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OUR
LEGACY |
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Protopresbyter
Mikhail Pomazansky
Our Ecclesiological Juridical Conscience
The article published below was spurred by the desire to explain
how we, children of the Russian Church subject to the Synod of Bishops
abroad, understand our ecclesiastical situation and our ecclesiastical
obligations stemming therefrom.
The article is a response to the piece published in Tserkovniy Vestnik
[Church Messenger] in Paris in 1949, whose authors, editor (Fr.
A. Shmemann) and others speak out against the Russian Church Abroad
with the intention of undermining trust in its canonical foundations.
They state that there is an "inviolable and eternal principle
of church life--the principle of territorial or local administration
of the Church," that we in the emigration illicitly "established
and establish for ourselves" churches, that the "Church
Abroad, from an ecclesiological point of view is, ‘a contradiction
in terms.’" "A paradoxical phenomenon arises," they
write, "a council of bishops, officially giving itself the
title 'Abroad,' that is, having no territory of its own, having
divided the whole world into dioceses and regions and calling their
bishops the bishops of Brazil, Canada, Australia, etc., in other
words, establishing national churches." "The Ecumenical
Councils," writes G. Meyendorff, "divided the world into
five patriarchates, imparting one patriarch in each half of the
Christian world the care over the chuches located among other nationalities.
Now the Constantinople cathedra alone administers these churches
and grants them autocephaly, when they achieve full maturity."
* * * "For
the Orthodox Russian people, in the fatherland and the diaspora;"
that is how they pray, not only in the part of the Russian Church
under the Synod of Bishops Abroad, but within groups who do not
belong to anyone. The condition of the diaspora has not ended, it
continues.
The exodus into the diaspora began in 1917. Outside of the borders
of the Russian land--the country, not the Russian Church, for the
Church has no defined borders in breadth or in elevation—is where
the flock, the middle clergy, monastics and bishops found themselves.
Would it have been right for the flock to scatter, to blend into
the other Orthodox churches? For what was more important in their
exile than preserving what they had, not materially, but in their
ideals, in order not to lose their unity with the Russian people.
The first thing done by those who went abroad was that they ran
to their archpastors, as representatives of their native Church,
gathereing like sheep to their shepherds.
Do our Russian archpastors in the diaspora, have the right to accept
the flock into their care? We answer with a question: did they have
the right not to nourish them, not to gather them to prayer, not
guide them spiritually? A bishop is given the duty during his consecration--not
the right, but the duty--to teach, to perform priestly functions,
to lead their flock, to say along with the Apostle: "If it
is grace, I have nought of praise, and woe is me if I do not preach
it." Yet somehow it is not their territory?
But their flock is here. "The sabbath was made for man, and
not man for the sabbath." People are more important that territories.
In the thickets and the hills, a shepherd tends to his sheep, protects
and answers for them, leads them to fertile pastures and guards
them against wolves. ÒChase away my sheep from your land, if you
have the right to, then I, too, will go.Ó And no one has the right
to tell the shepherd: ÒYour flock invaded my territory: they belong
to me.Ó Such a demand would be simply unfair, it would be un-Christian.
And what other bishop lost his church and his flock, his means of
nourishment, to these wandering Russian pastors and flock in the
diaspora, who homeless, without territory; did they introduce disorder
in his church life?
* * *
But can a bishop not have a territory, by church law? This depends
on whether a people can exist without a territory.
The Church consists of people, not territory. Territory does not
play a role in the church, territory is not subject to the church.
Churches are called ÒlocalÓ because the members of the given church
live on a certain territory. ÒState bordersÓ are not the same as
church borders, just as the size of a territory does not correspond
to the size of the church. If a bishop is appointed to a certain
Òplace,Ó this comes from the description of the residence of his
flock; his rights are limited thereto for the good of the work of
the church, not to designate the bishop’s properties. He is a Òbishop
of the people.Ó The church does not aim to distribute land with
the help of surveyors. The church needs peace, order and for people
not to offend each other.
