Historical Moments in the Relations Between the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and the Holy Synod in Resistance
In 1969, the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad recognized the Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Greece as a Sister Church. With the material and spiritual support of St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco and Bishop Sava of Edmonton, among others, several Bishops of the ROCA—Archbishop Leonty of Chile and Archbishop Seraphim of Chicago—had earlier Consecrated Bishops for that part of the Orthodox Church of Greece which resisted the imposition of the New Calendar on their Church. The Calendar reform was carried out in accord with the aims of the panheresy of ecumenism and innovations in the Greek Churches that had been instituted in the 1920s in the spirit of the “Living Church” in the Soviet Union. The recognition of these Greek resisters as a Sister Church was one of the central policies of Metropolitan Philaret of Blessed Memory. (The Russian text of this historic proclamation appears below.)
Over the years, extremist elements in the Greek Old Calendar movement began to question the presence of Grace among the innovating Orthodox and even proceeded to re-Baptize and re-Ordain, in several cases, clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, claiming that its Sister Church was lax in the Faith. This provoked various divisions and schisms among the Old Calendarists, leading to a decision, by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, to cease liturgical communion, at least formally and officially, with the various factions of Greek Old Calendarists, until such matters could be settled.
Finally, in 1979, a group of Old Calendarist Bishops broke from the extremist Bishops in Greece and attempted to reform the movement, with the aim of restoring communion with the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. Despite this reform effort, bitter condemnation and depositions and counter-depositions continued among the various groups, which began to proliferate without cessation. Metropolitan Cyprian, forming with other Bishops, in communion and coöperation with the huge Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Romania and the Old Calendar Church of Bulgaria, the Holy Synod in Resistance of the Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Greece, nonetheless remained firm in his resolve to reunite with the ROCA. This he did in the face of formidable condemnations and even false depositions from the extremist Old Calendarists. After more than twenty years of efforts, and after a commission of Bishops appointed by the Holy Synod of the ROCA had investigated the various factions of the Old Calendar Church of Greece for more than a year, in 1994 this union finally took place. The ROCA also entered into communion with the Old Calendar Orthodox Churches of Romania and Bulgaria. (The Russian and English texts of this union appear below.)
When the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, as early as 2000, began talks with the Moscow Patriarchate, the Holy Synod in Resistance, not rejecting dialogue and intercommunication, in principle, began to learn through private and public sources that the ROCA was not simply seeking brotherly relations with Moscow, but actual liturgical union. This much disquieted the Synod in Resistance, which has never relinquished its opposition to the ecumenical movement, in which the Moscow Patriarchate was involved at the time and in which it is, today, a very visible, active, and committed participant. It has always been the position of the Synod in Resistance that union within Orthodoxy, a sacred goal, must occur through candid dialogue and a correction of the errors of the innovators, New Calendarists, and ecumenists, as a prerequisite for liturgical communion.
While the Synod has always considered religious toleration and respect between religions equally sacred, it has unwaveringly maintained that such things must never compromise the Orthodox Church’s claim to continue the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church of Christ, which is the inheritor of the substance and traditions of the Undivided Church and, indeed, constitutes that Church. Though this understanding demands of it humility and love for those of all religions, and while the Synod in Resistance pursues friendly relations, coöperation, and dialogue with serious and sober Orthodox Christians of all jurisdictions, it also, in all humility, stands firm in its commitment to the Church and the teachings which “Christ gave, the Apostles preached, and the Fathers preserved”: that is, the Holy Orthodox Church.
Thus, when the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad relinquished its resistance against so-called “world Orthodoxy” and its innovations and deviations from Holy Tradition by joining together prematurely, unwisely, and tragically with the Moscow Patriarchate, the Synod in Resistance ceased communion with the ROCA. At the same time, at the orders of the Moscow Patriarchate, the ROCA severed communion with the Synod in Resistance and its Sister Churches in Romania and Bulgaria, since Moscow was perfectly aware of the resistance of these Churches to its innovative spirit and its domination, even after the fall of the Soviet Union, by current political forces, the legacy of which is deeply rooted in the Soviet years.
