The Self-Condemnation of ROCOR: A Rediscovered Primary Source and the Historical Witness Against ROCOR-MP
- Subdeacon Nektarios, M.A.
- 3 days ago
- 11 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
Subdeacon Nektarios, M.A.
In a newly rediscovered primary source document from the era of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, prior to its capitulation and submission to the Soviet-created Moscow Patriarchate, we have discovered a First Edition Handbook for Clergy, officially published by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad in November 1998 with the explicit blessing of then Bishop Gabriel of Manhattan, now the current Archbishop of Montreal and a sitting member of the Synod of ROCOR-MP.
Within this 1998 First Edition of the Clergy Information Series: Handbook for Clergy, published by the Southern Deanery of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, we are given further primary source evidence concerning exactly who ROCOR was in communion with at the time of this publication, how ROCOR clergy were to receive schismatic Moscow Patriarchate clergy into ROCOR, how ROCOR understood the definition of Ecumenism in 1998, how ROCOR clergy were to interact with the modernist World Orthodox jurisdictions, and how they viewed the heretical New Calendar innovation. What is fascinating about this recent rediscovery of a primary source document from the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad is that it comes on the heels of the announcement that ROCOR-MP intends to glorify Saint Seraphim Rose. This, in turn, has prompted the apologists and amateur "historians" of World Orthodoxy to begin a process of historical revisionism, attempting to recast Saint Seraphim’s life and teachings concerning the Old Calendarist movement, as well as the question of who ROCOR was, and was not, in communion with at the time of Saint Seraphim’s repose. This is likely because, although the Synod of ROCOR-MP agreed to the glorification, the matter must still be approved by the Moscow Patriarchal Synod, to which ROCOR-MP is now ecclesiastically subordinated.
First, we can address the authority this document had at the time of its publication, since those in the heretical ecumenist jurisdictions will likely attempt to attack its authority because they cannot stand against its authenticity. In the opening introduction of the book, it states that this volume was published “With the blessing of His Grace, The Right Reverend Bishop Gabriel of Manhattan” [1]. The editors, Father Alexis Duncan and Father Seraphim Stephens, both of whom, ironically, later joined the newly created structure of ROCOR-MP and its false union with the Moscow Patriarchate, explain how the volume was constructed. Continuing in the introduction, they explain that this handbook was not a private or informal clerical project, but a collaborative work prepared under episcopal oversight. Multiple priests provided the material for the volume, but Bishop Gabriel remained the final reviewing authority. He read the completed edition, approved the additions and editorial changes, and therefore stood as the ultimate arbiter of what was permitted to appear in the published handbook. In this section of the introduction, they write:
Several priests working independently and together are preparing each part of the handbook. Once each part has been refined it is sent to Bishop Gabriel for correction and for his blessing [2].
What is also interesting about this introduction is how the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, Bishop Gabriel, and his priests made mention of the World Orthodox seminaries here in the United States, describing them as wholly inadequate for the training of Orthodox priests. According to the introduction, these seminaries formed men under modernists and outright heretics who had discarded the Ecclesiastical Calendar of the Church, and it specifically identified them as belonging to “modernist jurisdictions.” This portion of the handbook’s introduction states:
With so many new clergy to the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, it became evident that many had no clear understanding of the disciplines of the Holy Orthodox Church. Some of these clergy had been trained in modernist seminaries, or frankly, protestant institutions with a nominal sprinkling of Orthodox theology from home study programs sponsored by modernist jurisdictions. Some clergymen trained under such programs have related how "professors" from these programs have literally taught heretical positions, particularly in such matters as "safe sex" vs. "abstinence"; disavowing the necessity for fasting; belittling the Ecclesiastical Calendar; adopting secular dress for the clergy--among other things [3].
