The Unity of the Russian Church

THE UNITY OF THE RUSSIAN CHURCH

To understand the question of Russian Church unity, it is important to understand the things which have divided the Church for the past 80 years.

Oddly enough, the Revolution of 1917 saw the most united moment in the life of the Church for 200 years. In November, whilst there was fighting in the street of Moscow, the Great Local Council of the Church of Russia, elected Metropolitan Tychon of Moscow to be Patriarch or All Russia, and thus brought an end to the Synodal period imposed upon the Church by Peter the Great. The Church had finally attained its spiritual and administrative fullness – but not for long.

The Revolution and subsequent Civil War (1917-1922) saw the dislocation of millions of Russians, with up to two million of them fleeing beyond the borders of the old empire. At the same time thirty bishops of the Russian Church were found to be in a range of countries of the Diaspora for various reasons. To ensure that the spiritual needs of the Russian emigration were catered for, Patriarch Tychon issued his Decree No 362 on 20 November 1920, permitting bishops to rule their own dioceses and, if possible, unite so as to form a Temporary Ecclesiastical Administration, to govern the parishes of the Diaspora, whilst it was not possible to freely communicate with the Patriarch and his administration. Under pressure from the Soviets this decree was then revoked, reinstated and revoked again, all in the period of five years. However, by this time it was self evident that the Church in Russia had entered a captivity from which it would not emerge for another eighty years.

Consequently, the Temporary Ecclesiastical Administration upon settling in Serbia, reorganised itself with the support of the Serbian Orthodox Church into the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (ROCA) and after WW2 became known as the Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia (ROCOR). The Russian Church Abroad was recognised as a canonical Orthodox Church by all the Orthodox Patriarchates at the time, whilst the Church in Russia was seen to be both captive and persecuted.

During the 1920s, the Church in Russia suffered mass arrests and executions of clergy, confiscation of church property, closing of parish schools and suppression of all pastoral activities. With the death of Patriarch Tychon in 1925 and the arrests of the three patriarchal locum tenets, the Church Abroad was the only free voice of Russia in the years prior to World War Two. In 1927, the situation was further exacerbated by the deputy locum tenen Metropolitan Sergius Stargorodsky making a declaration of loyalty on behalf of the Russian Church to the atheist Bolshevik government. This caused a rift with the Church Abroad, which had until that moment commemorated the Patriarch and later his lawful Locum Tenens at the Liturgy. The declaration was denounced by the Church Abroad and the Russian emigration, as a capitulation to the enemies of the Church and eventually communion with the Church in Russia ceased. If the declaration was made in the hope that the Soviets would cease their persecution of the Church, in reality the opposite happened and the persecutions continued in one form or other until the fall of Communism in 1989. The declaration also moved many to form the Catacomb Church under the spiritual guidance of Metropolitan Joseph of Petrograd.

In the Diaspora, the Church Abroad also suffered some reversals. By 1926, the diocese of North America moved to separated itself from the Synod of Bishops in Serbia, citing its supposed right to exist as a separate Church because it was a separate diocese before the Revolution. This claim was rejected by both ROCOR and Moscow and remains a source of canonical contention amongst Local Orthodox Churches to this day. The other trouble spot was Paris, where Metropolitan Evlogy Georgievsky represented the spirit of the so called Liberal Revolution of February 1917. Paris was the centre of the Russian Student Christian Movement (who refused to call themselves Orthodox), the free thinkers Nikolai Berdyaev and Sergei Bulgakov who formed the Brotherhood of Sophia and spread the spurious teaching of Sophism, and a spectrum of political thinkers who wavered between pro-Soviet and anti-Soviet sentiments. Metropolitan Evgoly’s duplicity in his dealings with the Synod of Bishops, ensured that his diocese was on the outer with the main stream Russian emigration, and today the Paris jurisdiction is under the omophorion of the Patriachate of Constantinople.

This became the status quo until the Second World War. With the entry of the Soviet Union into the war, the Allies began to recognise the USSR both politically and socially. The Russian Orthodox Church in the Homeland became a powerful force in assisting the war effort, and other Orthodox Churches recognised this. As the Greek Church officially recognised Moscow, its relationship to the Church Abroad became correspondingly unstable. For example, in Australia the Greek bishop gave his patronage to all the Orthodox churches; Russian, Antiochian and Greek. With the recognition of Moscow by the Greek Church the strongly anti-Communist Russian parishes in Brisbane and Sydney stopped inviting the prelate to officiate at their services and functions, which caused offence to the bishop and damaged the interfaith relationship.

By the end of the war, the Church Abroad was diminished to only a few of its original bishops because the Soviet Army had occupied Eastern Europe and Manchuria. There was serious concern that the Church Abroad might simply disappear, however, the Autonomous churches of Byelorussia and the Ukraine, which had left the territory of the Soviet Union during the German Occupation, now petitioned to unite with the Church Abroad. This rejuvenated the Church Abroad with the addition of some ten new bishops and ensured the survival of the Church into the second half of the twentieth century.

