ROCOR: "The 1923 RENOVATIONIST SCHISM": FIRST Communist Plot To Capture the Russian Church: #1 link: Russian original text: "On the Renovationist Schism"...and then English: a relatively decent machine-English translation of this text- Rd. Daniel
From: Dan Everiss <oregdan@hotmail.com>
Time:
2021-12-23 18:52 GMT-06:00
RUSSIAN ORIGINAL TEXT: -which for those who read Russian, this text might be somewhat easier to fully understand!
http://internetsobor.org/index.php/istoriya/russkaya-pravoslavnaya-tserkov/istoriya-rpts/1923
Rough & Improved MACHINE-ENGLISH TRANSLATION:
“Epistle of a group of bishops on: [the Bolshevik Inspired and Utilized TO DESTROY THE CANONICAL RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH from WITHIN]: The Renovationist Schism (1923)”
Author: Metropolitan Agafangel. Date of publication:December 23, 2021... Category: History of the Russian Orthodox Church .
TO: Bishops of the one Orthodox Catholic Russian Church to our brothers-in-law bishops, the most reverent clergy and all the faithful and God-loving church people, grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
"The society of priests, bound by the bonds of mutual harmony and unity, says the blessed martyr and primate of the Carthaginian Church, St. Cyprian, in order to be numerous, and to prevale when under attack, so that, in the event of an attempt by some persons, even… from amongst us, to divide, torment and scatter the flock of Christ, others in the church would oppose them and, as caring and merciful shepherds, they gathered the Lord's sheep into one flock "(St. Cyprian).
By God's permission, may the secret thoughts of hearts be revealed, and in our native Church, certain bishops and clergy rose up, who made a grievous division in her and dared to truly torment and scatter the flock of Christ.
Conscious of our duty to oppose them and gather the sheep of the Lord's pasture into a single flock of Christ, we now turn our word to the entire Russian Church.
The Church of Christ, His animated Body, is one and only, and in it only the spiritual forces and the grace of God, flowing from her Head, our Lord Jesus Christ, abide and act. Its inseparability is preserved through the unity of the successive hierarchy…its APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION.
A separate diocese is one Church if it is headed by one bishop canonically/legally appointed and having continuous apostolic succession. Anyone else who, in the existence of the former, who wishes to seize the bishop's powers and gather under his leadership a part of the flock, splits the diocese and cuts its single body in two, but since the Church is one, then of the two communities formed, headed by two opposing bishops who are not in communion with each other, really the Church, the owner of the grace of God, is only one, and it is the one that follows her legitimate bishop, the same one that left him, recognized the authority of another bishop over himself, seized by him on his own, not the Church, but a graceless schismatic community , and the bishop at the head of it is not the “second bishop”, because he is not a bishop at all.
Separate dioceses joined together constitute the Local Church, which has its own independent head in the person of the Primary/Primate Bishop, Patriarch or Metropolitan. It is One when all the other bishops of the region obey him within the limits specified by the church canons/rules and are in spiritual communion with him, the external sign of which is the exaltation/elevation of the name of the Primate in the divine secret/prokomedia service of the Holy Liturgy. If, however, in the Local Church, along with its legal head, some other “supreme ecclesiastical authority” arises that has not received authority from the Chief Hierarch and is not in communion with him, and a part of the bishops and the clergy and people led by them, join this rebellious invalid “authority” through recognition, then there is a division of the Local Church into two associations, of which only one, is the sole canonical local church, and precisely why?- because it is headed by a canonically/legally appointed hierarch.
Finally, a Local Church is a part of the One Ecumenical Church only if its primate occupies his high position according to the canons/rules of the Church, having a canonical succession of power, and has inter-communion with the Primate of other Local Churches. If the supreme ecclesiastical authority of the Local Church does not have legal powers, if it is not recognized by the heads of other Orthodox Churches and is not accepted by them into the communion of love, then the entire Local Church is rejected from the single body of the Universal Church.
Until the spring of last year, the entire Orthodox population of Russia constituted a single Church, an inseparable branch of the Catholic/Universal Church. Its Primate, His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, was elected in compliance with all canonical rules by the Free-Local Council of The one Russian Church. His spiritual authority, recognized by all the ruling bishops, combined them into a single whole. Immediately, upon his election, our Primate addressed a district epistle to the Eastern Patriarchs and Metropolitans of the Orthodox Churches, informing them of the restoration of The Patriarchate in Russia, (which had been replaced by The Holy Synod, by Czar Peter the Great) and upon his election he was received by them into communion and notified of this with reciprocal messages, and his name, as a sign of unity, began to be proclaimed at the services of the entire Orthodox East. But in May of the past year, two unworthy bishops and several of the same priests dissolved this unity and produced in the Russian Church, a schism.