Moving into Chapter I, entitled “Moral Issues Concerning the Life of a Clergyman, Considerations of Obedience,” the handbook states that the “particular issues considered here reflect those most often compromised by other jurisdictions, and which seem to be most confusing to those clergy entering the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad from other jurisdictions or non-Orthodox denominations or sects” [4]. In this section, the handbook defines how priests should live in relation to the services and the expectations that ROCA priests were expected to maintain. However, after this portion concerning the liturgical requirements of the priesthood, the text immediately moves into the topic of the pan-heresy of ecumenism and specifically defines what it is according to the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, as expressed under Bishop Gabriel of Manhattan, the authorizing bishop. In this section of the book, it states:
The term “ecumenism” comes from the Greek ecumene and meant the entire civilized world. As orthodox applied to Orthodoxy is simply meant all of the Churches that constitute the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. With the Roman Catholic and Protestant apostasies have come new meanings and applications. One such sprung from the Anglican heresy, which invented the “branch theory” of the Catholic Church holding that Catholicism existed within branches of the truth that are not necessarily united in faith and administration. Subsequently, Protestants, particularly through such organizations as the World Council and National Council of Churches of Christ have adopted a variation of the “branch” theme—that the Church exists in a multiplicity of ideas and organizations and that in effect the Church really doesn't exist as a single entity, rejecting Orthodoxy as the full Church of Christ. The Ancient Orthodox Church recognized the heresy of all church/religious groups that were outside of Orthodoxy and condemned them and forbade Orthodox from sharing even in prayer with them. Therefore, we are not permitted to share in any form of prayer with the heterodox, or the modernist jurisdictions. We may not exchange priestly greetings (kissing of the hands of priests) with those of modernist jurisdictions. The faithful should not receive the blessing of those from modernist jurisdictions and those same clergymen are prohibited from entering the Altars of our churches [5].
As we can see from this detailed paragraph, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, prior to its capitulation to the Moscow Patriarchate, clearly recognized that the true patristic methodology of the Orthodox Church is to break communion with heretics and to cease all prayer with them. What is important about this particular paragraph is that it recognizes that this cessation of prayer and communion applies equally to the heterodox and to the “modernist jurisdictions” with which ROCOR was not in communion [6]. Furthermore, the handbook goes even further, instructing that ROCOR priests may not exchange priestly greetings with clergy of modernist jurisdictions, and that the ROCOR faithful are not to seek blessings from those modernist clergymen of outside jurisdictions who are prohibited from entering the altars of the churches within the Russian Church Abroad.
Further in the handbook, there is a brief section directed to the priest, explaining which translations and liturgical texts must be used by ROCOR clergy. These were to be texts approved by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, and clergy were specifically not to use the liturgical practices of the New Calendarists. In this section concerning liturgics, they write:
The Holy Scripture should utilize the King James Version where possible. Particular notice should be made to insure that the readings of the Holy Apostle and Gospel follow the Russian tradition and not the New Calendarist "Lukan Jump". (Although the “Lukan Jump" indeed is present in our cycle, it differs greatly from the New Calendarist rendition due to the abnormality in the New Calendar) [7].
Up to this point, we can explicitly see that ROCOR recognized the patristic methodology concerning relationships, prayer, and communion with the “modernist jurisdictions” and “New Calendarists.” On page 19 of this volume, there is a specific listing of the jurisdictions with which ROCOR was in communion, and whose members were allowed to come to parishes of the Church Abroad, confess to their priests, and receive the Holy Eucharist. In this very specific and intentional paragraph, they write:
Only members of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (or those jurisdictions with whom we share communion, ie, the Greek Old Calendarist Church of Met. Cyprian, the Bulgarian Old Calendar Church and the Roumanian Old Calendar Church) may be confessed and communed in our parishes and monastic houses unless Bishop Gabriel grants permission on a case-by-case basis [8].
As we can see without equivocation, in the very handbook designed for priests and explicitly approved by Bishop Gabriel of Manhattan of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, ROCOR was in full ecclesiastical and eucharistic communion with the Greek, Bulgarian, and Romanian Old Calendarists, while all others from World Orthodoxy were barred from confession and communion within ROCOR. These Old Calendarist jurisdictions were not described as schismatic, heretical, or as belonging to some so-called “parallel jurisdiction,” despite the claims now advanced by certain pseudo-clergy and apologists within World Council of Churches jurisdictions who seek to mislead the uninformed laity.