If there were some country in which people, united into specific
groups, were every year, or every five or ten years, moved to new
places, and these groups consisted of large masses, and this move
became lawful, the Church would need to establish not only movable
parishes (which has happened before), but movable dioceses, naming
them not by their location, but maybe by banners, by numbers or
by holy names. The keeping of order is in the hands of the Church.
This is the reason that bishops in exile at one time or another
conditionally bear the title of their previous dioceses, or obtain
new territorial designations in those places where their flock settles—the
old territorial geographic designations are used only for convenience,
and not at all as some indication of their domains. If instead of
Òof ArgentinaÓ or Òof Australia,Ó designations were applied not
from old geographic regions but from some new, invented ones, then
maybe this would no longer alarm professors of canonical law.
Can there be a bishop without a territory? This question was posed
to the representative of the Conciliar Church Abroad in an American
court. The judge himself responded: ÒChrist did not have a territory,
and He was a wanderer.Ó A diocese that moves, that wanders, is this
a phenomenon that contradicts the Gospel? ÒAnd the woman fled into
the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they
should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore daysÓ
(Rev. 12:6). These words refer to the Church which fled the persecution
of the dragon.
Would you impose upon Her the obligation to hold to her territory?
How magnificently, with what dignity—in a Christian, not legalistic,
way—did the blessed Hierarchy of the Serbian National Church understand
its canonical status in the matter of the ecclesiastical diaspora.
She accepted the wandering church into her house without legal conditions,
warmed and nourished her, making no demands of the Russian emigration,
not limiting the period when they could consider themselves the
flock of the Russian Church, nor did she make any demands of the
Russian hierarchy, or when it should cease to exist.
But should the Russian archpastors have taken the flock in hand
only in order to later hand it over to other local churches? Who
gave them this authority? How would they answer before the Russian
Church in the future? Are not the spiritual children dear to their
own local Churches? Why is it proper for the Church of Constantinople
to retain its property, as it always had historically, but it is
improper for the Russian Church?
The Russian Church would ask and demand of the bishops who did so
during her imprisonment that they return the churches, the property
and the flock itself that was entrusted to them.
[Footnote 1: In articles of Tserkovniy Vestnik mentioned in the
opening paragraph, an excerpt from a letter of Patriarch Meletius
of Alexandria written in 1927 to the Council of Bishops of the Russian
Church Abroad is twice cited:
ÒBeloved brethren! Is it possible to think of an Orthodox ‘Church
Abroad’ with her own ruling Council? In which laws do you find the
term ‘Church Outside the Borders?’ [The literal translation of the
Russian word zarubezhnaya is Òoutside the borders,Ó commonly translated
in referring to the Church as ‘Abroad’ or ‘Outside of Russia’—ed.]
From the laws and centuries-old practice of the Church we know only
the borders of the Churches...Ó
But this is a clear confusion of meanings: we would call it a play
on words, if they belonged to a layperson: 1) The expression zarubezhnaya
means Òoutside the borders of Russia,Ó not outside the borders of
herself. The authors of the article in Tserkovniy Vestnik pretend
that they do not understand this. 2) In regard to the canons, they
speak of the borders of episcopal domains, the borders of dioceses,
in other words, on the separation of spheres of activity of the
bishops, which is not at all the same as the term Òborders of the
Churches.Ó When a member of the flock or the bishop of, say, the
Alexandrian Church leaves the borders of the patriarchate, he does
not leave the borders of his Church, for the Church is the people.
J. Meyendorff reaches exceedingly bold conclusions in stating that
there exist some kind of Òinviolable and eternalÓ (emphasized by
the author) principle of church life: the principle of territorial
or local administration of the Church.Ó We do not reject this principle,
but if it were eternal, then the Savior would have divided Palestine,
or the Roman Empire, among the twelve apostles.
But one can only be shocked at the following:
ÒThe Ecumenical Councils divided the universe (!) among five patriarchates,
granting the first patriarch in each half of the Christian world
care over the churches found among people of other nations .Now
the See of Constantinople alone administers these churches and grants
them autocephaly when they attain complete maturity. Autocephaly
is also given usually in connection with the civil development of
Christian peoples. So over the last decades, the Ecumenical Patriarch
granted autocephaly to the Serbian, Hellenic, Rumanian, Albanian
and Bulgarian Churches.Ó
What ideas and concepts so foreign to the spirit of the Church have
grown in the new field of the Russian Exarchate in Western Europe!
