Metropolitan Joseph of Petrograd and the Beginning of the Catacomb Church
Commemorated Dec. 15 (+l988)
And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the
soul;
but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body
in hell.St. Matthew 10: 28
IN THE HISTORY of
the Church of Christ there have been several critical moments
when the official leadership of a Local Church has fallen away
from Orthodoxy, and for a time the faithful hesitate, uncertain
whom to follow, or where the Church Herself is to be found. At
such times Christ our Lord, faithful to His promise that the
gates of hell shall not prevail against His Church (St. Matt.
16: 18), raises up a champion to speak the truth and rally the
faithful to the side of Orthodoxy. At the dawn of the modern age
such a champion was St. Mark of Ephesus, who alone of the
hierarchs of the Greek Church fearlessly condemned the impious
Council and pseudo-Union of Florence and awakened the Orthodox
faithful to the realization that the Church of Rome had fallen
into heresy, and those who united themselves to it thereby placed
themselves outside the Church of Christ.
In our own
century, when a yet more formidable enemy of the Church appeared
in the form of the pseudo-religious totalitarianism of atheistic
Communism; and when the acting head of the Russian Church,
Metropolitan Sergius, proclaimed with his Declaration in 1927 the
principle of practical and ideological cooperation with the
forces of anti-Christianity—then God raised up, at the head
of a veritable army of confessors, a champion in the person of
Metropolitan Joseph to oppose and accuse this soul-destroying
legalization and lead the movement of the faithful of the true
Russian Orthodox Church into the catacombs.
The life of
Metropolitan Joseph (Petrovykh) before the Revolution is largely
unknown to us, although its general features may be discovered in
his writings, which began to appear in the Russian religious
press around the turn of the century. Thus we know that he was
born, approximately between 1870 and 1875, in Novgorod province
in the area of Tikhvin, famous for its wonderworking Icon of the
Mother of God, for which the future hierarch had great
veneration. In 1899 he went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and
perhaps it was there that the spark of his Orthodox faith was
first kindled into a flame of ardent desire to serve Christ's
Church. After spending the whole night of June 18 in the Church
of the Holy Sepulcher, he emerged at dawn and, walking through
the deserted streets of Jerusalem, he was filled with the noblest
feelings: "It was so good, as it is only at Pascha, when you
return home after the service, burning with the desire to embrace
the whole world, to renounce the earth, to fly somewhere far, far
away, into the depth and breadth of the boundless
heavens!..." All his life he was to remain faithful to this
Christ-inspired enthusiasm of his youth. Years later, sharpened
by ascetic labors and refined by suffering, it led him to become
a confessor and martyr for Christ and His Holy Church.
The writings of
Metropolitan Joseph on questions of spiritual life reveal a firm
foundation in Orthodox patristic and ascetical literature and
draw much inspiration from the texts of the Church's service
books. In 1901, when he was a hieromonk, he wrote a thorough and
precise article on the question: "May an Orthodox Christian,
and How May, He Pray for Non-Orthodox Christians?"
Beginning, in 1905, now an archimandrite, he published his major
work, a whole book composed of brief spiritual reflections with
the title "In the Father's Embrace: From the Diary of a
Monk." The following excerpts from this work will give an
idea of the author's sensitivity and precise insights into
spiritual questions.
"Intense
sorrows, like gold in a furnace, purify the soul, give it life,
fortify and temper it. A man becomes less sensitive to his
everyday sorrows and sufferings on earth, becomes calmer, more
balanced, looks at the world more seriously and soberly, becomes
less attached to the earthly, thirsts more for the heavenly, the
eternal, the unending."
"In a man
there is much energy for activity; only it needs to be awakened.
It is awakened by need, sorrow, the battle for existence, love
toward God; thirst for salvation, awareness of the fragility of
the present life and the sweetness of the future life, and much
else that is taught by the means which the Church of God
possesses for the guidance and enlightenment of every man that is
given to Her. ."
"The more we
trust in man's help and in defense by others, the farther from us
are the saving and merciful grace and help of God. And this is
natural: for after all, if we received help from God at a time
when we expected to receive it from men, we would ascribe what is
God's to men, and would turn the glory of God into human glory.
Therefore the Lord arranges it even so, that His help becomes all
the more evident to us, to the extent that our helplessness
becomes sure and obvious and all our hope remains in Him!"
Shortly after 1908
Archimandrite Joseph was consecrated bishop of Uglich. His
address on this occasion ... is consciously prophetic.
Penetrated with an awareness of the rising movement of anarchy
and unbelief that was already dissolving the very fabric of
Orthodox Russian civilization and was about to give birth to the
hideous Revolution, the young hierarch's words sound almost like
a manifesto of the very soul of Holy Russia as it faces even
today the assembled armies of world-wide satanism.
