Elder Ephraim on the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad
In a bizarre series of events last year [1991],
the Abbot of the Monastery of Philotheou on Mt. Athos,
Archimandrite Ephraim, left the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical
Patriarchate, joined the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia,
and then subsequently returned to the jurisdiction of
Constantinople. While there are conflicting reports about his
reasons for doing this, and while his actions have confused and
disappointed a number of people, Father Ephraim's sojourn in the
ROCA has left us with a very interesting statement about that
Church. Forced to confront polemical and hostile voices from the
Greek New Calendarists when he joined the Russian Church Abroad,
Father Ephraim wrote a short note on the validity of that Church.
Since the Bishops of the Russian Church Abroad Consecrated
Bishops for us Old Calendarists when our last Hierarch in Greece
reposed, his comments about the validity of their Church are of
special importance to us—even more so, since they come from
an adherent of the Ecumenical Patriarchate who was compelled by
unusual circumstances to speak objectively and truthfully about
the ROCA. Such objectivity and truthfulness are rare commodities,
indeed, among the modernists, who have so compromised themselves
by political self-interest and the demands of the ecumenical
movement. We have translated Father Ephraim's comments from the
original Greek text, which was distributed by Father Ephraim last
year in the United States.
My View of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad
Apostolic Succession
The Apostolic Succession of the Bishops of the
Russian Orthodox Church Abroad cannot be impugned, since all of
the present Bishops hold canonical Consecrations from the Bishops
of the pre-Revolutionary era and their successors.
Canonicity
Canonicity (i.e., a local Church's total
conformity to the Holy Canons in its constitution and
administrative functioning) is a rare commodity in nearly all of
the Patriarchates and the autocephalous Churches today. The
synodal system has been seriously weakened by diverse incursions
from within and without, and there appears everywhere a move
towards despotism among the major Hierarchs or local Synods. Were
we to but begin with an examination of canonical impediments to
the Priesthood and so on, I do not believe that we would occasion
to find absolute canonicity anywhere. I can only say that the
Russian Orthodox Church Abroad constitutes an exception to the
foregoing, on account of its strict devotion to the Holy Canons
and its freedom from the bonds of every worldly power. In
response to the allegations which many have made against this
Church's ostensibly uncanonical status as a self-governing Church
body, these observations can be made:
Patriarch Tikhon, foreseeing a bleak future for
the Russian Church, issued a decree to the Bishops outside Soviet
Russia, granting them the right to organize self-governing
synodal bodies. Despite this, the exiled Russian Hierarchs,
having lived in an atmosphere of utmost loyalty to the law and
obedience under the Tsar, insisted, during their first few years
of exile, on maintaining contact with their base (Patriarch
Tikhon and his successors) and to seek from there approval for
their more momentous decisions at least—though this was
difficult under their circumstances at the time (persecutions,
banishments, etc.). This communion was abruptly cut off by the
capitulation of the locum tenens and later Patriarch Tikhon
(Stragorodsky)* in his infamous declaration—something
totally unacceptable to the Bishops in exile—, assuring the
full submission of the Church to the atheist regime and ordering
the faithful to show full obedience to and pray for the Soviet
authorities. In my opinion, this rupture in communion was
justified by the Canons, which provide for the cessation of all
commemoration of the first Hierarch of a local Church in the
event that he preaches heretical teachings; for Marxism is not
only a political system, but entails a secular worldview, indeed
a heresy.
The present Bishops of the ROCA, because of
their isolation from the other Orthodox Churches, hearken back
with genuine spiritual reverence to these events, directives,
contacts, etc., which demonstrate the lawful and canonical
establishment of their ecclesiastical body.
The most compelling argument in support of the
canonicity of the ROCA, one insufficiently emphasized with regard
to this issue, is that at the outset the Ecumenical Patriarch and
all of the other local Churches maintained good relations with
the Synod in Exile, which contained within her bosom, it is
worthy of note, the "elite" of the Russian Hierarchs
and theologians. Men of the stature of Metropolitan Anthony
(Khrapovitsky) of Kiev, who made a lasting impression with his
memorable homilies at the Athens Cathedral and who cannot be
likened to the low level of our own [Greek New Calendarist]
Hierarchs, evoked respect and de facto recognition from everyone.
The position of the Ecumenical Patriarchate
with regard to the ROCA radically changed after the First
Pan-Orthodox Conference in 1923, when the First Hierarch of the
Russian Church Abroad at the time, Metropolitan Anastassy,**
distinguished himself as a leading personality by his resistance
to the innovations of the acknowledged Mason Meletios Metaxakis.
Things were somewhat more improved under the successors of
Metaxakis, until the end of World War II and a full break in
relations, when Soviet external political forces began, by
various means, to urge all of the Orthodox Churches to cease
communion with the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and to
recognize only the Patriarch of Moscow, who was fully under the
control of Soviet political forces and whom these forces used to
serve their own ends. The Patriarch of Moscow took the isolation
of the ROCA as an opportunity to establish relations with the
other Patriarchates and autocephalous Churches: "Either they
or we." Thus for political reasons and out of self-interest,
but also for ideological reasons, as we have seen, the Phanar cut
off all official relations with the Synod in Exile and, in
imitation thereof, so did most of the other local Churches,
except for the Churches of Jerusalem and Serbia, which have
maintained semi-formal relations with the ROCA to this day.
The isolation of the ROCA from the other local
Churches—albeit, not a complete isolation (the Blessed
Justin [Popovich] and his disciples and the present Patriarch of
Serbia have been well disposed toward the ROCA)—can in no
way be taken as evidence of doubt about the canonicity of this
local Church, since many similar examples can be found in Church
history.
* He means, of course, Patriarch Sergius.
** This is an error. Metropolitan Anastassy was
not, at the time, First Hierarch of the exiled Bishops.
From Orthodox Tradition, VOL. IX, NO. 1, pp. 17-18.
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