous situations. The association with Pamyat' has damaged the reputation of ROCOR in Russia. Religious dissident Zoya Krakhmalnikova wrote in June 1993: “The connection between ROCOR and Memory gives the Moscow Patriarchate an absolute victory over the Church Abroad, and in order for the victory to be lasting, the premises where the Martha and Mary Convent once stood, illegally occupied by Fr. Alexy [Archpriest Alexy Averyanov] and Memory are not being taken away, although the decision to transfer him to the Sisterhood of the Moscow Patriarchate has long been made.”
At the ROCOR Council of 2000, a course towards rapprochement with the Moscow Patriarchate was proclaimed. The actions of the ROCOR Council of Bishops provoked a protest from ROCOR members all over the world who were disloyal to the MP. The First Hierarch and the Synod began to receive dozens of appeals from the clergy and laity with a request to cancel the unlawful, from their point of view, decisions of the Council of Bishops in 2000 to start a dialogue with the MP.
In October 2001, Metropolitan Vitaly (Ustinov), who opposed the new course, retired at his request, but then, under pressure from his entourage, annulled his signature, did not recognize the results of the council, and, together with Bishop Barnabas (Prokofiev), ordained bishops and organized the Synod of ROCOR(V) with its center in the city of Munsonville (Canada), in which he remained Chairman until his death on September 25 2006.
More than a hundred ROCOR parishes in Western Europe, North and South America, and Russia, as well as several monasteries in France and the United States, came under the omophorion of Metropolitan Vitaly, thus protesting the new course of Metropolitan Laurus (Shkurla). Barnabas (Prokofiev) left Metropolitan Vitaly in February 2006. The New York Synod accepted him as a bishop, despite the condemnation of his consecrations and the decision to remove him from the priesthood in 2001.
After the Act of Canonical Communion
The ruling bishop of the ROCOR Diocese of Tauride and Odessa, Bishop Agafangel (Pashkovsky) and a number of clerics refused to recognize joining the Moscow Patriarchate, in connection with which Bishop Agafangel was banned from serving by the ROCOR Synod of Bishops.
June 15, 2007 was officially distributed Statement Bishop Daniil of Iria, vicar of the Chairman of the Synod of Bishops, who ministers to fellow believers, saying that Bishop Daniil considers “alliance with the Moscow Patriarchate is still premature”; Statement also refuted earlier reports in the media that he denounces Act.
Part of the parishes that rejected Act, passed into the jurisdiction of the Old Calendar Greeks Synod opposing and the Russian True Orthodox Church.
Another part of the parishes that rejected Act, convened a meeting of its representatives, at which it determined the composition of the Provisional Higher Church Administration of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCA ROCOR), headed by Bishop Agafangel (Pashkovsky).
In an interview published on May 14, 2008, ROCOR First Hierarch Hilarion (Kapral) acknowledged that between ROCOR and the Moscow Patriarchate “purely psychological questions and barriers remain. Unfortunately, some part of the clergy and flock do not trust the hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church.”
In October 2008, Metropolitan Hilarion noted that ROCOR had 7 parishes in Brazil, and all of them withdrew from submission to the ROCOR Synod after signing the Act of Canonical Communion.
Device and control
ROCOR consists of 9 dioceses, a stauropegial Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem, and one temporary vicariate (in Russia). The Metropolitan Diocese is Eastern American and New York. The main part of the parishes is located in the USA - 323 parishes; in total - more than 400; about 20 monastic communities. spiritual center— Holy Trinity monastery in Jordanville, New York, founded in 1930 by Archimandrite Panteleimon (Peter Adamovich Nizhnik) and psalmist Ivan Andreyevich Kolos. The ROCOR Theological Seminary is located in Jordanville, where such prominent figures of the Russian Orthodox diaspora as Archbishop Averky (Taushev) and Archimandrite Konstantin (Zaitsev) taught.
The administrative center is located in New York: 75 E 93rd St New York; the Synodal Cathedral of the Sign of the Mother of God is located there ( Synodal Cathedral of the Mother of God of the Sign), consecrated on October 12/25, 1959, ; in the cathedral - the miraculous icon of the Kursk Root ( the Kursk-Root Icon of Our Lady of the Sign), exported in 1919 from the Znamensky Monastery in Kursk (revealed in the Root Hermitage). The synodal house was bought and donated to the Synod of Bishops in 1957 by Sergei Yakovlevich Semenenko, a native of Odessa.
According to Regulations on the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia(from 1956) the highest body of church legislation, administration, court and control for the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia is the Council of Bishops, convened annually, if possible, in accordance with church canons.