With the coming of
the Revolution the forces of unbelief, whose power the hierarch
well knew, were unleashed with full fury upon the Russian land
and especially against the Orthodox Church, the very existence of
which was a threat to the program of Bolshevism and a reproach to
what conscience still remained in the frenzied atheists. As long
as Patriarch Tikhon was alive, the Church had a visible center of
unity. Even when the Patriarch was imprisoned, when the apostates
of the "Living Church" had taken possession of the vast
majority of the Orthodox churches in Russia, and the
"progressive" Church of Constantinople had given
international prestige to this synagogue of satan by recognizing
it as the Orthodox Church of Russia—still the faithful, by
remaining with their Patriarch, remained Orthodox, and their
loyalty to the Patriarch became the very test of their Orthodoxy;
and it was this more than anything else that broke the power of
the "Living Church."
But with the death
of Patriarch Tikhon in 1925, the situation became much less
clear. Under the conditions of persecution it was impossible for
a Church Council to be called to elect a new patriarch; and,
foreseeing this, Patriarch Tikhon had designated three leading
hierarchs, one of whom (whoever was not in prison or banishment)
should become Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne on
his death and safeguard the external unity of the Church. Of
these three hierarchs, only one—Metropolitan Peter of
Krutitsk —was free at the time of the Patriarch's death, and
he was accepted, in a special decree signed by over fifty
bishops, by the Russian Church as her acting head. Metropolitan
Peter himself designated three "Substitutes" for the
position of Locum Tenens in case he should be arrested or
killed in turn, one of whom was Metropolitan Joseph (at that time
Archbishop of Rostov), and another, Metropolitan (later
"Patriarch") Sergius. Metropolitan Peter was arrested
within a few months for refusing to sign a
"declaration" which would give away the Church's inner
freedom to the atheist regime. From 1925 to 1927 no candidate was
able to take his place for more than a few months before being
imprisoned, and it became clear that the Soviet Government would
not rest until it had found or forced a hierarch to sign a
document pleasing to the regime. This hierarch was found in the
person of Metropolitan Sergius, who on July 16/29, 1927, after
being released from several months in prison, issued the infamous
"Declaration" that made him and his followers in effect
the agents of the Soviet State. In publishing the
"Declaration" on August 19, the official Soviet
newspaper Izvestia noted that "the far-sighted part
of the clergy had already entered upon this path in
1922"— referring to the "Living Church." Thus
did the atheist regime succeed in introducing
"Renovationism" into the Patriarchal Church itself, and
the result was the decisive protest of the leading hierarchs of
the Russian Church, who, when they saw that Metropolitan Sergius
was clearly determined to force his will upon the whole Church,
soon began to break off communion with him.
It thus became
immediately dear that the "Declaration" was in flagrant
defiance of the 34th Apostolic Canon, having been proclaimed
"without the consent of all" bishops, being indeed the
work of Sergius alone at the dictation of the atheist regime; and
therefore the only ecclesiastical course open for Sergius was to
retract the "Declaration" in the face of such
overwhelming disapproval of his fellow hierarchs. Instead of
this, however, as if to prove that he longer considered or needed
the opinion of the Church, but had become the obedient tool of
the regime, he began, together with his uncanonical
"Synod"—the formation of which far exceeded his
powers as Substitute of the Locum Tenens—an
unparalleled transference of bishops from see to see and placed
under interdict all who did not agree with him, founding thus a
submissive "Soviet" Church.
Metropolitan
Joseph, as one of the first to protest the
"Declaration," was quickly "transferred" from
Petrograd, to which See he had arrived only on September of 1926.
By an act of the "Synod" of October 19, 1927,
"Metropolitan Joseph is considered transferred to the See of
Odessa, and it suggested that he not be tempted by the easy
possibility of living in Rostov, which will cause disturbance
among the faithful both of Leningrad and of Rostov..." In
reply, Metropolitan Joseph cited those canons that forbid the
needless transference of bishops from city to city and stated,
quoting the canons: "Even if I allowed to be done with me
such a thing contrary to a Council of the Holy Fathers, then
still may this order 'be completely invalid' and may he who has
been removed 'be returned' to his own Church." Giving his
case over "to the Judgment of God," he refused to move.
At this time, in
the autumn of 1927, Metropolitan Joseph still regarded his case
as a private one, and, as he states in one of the
"Documents" that follow, he was prepared to retire in
disgrace and under interdict in order not to have any communion
with Sergius, but he still had no intention of becoming involved
in any kind of "schism."
Soon, however, it
became clear that his case was only a small part of an issue that
had convulsed the whole of Orthodox Russia. The leading bishops
who were still in freedom and were able to judge the issue came
to the conclusion that Sergius himself had gone into schism by
his "Declaration" and his arbitrary acts directed
against the Church, and they hastened to declare their separation
from him, in late 1927 and early 1928. Metropolitan Joseph all
this time was not allowed by the authorities to reside at his see
of Petrograd (Leningrad), but already in December of 1927 he
blessed his Vicar Bishops to depart from Sergius; and, being
himself in Rostov, he signed, together with Metropolitan
Agathangel and other hierarchs of the Yaroslavl region, an
epistle to Metropolitan Sergius of February 6, 1928, which
declared their separation from him until he should show
repentance for his errors, recognizing in the meantime no head of
the Church apart from the banished Metropolitan Peter.