Whence comes papism into the Orthodox Church? Where do the princes
of the Church graciously grant, by their own power, autocephaly
to churches?
Does the author understand that his statements on the rights of
the Patriarch of Constantinople deprives the remaining patriarchs
and all other Orthodox churches of all rights in the apostolic mission
in the world? From his words, it turns out that the words ÒGo and
teach all the nationsÓ refers only to one ÒuniversalÓ Contantinople
Patriarchate. The alternative is that the Patriarch of Constantinople
is the visible head of the Universal Church, who has three small
regions. Syria, Palestine and Egypt (the three old Patriarchates)
have extraterritorial rights, that, is, they are exempt from his
Universal territory.
A new field of theological study opens on the topic of the day:
ÒThe Relationship Between the Universal Church and the Universal
Patriarchate,Ó ÒThe Borders of the Universal Patriarchate and the
Universal Church.Ó]
* * *
There are people who think that the Bishop of the city of Taganrog
has the right, in the emigration, to tend only to that part of the
flock which departed from Taganrog, and the Bishop of Kherson—only
the flock from Kherson. This is not so in the consciousness of the
Church. A Russian bishop is betrothed to the Russian Church, to
the Russian flock, not to a title derived from the name of the diocese,
not to the city or place of residence, but to the people, he is
betrothed with the blessing of a Russian council of bishops, and
it is proper that wherever he may be, he is a pastor of the Russian
flock, again, in accordance with the blessing of a council of Russian
bishops.
[Footnote 2: To the question: ÒDo you belong to the Russian Church?Ó
there can only be one response from the bishops of the Western European
Russian Exarchate of the Church of Constantinople: ÒNo, we do not.Ó
Still, for some reason, the Tserkovniy Vestnik Zapadno-evropeiskogo
Ekzarkhata (Church Messenger of the Western European Exarchate)
calls itself the ÒMessenger of the Russian Church in Western EuropeÓ
in its French subheading.]
Not only bishops but each of us, regular members of the Church and
the ranks of the clergy, must decide—do we belong to our native
Russian Church?
Physically, we are divided from the Church in Russia by an iron
curtain. We must recognize that her hierarchy is unfree, we do not
obey, nor can we obey, its directives, since the communist government
makes this hierarchy its own weapon, and in its work we discern
the policy of obfuscating the truth, and we see hypocritical praise
for the anti-Christian state; but we know that the Russian Church
lives. True life of this Church exists below the visible ecclesiastical
veneer. The Church is not manifested in its present leaders, it
is not the same thing. She lives in the unseen multitude of pure,
cross-bearing, pious and brave children who do not kneel before
Baal, the confessors and martyrs, for the sake of whose self-sacrifice
the Lord endures the weakness and failure of the greater number.
She lives through the prayers of her heavenly members—the bishops,
the pdvizhniki [strugglers-in-the-faith] and righteous people since
the beginning. We who live abroad must remain, and we do remain,
in unity with the organism of the Russian Church, in one spirit,
in one family. We know and we believe that the moment will come
when the righteous and true voice of the Russian Church will speak
out with the mouth of her reborn dioceses.
* * *
Wherein lies my actual belonging to my native Church—even outside
the homeland—a belonging not only in spirit, not in only in my yearning,
not in my desire alone, but in reality, a belonging to her conciliar
organism? I can belong to her only through the hierarchy of the
Russian Church, the hierarchy of the Russian succession, through
the bishops who received their authority from the council of Russian
bishops, who preserved through their succession a bond, and who
include us in the organic bond, with the Russian Church. We carry
within ourselves the Russian Church, each Russian Orthodox family
in the diaspora is a small part of the Russian Church, but only
through the bishops of the Conciliar Russian Church Abroad.
* * *
Do we really need this bond with the Russian Church?