Chairman of the Council of Bishops and the Synod of Bishops - First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia in the rank of Metropolitan, elected by the Council for life; the members of the Council are all the bishops that are part of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (pr. 8 Regulations). The terms of reference of the Council of Bishops, among other things, also include the election of two Deputy First Hierarchs who are vice-presidents of the Synod, two members of the Synod of Bishops and two deputy members of the Synod (pr. 11 Regulations). In case of special need, the First Hierarch, together with the Synod of Bishops, convenes an All-Diaspora Church Council, consisting of bishops and representatives of the clergy and laity. The resolutions of such All-Diaspora Church Councils have legal force and are enforced only upon their approval by the Council of Bishops under the chairmanship of the First Hierarch (Prop. 12 Regulations).
The Holy Synod of Bishops is the executive body of the Council and consists of the Chairman (First Hierarch), two of his Deputies and four members of the Synod, of which two are elected by the Council for the inter-council period and two are called from the diocese for a four-month period in turn, as well as two of their deputies, called to the meeting of the Synod of Bishops at the discretion of the Chairman (pr. 16 Regulations).
The Act of Canonical Communion between ROCOR and the ROC, signed on May 17, 2007, provides that the First Hierarch of ROCOR, elected by its Council of Bishops, is subject to approval by the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' and the Holy Synod of the Moscow Patriarchate. In addition, decisions on the formation or abolition of dioceses belonging to ROCOR are subject to agreement with the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' and the Holy Synod; the election of bishops by the Council of Bishops or the ROCOR Synod of Bishops is approved by the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' and the Holy Synod.
The highest instance of church authority for ROCOR is the Local and Bishops' Councils of the Russian Orthodox Church, whose members include ROCOR hierarchs, and, in relation to the former, also representatives of ROCOR clergy and laity.
Bishop Agafangel (Pashkovsky), and with him some of the ROCOR clergy and laity, who refused to accept the Act of Canonical Communion, continued to arrange their church life outside of communion with the Moscow Patriarchate in accordance with the charter that existed before the adoption of the Act. Unable to replenish the episcopate, in 2007 Bishop Agafangel turned to the Greek Old Calendarists for help, and on December 7-8, 2007, together with the bishops of the Greek Synod of Opposed: George (Puhate) of Alan and Ambrose of Mefon, he ordained two new bishops, which led to a new schism in the Russian Church Abroad. In the autumn of 2008, Bishop Agafangel's like-minded people held a council, which they called the "Fifth All-Diaspora", and at which Bishop Agafangel was elected First Hierarch of the newly formed church structure, with his elevation to the rank of Metropolitan.
Theological achievements and distinctions
There have never been any dogmatic differences in the doctrine and practice of ROCOR, which is connected with the fact that its leadership has always seen it as its primary task to preserve the Orthodox doctrine and practice unchanged and pure.
In view of such a conservative line, ROCOR has always harshly condemned everything that it considered as deviations from the purity of Orthodoxy, such as Sophianism, Sergianism, ecumenism. She has always been extremely hostile towards “Latinism” (Roman Catholicism).
In the post-war years, the concept of katechon was developed in the theology and ideology of ROCOR; the role of "Retainer" was assimilated mainly by the Russian tsars, which served as one of the justifications for the canonization of the last Russian monarch in ROCOR in 1981. In ROCOR, the traditional principles of canonization as martyrs were reworked - initially, by Archpriest Mikhail Polsky, who fled from the USSR, who, based on the recognition of "Soviet power" in the USSR as essentially anti-Christian, considered all Orthodox Christians killed by representatives of state power in the USSR and Soviet Russia to be "Russian New Martyrs"; moreover, according to this interpretation, Christian martyrdom washes away from a person all past sins.
ROCOR First Hierarchs
- Anthony (Khrapovitsky) (1920-1936)
- Anastasy (Gribanovsky) (1936-1965)
- Filaret (Voznesensky) (1964-1985)
- Vitaly (Ustinov) (1985-2001)
- Lavr (Shkurla) (2001-2008)
- Hilarion (Kapral) (2008—present)
Archbishop Viennese Nathanael (Lviv)
The Orthodox Russian Church Abroad, now headed by Metropolitan Filaret, and previously headed by Metropolitan Anthony and Metropolitan Anastassy, confesses itself to be an integral part of the historical Russian Church, which nurtured and educated the Russian people and created their great state.
The Church Abroad follows with attentive, loving and devoted eyes every movement in the life of the Church in our Motherland, rejoices at her successes, mourns over her falls. She bows before the feat of those martyrs and confessors who fearlessly went for the name of Christ to indescribable suffering in concentration camps.