What is significant about this book is not merely that it directly addresses ecumenism, canonical communion with the Old Calendarist Churches, and the innovating New Calendarist and other modernist jurisdictions, but also that it touches on how ROCOR was to receive schismatic Moscow Patriarchate clergymen into the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. On page 23 of the volume, under the subheading “Oath of Acceptance to the Church of Abroad,” it outlines the exact steps that a Soviet clergyman had to take in order to be received into ROCOR, namely, a written oath and a public repentance before the entire congregation at the direction of the bishop. In the rubric for reception from the MP into ROCOR, it states:
Oath of Acceptance to the Church Abroad
In these very difficult days when many in the Orthodox world have been led astray into teachings that are foreign to the mind of the Church, clergymen seek to unite themselves under the protection of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. While hierarchs welcome those seeking traditional Orthodoxy, the Church must always insure the preservation of our witness. Therefore, it is necessary for those coming to the Church Abroad be aware of the expectations involved in being a clergyman of the Russian Church Abroad. This oath must be signed upon acceptance of the ruling hierarch along with the oath of ordination by all those within the Southern Deanery of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. Those coming from the Moscow Patriarchate must sign the declaration of repentance and read it publicly from the Amvon (Ambo) at the direction of the bishop [9].
This is the same rite of reception that even Saint Philaret of New York had to go through when he was received back into ROCOR after his captivity within the Soviet Moscow Patriarchate in Harbin, China. What this primary source document tells us is that, all the way into the late 1990s and 2000s, and before the false union, ROCOR still recognized the Soviet Moscow Patriarchate as a schismatic and illegitimate organization rather than as a true expression of the free Russian Church. Only later would certain pusillanimous hierarchs, moved by fear, calculation, or ecclesiastical compromise, capitulate to the very system the Russian Church Abroad had long resisted and thereby betray the eighty-year legacy entrusted to them.
Now, in another section of the same volume entitled “Church Life,” the rejection and prohibition of ecumenist activities is explicitly stated. Only members of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and those of the Greek, Bulgarian, and Romanian Old Calendarist Churches are permitted to receive confession and communion. However, in this paragraph, the handbook specifically prohibits even the laity of ROCOR from venturing out and receiving any mysteries outside of the jurisdictions with which they “clearly share official communion,” unless specifically given a blessing by the bishop [10].
This primary source document from the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, prior to its false union with the Soviet Moscow Patriarchate in 2007, clearly shows that there is a stark contrast between the ROCOR of old and the new modernist ROCOR-MP, which is now in communion with the rest of World Orthodoxy. What we see in this document is exactly what those who refused to go along with this false union saw from the very beginning, namely, that old ROCOR maintained the traditions of the Fathers. These truly Orthodox positions were precisely what caused old ROCOR to be denounced and slandered as “schismatic” by the modernist jurisdictions of World Orthodoxy. Yet, in the bitter irony of history, ROCOR-MP now stands in communion with those very same jurisdictions and has become incorporated into the very ecclesiastical apparatus that once condemned the Russian Church Abroad for the confession it had faithfully maintained.
Here we see a Church that recognized the patristic methodology for dealing with heretics, namely, that no ecclesiastical, eucharistic, or prayerful communion could be maintained with the modernist jurisdictions because of their involvement in the World Council of Churches and the pan-heresy of ecumenism. Clergy from those modernist jurisdictions were forbidden from entering ROCOR’s altars; ROCOR laity were prohibited from receiving even the blessing of New Calendarist clergymen or other ecumenists; and those within World Orthodoxy were not permitted to receive confession or communion within the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad.
How starkly different the nine years between 1998 and 2007 proved to be for the once-confessing Russian Church Abroad and its hierarchs, who once “rightly divided the word of truth,” before submitting to Moscow for reasons that must be judged from the historical record and the visible consequences of their actions.
Now contrast what we see within the ROCOR of the 1990s with what we see in the World Orthodox ROCOR-MP of today. Today, the new ROCOR-MP has become exactly what it rejected as late as the 1990s and 2000s. It is now connected to the World Council of Churches through its submission to the Moscow Patriarchate. Metropolitan Nicholas of New York and Bishop Irenei of London, both commonly presented as traditionalists, have openly concelebrated with clergy who belong to the Patriarchate of Antioch, whose bishops are in eucharistic communion with the Syriac Monophysites and regularly participate in joint prayers with various Monophysite jurisdictions [10], [11]. ROCOR-MP now actively endorses the same heretical modernist seminaries that ROCOR clearly avoided for so many years, and it ultimately commemorates a patriarchate in Moscow that participates in the very activities this primary source document directed its clergy to avoid.