Brought to trial (by the new Bolshevik government) and subjected to preliminary imprisonment, His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon could not thus personally or physically fulfill his pastoral duties and considered it necessary to transfer all his powers, at the time of his forced “retirement”, to His Eminence Agafangel, Metropolitan of Yaroslavl. But Metropolitan Agafangel, who agreed to take on this assignment, could not, due to circumstances beyond his control, to physically come to Moscow and start fulfilling his duties. Taking advantage of the fact that the flock of Christ, although it has a legal primate, but in reality is not ruled by him or his deputy, Bishops Antonin and Leonid, with the priests Vvedensky, Krasnitsky, Kalinovsky, Belkov and others arbitrarily declared themselves “The Supreme Church Authority” and formed themselves into the so-called “Higher Church Administration”. Acting like this they violated the 16th rule of the Council of Antioch, which commands the expulsion of bishops who invade a foreign church and enthrall/seize its episcopal throne without the permission of a perfect/canonical-Council/SOBOR. They aggravated more so, thus the guilt of their illegal and arbitrary seizure of the highest church power, by their deceit, announcing to the general public that they had “begun governing the Church by agreement with the Patriarch”. Now this deception is exposed by the message of July 15 of this year, in which His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon publicly testified that they received from him permission ONLY to “put the office in order”, but NOT to administer the Church nor of their announcing to the general public that they had begun to rule the Church by agreement with the Patriarch.
Since the unity of the Church is based on the co-communion of bishops among themselves, followed by their faithful flocks in obedience to them, the Rules of The Ecumenical Councils established that a new bishop should not be appointed without the consent of all the bishops of the region and with the approval of its Primate (I Vsev. Sob., Pr. 4 and 6 ; VII All. Sob., Ave. 3; Antioch. Sob., Ave. 19). Therefore, the consecration of a bishop becomes canonical not only when the consecration is performed by two or three bishops having apostolic succession, but also when the consecrating bishops perform the sacrament as authorized by the Primate of the Church and the Council of Bishops. Bishops Antonin and Leonidas, who arbitrarily and deceitfully put themselves in the place of the Primate of the Russian Church, first of all took care of creating their own hierarchy, completely separate from both the Patriarch and the entire canonical Russian episcopate, and for this they began non-canonical/illegitimate episcopal consecrations without the blessing of the head of our Church and against the will of other bishops. They themselves declared this openly in their official publication, the “Zhivaya Tserkov” magazine, in which they wrote: “Our main attention was paid to preserving the correct episcopal consecration. Their, so-called “Higher Church Administration” had only two bishops, Antonin and Leonidas, and there was no hope for them to add others, might then openly boycott the “New Office”. It was necessary to secure for themselves an added “episcopal spring” (No. 3, p. 10). After the consecration of Archpriest I. Albinsky to be a bishop, the same publication organ announced to its supporters: "The main event of church life in the recent period of time is the consecration of the first bishop in ‘its own sense’-"-i.e. one not a previous bishop already, (ibid., No. 3, p. 1), this consecration did not interrupt apostolic succession, but it excluded the canonical succession of power, because it was accomplished without the blessing of the Patriarch and the consent of the bishops of the Russian Church. From such initiations, contrary to the rules of the Church, a whole illegal hierarchy soon arose, consisting of ‘bishops’ not in communion with the legitimate hierarchy.