No matter what Local Church we belong to, we are in the body of
the Church of Christ. Still, this is not an idle question, to which
local Church should we belong, in which should we live, which should
nourish us. It can be a moot question only if asked of which Local
Chuch we should be a member in name only.
There was a time when people leaving their home for the unknown,
saying goodbye to their family, wept tears for their separation,
gave their promises not to forget each other, making promises of
loyalty, taking with them a symbolic clump of soil. Gradually, life
would resume and take over. And so the people in the diaspora gradually
settled down, became accustomed to their new surroundings, acquired
new citizenship for convenience’s sake. We cannot condemn them for
that. But should the Russian clergy encourage this break? Should
one travel this path oneself? Ask the people! They will protest.
They look upon the Church as a critical bond, the existence of which
makes unimportant the weakness of other bonds. Shall we betray their
faith and cut this cord?
ÒIf I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.Ó
At one time, the Jews, taken out of Palestine as slaves of Babylon,
sufferedover the course of 80 years somewhat in the same way as
our diaspora. Likewise did many gradually assimilate with the local
population, many became free citizens, some were denationalized,
others bravely preserved their identity. By the time they returned
to their homeland, they almost completely lost their native tongue,
and when they returned, they were unable to comprehend the language
of their holy scriptures. The Judaic culture did not survive. But
the Judaic church did. And we know why. Loyalty is a moral quality:
where should it be preserved, if not in religion, the keeper and
preacher of morality? Religion carried on the banner of loyalty.
Bishops and priests are the stewards of the house of Christ. ÒLet
a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards
of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is required in stewards, that
a man be found faithfulÓ (I Cor. 4:1-2).
It would be sad if our present-day Russian lay society in the diaspora
preserved devotion to their own matters better than the church did
in its matters. It would be sad if the servants of the Church fell
under criticism that they were the first to forget their Jerusalem
and let the banner drop while the Soviet Ò[internal] diasporaÓ burned,
suffered in their souls, battled for the truth, while the church
abroad lay down its arms and sought a safe haven.
We are convinced that this will not be so. Lay circles in France
are to blame that they persuaded a part of the Russian hierarchy
to break from their basic ecclesiastical nucleus abroad. The conciliar
Russian church consciousness will not follow upon that path. It
will stand fast even when the Russian national and political centers
fall apart, grow cold and become dormant.
* * *
What is the point of existence for the part of the Russian Church
that went abroad? She leads the battle for freedom of the Church.
And she is the free voice of the Russian Church. This voice must
survive. Her departure into other local Churches would reflect a
refusal to struggle: either we would recognize that the present
state of affairs is normal, or we would recognize our impotence
in the battle against evil. This is the end point in the history
of the defense of truth and the rights of the Church. The war is
over, the war is lost. We depart. After that there can be only complete
indifference, or at best a peaceful exchange of opinions, discussions:
we see both in the two groups that already left the Synod of Bishops.
It is improper, in entering the port of a neutral government, to
use it for your own military purposes. ÒFor Zion's sake will I not
hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest;Ó these
words were not written for them.
The tearing of the web of deceit into which the Church in the homeland
is being drawn is an obligation that stems from the moral responsibility
of the Church, protecting the virtue and honor of the Mother Church.
* * *
The part of church society that broke away from the ecclesiastical
center of the Church Abroad has strange ideas. They consider it
uncanonical that the Russian Church is a pioneer of Orthodoxy in
Australia, in Brazil and in other countries outside its territory.
This honor, they feel, should belong to the ÒEcumenical Patriarch.Ó
What does this mean—should those of us in the diaspora freeze in
our tracks and cease to live a church life until the Eastern Patriarchs
convert the local population to Orthodoxy? Or did our bishop, while
nourishing his own Russian flock, take the keys and lock missionaries
of the Eastern Churches out of that country? We do not deny the value and significance of the eldest patriarch, of Constantinople, we do not wish to belittle him and we will not assume the position of Prof. Troitzky, who called the Patriarch of Constantinople that ÒPatriarch of Istanbul.Ó Firstly, the Constantinople Church is the mother of the Russian Church and of the Orthodox churches of the southern Slavs. Secondly, her historical importance remains just as an apostle retains his apostolic worthiness even in chains and after his death. As one white of hair, as one of the eldest of the family of churches, she serves as a great authority for the younger churches, her daughters. Still, the theory does not hold that the territory of this patriarchate extends to all the countries of Western Europe, or of the whole world. If it were so, the religious history of Western Europe over the second millennium would have developed in an entirely different way: this would have been an valuable seat for Orthodoxy!