The Synod in Resistance has maintained its ties to the remnant of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad by helping the one Bishop who refused to accept union with Moscow, Bishop Agafangel, whose See is Odessa, Ukraine, to Consecrate new Bishops and reconstitute the ROCA, just as Bishops in the ROCA Consecrated new Bishops for the Greek Old Calendarists in the 1960s, when their Hierarchy had died out. The Holy Synod in Resistance maintains full liturgical communion with Bishop Agafangel, as do the three parishes and one monastic community in the United States that left the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, after that body united with Moscow, and sought refuge under the American Exarchate of the Synod in Resistance. (A number of other communities in Europe and the entire diocese of the Church of South Ossetia, a former Russian satellite, also belong to the Synod in Resistance.) In the Synod of Resistance these communities have been allowed and encouraged to follow their Slavic Orthodox practices and to avail themselves of the open communion and common ties with the jurisdiction under Bishop Agafangel. (Among the Churches joining the Synod in Resistance in the United States was the Holy Trinity Eastern Orthodox Church in Oxnard, California.)
Unfortunately—reminiscent of the legacy of the Moscow Patriarchate under Soviet rule—the various Russian communities in the Synod of Resistance have become victims of “disinformatzia,” are being sued for their properties, and find themselves smeared for their acts of conscience. As part of this campaign, there have also been some outrageous claims that the Synod in Resistance and its Sister Churches in Romania and Bulgaria were never in official communion with the ROCA. Not only do the documents above prove these rumors to be overt lies, but there were many warm and cordial relations between the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and the Synod in Resistance and its Sister Churches in Romania and Bulgaria, as evidenced by the following photographs, which bring to mind a happier time and a spirit of coöperation that was thwarted and sadly lost in the course of more than a decade of intercommunion. The Synod in Resistance sincerely hopes to revive this lost history in the relations between it and the Bishops and clergy under Bishop Agafangel.
(Left to right) Metropolitan Cyprian, First Hierarch of the Holy Synod in Resistance, Metropolitan Vitaly, First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, and Metropolitan Vlasie, First Hierarch of the Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Romania, concelebrating in New York City at the Headquarters of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad.
(Left to right) Archbishop Anthony of San Francisco (ROCA), Metropolitan Cyprian, Metropolitan Vitaly, and Metropolitan Vlasie at a banquet, in New York City, celebrating the 700th anniversary of the finding of the Kursk-Root Icon of the Mother of God.
At the same banquet (left to right), Bishop Auxentios and Archbishop Chrysostomos, Hierarchs for the Exarchate of the Holy Synod in Resistance in America, with Archbishop Hilarion
(Left to right) Bishop Photii, First Hierarch of the Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria, Metropolitan Cyprian, Metropolitan Vlasie, and Archbishop Hilarion of Australia (ROCA) in New York
(Left to right) Metropolitan Cyprian and Archbishop Mark of Germany (ROCA), for many years a close friend of Metropolitan Cyprian
(Left to right) Archbishop Alypy of Chicago (ROCA), Archbishop Anthony of San Francisco, Metropolitan Cyprian, Metropolitan Vitaly, Metropolitan Vlasie, and Archbishop (now Metropolitan) Laurus concelebrating at the ROCA Synod Headquarters in New York
Metropolitan Cyprian and Metropolitan Laurus concelebrating at the Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Slătioara, Moldavia, Romania, Synod Headquarters of the Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Romania
One portion of the crowds at the foregoing concelebration, which were so large (in the many thousands) that services had to be conducted outside
Archpriest Victor Patapov, Bishop Photii, Archbishop Hilarion, Metropolitan Cyprian, and Metropolitan Vlasie during a visit to the ROCA community in Washington, DC, and a ROCA community in New Jersey.
(Bishops, left to right), Bishop (now Archbishop of San Francisco) Kyrill (ROCA), Bishop Michael of Nora, Sardinia (Synod in Resistance), Archbishop Anthony of San Francisco, and Bishop Auxentios concelebrating at the ROCA Cathedral in San Francisco
(Left to right), Archbishop Chrysostomos, Archbishop Hilarion, and Bishop Auxentios concelebrating at the ROCA Synod Headquarters in New York.
News and Events
Monday, 25 February 2008