Having seized the supreme power in the Church, Bishop Antoninus and his associates demanded obedience and recognition of their authority from all the bishops and priests of the “old consecration”…i.e. those already consecrated valid bishops in the pre-revolutionary Russian Church. Part of the bishops and priests bowed to their demands, partly due to a misunderstanding and being misled by their deceptive assurances that they had received their authority from the hands of His Holiness the Patriarch, and…partly through weakness, frightening threats, and also partly because of the neglect of their priestly duties to be keepers of the flock from misappropriation authority of false teachers, but most of the bishops, by the grace of God, remained faithful to their duty. Bishops who refused to obey the illegal ecclesiastical authority were declared by it, as dismissed from their chairs and they then suffered more or less severe persecution. In their place, “bishops” of a new non-canonical consecration: chosen from widowed priests or of currently-married parishpriests, were appointed without the consent of the people. Thus, two hierarchies that did not communicate with each other appeared in the Russian Church. By this, the church unity and the union of love were destroyed, but there has not yet been an obvious and for all a clear gap/divide between this self-appointed priesthood and the full-fledged head of the Russian Church. This break took on a well-defined form when the illegal church authorities issued a decree on the termination of the commemoration of the Patriarch during divine services. for the elevation in the Divine Liturgy of the name of the Primate in the Proskomedia, and in front of the congregation at the Great Entrance, which is a sign of communion with him. This violated the 15th rule of the Two-fold Council, which, while protecting church unity, threatens to defrock every metropolitan, bishop and presbyter who, in the event of any accusation brought against the Patriarch, will cease to proclaim his name during the divine service, until the council considers this charge. and the final condemnation of the Patriarch by a lawful Council.
After that, within the boundaries of our fatherland, two churches, as it were, were formed, agreeing in their external faith and rituals, but not being in spiritual communion with each other: the Church, headed by its legitimate Primate, His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, and through him, remembered in prayers in the East, united with the entire Universal/Catholic Church, and a religious association, headed by an illegal ecclesiastical authority, which called itself at that time "The Supreme Church Administration", with the hierarchy that was also established by it, also illegal. But the Church of God is one, and there can not be two Churches for the same territory that are not in communion with each other. Thus, one of them IS THE CHURCH, but, in the words of St. Cyprian, those others in rebellion: are in fact, “NOT THE CHURCH, BUT ONLY a simple congregation”. And for all it is clear and indisputable which of the two indicated associations is not the Church. Of course the one that is headed by the power of the non-canonical/illegal ones… is not the church.
The pretext for such a separation from the One Russian Orthodox Church, headed by His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, Bishop Antonin and his supporters offered “the need for church reforms”: a change in the order of church administration, the introduction of a married episcopate, and permission for a second marriage to parish clergy. All these transformations, they claim, do not affect the faith itself or the dogmatic teaching of the Church, and they do not constitute ‘heresy’, as ‘they do not touch the essence of the Church’.
Such divisions of the Church, which violate the unity of the hierarchy "because of opinions about certain church subjects and about issues that can be healed," are called by the Holy Fathers (I St. Basil the Great) a RASKOL/SCHISM- in Greek. On the basis of this, it should be recognized that the so-called “Supreme Church Administration”, which was chaired by rebel Bishop Antoninus, with all the bishops, priests and laity who mistakenly joined him, is a schismatic society that is not in union with the Orthodox Ecumenical Church and is therefore WITHOUT GRACE. . This is what determines the attitude of the members of the Orthodox Universal Church towards “Bishop Antoninus” . Church canons/rules prohibit participation with schismatics in sacraments and prayers, even taking blessings from them,[e.g.“The blessing of a heretic is a curse!”] or of inviting them to perform clerical duties, and even more so, of obeying their authority or of fulfilling their orders.
All of their orders and instructions are invalid, illegal, insignificant, and everyone who obeys them participates in the sin of falling away from the Church and is deprived of the Grace of God. Therefore, those clergy and laity sinned grossly who did not completely reject them.
The illegal ecclesiastical authority, which ruled the Church in the absence of His Holiness the Patriarch, convened the so-called "Second Local Council" of the Russian Church. Since all of its orders are illegal and invalid, then this meeting is not an Orthodox Council through which the Spirit of God acts, but a graceless gathering of schismatics and their supporters.
According to the rules of the Church (20 ave. Antioch. Sob.), The Council/SOBOR must be convened by the Primary Bishop of the region. Therefore, a legal Council of the Russian Church could only be one that was convened either by His Holiness the Patriarch himself, or by his Deputy, Metropolitan Agafangel, and since the invitation to the Council came from a schismatic organization that did not belong to the Church, only those who acted absolutely CORRECTLY from the canonical point of view: those Orthodox parishes and individuals who imputed the orders of the so-called “Higher Church Administration” as NOTHING, and not only did not take part in the Council itself, but also avoided taking part in the election of delegates to that Council. This Council was not Orthodox in its composition either.