Petrograd at this
time had become the very heart of the Church's protest against
Sergius, and there was scarcely an Orthodox soul in the former
Capital that was not anguished over the question of whom to
follow. Many refused for a time to receive Communion in any
church, uncertain as to whose Sacraments were valid or where the
Church of Christ was to be found. After signing the epistle of
the Yaroslavl Archpastors, Metropolitan Joseph stepped boldly
forward into battle for the Church and gave his blessing for the
clergy and faithful of Petrograd to follow his example in
separating from Sergius, offering his own spiritual guidance and
care to this movement, and entrusting the governance of the
Petrograd Diocese to his outspokenly anti-Sergianist Vicar,
Bishop Dimitry of Gdov. Blessing the "good decision the
zealots of Christ's truth," he prayed "that the Lord
present us all unanimity and holy firmness of spirit in the new
trial which the Church undergoing."
But against the
spiritual weapons of Christ's warriors, the evil one gathered all
the forces of the world's first satanist regime. The interdiction
of Metropolitan Sergius were the sign for the Soviet Political
Police to arrest and banish the protesting bishops; even many who
attended Sergius' own "legal" churches were not spared
by the authorities, and the chief result of the policy of
"Sergianism"—to quote the words, born of bitter
experience used forty years later inside the USSR by Boris
Talantov—was that "Metropolitan Sergius' actions saved
nothing except his own skin." A dark night in expiatory
suffering settled upon the Russian land and faithful.
"Sergianism" itself was rejected by the faithful,
inasmuch as—in the words, again, of Talantov—"by
the beginning of the Second World War... the greater part of
those churches that remained did not recognize Metropolitan
Sergius." Out of the more than 100 bishops known to be still
alive in 1943, Sergius could find only 18 (and some of these were
newly consecrated) to elect him "Patriarch" in that
year.
Metropolitan
Joseph, by his decisive words and acts and by his position as one
of the Substitutes of the Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal
Throne became the factual head of the separatist movement, acting
in the name o the banished Locum Tenens, Metropolitan
Peter, whose anti-Sergianist attitude was not to become known for
some time. So powerful was the influence and example of
Metropolitan Joseph that all who followed him came to be called
"Josephites," and to this day all who defend the
Sergianist Moscow Patriarchate refer to this movement of the
zealots of Orthodoxy as the "Josephite schism."
There were
"Sergianists" at that time, as there are today, who,
even while admitting that it was the best element among the
clergy and faithful who went over to the side of the
"Josephites," nonetheless accuse and condemn them for
their "pride" in believing that they represented the
true Orthodox Church of Russia. The statements of Metropolitan
Joseph, it is true, are extremely outspoken, absolutely
uncompromising in principle, and unsparing of persons. But those
who find "pride" in such words are perhaps simply
unaware of the critical urgency of the issues involved. When the
Church is being betrayed and the faithful led astray, it is no
time for compliments and polite "dialogues," nor for
placing "sympathy" above truth. For courageous souls
the knowledge that every word may bring prison and death only
increases their boldness in speaking the truth without
embellishments. And thus it has always been in the Church of
Christ; Her outspoken defenders are hymned as champions in the
Church's song of praise. Significantly, the righteous polemic of
Metropolitan Joseph and his followers has emerged again in the
contemporary Soviet Union in the writings of Boris Talantov . . .
and other outspoken critics of the Sergianist hierarchy. By
comparison, the criticisms of Sergianism in the Russian diaspora
are quite mild and charitable.
Metropolitan
Joseph himself was very soon arrested and sent in banishment to
Central Asia. Even in banishment and prison he authorities
persecuted religion and prohibited services, and so it was that
throughout the Russian land, this one vast concentration camp, in
the period after 1927 the "Josephites" became
transformed into the Catacomb Church. The full measure of the
heroic deeds and sufferings of this Church will become known,
only in God's time. But even before that ardently-desired time,
it is possible to glimpse some small fragments of its history.
The following first-hand account was written by Natalia V.
Urusova, who was able to escape from the Soviet Union during the
Second World War, and died in 1968 in New York.
"In August of
1936 there was living in Alma Ata (Central Asia) the
comparatively young Archimandrite Arsenius. From him I found out
for the first time that there exists a secret, catacomb Church,
headed by Metropolitan Joseph of Petrograd and organized by him
with the blessing of Metropolitan Peter of Krutitsk, with whom
he, while being in banishment in Chemkent, 100 miles from Alma
Ata, had secret contact all the time. Archimandrite Arsenius was
ordained by the Metropolitan and had the good fortune to support
him materially, earning his living by the manufacture of various
kinds of mannikins and small articles for museums. He had a
church deep d underground and he and Metropolitan Joseph served
in it. The Metropolita had also consecrated it, secretly, on one
of his rare trips to Alma Ata Fr. Arsenius had dug out this
church by great and long labors.