While recognizing the authority of the Patriarchate, we cannot conclude
that it is expedient and practical for the Russian Church Abroad
to enter the Local Constantinople Church, even if we were free of
any obligation to our native Church.
Does the Church need no more than a shelter, some sort of legal
formula? We have different tongues, also different traditions in
church life, different manners of church reading and singing, our
own liturgical traits, and finally, a multitude of external differences.
The same applies outside the temple: there are other methods of
theological study, stemming from a difference tradition of theological
thought. This does not hinder mutual respect; but these are two
Local Churches, territorially, historically, in nationality. Yes, at the beginning of its history, the Russian Church had organic unity with the Church of Tsargrad [Constantinople]. She was born of her, she was nourished by her, received everything from her: the divine service, rules, books, teaching; her metropolitans of the first centuries were Greek. But the later nationalization of the Church in Rus’ was her gradual emergence from the body of the Local Greek Church insofar as this belonging ceased to be organic and became nominal. That is how the emancipation of our Church from submission to Constantinople occurred.
In our day, a part of the Church in the diaspora entered a Òjurisdiction,Ó
subjecting itself to the Patriarch of Constantinople. The apostolic
rule states: ÒA bishop of every people [we take the word ÒpeopleÓ
in its literal sense] must know the first among them and recognize
him as the leader.Ó Here we see some of the bishops of the Russian
diaspora expressing an unwillingness to know the first among them
and to submit to a bishop of a foreign people.
In this we are supposed to see the spirit of the canons, according
to the deduction of the learned theologians and canonists of the
Theological Institute in Paris. But common sense says otherwise.
Organic unity is destroyed and replaced by administrative submission.
This replacement of a living bond with a formal one, the replacement
of a bond with the ÒchurchÓ with a connection to an Òadministration,Ó
cuts the living threads joining all of us in the church, in place
of which there is a new, administrative correspondence with the
patriarchal chancery.
But the daily needs of those who left remain the same. The national
coloring of church life is as before, Russian. Not to speak of chants,
icons, church architecture, the entire order and image of the divine
services, the views and thoughts are turned to the Russian Church.
Their theologians use Russian theological literature—even their
mistakes are based on Russian sources, like that of the late Fr.
Bulgakov. Why did they now cease to be a branch of the Russian Church,
but became the ÒRussian ExarchateÓ of the Patriarch of Constantinople?
The Russian Church has its host of Russian saints—witnesses of her
thousand-year history, her representatives and her protectors. This
history is close to the heart, dear to all Russians in the diaspora;
but it is remote for the hearts of the Greeks of Constantinople.
They try to console us by saying that the move of this small branch
of the Local Russian Church to another Local Church is only temporary.
But if we admit that this territory belongs to Constantinople, there
can be no justification for then leaving the jurisdiction of this
patriarchate. Experience shows us this, too. The Prague Exarch of
Constantinople, Bishop Sabbatius, was denied by the Constantinople
Patriarchate when he requested permission to submit to the Moscow
ecclesiastical authorities. Obviously, the Patriarchate was guided
by canonical justifications. And the ÒRussian ExarchateÓ of Western
Europe will be denied the possibility of leaving if it does not
do so unilaterally.
The creation of a Russian exarchate places many obligations upon
the Constantinople Patriarchate. Now the entire Russian Church will
await, and request, a clear and solemn evaluation of ÒsophianismÓ
and the entire theology of Fr. Bulgakov. The Constantinople Patriarchate
took upon itself the responsibility for the purity of Orthodox teaching
in all regions of its patriarchate. The glory of her theologians
belongs to her, and the heresies of her theologians are hers as
well. This challenge will require of her a great deal of work in
thoroughly studying this theology. Actually, there is something
positive in the fact that sophianism will stand trial before the
Orthodox Christian East.