Representatives of our Church tirelessly narrate these exploits of Russian people in foreign and non-Orthodox spheres, who often try to plug their ears and not hear about these sufferings, which nevertheless disturb their half-asleep conscience. The Church Abroad carefully preserves the God-inspired church heritage, inherited from the thousand years of Orthodox Christian life in Russia, without succumbing to those trends of modernism and reformism that are so strong now everywhere. The Church Abroad is fighting with all her might for the purity of measure and for its imperviousness to the forces of evil dominating the world. The Church Abroad does not recognize as legitimate the hierarchical leadership of the modern official Russian Church, now headed by Patriarch Pimen, and before that by Patriarchs Sergius and Alexy, considering them to be enslaved by atheistic forces and made impermissible agreements and compromises with the power of evil.
The Church Abroad pays dearly for the uncompromising and innocence of its position in a vicious world. They want to force her to either submit to the Moscow Patriarch, or join the existing Local Churches. But the Church Abroad does not give up its position, highly appreciating its complete insubordination to anyone, and its deep unity with the children of the Russian martyr Church, with those archpastors, pastors and laity who profess the faith of Christ in the midst of persecution, without making any compromises with evil.
Those Russians church people in emigration, who here submitted to the enslaved Moscow church authorities, they call us renegades and schismatics. Those Russian people who left the Russian Church and joined the Church of Constantinople or declared themselves autocephalous call our position non-canonical. But we lovingly, firmly and unwaveringly keep this position. We are an inseparable part of the Russian Church, which does not recognize its non-canonical official leadership, and we are the only completely independent representatives and heralds of the Russian Church in the entire free world.
How was this Russian Church Abroad created?
In November 1920, the remnants of the defeated but not surrendered White Army left Russia. Hundreds of thousands of Russian people went into exile on Russian and foreign ships: officers and soldiers, Cossacks, peasants, landowners, workers, artisans. With their flock went to a foreign land and the clergy. The clergy did not go into exile in a disorganized manner. Even on the territory of Russia, in the vast expanses that were under white rule, with the blessing of Patriarch Tikhon, the Supreme Church Administration of the South of Russia was created.
But once outside of Russia, what should the representatives of the Russian Church do? Submit to the Patriarch of Constantinople? Join the existing Local Churches? But these Local Churches lived their own lives, their own concerns, their own interests. The pain and problems of Russian church life, which possessed Russian hearts with such force, could not be felt by them as urgent, as of paramount importance, in the way that they were felt by Russian hearts.
At that time, the Russian Church Abroad included not only emigrant bishops, but also those parts of the Russian Church that found themselves outside the borders of Soviet Russia: numerous parishes in Western Europe, a diocese in America, two eparchies in the Far East (Vladivostok and Beijing), and from the Vladivostok diocese, which until November 1922 was under white rule, a third Far Eastern diocese was allocated - Harbin in Man Zhuriya. The Orthodox Spiritual Mission in Palestine and the parish in Tehran also entered the Church Abroad.
The hierarchy of the Church Abroad appointed Archbishop Evlogii of Volhynia as administrator of the Russian churches in Western Europe, and Metropolitan Platon of Odessa as Metropolitan of North America. These appointments of the Church Authority Abroad received confirmation from His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon by an act of March 26, 1921.
The Russian Church Abroad was then strong in its unity, and its voice was loud.
In April 1924, Patriarch Gregory of Constantinople, in the midst of the struggle of His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon with the Renovationists, turned to our Patriarch with a demand to “immediately withdraw from the administration of the Church”, abolish the patriarchate and transfer the fullness of church power to the Renovationists. In July of the same year, the Metropolitan of Athens went even further, demanding that the Russian clergy in Greece “recognize the renovationist ‘synod’, otherwise threatening to ban them all from priestly service. AND Patriarch of Constantinople and the Metropolitan of Athens, who sided with the Renovationists in their struggle against the True Church, were guided by official government messages from Russia. This example shows especially clearly how precious for understanding the church issues that arise in Russia is the personal experience and living organic blood connection of the Russian people with the Church that is being persecuted.
And this example clearly shows how far-sighted, how wise was the order of His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, who commanded the Russian Church Abroad to preserve its independence from the Local Churches and its live connection with the persecuted Church of Russia. Preserving its independence and boldly defending the truth and denouncing lies, the Russian Church Abroad convinced the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Metropolitan of Athens that Patriarch Tikhon was right and the positions of the Living Churchmen were false.
The strength of the testimony of the Church Abroad was also increased by the fact that it was headed by Metropolitan Anthony, who enjoyed fame, respect and authority in everything Orthodox world. He has already raised his voice several times against the attempts of the Patriarch of Constantinople to introduce non-ecclesiastical reforms in the Church. Subsequently, in 1936, Metropolitan Anthony spoke about this significance His Holiness Patriarch Serbian Varnava: “When at the beginning of the post-war years the wave of modernism swept over almost all the Churches of the East, it crashed against the rock of Metropolitan Anthony.”