"We had great
respect for Archimandrite Arsenius, all the more be cause he was
loved by Metropolitan Joseph and through him we could have
contact with the latter. The Metropolitan at that time was living
in Chemkent. Before that, from the very beginning of his
banishment, he had lived in the small town of Aulieta, where he
had not been allowed to live in a room, but had been placed in a
shed with farm animals, his bed separated from them by a fence of
stakes.
"The church
dug out of the earth was in the apartment of Archimandrite
Arsenius. The entrance was a trap-door, covered by a carpet. The
top was taken off, and under it was a ladder to the cellar. In
one corner of the cellar there was an opening in the earth, which
was covered with rocks. The rocks were moved aside and, bending
down completely, one had to crawl three steps forward, and there
was the entrance to the tiny church. There were many icons, and
lamps were burning. Metropolitan Joseph was very tall, and
nonetheless twice in my presence he traveled here secretly and
penetrated to this church.
"A remarkable
state of mind and soul was created by this church, but I do not
hide the fact that the fear of being discovered during the
services especially at night, was difficult to conquer. When the
big chained dog began to bark in the yard—even though it was
muffled, still it was audible underground—then everyone
expected the cry and the knock of the GPU. For the whole of 1935
and until September in 1937 everything was all right. My son sang
here together with one nun. On August 26 Metropolitan Joseph came
and honored us with a visit on my namesday.
"What a
marvelous, humble, unshakable man of prayer! This was reflected
in his face and eyes as in a mirror. Very tall, with a large
white beard and an extraordinarily kind face he could not help
but attract one to him, and one only wished never to part from
him. His monastic garb was covered up, as was his hair; otherwise
he would have been arrested immediately right on the street,
since he was watched and did not have the right to travel. He
himself said that Patriarch Tikhon had offered, right after his
election, to designate him as his first Substitute. For some
reason this has not been noted anywhere yet in the history of the
institution of Locum Tenens. I recognized Metropolitan
Peter of Krutitsk as the lawful head of the Church, and right up
to the latter's arrest in September, 1937, he had secret contacts
with him, even while rumors were circulating everywhere that
Metropolitan Peter was dead.
"Metropolitan
Joseph stayed at tea with us for over an hour. Concerning his
banishment of almost ten years, he related that it had been
extremely difficult. He had lived in a sty with pigs in a platted
shed, slept on boards separated from the pigs by a few stakes. In
these conditions he had borne cold and heat, every kind of
weather and the stifling air. Once a snake, clinging to a stake
on his roof, crawled down right over his head. These conditions
were also apparently the cause of his illness. At times he
suffered terribly from an intestinal ulcer, or perhaps he had
some kind of internal tumor, perhaps cancerous, and he was on a
diet which Archimandrite Arsenius helped him to keep. He suffered
everything like the righteous, and if he related his difficult
persecutions, it was only because we all were recalling the
cruelties of the GPU.
"Fr. Arsenius
told here of one form of torture and mockery. When they were
taking us through Siberia, there was a severe frost. In the train
there was a bath-car. They chased us, completely naked, through
the cars to the bath. With joy we drenched ourselves with the hot
water and got a little warm since the cars themselves were almost
unheated. Without giving us anything to dry ourselves with, with
wet heads, they chased us back. On the metal platform between
cars they deliberately stopped us, and our wet feet immediately
froze to the metal. At the command to advance, we tore away with
blood the frozen bottoms of our feet...
"On the next
day, after staying overnight with Fr. Arsenius, the Metropolitan
returned to his own place. Now he was living in different
circumstances. After many years it was permitted to find an
apartment for him to Chemkent. Archimandrite Arsenius arranged an
apartment for him to live quietly in, saw to his food, not only
as to its sufficiency but also to keep his diet. First a zither,
and then a harmonium was obtained for him, which were a joy for
the Metropolitan, who was a good musician. He put Psalms to music
and sang them.
"On September
23, 1937, everywhere in the neighborhood of Alma Ata throughout
Kazakhstan, all the clergy of the underground Josephite churches
were arrested, after having served their terms of banishment for
refusing to recognize the Soviet churches. All of them were
sentenced to ten years more without right of correspondence and,
as I discovered later, Metropolitan Joseph also was among them.
Archimandrite Arsenius was also arrested. After the arrest of my
son, being beside myself, I was running to Fr. Arsenius right at
dawn, and coming up to his house I saw an automobile and the GPU
going in to him. Fortunately they did not see me. The underground
church of Fr. Arsenius was discovered. Through lack of caution he
once revealed its secret to an elderly man, respectable in
appearance, who turned out to be an agent of the GPU.