* * *
Our wandering continues, it has not yet crossed the forty-year line.
We in the diaspora preserved our inner unity, based on the unity
of spirit, of thought, of our senses, our will, upon mutual understanding.
We are united with one hierarchy of the Conciliar Russian Orthodox
Church abroad, standing upon firm canonical foundations. On one
hand, it does not tear us away from the native Russian Church, and
on the other, it is truly free of pressure of any government, and,
just as a bird gathers her chicks, she gathered us who are scattered
throughout the whole world into one in the Church Abroad. And even
those groups, now numerous among the Russian emigration, which by
the whim of fate entered the ranks of other governments, became
their citizens, even they find in the free Russian Church Abroad
a spiritual bond with their native Russian Orthodox element.
Our firm canonical and ideological consciousness and the sense of
loyalty of the members of the Russian Orthodox Church under the
Synod of Bishops Abroad was brilliantly expressed by Prof. G.A.
Znamensky in his speech at the recent Third Diocesan Conference
of the Conciliar Church of North America and Canada. We cite several
lines: "Glory
to God! Our conciliar Diocese (in America), uncompromisingly devoted
to the Supreme and lawful Hierarchy, did not break off from the
All-diaspora and United Russian Orthodox Center, it did not fall
into schism, as some erroneously declare, did not depart by a single
iota from the established administrative-canonical organization,
but in fact did the opposite, at the most critical moment when some
were confused, others objected and departed from the miracle of
peace and church unity that had been obtained through hard work,
our conciliar diocese bravely took up and held firmly to her heart
the Holy Standard of Concilarity that had momentarily hung in midair,
and holds it sacrosanct even now, a dear treasure, and only in it
do we see the beginning and the end, the alpha and omega of ecclesiastical
blossoming, the joy and mutual love of all her living parts, that
is, those loyal children of our crucified Motherland and our Mother
Church, scattered throughout the face of the whole world.
ÒGlory to God! By means of such an open, accessible—accessible even
to children in the faith—and straightforward confession of the path
of the Church, any rebuke on the part of those who yearn for the
reestablishment of church unity that has been, and continues to
be, violated, in the entire scope of the diaspora, does not apply
to our Conciliar Diocese, for it did not violate the peace with
anyone, it has made no moves or amendments to the existing status
quo, but remained as it was, on the prior firm and inviolable mountain
of its witness, its unity with the entire Church Abroad and the
submission to the supreme Hierarchy.
ÒGlory to God! Alien to our conciliar Diocese are the double-edged,
dangerous attempts of some part of the clergy to leave their lawful
supreme Hierarchy and submit to patriarchs and the heads of other
Local Churches who are far from free.
ÒWere we granted the right to do this by our lawful Representative
and Leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, His Holiness Patriarch
Tikhon, during our Great Exodus from Russia? Had His Holiness the
Patriarch blessed with a single word or even a slight hint—at the
time when he was still free—for the Russian church flock to crumble
and dissolve into the Local Churches of other peoples? No, no!
ÒBoth the Patriarch and the Holy Synod, and the Supreme Church Council
of the Russian Orthodox Church in their conciliar unity, wisely
and with great foresight blessed us who left for foreign lands to
organize our Supreme Russian Church Administration Abroad, and not
to meld into the Local Orthodox Churches of other countries and
nationalities.Ó
Let us continue to be loyal to our Church Path and the uniting Center
of the All-Diaspora Russian Church, and not consider ourselves at
all independent or an autocephalous ecclesiastical tree, but only
an organic part of our persecuted, crucified and catacombed Mother
Russian Church, but unwaveringly and bravely remaining a part of
the trunk of the entire conciliar Ecumenical Easetern OrthodoxyÉÓ
(Otchet o Tret’yem Eparkhial’nom S’yezde Severo-Amerikanskoi
I Kanadskoi Eparkhii v N’yu Yorke) [ÒReport on the Third Diocesan
Conference of the North American and Canadian Diocese in New YorkÓ],
23-25 October 1949.)
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