THE
FORKED TONGUE OF ARCHBISHOP KYRILL
Vladimir
Moss
In the recent
interview given by Archbishop Kyrill of
Let us examine h=
is
interview in more detail.
He begins by
discussing the document, “On the Relationship between the Church and =
the
State” – one of the four documents now officially agreed upon at
the highest level by the Synods of the MP and the ROCOR. In this document
Archbishop Kyrill regrets only that “=
the
mistakes of the Synodal period of our history were not noted: when Peter the
Great, disposing of the patriarchate and forming the "Holy Ruling
Synod" with an ober-procurator, in fact placed the Russian Church into=
an
extremely strange, and, strictly speaking, uncanonical situation, turning it
into a government institution… Other errors and sins were committed by
monarchs who had a negative view of the Church, but they did not cause the
bitter division which occurred in the 20th century, when the atheists seized
power. That is probably why these moments in our history were not touched
upon.”
No, Archbishop K=
yrill,
the reason they were not touched upon is that the errors of the
pre-revolutionary period cannot be compared with the apostasy=
of
the post-revolutionary period. But of course it is a useful ploy: to pretend
that the unconditional surrender of the Church into the hands of enemies who
have openly vowed to destroy it is the same as the partial surrender of the
freedom of the Church in some spheres to a State which both professed and
protected Orthodoxy, built thousands of churches, promoted missionary work =
to
the heathen and died in a terrible struggle to save Orthodoxy against the
heretical West. This ploy has been used for decades by the MP to justify
Sergianism; so it is perhaps not surprising that Archbishop Kyrill, who is =
now de
facto if not yet de jure a MP hierarch, should be using it.
The same argumen=
t was
also recently used by the heretic Fr. Gregory Lourié in an article t=
hat
argued that the pre-revolutionary Church had fallen into “Sergianism
before Sergius”, and that the pre-revolutionary Synod was not only
uncanonical in the sense that its establishment involved the breaking of
certain canons, but “anti-canonical” and even
“chimerical”! And in fact this is what Archbishop Kyrill is doi=
ng:
following Lourié, he is slandering the pre-revolutionary Church,
accusing it of Sergianism before Sergius. The question then arises, however=
: if
the ROCOR was right to break with Sergius because of Sergianism in 1927, sh=
ould
not the masses of the Russian faithful have broken communion with the Synod=
in
the time of Peter the Great? But neither St. Demetrius of
But Archbishop K=
yrill
accepts neither conclusion. What he wants to say is that it was alright to
reject the Declaration of Metropolitan Sergius, and alright to accept it, a=
nd
that you could be a martyr whichever side of the fence you were on. And in =
fact
he has to adopt such a position, because this is what was agreed in
point 7 of the document on Church-State relations: “The martyrs and
confessors who gave their lives for Christ and the Church were numerous, bo=
th
among those who accepted the ‘Declaration’ and among those who
rejected it.”
This reminds me =
of an
article in the Anglican Church Times some years ago, which described
both those who died for Catholicism in the period of the Reformation and th=
ose
who died for Protestantism as “martyrs”. How wonderfully
ecumenical! You suffer for the truth, or you suffer for the lie – it
doesn’t matter, you get the crown of martyrdom anyway!
Archbishop Kyrill
claims that the document on Church-State relations “rejected… a=
ny
attempt to justify the unnatural relationship between the Church and the
God-battling state through use of Holy Scripture.” The document may h=
ave
not used Holy Scripture (because Holy Scripture does not agree with it), bu=
t it
certainly attempted to justify the relationship in other ways. In fact, the
whole document is one long justification of this “unnatural” re=
lationship,
this “morbid” compromise.
Thus in point 3 =
we
read: “The ecclesiastical policies of Metropolitan Sergius were doubt=
less
aimed towards the preservation of the Church hierarchy, which was the targe=
t of
destruction by the militant atheists, and also aimed towards the possibilit=
y of
administering the Mysteries.”