But still, the main strength of the Church Abroad was in its unity. Alas, this unity did not last long. In 1926, a divergence arose between the Synod of Bishops and Metropolitan Evlogy, who was part of it, because it became necessary to separate Russian parishes in Germany from the Western European Diocese.
Metropolitan Evlogy appealed against the decision of the Synod of Bishops before Metropolitan Sergius, who then headed the Russian Church in Moscow after the death of Patriarch Tikhon and the arrest of Metropolitan Peter. During this first period of his administration of the Russian Church, Metropolitan Sergius still firmly adhered to strictly canonical positions, and responded to Metropolitan Evlogy’s complaint with a touching message in the spirit of the Decree of Patriarch Tikhon: the triarchy has enough of its difficult tasks that it can NOT take upon itself the solution of foreign disputes.
Then Metropolitan Evlogii and the leader of the Russian Church in America, Metropolitan Platon, who agreed with him, withdrew from the Russian Church Abroad. For several months the Synod of Bishops corresponded with the breakaway metropolitans, urging them to reconciliation and submission. Finally, on January 13/26, 1927, in relation to Metropolitan Evlogy and on March 18/31 of the same year, in relation to Metropolitan Platon, the Synod of Bishops resorted to drastic measures, removing them from the chairs they occupied and forbidding them to serve.
At the same time in Moscow, Metropolitan Sergius, who had been arrested in November, was released from prison, having promised to work closely with the atheist government. If a few months before that he rejected from himself the solution of church disagreements in exile, then here he resolutely takes the side of Metropolitan Evlogy in his dispute with the Synod of Bishops. At the same time, Metropolitan Sergius demands from all the clergy of the Moscow Patriarchate, including those in exile, to sign their loyalty to the Soviet government.
In his famous declaration dated July 16/29, 1927, Metropolitan Sergius writes: “We demanded that the clergy abroad give a written commitment to complete loyalty to the Soviet government in all their social activities. Isn't it time for them to reconsider the issue of their relationship to the Soviet government, so as not to break with their native Church and Motherland?
Metropolitan Evlogii gave such a signature in loyalty to the Soviet authorities for himself and for all his clergy. The Synod of Bishops resolved (Aug. 27/Sept. 9, 1927): “Resolutely reject the proposal of Metropolitan Sergius and his Synod to sign allegiance to the Soviet government, as uncanonical and very harmful to the Holy Church.”
So the Russian Church Abroad was split into two parts.
Two years later, the fallacy of Metropolitan Evlogy's position was clearly revealed. Then a wave of protests against the persecution of faith in Russia swept around the world. Organizing prayers for the persecuted Christians of Russia, the head of the Anglican Church invited Metropolitan Evlogy to take part in these prayers. Metropolitan Evlogii found himself in a difficult position. It was shameful to refuse to take part in these prayers, and to take part in them meant to violate the subscription in loyalty to the Soviet authorities.
Metropolitan Evlogy took part in the prayers, and for this he was summoned to court in Moscow. But instead of Moscow, he went to Constantinople and transferred himself and his diocese to the submission of the Patriarch of Constantinople. However, part of the clergy, who were subordinate to Metropolitan Evlogii, did not follow him, but remained subordinate to the Moscow Patriarchate.
Thus the Russian Church Abroad was divided into three parts.
Separated from the Russian Church Abroad, its former units had to change their main positions several times. The Russian Church Abroad itself, for all the 55 years of its existence abroad, has remained invariably faithful to its once and for all adopted path. Until World War II, the center of the Russian Church Abroad was located in Sremski Karlovtsy, in Yugoslavia, under the fraternal and loving patronage of the Serbian Church, which Russian people abroad always commemorate with a kind word for this.
For a number of years, the Church Abroad tried with all its might to heal the wounds inflicted on church work by the divisions that had taken place. In 1934-35 this goal seemed to have been achieved. In 1934, Metropolitan Anthony wrote a friendly letter to Metropolitan Evlogii, urging him to reconcile. Metropolitan Evlogii arrived in Yugoslavia, and they reconciled with Metropolitan Anthony, reading permissive prayers over each other. This renewed prayerful communion between the Russian Church Abroad and the group of Metropolitan Evlogy.
On next year in Belgrade, under the chairmanship loving friend The Russian Church Patriarch Barnabas of Serbia held a meeting of representatives of the Russian Church. It was attended by: from the European group - Metropolitan Evlogy, from the American - the successor of Metropolitan Plato, Metropolitan Theophilus, from the Far Eastern dioceses - Archbishop Dimitry (father of our current primate Metropolitan Philaret), and from the parishes of the Church Abroad in the Middle East and Europe - Archbishop Anastassy, who was elevated to the rank of Patriarch Barnabas at the same time. tropolitan and who, after the death of Metropolitan Anthony, became his successor.