"On returning
to Moscow after my three-year voluntary banishment together with
my son, I very soon found out about the existence here also of
secret Josephite churches—that is to say, not churches, but
services in secret rooms, where sometimes twenty to twenty-five
people would gather. The service would be conducted in a whisper,
with strict control by the faithful in view of the possibility of
betrayal. People came usually at dawn according to an agreed
signal. For the most part they would carefully tap at the
drainpipe by a window, where someone would be standing and
listening.
"Until the arrival of the Germans in Mozhaisk in 1941 I
lived peace fully in this city and went to catacomb services in
Moscow."
At the end of 1938 Metropolitan Joseph was executed by
firing squad for the "crime" of giving encouragement to
wandering priests. Years before he had spiritually prepared
himself, as it were, for this, his own martyrdom. He wrote in his
"Diary of a Monk," in an entry published in September, 1905:
"Love your enemies (St. Luke 6:
35). To say this is easy, but how difficult to do it. This is
much higher than simply love of neighbor. It is the supreme
triumph of love, its true essence and most superb expression...
In order that one's heart might be inflamed with love toward
one's enemy, there must be a special, grace-given state of soul,
a special heavenly attunement of the heart—there must be
that inexpressible and indescribable quality that abundantly
filled the soul of the First Martyr Stephen when he, being
stoned, his face shining like an angel, prayed for his murderers:
Lord, lay not this sin to their charge (Acts 7: 60). Oh,
in this great moment for him what small place did everything
earthly around him find in him! What were the executioners to
him? Before him were the opened heavens, the Son of God right
hand of the Father; heavenly glory poured into kits soul and
seized entirely with an incomprehensible ecstasy, and the
executioners with all heir pitiful malice not only could not
prevent this, but even assisted it; at this moment they were
even, as it were, his benefactors, hastening his departure from
the body and the utter immersion of his soul in these oceans of
heavenly ecstasy and blessedness... In this blissful moment,
could the tortured sufferer cry out in any other way than with
the voice of the supreme triumph of love for one's
enemies?!"
The example of this fearless confessor and
champion of Christ's Church has not been in vain. After Patriarch
Tikhon himself, the name of Metropolitan Joseph stands out as a
symbol of the integrity and genuineness of the Orthodoxy of the
Russian Church. Even after half a century of persecution, terror,
and betrayal, the true Orthodox Church of Russia, though hidden,
has not been vanquished. To the present day one can accurately
call this Catacomb Church either the Church of
"Tikhonites" or the Church of "Josephites",
but most accurately of all, it is known, even to the Soviet
authorities themselves, as the "True Orthodox Church."
In the following Soviet account, taken from the Atheist's
Dictionary (Moscow, 2nd Edition, 1966)—a practical
handbook for anti-religious agitators—one may see, behind
the exaggerations and fabrications of the Soviet mind, the true
and confessing Orthodox Church of Russia today. One may note in
this account that the Soviets themselves are well aware of the
historical continuities involved; for they date the origin of the
"True Orthodox Church" to the years 1922-26, i.e., to
Patriarch Tikhon and his followers; whereas the
"Sergianists," as Izvestia saw clearly in 1927,
have their origins in the "Living Church" of that same
period.
TRUE ORTHODOX CHURCH (TOC): An
Orthodox-monarchist sect, originating in the years 1922-26, which
was organized in 1927, when Metr. Sergius proclaimed the
principles of a loyal relation to Soviet authority. Monarchist
elements, united around the Metropolitan of Leningrad Joseph
(Petrovykh), or JOSEPHITES, in 1928 established a
directing center of the TOC, and united all groups and elements
which had come out against the Soviet Order. In the country the
TOC had support among the kulaks and together with other
anti-Soviet elements came out against collectivization and
organized terrorist acts against Party and Soviet activities,
uprisings, etc. It directed into the villages a multitude of
monks and nuns, who roamed about the countryside spreading
anti-Soviet rumors. The TOC was a widely ramified
monarchist-rebellious organization. In its composition were 613
priests and monks, 416 kulaks, 70 former tsarist officials and
officers. The more fanatical members, crazy women, passing
themselves off for prophets, saints, healers, members of the
imperial family, spread monarchist ideas, conducted propaganda
against the leadership of the Orthodox Church, called on people
not to submit to Soviet laws.