What a lie! Everybody who has studied the career of
Metropolitan Sergius knows that always, long before the declaration of 1927=
, he
trimmed his sails to the prevailing political wind and looked after only=
his
own interests. Already at the beginning of the century h=
e took a
very active part in the work of the society for the rapprochement of=
the
Orthodox and
Sergius’
political sympathies were also leftist. Thus “when in 1905 the
revolutionary professors began to demand reforms in the spiritual schools,
then, in the words of Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky), ‘his Grace
Sergius… wavered in faith.’”[1] =
Again,
when the revolutionary Peter Schmidt was shot in 1906, Archbishop Sergius, =
who
was at that time rector of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, served a
pannikhida at his grave; and he also gave refuge in his hierarchical house =
in
Vyborg to the revolutionaries Michael Novorussky and Nicholas Morozov (a
participant in the attempt on the life of Tsar Alexander II). Having such
sympathies, it is not surprising that he was not liked by the Royal Family.=
Sergius was in f=
avour
of many of the innovations that were later to be introduced by the heretical
“living church” renovationists. Thus among the suggestions made=
to
the Pre-Conciliar Commission preparing for the Council of the Russian Ortho=
dox
Church that eventually took place in 1917-1918, we read of “a suggest=
ion
of the clergy of the cathedral of Vyborg on the longed-for reforms, present=
ed
by Archbishop Sergius of Finland to the Holy Synod on January 18, 1906:
Sergius also cal=
led
for another popular aim of the liberals - the complete separation of Church=
and
State.[4] =
It was
logical, therefore, that he should welcome the February revolution and supp=
ort
the Provisional Government. But less logical that he should support the Oct=
ober
revolution and the Bolsheviks, who tried to engulf the Church in the State.=
..
Sergius also sup=
ported
the organisation, founded in
Then<=
span
lang=3DEN-GB style=3D'mso-ansi-font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Book Antiqua";
color:black;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>, in April, 1917, Sergius was the only
hierarch of the Synod who was not forcibly retired by the new masonic
government.
On April 29, the=
new
Synod headed by Archbishop Sergius accepted an Address to the Church concer=
ning
the establishment of the principle of the election of the episcopate, and t=
he
preparation for a Council and the establishment of a Preconciliar Council. =
This
Address triggered a revolution in the Church. The revolution
consisted in the fact that all over the country the elective principle with=
the
participation of laymen replaced the system of “episcopal
autocracy” which had prevailed thereto. In almost all dioceses Dioces=
an
Congresses elected special “diocesan councils” or committees
composed of clergy and laity that restricted the power of the bishops. The
application of the elective principle to almost all ecclesiastical posts, f=
rom
parish offices to episcopal sees, resulted in the removal of several bishops
from their sees and the election of new ones in their stead.
W=
orse was
to follow. On June 16, 1922 Metropolitan Sergius, with two other hierarchs,
joined the heretical renovationists, declaring: “We,…, having
studied the platform of the [renovationist] Temporary Church Administration=
and
the canonical lawfulness of its administration, consider it the only lawful,
canonical, higher church authority, and all the instructions issuing from i=
t we
consider to be completely lawful and obligatory. We call on all true pastors
and believing sons of the Church, both those entrusted to us and those
belonging to other dioceses, to follow our example.”