This meeting reorganized the structure of the Russian Church Abroad, all the archpastors present signed the decisions of the Assembly, and it seemed that the unity of the Russian Church Abroad was restored.
His Holiness Patriarch Varnala said at the same time: “Among you is Metropolitan Anthony, this great hierarch, who is an adornment of the Ecumenical Orthodox Church. This is a high mind, which is similar to the first hierarchs of the Church of Christ at the beginning of Christianity. It is the truth of the Church. All of you, not only living in our Yugoslavia, but also located in Europe, in America and in Asia and in all countries of the world, should be, led by your great archpastor, Metropolitan Anthony, an indestructible whole, not succumbing to the attacks and provocations of the enemies of the Church.
Unfortunately, having returned from Yugoslavia to Paris, Metropolitan Evlogii refused the achieved unity. And yet, even though they were not crowned with success, these efforts were beneficial. The American part of the Church remained a part of the Russian Church Abroad until 1946, and in Europe the removal of prohibitions from each other allowed Russian clergymen to celebrate services together during the war, and when streams of Russian prisoners of war and the so-called Ost-Arbeiters poured into Europe, that is, workers from Russia forcibly brought to Germany and to the regions occupied by the Germans, the Russian Church was able to meet them united, and not to demonstrate before them their separateness, which could easily seduce them. In 1936, the founder of the Church Abroad, Great Saint Metropolitan Anthony, died, and in his place was Metropolitan Anastassy, the oldest of the bishops of the Russian Church, who was ordained a bishop in Moscow in 1906.
But during the war, all the efforts of the Church Abroad were carried out by spiritual concerns for the many millions of Russian people who found themselves in the territories occupied by the Germans. Up to 5 million so-called people were taken out of Russia for forced labor in Germany. ost-arbeiters. Even more Russian soldiers and officers who were taken prisoner languished in the prisoner of war camps. It was very difficult for representatives of the Russian emigrant clergy to penetrate into both camps, since the Germans in principle forbade any contact between Russian emigrants and Russian people who again found themselves abroad.
In 1943, the German authorities demanded that Metropolitan Seraphim of Yerlin (a German by birth) prohibit the Ost-Arbeiters from entering the emigrant churches. Iladyka Seraphim replied to this: “I am an Orthodox bishop, and my duty is to call on all Orthodox beggars to attend churches. Therefore, I cannot prevent anyone from participating in worship. If you think this is unacceptable, place guards of your own who will prevent Ost-Arbeiters from entering our churches. I can't do anything against it." But the German authorities do not dare to take such a step. Knowing that similar demands would be made to the rectors of parishes, and not being able to give them an order to disobey the authorities in this case, the Metropolitan< графим нашел выход в том, что поместил в своем епархиальном журнале описание этого случая, надеясь, что приходские * нященники сделают правильный вывод. Так оно и было. Ост-арбейтеры должны были носить надписи «Ост» — Восток. Хорошо сказал по этому поводу проповедник в Берлине: «На вас надели клеймо с надписью „Ост", думая унизить вас им. И они не понимают, какую высокую честь оказывают они ним, ибо до сих пор лишь об Одном Человеке говорили: „Восток имя Ему"».
Abode of the Rev. Job, who was part of the Church Abroad and was then in Slovakia, at the very border with Galicia, printed spiritual books in significant quantities. Individual gospels were printed in the amount of 100,000 pieces, prayer books in the amount of 60,000 pieces. Various apologetic pamphlets, each in quantities from 5 to 15 thousand pieces. The Germans strictly forbade the sending of any kind of literature to the areas they occupied. But due to the fact that the population in Russia generously rewarded those who brought spiritual books for spiritual books, many soldiers of the Slovak army came to the monastery of St. Job and receiving religious publications there, they passed them on to the population in the areas occupied by the Germans, and the monastery received touching thanksgiving responses even from near Stalingrad.
During World War II, the ecclesiastical center of the Church Abroad remained in Serbia. The Serbian Church at that time was oppressed by the Germans. To a lesser extent, they also oppressed the Russian church leadership, which strictly maintained fraternal loving relations with the leadership of the Serbian Church. Patriarch Gabriel of Serbia spoke about this in October 1945 in London, in an interview with English and Polish journalists. "Metropolitan Anastassy with great wisdom and kept tact during the German occupation, was always loyal to the Serbs, because of which he did not enjoy the confidence of the Germans and was subjected to insulting searches several times.
At the end of the war, succumbing to the then émigré passion for Soviet victories and rumors about a complete change in church policy in Russia, Metropolitan Evlogii withdrew from submission to the Patriarch of Constantinople and submitted to the Patriarch of Moscow. But after his death, his successor, Metropolitan Vladimir, again returned to the submission of Constantinople.