Basic characteristics of the sect: (I)
rejection of the Orthodox Church headed by the patriarch/ as
having 'sold itself to Antichrist,' to the world; 2) recognition
as canonical of only those clergy who have been ordained by
followers of Tikhon; (3) acceptance of Orthodox rites; (4)
propaganda of the approaching 'end of the world'; (5) cult of
members of the imperial family of Romanov: their portraits are
preserved as holy objects, and believers in secret make
prostrations in front of them; (6) assumption of the name
of tsars and the relatives by the leaders of the sect; (7)
preservation and spread of counter-revolutionary monarchist
literature; (8) estab1ishment of catacomb churches and
monasteries in houses. The institution of priesthood is
preserved, but in many places certain rites are performed by
ordinary believers. On great religious holidays the members of
this sect gather at so-called sources (lakes, springs, and the
like), where propaganda is conducted by various kinds of
clairvoyants, foretellers, crazy men, and holy fools, who enjoy
special honor in the sect. Striving to fence off the members of
the sect from the influence of Soviet reality, the leaders of the
sect in order to frighten believers make use of the myth of
Antichrist, who has supposedly been reigning in the world since 1917.
So as not to fall into his nets, Christians are to lead a
closed-up, hermitic form of life, spend all their free time in
prayer, and not take part in pub1ic life.
The Soviet press in recent years has given
ample evidence of the existence of this True Orthodox Church. Its
existence is illegal, and its members are treated as criminals by
the regime. Of necessity its governing principle must be
Metropolitan Joseph's instruction to his followers in 1927:
"Govern yourselves independently"; and its members are
chiefly, as he foresaw ... , "not only not bishops and not
archpriests, but the simplest mortals."
The existence of this Catacomb Church today is
surely a sign to world Orthodoxy: the age of Orthodoxy's grandeur
is past; the last age of catacombs is in our midst. In Russia
this truth is more than evident; among its many proofs, perhaps
the most striking is the history of the Church of Christ the
Savior in Moscow. Once a magnificent temple, a monument to God's
preservation of the Russian land in 1812 and a visible symbol of
the faith of a whole people, it was entirely destroyed by the
Soviets, and to this day nothing has been built on its site, and
it remains a gaping hole m the center of the capital of world
atheism. A surprising testimony of its meaning for the Russian
people even today may be found in a short novel, Iskupleniye ("Redemption"),
by the Soviet writer Yuly Daniel; while not a believer himself,
his observations touch something very deep within Soviet life.
"I met Mishka Lurye at the Metro station 'Hall of the
Soviets' near the board fence surrounding the excavation.
Interesting: will they build something here,or will this hole
remain this way as a monument to the blown-up Church of Christ
the Savior? How many years the boards have been here, posters
stuck up on them. 'Mishka, when did they blow up the church?'
'What church?... Oh, they blew it up in '54....'29 years ago they
blew up the church. Despite the proverb, the holy place is empty.
Of course, I don't argue, there's no benefit in churches, not a
bit; they're architectural monuments, no more: but all the
same... They blew up God, and the shock-wave from the explosion
wounded man, gave him a confusion. Deafness, dumbness... The pus
flows from under the bandage, from under the articles on
humanism..." (Author now in prison.)
Even so, he who looks for the Church in the
Soviet Union today finds —a hole in the earth, a deep wound
in the Orthodox Russian people that is not at all hidden by the
false front of the Moscow Patriarchate. But is the situation so
very different in the free world? Here voluntary apostasy,
Renovationism and heresy have achieved much the same result as
the coercion of the atheist regime in the USSR. Behind the
glittering facade of almost all the free Orthodox Churches, with
their "ecumenical" triumphs—is a gaping hole in
the earth, all the abyss of difference that exists between the
"official" apostates and the "simple
mortals": the saving remnant of Orthodox faithful of many
nations. Even now these faithful are being driven into the
voluntary catacombs of separation from the ecumenist heresiarchs,
gathering around the few truly Orthodox bishops who remain. Thus
the Divine Head of the Church prepares them for the greater
trials that seem to lie ahead. The prophecy of the holy and
clairvoyant Elder Ignaty of Harbin, made some 30 years ago, no
longer seems remote: "What began in Russia, will end in
America."
But if such terrible days be truly upon us,
even Orthodox America so weak, so inexperienced, so
naive—has all that is necessary to face the days in the
example of Metropolitan Joseph and the True Orthodox Christians
of the first land to experience the fearful yoke of satanic
atheism.
Holy New Hieromartyr Joseph
and all the new-martyrs of the Communist Yoke, pray to God for
us!
THE EPISTLES OF METROPOLITAN JOSEPH
The following are the
principal epistles that have come down to as from the first head
of the Catacomb Church, demonstrating his fearless stand against
Sergianism at its very outbreak.
RESOLUTION ON THE REPORT OF THE PETROGRAD VICARS
Document of December 23, 1927
In order to condemn and counteract the latest
actions of Metropolitan Sergius, which are contrary to the spirit
and the good of the Holy Church of Christ, under present
conditions we have no other means apart from a decisive departure
from him and an ignoring of his orders. Let these orders be
accepted henceforth only by the paper they are written on, which
tolerates anything, and by the unfeeling air which contains
everything—but not by the living souls of the faithful
children of Christ's Church.