The Sergianist Metropolitan John (Snychev) wrote about this act: “We do not have the right to hide from history those sad and staggering apostasies from the uni= ty of the Russian Church which took place on a mass scale after the publicatio= n in the journal ‘Living Church’ of the epistle-appeals of the three well-known hierarchs. Many of the hierarchs and clergy reasoned naively. Th= us: ‘If the wise Sergius has recognized the possibility of submitting to = the Higher Church Administration, then it is clear that we, too, must follow his example.’”[7]<= o:p>
Nor did Metropol=
itan
Sergius quickly repent of his heresy. As Hieromartyr Damascene of Glukhov
pointed out, he “took his time” over repenting, and did not rej=
oin
the
Then, in 1926,
Metropolitan Sergius indulged in a naked struggle for power – the pow=
er
of the first hierarch of the
Metropolitan
Sergius’ “Declaration” was not aimed at “the
preservation of the church hierarchy” for the simple reason that it <=
i>destroyed
the church hierarchy – only four bishops were left at liberty in =
the
whole of the USSR by 1939. Was this merely a miscalculation, an action that=
was
intended for the good but turned out for the worse? But how could the
“wise Sergius” have made such a terrible miscalculation? And wh=
y,
when he saw that things were not working out as he hoped and expected, did =
he
not change course, as his superior, Metropolitan Peter, and so many of his
colleagues urged him to? And why, if he simply wanted to preserve the church
hierarchy, did he send so many of them to their deaths by branding them
“counter-revolutionaries”?!
The document say=
s in
point 5: “The publication of the ‘Declaration’ did not me=
an
that the Church was of one mind with the ideology of the atheist state̶=
1;.
The Church, of course, was not – but Metropolitan Sergius was.=
If
not, why did he praise the revolution and condemn all those who opposed it,
including all the opponents of his “Declaration” as
“counter-revolutionaries”? Why did he say that the joys and sor=
rows
of the revolution were his sorrows? Innumerable statements of support by MP
hierarchs for the Communist Party can be quoted. As late as July 4/17, 1990
Patriarch Alexis II said that he was praying for the preservation of the
Communist Party!!!
But let us retur=
n to
Archbishop Kyrill: “For =
us
the most important thing is to condemn the course of church-state relations
that he chose, which has already been accomplished. Orthodox Christians can=
not
condemn an individual. For the Holy Fathers and the teachers of the Church
always said that one can condemn sin and untruth, but not the sinner. The L=
ord
Jesus Christ Himself said this in His Gospel. That is why we cannot judge
Patriarch Sergius, for he has already appeared before God.”
Strange… A
hierarch who has been given the power to bind and to loose, and who is
committed by his hierarchical oath to condemn everyone and everything that =
the
Church has condemned, suddenly absolves himself from any such responsibilit=
y!
So what of all the heretics who were condemned and anathematized by name by=
the
Ecumenical Councils? What of the individuals that the
He goes on: R=
20;Are
there any analogous cases in the history of the Orthodox Church by which we=
can
judge the actions of Patriarch Sergius?”
By why worry abo=
ut
“analogous cases”, Archbishop Kyrill, if you have already resol=
ved
to judge the sin, but not the sinner? Or perhaps you want to say that the s=
in
of Sergianism was not a sin after all? Yes, that is what you are trying to
do…
“
si=
milar
to the situation in which Patriarch Gregory V of
fo=
und
himself in 1821, when the Greeks, seeking the overthrow of the Muslim
yo=
ke and
the reestablishment of an independent Orthodox state, rose up <=
br>
ag=
ainst
the Turks. Right after the Greek revolt, the Turks destroyed the
Ch=
urch
of the Live-Bearing Wellspring in
ic=
ons,
looting churches and monasteries, wandering through the streets
du=
ring
Passion Week and killing Orthodox people. In his "decree of
ex=
communication,"
issued by order of the Muslims, Gregory V invoked
&q=
uot;eternal
anathema" to those who revolted, and defrocked the clergymen and
mo=
nks of
Mt Athos who supported them, and deemed them "worthy of the fires of
Gehenna." This patriarchal damnation frightened no one. Still, the
Gr=
eeks,
including the clergy, did not condemn their patriarch, seeing that <=
/tt>
his
terrible decree was coerced.”