During the years of the Cold War, the Church Abroad was seen to be a bulwark against Soviet infiltration of the Russian émigré community and often the centre of anti-Communist opposition in many countries. As the prestige and importance of the Moscow Patriarchate grew in the post war years, especially with the Church becoming a member of the World Council of Churches in 1961, the Church Abroad saw its mission as keeping the world informed about the repressions of the faith in the Soviet Union, often in direct contrast to what the Moscow Patriarchate was saying about the same issues. In Australia, the Church Abroad was in communion with the Greek and Antiochian Churches until the 1970s, until the Church Abroad took a principled stand against the Ecumenical Movement and ceased concelebrating with those who took part in interfaith religious events or invited representatives of non-Orthodox Confessions to take part in their rituals. This lead to a claim against the Church Abroad of it being uncanonical, as it would not concelebrate with other Orthodox. In fact, the Church Abroad was always in communion with the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Jerusalem Patriarchate.

With the fall of Communist in 1989 a new wave of religious freedom was experienced in Russia. In 1990, Metropolitan Alexei Ridiger of Leningrad was elected Patriarch of Moscow and made overtures to the Church Abroad concerning rapprochement. These initial attempts towards church unity were ignored by the Synod of Bishops of the Church Abroad and although other attempts were initiated by the Patriarch throughout the 1990s, they remained without answer.

However, with the election of Metropolitan Laurus Skurla in 2001, as Primate of the Church Abroad, the mindset changed. During a state visit to the United States, President Vladimir Putin asked to meet with the Synod of Bishops of the Church Abroad, where he raised the question of church unity and offered to be an honest broker in the process of negotiations with the Patriarch. This caused many who had been aware of the previous attempts to raise the issue of church unity to openly discuss the issues. In 2003, a conference of clergy from all dioceses of the Diaspora was held in New York to meet with representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate and discuss the issues which divide the Russian Church. The conference highlighted the problems and gave its support to initiating a process of dialogue between the two Churches. Both sides appointed a commission of bishops and clergy to meet regularly for negotiations.

The issues for negotiation were:

1. Recognition of the new martyrs and confessors of Russia of the Soviet period.

This issue really resolved itself in 2000 when the General Council of the Moscow Patriarchate formally canonised the New Martyrs. The Church Abroad had undertaken the canonisations in 1981 and brought pressure to bear on Moscow to follow suite. In line with Soviet policy the Church was not able to consider the martyrs as such and often the term criminals was applied. However, with the canonisation of the New Martyrs and the Imperial Family, this issue was fully resolved.

2. The servility of the Church in its relations with the Soviet Government, i.e. Sergianism.

The 1927 declaration of Metropolitan Sergius in reality made the Church subservient to the dictates of the government. If the declaration of loyalty was a way of saving the Church from annihilation, one must admit it did not save the Church from persecution. Gradually, the Church formed a working relationship which ensured that the episcopate was able to operate, and some prelates very successfully manoeuvred themselves into places of honour and prestige. This relationship reinforced émigré opinions that the Church was the instrument of the Soviet Government. It has only recently become common knowledge how many who were accused of working for the government, in fact worked clandestinely for the wellbeing of the Church. In 2002, the Moscow Patriarchate decided to reassess its relationship with the secular powers and published its Social Concepts document, which states that the Church would be loyal to the Motherland but not go against its apostolic conscience in matters concerning human dignity and the faith. It exalts the faithful to stand firmly against all forms of pressure which are contrary to the teachings of the Church. This has put an end to the period of Sergianism, even if some people continue to reflect that mentality.

3. Ecumenism.

This is the least resolved issue at present. Although both parties have come to a common definition of what is ecumenism, there is still the unresolved matter of what it means to pray together. It has been agreed that working together is permissible at social, educational or humanitarian levels. However, praying is still a contentious matter as some in Moscow consider praying as being together at the liturgy, whilst the Church Abroad sees praying as prayer at any level. The other issue is the involvement of the Moscow Patriarchate in the World Council of Churches. The Church Abroad does not approve of membership in the WWC but does not oppose observer status or even working on joint committees, whereas, Moscow sees its involvement in the WWC as bearing witness to Orthodoxy and fears that with its withdrawal, a vacuum would be created which would be filled by others claiming to represent all of the Orthodox World. This matter is one of great delicacy and is constantly being refined through dialogue and a growing understanding of each others position. In the Soviet past, the Church was used within the WWC and other ecumenical forums to spread its government’s influence, and the Church in turn, used these forums to shore up its own position when oppressed by the government, e.g. the re-opening the Trinity-Sergius Lavra near Moscow. Today ecumenism, as a means of spiritual unity, is rejected by the vast majority of Russian Orthodox at home and abroad. Suspicion and distrust continue to exist, thus making a reasoned solution to the various positions in the Russian Church on this matter difficult to resolve.

In May 2006, a General Council of the Russian Church Abroad, consisting of bishops, clergy and laity, approved the current process of rapprochement. The Council of Bishops of ROCOR ratified the position of the General Council and today, the joint commission continues to resolve those issues which divide the Russian Church.

The ultimate goal of this whole process is to formulate an Act of Canonical Recognition of each other. This very weekend, the Synod of Bishops of ROCOR is meeting in New York to see if all matters have been resolved according to the conscience of the Church and such an Act can be promulgated.

So now we wait and see…..

Very Rev Dr Michael Protopopov OAM
3 September 2006

Church History

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