In separating from Metropolitan Sergius and his
acts, we do not separate from our lawful Chief Hierarch,
Metropolitan Peter, nor from the Council, which will meet at some
time in the future, of those Orthodox hierarchs who have remained
faithful. May this Council, our sole competent judge, not
then hold us guilty for our boldness. May it judge us, not as
despisers of the sacred canons of the Fathers, but only as
fearful to violate them. Even if we have erred, we have erred
honestly, out of zeal for the purity of Orthodoxy in the present
evil age. And if we turn out to be guilty, then may we be even
especially deserving-of condescension, and not of deposition.
And so, even if all pastors should leave us,
may the Heavenly Pastor not leave us, according to His unfailing
promise to remain in His Church to the end of the age.
APPEAL TO THE FAITHFUL OF PETROGRAD
Document of early 1928, written from Rostov
The Archpastors of the ecclesiastical province
of Yaroslavl—Patriarch Athanangel, Metropolitan of
Yaroslavl, Seraphim Archbishop of Uglich, former Substitute of
the Patriarchal Locum Tenens, Archbishop Varlaam, formerly
of Pskov, now ruling the Dashedovsky Vicariate of the Diocese of
Yaroslavl, and Eugene Bishop of Rostov—by a special document
have declared their separation from Metropolitan Sergius and
their independent governance from now on of the flocks entrusted
to them by God. This document, signed on January 27 (February 9),
has to such an extent been called forth by the conditions of the
times and the attitude of the faithful masses of people, and this
separation is so well founded, that I, residing in the Yaroslavl
region, have taken part in it and added my own signature to it.
Thus, henceforth all the orders of Metropolitan
Sergius have no force for us. This gives me grounds to protest
anew my unlawful removal from the flock of Leningrad and to ask
for a canonically correct decision on this question at an
appropriate trial by Orthodox bishops. And until such a decision
I consider myself to have no right to leave the flock entrusted
to me (in the sense of the 16th Canon of the First and Second
Council) to the arbitrary whim of Church administrators who do
not have our confidence and before the Lord God and my conscience
I accept the obligation to take measures to pacify my disturbed
and agitated flock. To this end I call first of all upon my vicar
bishops to serve the flock of Leningrad in concord with me. To
the Right Reverend Bishop of Gdov, Dimitry, I give over the
temporary governance of the Diocese of Leningrad. The Right
Reverend Gregory I likewise request to continue serving in the
St. Alexander Nevsky Lavra as my substitute, in concord with me.
Invoking God's blessing upon the shepherds and
all the faithful I request and beg you to trust our leadership
and our archpastoral concern, peacefully and quietly continuing
the work of prayer, salvation of and Divine service, humbly
submitting to the civil authority, which for the time being has
not found it possible to permit my unworthiness come into
immediate communion in prayer with the flock entrusted to me.
Being away, I shall nonetheless be in constant prayerful
remembrance of and concern for you, requesting that my name be
pronounced at Divine services in the customary way. May the Lord
hear our common lamentation, and may He bless with peace and
quiet our much-suffering Church.
EPISTLE TO AN ARCHIMANDRITE OF PETROGRAD (1928)
Dear Father:
Until lately I
thought that my dispute with Metropolitan Sergius was finished
and that, refusing to offer myself as a sacrifice to the crude
politics, intrigues, and pursuits of the enemies and betrayers of
the Church, I could peacefully go off to the side, voluntarily
offering myself as a sacrifice of protest and warfare against
this foul politics and arbitrariness. And I was entirely sincere
when I thought and said that "I am not starting any kind of
schism," and I will submit to the unlawful punishment
against me—all the way to interdict and excommunication, hoping in God's justice alone.
But it turned out that ecclesiastical life does
not stand at freezing point, but bubbles and foams above the
normal boiling point. My "small case" soon turned out
to be only a small part of such a monstrous arbitrariness,
flattery of men, and betrayal of the Church to the interests of
atheists and the destruction of this Church, that it remained for
me henceforth to wonder not only at my own calmness and patience,
but now as well at the indifference and blindness of those others
who still suppose that those who have allowed and done this
hideous thing are doing the work of God, are "saving"
the Church, are governing and not crudely injuring Her, mocking
Her, numbering themselves among Her enemies, cutting themselves
off from Her—for it is not they who are cutting off those
who cannot bear any longer this bacchanalia, this crude coercion
and hideously blasphemous politics.
Perhaps I could have borne even this. I could
have assumed that it was none of my business, just as my affair
now is none of yours. But, dear Father, I suddenly with
particular pain began to feel myself to a significant degree
responsible for the Church's misfortune. After all, as you know,
I am of the Substitutes of the Patriarchal Locum Tenens who
is obliged by an obligation of suffering not only to take the
place of my arrested predecessor, but also to be for him, even
when he is free, a precaution, ready to take his place in case he
should spiritually fall. To be sure, such a spiritual fall should
be, in the normal conditions of ecclesiastical life, accompanied
by a trial and a conciliar decision. But what kind of trial and
conciliar decision are possible now, under present conditions?