This is not an
analogous case at all. Let us first ask the question: was the Ottoman sulta=
n a
legitimate authority, and were Orthodox Christians bound to obey him in
everything that did not directly contradict the commandments of God? The an=
swer
to this question is: yes. The second question is: was Soviet power a legiti=
mate
power, and were Orthodox Christians bound to obey it as such? The answer to
that question is: no. For the Russian Church Council of 1917-1918 had
anathematized Soviet power, and Patriarch Tikhon had forbidden the children=
of
the Church to have anything to do with such “outcasts of the human
race”.
So when Patriarch
Gregory anathematised the insurgents against Ottoman power, whether he was
coerced or not and whether he was sincere or not, he undoubtedly had good
reasons. After all, the insurgents had sworn to obey the Sultan as their
legitimate political ruler, and even commemorated him at the Liturgy. T=
he
Church’s attitude to the revolution – the French revolution in =
the
first place, and then all other revolutions against legitimate political
authorities - was expressed in a work called Paternal Teaching, which
appeared in the revolutionary year of 1789, and which, according to Charles
Frazee, "was signed by [Patriarch] Anthimus of Jerusalem but was proba=
bly
the work of the later Patriarch Gregory V. The document is a polemic against
revolutionary ideas, calling on the Christians 'to note how brilliantly our
Lord, infinite in mercy and all-wise, protects intact the holy and Orthodox
Faith of the devout, and preserves all things'. It warns that the devil is
constantly at work raising up evil plans; among them is the idea of liberty,
which appears to be so good, but is only there to deceive the people. The
document points out that [the struggle for] political freedom is contrary to
the Scriptural command to obey authority, that it results in the impoverish=
ment
of the people, in murder and robbery. The sultan is the protector of Christ=
ian
life in the Ottoman Empire; to oppose him is to oppose God."
The bad fruits o=
f the
Greek revolution, which was anathematized by Patriarch Gregory and his
successor, were plain to see: a schism in the Church that lasted until 1852,
terrible reprisals by the Turks against the civilian population, a great
increase in western influence with a Catholic king and Protestant constitut=
ion,
the closure of most of the monasteries… Constantine Nikolayevich Leon=
tiev
described the bad fruits of the Greek revolution, and succeeding revolution=
s,
in his excellent essay, “The Fruits of the National Movements”.
Patriarch Gregory therefore stood against the revolution and was
essentially a victim of that revolution.
“Patriarch=
”
Sergius was quite the opposite: he threw in his hand with the revolution, a=
nd
so died peacefully in his bed while thousands of his brothers, banned and
branded by him, were tortured to death. There is no analogy here. Don’=
;t
slander the name of a true martyr, Archbishop Kyrill, by comparing him with=
the
greatest Judas in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church!
“
Ch=
urch
during the godless repressions of the 20th century. Some things were
do=
ne
only after lengthy, brutal persecutions, and not from free will. That
is=
why I
think that Patriarch Sergius himself should not be condemned, <=
br>
al=
though
we did condemn the "Declaration" so that this mistake would not b=
e
re=
peated
in the future.”
I have already s=
hown
that “Patriarch” Sergius had a long history of compromise and
betrayal even before his notorious “Declaration”, and that
according to St. Nectarius of Optina he had “the poison of renovation=
ism
in him still”. Another saint, Hieromartyr Victor of Glazov, prophesie=
d as
early as 1911 that Metropolitan Sergius would “shake the Church”
through his false teaching on redemption. So it was not “lengthy, bru=
tal
persecutions” that propelled him to betray the Church, but his own in=
ner
heretical cast of mind.
Moreover, as I h=
ave
shown, the “Declaration” has not been condemned by the MP. On t=
he
contrary, the document on Church-State relations has tried to excuse it in
every possible way. As for seeing “that this mistake [is] not repeate=
d in
the future”, how can we have any confidence in that, when the leading
hierarchs of the MP are all long-term KGB agents who have repeated
Sergius’ sin in much less difficult circumstances?…
“At one
time,” continues Archbishop Kyrill, “some individual bishops and
clergymen here in the diaspora said that the Church in Russia is "with=
out
grace," that She was "not a Church," but this does not corre=
late
with the actual position of the entire fullness of the Russian Church Abroa=
d.