Some of the bishops who came to this Council did not themselves have a canonical consecration. This is a group of Siberian bishops, ordained in violation of canon 12 of the Trulli Council who were, married priests. All of them (with the exception of Pyotr Blinov) were consecrated with the participation of the former Bishop of Kirensk - Zosima Sidorovskiy, who resigned as early as 1920, renouncing his monastic vows and married, and then by the Siberian Church Administration they invited him, again, to re-take the episcopal see, and therefore their “dedication” of him-i.e. “restoring him as a bishop”, cannot be recognized as valid. The incorrectness of their ordination was recognized even by their supporters, who arranged for them before the beginning of the Council on May 2, on the day of Prepolovedeniye, in the Zaikonospassky monastery, in obvious violation of the 68th canon of the Holy Apostles, some kind of strange newly created “additional consecration” , hitherto unheard of in the Christian Church. ...
Further, the institution that convened the Council made sure that only supporters of the parties who had split from the Church could enter into its composition.
According to § 6 of the Regulations on the convocation of this Council ["Regulations on the convocation of the local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1923". Living Church. 1923, 1 Feb., No. 11 (1), p. 2-4], its members could not be persons "convicted by the ecclesiastical court during the period of the Renovationist movement." This paragraph excludes all Orthodox bishops from participating in the Council, since all of them were deprived of their sees (by the Bolsheviks) during the period of the Renovationist movement; meanwhile, throughout the dioceses, the Orthodox population recognized as their legitimate pastors the bishops of the old consecration, who stood firmly against the schism that had arisen, and treated the bishops sent by the new church authority with distrust, indignation and disrespect. Thus, Orthodox bishops, actual witnesses of the faith of their churches, were NOT admitted to the Council, and the primates of the Orthodox dioceses were schismatic bishops who did not have any religious and moral ties with the believing people. On the other hand, the regulation introduces to the Council without any elections, by appointment, whole groups of people who could not but be supporters of a split/schism. This includes: all members of the so-called “Supreme Church Administration” (§ 37), regional church administrations of Siberia and Ukraine (§ 38), all authorized representatives of the Supreme Church Administration under diocesan bishops (§ 39), central committees of renovation groups (§ 43), 25 persons at the invitation of the Supreme Church Administration (§ 40), which, moreover, reserved the right, at its own discretion, to replace a person “unable for any reason to participate in the Council”, i.e. by him, under some pretext, removed (§ 41), and "
The application of all the above paragraphs, according to the official count announced by the Secretariat of the Council at the meeting on May 4, gave out of the total number of 476 members of the Council - 189 persons whose belonging to the Renovationist parties cannot be subject to any doubt, namely 63 bishops, 6 members of the Supreme Church Administration, 33 members of the Central Committee of the Living Church Party, 20 members of the Central Committee of the Union of Communities of the Ancient Apostolic Church, 12 members of The Church Revival Party, 56 delegates.
The total of the members of the Council who were elected to the Council reaches 23%. But even in this group, only the followers of the schism could have a decisive predominance, partly because the Orthodox parishes, which were fully aware of what was happening, did not recognize the order of the invaders of church power as valid, nor that the Council convened by them was legitimate, and they did not take part in the elections itself, but the main proof that the elections were not free, and thus were invalid, as is well known to everyone, was proved to all, without any further explanation. Thanks to these measures taken, only 45 so-called non-partisans could go to the Council for elections. These are Orthodox Christians who have departed from strictly canonical principles, which forbid entering into any kind of relationship with schism, and who took part in the Council in order to defend the traditions of the Church there. Thus, they are so-called "
This Council was not Orthodox in its activity either. Ecumenical Councils (Trul. Sob. 6, 1; 7, 1) command the Churches to strictly keep the canons of the Councils of the Ecumenical and Local Regional Councils and the rules of the Holy Fathers, adopted by the Eastern Church to guide the ordering of life and collected in the Book of Canons/Rules/”The Rudder”. One of the leading parties at the Council, in its very program, demands the drawing up of "a new code of rules, which should be followed in place of the outdated Book of Rules" (program of the union of “The Ancient Apostolic Communities” § 14). But the entire Council as a whole reveals a complete disregard for the authority of the Ecumenical Church, adopting such decrees as the introduction of a married episcopate and the second marriage of parish clergy, contrary to the ecumenical canons (Trul. Sob., Pr. 3, 6, 12. Apostolic pr. 17).