And by what kind of trial and conciliar decision was there
administered to me a punishment which is permissible according to
the canons only for a great sin on my part? Why is it that,
demanding a trial and conciliar decision in one instance you
allow their absence in another?
Such an argument can be no more than material
for a section on incongruities in a textbook on logic. Just wait;
the time will come, we hope, when we shall speak of our events
also at a trial. And there is still a great question as to who
will then be the more accused. But for the time being the matter
stands thus: We will not give the Church as a sacrifice over to
the mercy of the betrayers and foul politicians and agents of
atheism and destruction. And by this protest we do not cut
ourselves off from Her, but we cut them off from us and boldly
say: not only have we not gone away, do not go away, and will
never go away from the bosom of the true Orthodox Church, but
those who are not with us and for us, but against us, we consider
Her enemies, betrayers, and murderers. It is not we who go into
schism by not submitting to Metropolitan Sergius, but rather you
who are obedient to him go with him into the abyss of the
Church's condemnation. We call upon you and fortify your powers
for battle for the independence of the Church, only not at all in
the way you suppose is required: not by agreement with the
enslavers of this Church and the murderers of Her holy
independence, which is manifested now in Her holy righteousness,
but rather by a loud and decisive protest against every
acquiescence, against hypocritical and lying compromises and
against the betrayal of Her interests to the interests of godless
satanism and a bitter warfare against Christ and His Church.
Do you really not see the contradiction and
incongruity, which are not compatible with anything, in your
dilemma? (You say:) "Will you take away our obedience to you
by going into schism, or, by submitting to Metropolitan Sergius,
fortify our powers for the battle for the independence of the
Holy Church?" I am going into schism?! Submission to
Sergius is a battle for the independence of the Church?! My
dear! Any old lady in Lenin will laugh that out of town!
Perhaps, I do not dispute, "there are more
of you, presently, than of us. And let it be that "the great
mass is not for me," as you say. But I will never consider
myself a schismatic, even if I were to remain absolutely alone as
one of the holy confessors once was. The matter is not at all one
of quantity, do not forget that for a minute: the Son of God, when
He cometh, shall He find faith on the earth? (St. Luke l8:
8). And perhaps the last "rebels against the betrayers of
the Church and the accomplices of Her ruin will be not only not
bishops and not archpriests, but the simplest mortals, just as at
the Cross of Christ His last gasp of suffering was heard by a few
simple souls who were close to Him.
And so, dear Father, do not judge me severely,
especially by means of your Balsamon. I reckon that he is quite
far from being the same thing at the very authors of the holy
canons wrote in a sense understandable to everyone even without
commentaries, and that in any case this Balsamon cannot be an
authoritative and faithful commentary of our circumstances, which
were not foreseen by any commentaries and canons at all.
Do not judge me so severely, and clearly
understand the following:
1. I am not at all a schismatic, and I call not
to a schism. but to the purification of the Church from those who
sow real schism and provoke it.
2. To indicate to another his errors and wrongs
is not schism but, to speak simply, it is putting an unbridled
horse back into harness.
3. The refusal to accept sound reproaches and
directives is in reality a schism and a trampling on the truth.
4. In the construction of ecclesiastical life
the participants are not only those at the head, but the whole
body of the Church, and a schismatic is he who assumes to himself
rights which exceed his authority and in the name of the Church
presumes to say that which is not shared by his colleagues.
5. Metropolitan Sergius has shown himself to be
such a schismatic, for he has far exceeded his authority and has
rejected and scorned the voice o many hierarchs, in whose midst
the pure truth has been preserved.
You remark incidentally that among the number
of ways to truth, "Christ indicated to us yet another new
path: that ye love one another"; About this I only remind
you, Father, of the marvelous conclusion of Metropolitan Philaret
in his sermon on love for one’s enemies: "And so,
despise the enemies of God, strike the enemies of the Fatherland,
love your enemies, Amen! (Vol. I, p. 285. See also the Apostle of
love, John I:10-11).
The defenders of Sergius say that the canons
allow one to separate oneself from a bishop only for heresy which
has been condemned by a council. Against this one may reply that
the deeds of Metropolitan Sergius may be sufficiently placed in
this category as well, if one has in view such an open violation
by him of the freedom and dignity of the Church, One, Holy,
Catholic and Apostolic.
But beyond this, the canons themselves could
not foresee many things. And one can dispute that it is even
worse and more harmful than any heresy when one plunges a knife
into the Church’s very heart—Her freedom and dignity?
Which is more harmful, a heretic or a murderer (of the Church)?
... Lest imperceptibly and little by
little we lose the freedom which our Lord Jesus Christ, the
Liberator of all men, has given us as a free gift by His Own
blood (8th Canon of the Third Ecumenical Council).
From Ivan Andreyev's Russia's Catacomb Saints (Platina,
CA: St. Herman of Alaska Press, 1982), 109-129.
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