This was not said by our previous First Hierarchs: Metropolitan Anthony
(Khrapovitsky), Metropolitan Anastassy (Gribanovsky). This was never stated=
by
a single Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russi=
a.
We do not have the right to say this; this would be canonically and
ecclesiastically ignorant. In general, the question of "grace"
belongs to God, and mortals cannot judge this.”
Once again, Arch=
bishop
Kyrill absolves himself from the responsibility of answering the questions =
he
is put in office to answer. On this feast of the holy Apostles, we should
remember that the Apostles and their successors not only have the right, but
also the duty, to define where the Church and where it is not. C=
onsider
what St. Maximus said of the Monothelites: "In addition to having
excommunicated themselves from the Church, they have been deposed and depri=
ved
of the priesthood at the local council which took place recently in Rome. W=
hat
Mysteries, then, can they perform? Or what spirit will descend upon those w=
ho
are ordained by them?" Consider also what the ROCOR itself proclaimed =
in
1983 and again, with Archbishop Kyrill’s signature, in 1998: “To
those who… do not distinguish the priesthood and mysteries of the Chu=
rch
from those of the heretics, but say that the baptism and eucharist of heret=
ics
is effectual for salvation… =
Anathema.”
But Archbishop K=
yrill,
alas, no longer acts with the authority of an Orthodox bishop; he no longer
wishes to distinguish between true mysteries and false mysteries, let alone
anathematise those who fail to make that distinction (for that would mean
anathematising himself)…
In any case, what Archbishop Kyrill writes about Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky) is false= . In 1927 Metropolitan Anthony issued an encyclical in which he wrote: “= ;Now everywhere two epistles are being published in the newspapers and are being read in many churches which until recently were Orthodox – epistles of two, alas, former beloved pupils of mine with whom I was once in agreement, Metropolitans Sergius and Eulogius, who have now fallen away from the saving unity of the Church and have bound themselves to the enemies of Christ and = the Holy Church – the disgusting blaspheming Bolsheviks, who have submitt= ed themselves in everything to the representatives of the Jewish false teaching which everywhere goes under the name of communism or materialism… Let these new deceivers not justify themselves by declaring that they are not t= he friends of the Bolsheviks and Jews who stand at the head of the Bolshevik kingdom: in their souls they may not be their friends, but they have submit= ted, albeit unwillingly, to these enemies of Christ, and they are trying to incr= ease their power not only over the hapless inhabitants of Holy Russia, but also = over all Russian people, even though they have departed far from the Russian land.”[9]<= o:p>
So Metropolitan
Sergius “fell away from the saving unity of the Church”. Does t=
his
not mean that he lost grace? Nor were these words of Metropolitan Anthony a
“flash in the pan”. On
August 22, 1928, he issued “the completely definitive declarat=
ion
of our Synod of Bishops that the Moscow Synod has deprived itself of all
authority, since it has entered into agreement with the atheists, and witho=
ut
offering any resistance it has tolerated the closing and destruction of the
holy churches, and the other innumerable crimes of the Soviet government=
230;
That illegally formed organization which has entered into union with
God’s enemies, which Metropolitan Sergius calls an Orthodox Synod =
211;
but which the best Russian hierarchs, clergy and laymen have refused to
recognize - … must not be recognized by our Orthodox Churches, nor by=
our
Synod of Bishops with its flock here abroad. Furthermore, the organization =
of
the Moscow Synod must be recognized to be exactly the same sort of apostates
from the Faith as the ancient libellatici, that is, Christians who
although they refused to blaspheme openly against Christ and offer sacrific=
es
to the idols, nevertheless still received from the priests of the idols fal=
se
documents verifying that they were in complete accord with the adherents of
pagan religion…”[10]
<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Archbishop Kyril=
l goes
on: “At the Council of 1938… the Bishops… admitted that o=
nly
Metropolitan Sergius himself is excluded from communion with the ROCOR and =
that
his sin does not extend to his successors, which Holy New Martyr Kyrill of
Kazan said also.”