At the same time, the Church in America was once again fragmented. A part of it, headed by Metropolitan Theophilus, separated from the Church Abroad and tried to enter into submission to the Moscow Patriarch, setting their actual status as a condition. complete independence. When these attempts failed, this part of the Church, headed by the successor of Metropolitan Theophilus, Metropolitan Leonty, was left without any canonical submission. Looking ahead, let us say that in the 60s the same fate befell the body of the Church in Europe, which was subordinate to the Patriarch of Constantinople. At the insistence of the Moscow Patriarch, the Patriarch of Constantinople renounced the Russian Western European Exarchate and ordered Archbishop Georgiy, who had headed this exarchate by that time, to submit to the Patriarch of Moscow. Archbishop George and his flock refused this, being left without any canonical submission.
Burdened by this situation, the archdiocese of Bishop George repeatedly petitioned the Patriarch of Constantinople to accept them back into his leadership. In the end, the Patriarch of Constantinople agreed and accepted this part of the Russian Church, but no longer as a Russian exarchate, but simply as a vicariate of the Greek metropolis in Europe. The part in America that separated from the Church Abroad turned to the Moscow Patriarch with a petition to grant it autocephaly. With the permission of the Soviet authorities, this petition was granted, but almost no Local Orthodox Church recognized this autocephaly. So, to date, the American group of former Russian dioceses considers itself an autocephalous Church, the European archdiocese is part of the Greek Patriarchate of Constantinople in the position of vicariate, and only the Church Abroad continues to confess itself as an inseparable part of the long-suffering Russian Church.
After the end of World War II, the Russian Church Abroad was also tempted to submit to the Moscow Patriarchate. IN last days During the war, the Germans, who did not want Metropolitan Anastassy to end up in Soviet hands, but in everything else completely indifferent to his fate, took the metropolitan from the city of Karlovy Vary to Füssen, a small town in the south of Bavaria, and left him there with an old cell-attendant who did not speak German and therefore could not help the metropolitan in any way.
At first, Vladyka did not even have shelter for the night. Only the next day, thanks to the help of a German-speaking believing Russian youth who happened to be in Füssen, Vladyka Metropolitan was given shelter in the attic of a local Catholic priest. A message came to Vladyka Anastassy from Patriarch Alexy of Moscow, addressed to “The Right Reverend Representatives of the so-called Karlovac Orientation,” calling for reconciliation.
It was enough to take one step towards this call, and the disastrous post-war situation of the Russian Church Abroad would be replaced by a brilliant one, since at that time the Western allies were very fawning over the Soviet circles. But with this step, the Church Abroad would be deprived of its God-given freedom, and would become an accomplice of the enslaved Moscow hierarchy. And Metropolitan Anastassy responded to the call of Patriarch Alexy with truly archpastoral dignity, equal to the dignity of the ancient archpastors of Christ's Church.
Vladyka Metropolitan wrote: “... Being always ready to give an answer to those who question us about our hope, and being zealous for good not only before the Lord, but also before people, we consider it our duty first of all to declare that both bishops and clergy and laity, submitting to the jurisdiction of the Council of Bishops Abroad and the Synod, have never considered and do not consider themselves “outside the fence of the Orthodox Russian Church "for they never broke canonical prayerful and spiritual unity with their Mother Church. Representatives of the Church Abroad were forced to break off communion only with the Supreme Church Authority in Russia, since she herself began to depart from the path of Christ's truth and truth and, through this, break away from the "Orthodox episcopacy of the Russian Church", for which we do not cease to offer up our prayers at every divine service and together with the believing Russian people, who from ancient times remained the "guardian of piety "in Russia. If a visible majority of bishops, clergy and laity followed her, this will not yet give her the right to be a true representative and exponent of the spirit and will of the Russian Church, for the majority of hierarchs standing on her side were selected exclusively by selecting persons of like mind with her and eliminating staunch and courageous bishops undesirable for her and by threats and pressure on the conscience of the most faint-hearted. The clergy followed their bishops out of obedience, and the people were far from always, of course, able to make sense of the complex church situation. ... Since the current head of the Russian Church imitates the example and precepts of his predecessor in his attitude towards Soviet power and even goes further than him in adapting to the spirit of this age, we do not find it possible for ourselves to enter into canonical communion with him and submit to his authority. We are well aware of the price of Church peace and unity and would least of all want to violate them with anything on our part, but there are such circumstances in the life of the Church when division becomes morally obligatory and therefore inevitable for us on the basis of the words of Her Founder and eternal Head: “Do not think that I came to bring peace to earth, I did not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10, 31). Bearing in mind these divine words, St. Gregory the Theologian says that there can be pernicious agreement and good division... ... Only the freely and lawfully convened and completely independent in its decisions All-Russian Church Council, with the participation of all the bishops abroad, and especially all the bishops now imprisoned in Russia, to which we are ready to give an account I every moment in all our deeds during our stay abroad, could be a fully competent judge between the Bishops Abroad and the current head of the Russian Church. en rri the current circumstances ... ... In the thunderstorm and storm experienced by us and part of the still ongoing trials, we all seem to hear a heavenly voice, addressed to everything modern world: “Here I melted you like silver, tested you in the crucible of suffering. Oh, that you would heed my commandments. Then your peace would be like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea" (Isaiah 18:10). In these words, we must look for the key to understanding the fate of our own Fatherland. Cut off from direct contact with their native land, the Russian exiles never betrayed her and did not forget about her hard fate. into self-imposed exile to remain faithful sacred covenants our history, in the creation of which our Church has taken such a lively and fruitful part... ...Our prayer is as sincere as our love for our homeland. It is expressed in the following words: “God, enlighten, enlighten, reconcile and unite us all by Your grace, and be revealed to those who do not seek You, so that they turn to You with all their heart and confess Your greatness, strength and glory, which You have shown from time immemorial in the destinies of our great Fatherland.”
In the early post-war years, the main task for the Russian Church Abroad was to save the Russian people, whom the Western allies, the Americans, the British and the French, handed over to the massacre of the Soviet authorities.
The priests of the Russian Church Abroad took a risk that they considered worse than mortal, went to camps intended to be sent to the East, seeking the cancellation of such sending. Sometimes, as was the case in Hamburg, they succeeded in getting people removed to the USSR even from transit camps under Soviet administration.
When the British handed over the Cossacks in Lienz and the Americans the Ost-Arbeiters in Kempten and Plattling, the priests stood with crosses in their hands in front of the tanks aimed at the crowd. British and American soldiers beat them with butts and rubber sticks, along with other Russian people who did not want to be extradited to the KGB.
When in Dachau, without exception, and in other camps in part, Russian people committed acts of mass suicide in order to avoid extradition, Metropolitan Anastassy allowed them to be buried and serve memorial services for them, saying: “Their action is closer to the feat of St. At the same time, the Russian Church Abroad appealed to the governments of overseas countries with a request that these countries agree to accept Russian emigrants. The Church received the most friendly response in this regard from the government of Argentina, where the then wife of the President, Eva Peron, achieved the submission of 25,000 visas to the Synod of our Church.
Since the beginning of the 50s, the USA, Canada and Australia have opened their doors to Russian emigration. And at the end of 1950, Metropolitan Anastassy and the Holy Synod under him followed the bulk of emigration to the USA. By the 60s, the bulk of Russian emigrants settled in the countries that they had chosen. Emigrants from Europe at the very end of the 1940s and during the 1950s were joined by numerous emigration from the Far East.
In the Far East, especially in Harbin and Shanghai in the interwar years church life flourished very much. About 100,000 Russian people, emigrants, Soviet citizens and Chinese subjects lived in Harbin. There were 26 Orthodox Russian churches, a dozen medium educational institutions, 6 higher schools. The church developed a wide range of charitable activities. At church parishes, there were cheaper or free canteens for the poor, there were 4 church orphanages, 2 church hospitals, the Higher Pastoral Theological Courses, later transformed into the Theological Faculty, produced young clergy.
Temple construction and church charity also developed in Shanghai. Both in Harbin and especially in Shanghai, along with the Russian Orthodox clergy, the Chinese also worked hard in the field of Christ. Orthodox priests.
All this was destroyed - in Harbin in 1945, in Shanghai in 1949 with the coming to power of the Communists. In the 60s, with the so-called. During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Chinese Orthodox priests were subjected to severe persecution. They were stripped naked, doused with pitch, and in this form were taken around the city, and then burned alive.
Emigration from Shanghai was procured visas to the USA by the Archbishop of Shanghai John (Maximovich), who performed a real miracle, since access to the USA for people from China was generally difficult, and for people of Chinese origin it was completely forbidden. During the two years of Bishop John's tireless efforts, several thousand Russian people from Shanghai awaited their fate in refugee camps in the Philippine Islands, until at the beginning of 1951 they were able to arrive in San Francisco. Emigration from Harbin took place slowly from 1946 to 1962. She was heading mainly to Australia. With her came in 1962 to Brisbane Archimandrite Philaret, the current head of the Church Abroad, who won love and reverence in Harbin by his courageous and fearless standing up for the truth of the Church before both the Soviet and Chinese authorities. He was ordained Bishop of Brisbane.