Metropolitan Kyrill said nothing of the sort. What he did say, in Ma= rch, 1937, was: “The expectations that Metropolitan Sergius would correct himself have not been justified, but there has been enough time for the formerly ignorant members of the Church, enough incentive and enough opportunity to investigate what has happened; and very many have both investigated and understood that Metropolitan Sergi= us is departing from that Orthodox Church which the Holy Patriarch Tikhon entrusted to us to guard, and consequently there can be no part or lot with= him for the Orthodox. The recent events have finally made clear the renovationi= st nature of Sergianism. We cannot know whether those believers who remain in Sergianism will be saved, because the work of eternal Salvation is a work of the mercy and grace of God. But for those who see and feel the unrighteousn= ess of Sergianism (those are your questions) it would be unforgiveable craftine= ss to close one’s eyes to this unrighteousness and seek there for the satisfaction of one’s spiritual needs when one’s conscience dou= bts in the possibility of receiving such satisfaction. Everything which is not = of faith is sin…”[11]<= o:p>
So there we have=
it,
from a supposed “moderate”: as early as 1937, long before
ecumenism, Sergius was already “departing from that Orthodox Church w=
hich
the Holy Patriarch Tikhon entrusted us to guard, and consequently there can=
be
no part or lot with him for the Orthodox.” Moreover, no believer who
understands the “unrighteousness” of Sergianism is allowed to
“seek [in the MP] the satisfaction of his spiritual needs”. For
that would be “unforgiveable craftiness”.
Need we say more=
? Does
not the voice of the most respected and widely quoted of all the new
hieromartyrs of Russia, the most senior hierarch of the Russian Church after
the death of St. Peter, blow to pieces all the “unforgiveable
craftiness” of the MP-ROCOR joint statement, as well as Archbishop
Kyrill’s own craftiness?
The Prophet Ezek=
iel
said that false pastors are like dogs who can’t bark. Archbishop Kyri=
ll
has forgotten how to bark, how to protect his flock against the wolves of
heresy. Instead, he goes up to them with his tail behind his legs and licks
their hands in the most abjectly servile manner. Such hirelings have been
rejected by the conciliar voice of the Russian Church. May God protect us f=
rom
this Judas sin as we say: “Nor will I give Thee a kiss, as did Judas&=
#8230;”
June 30 / July=
13,
2005.
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[1]=
“Preemstvennost=
217;
Grekha”, publication of the parish of the Holy New Martyrs and Confes=
sors
of Russia, Tsaritsyn, p. 7 ®.
[2]=
In 1915 the Empress wrot=
e to the
Emperor that Sergius “must leave the Synod” (A. Paryaev,
“Mitropolit Sergij Stragorodskij: Neizvestnaia Biographia”, =
Suzdal’skie
Eparkhial’nie Vedomosti, № 1, September, 1997, pp. 12-15
®).
[3]=
Suggestions of the Di=
ocesan
Hierarchs on the Reform of the Church, St. Petersburg, 1906, vol. 3, p.=
443
®.
[4]=
See Anonymous, V
ob’iatiakh semiglavago zmiia, Montreal, 1984, p. 14 ®.
[5]=
Preemstvennost’
Grekha”, op. cit., p. 7.
[6]=
Text in M.E. Gubonin,
[7]=
Snychev, “Mitropol=
it
Sergij i Obnovlencheskij Raskol” ®.
[8]=
Frazee, The Orthodox Church and Independent Gr=
eece
1821-1853, Cambridge University Press, 1969, p. 8.
[9]=
Protopriest Vladislav Ts=
ypin, Russkaia
Pravoslavnaia Tserkov’, 1925-1938, Moscow: Izdanie Sretenskogo
Monastyria, 1999, pp. 383-384.