In 1964, Metropolitan Anastassy, overwhelmed by old age, who at that time had reached the age of 90, decided to transfer the leadership of the Russian Church Abroad to a successor, whom he proposed to be chosen by the Council of Bishops. The Council unanimously elected the youngest bishop by consecration, His Grace Philaret, Bishop of Brisbane. One of the first acts of the new head of the Russian Church Abroad was the glorification of the great prayer book and miracle worker of Russia, the righteous Saint John of Kronstadt. The desire to glorify him had long been felt in the Church Abroad, but the question stopped him: how would the Church in Russia react to this act, not its official leadership, but the true Church in the person of archpastors, pastors and laity faithful to God. Even before the Second World War, information began to come to us that the believers of Russia venerate Father John of Kronstadt as a saint, and that this veneration does not fade over the years, but grows stronger and stronger. Before the war itself, a service to St. John, the Wonderworker of Kronstadt, compiled by confessors of the faith in Russia, was secretly brought abroad.
Then, expressing the will of not only the Church Abroad, but of all believing Russia, the Council of Bishops of the Church Abroad on June 5/18, 1964, decided to celebrate the solemn glorification of St. John of Kronstadt, which was scheduled for Memorial Day Reverend John Rylsky, whose name was Saint John of Kronstadt.
At the celebration of glorification, Metropolitan Filaret pointed out that this celebration was not only a celebration of the Church Abroad, but of all the children of the Russian Church, of the entire Orthodox Russian people. Since that time, the entire Church Abroad has tirelessly prayerfully called for the grace-filled help of the great God's saint asking for his intercession with his all-powerful prayer before God's throne for the long-suffering Russian people and their holy Church.
Unfortunately, both the American Church and the European Archdiocese refused to recognize the righteous Father John of Kronstadt as a saint. Below, the Russian Church Abroad, as in the glorification of St. John of Kronstadt, reverently listens now to the voices coming from Russia in order to find out what is their attitude towards the possibility of glorifying the great righteous woman of Russia, Blessed Xenia, Christ for the sake of the holy fool, thought here.
From the beginning of the 1960s, a new field of activity opened up for the Russian Church Abroad. Written contact with Russia multiplied, since the Soviet government, in order to strengthen relations with the West, began to encourage such contact. The fact of correspondence with foreign countries became an unincriminated and approved matter.
Thanks to this, it became possible to send letters of religious content to Russia, attaching small spiritual pamphlets and leaflets to them. Alas, a significant part of these letters disappears, as these letters and pamphlets are sent to addresses that have become known by chance, and people in Russia, accustomed over previous years to the idea that any contact with a foreign country is a crime, having unexpectedly received a letter from France, Germany, America or Australia, rush to the nearest KGB office, handing over the received letter there. But still, one cannot say about such letters that they are completely lost, since, of course, those who receive them read them before delivery, and this can also make a sobering spiritual impression on them.
A believer, apparently completely unfamiliar with the Church Abroad, writes to us: “Our region is mainly under fire from Baptist literature. But now yours, the Orthodox Brotherhood, has begun to appear. This made us Orthodox very happy. You must know that nothing can be obtained here. Therefore, your books and leaflets are copied and distributed wherever possible. And the Orthodox now know that they are not alone. Who you are? Whether the French or the Germans, who accepted Orthodox faith, or Russians living in foreign countries? Judging by your letters, you have a Russian church and Russian clergy there. Let your shepherds write to our patriarch, so that he orders the Gospel and other church literature to be printed for the people, which is not here. And for young people it is necessary to write exactly as you write, that all smart people should believe in God, that atheism is a lie, untruth and stupidity. Where is Solzhenitsyn now? Is he with you or not? Where does he live? Your letters bring us great joy and hope. We will send you the addresses to whom you still need to send such books of yours. We all read them together and one of us explains them.”
Speaking about these letters, the person who works most of all in sending spiritual literature to the East writes: “The soul is filled with joy from such letters, and there are already many of them. The time has come when we must make every effort to multiply our shipments to our homeland. The ice has broken, and all our eyes must be turned there. A lot depends on us now. We must fulfill our duty to the Church and the Fatherland to the end. We need good and purely spiritual and apologetic literature. We need people who would take it upon themselves to send letters with this literature. We have not yet been given another way. Then, we believe, the Lord will show other ways...”.
The work of sending spiritual literature to Russia is carried out mainly by the “Orthodox Cause” brotherhood, an organization created by the late great righteous man and ascetic, Archbishop John (Maximovich), and now headed by his successor, Anthony, Archbishop of Geneva. This organization was created to attract the laity to church work to help the priests.
Her activities focused mainly on two areas: in sending spiritual literature to the East and in supporting the Orthodox Spiritual Mission in Palestine.
This is how the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad lives and works and prays.
Archbishop Nathanael (Lviv)