The cathedral/Sobor was organized like a representative assembly of a political nature. Elections for it took place according to the lists submitted for the ballot by the parties (§ 29), the seats at the Council were distributed according to the number of votes cast for each list (§ 24). Arriving at the Council, its members immediately split into party groups, which decided how each should in unison vote on the issues proposed for discussion. These groups have introduced discipline among themselves, by virtue of which anyone who allows himself to vote against a resolution adopted by the majority of its supporters is excluded from the party (the case of a member of the Living Church party, Novikov, who was expelled from it for violating this requirement of party discipline) (Living Church ", No. 11, p. 21). Thus, the members of the Council did not cast their votes in the way that their conscience prompted them, or not according to their own understanding, but as decided by the majority of their parties. And this is, supposidly, in the work of faith, where the human soul comes face to face with God and the Truth, and where only personal responsibility is effective. That is why its members came to the meetings of the Council not to clarify the truth in the spirit of brotherly love, but with a ready-made decision, which only needed to be confirmed by voting. That is why the Council, having resolved all the issues in 6 days, expressing impatience, as can be seen from its very minutes, and with frantic shouts which forced to interrupt the speeches not only of those who opposed the predetermined decisions, but also those who, in their reports, wanted to give themselves the ecclesiastical justification. Finally, matters proceeded according to the violence committed by the parties that seized church power in their own hands, at the elections and at the Council itself,
The resolution of the assembly, which is non-Orthodox in its convocation, composition and activity, cannot have any binding force for the members of the Orthodox Church, and must be completely rejected by them, even if in essence they may not have contained anything reproachful, however, since accepting them: is tantamount to falling into schism.
From the decisions of the schismatic Council, according to the circumstances of the present time, special attention is drawn to the decision on the deprivation of the Patriarch of his priesthood and of his monasticism. If this Council had not been schismatic, had been Orthodox, then its decree concerning the Patriarch could not have been recognized as legal on the following grounds:
1) The trial of the Patriarch was not initially envisaged among the tasks of the Council, indicated in cl. 2-4 Regulations on its convocation, and therefore for many members of the Council, delegates from distant dioceses, that subject was a complete surprise to them when they arrived in Moscow. As a result, they could not receive any pre-instructions on this subject from the churches that sent them to the Council.
2) For the trial of the Patriarch, the Council of bishops subordinate to him is not enough. The canonical rules do not give, however, a direct indication of what the composition of the Council should be in this case, however, according to the spirit and meaning of the canons of such content, this must be admitted: That- the same conclusion follows, for example, from Canon I of the III Ecumenical Council, according to which, “if there is a need for a council trial over a regional metropolitan, his case is subject to consideration not only by the bishops of the metropolitanate, but also by the neighboring metropolitans. If for the correct trial of one of the regional metropolitans the Council of the canonically subordinate bishops of the region is recognized as insufficient, the participation of hierarchs equal to the defendant in terms of the powers of church-government authority is required”, then it is clear that with regard to the Patriarch as the head of this Local Church, the only legitimate composition of the conciliar court will be one that will include, along with the bishops subordinate to him, the Eastern Patriarchs, or at least some of them. The correctness of this conclusion is confirmed by a well-known case from our past, when the local Council of 1660 was not enough for the trial of Patriarch Nikon, and the presence at the Great Moscow Council of 1666-1667 was required: two Eastern Patriarchs. And according to the decision of the 1917-1918 Moscow All-Russian Council/Sobor , which restored the patriarchate, the trial of a Patriarch is carried out by the All-Russian Council of Bishops, with the invitation, if possible, of other Patriarchs and primates of the Autocephalous Churches.
3) In the trial of the Patriarch itself, the most flagrant violation of canonical requirements is ‘conviction in absentia’ without an explanation or self-defense from the accused, or merely based on: according to the reports of three untrustworthy accusers, without checking them by free discussion/investigating them by the members of the Council. Canon 74 of the Holy Apostles requires that every bishop must …and repeatedly be THREE TIMES invited to the Council for his personal explanations, and only in case of his repeated refusals to appear at the court, - after three repeated invitations, the Council may hear his case, “in absentia”. This rule was strictly observed in the ancient Church. The same procedure is adopted in our Church. At the Moscow Council of 1917-1918, the meeting of bishops began to consider the case of former Bishop Vladimir Putyata, in absentia, only after he did not appear at the trial after three consecutive invitations. Thus, it is absolutely necessary not only with the canons, but also in this case, when the three leaders of our church turmoil acted as the accusers of the Most Holy Patriarch: Archpriests Vvedensky and Krasnitsky and Bishop Antonin, who arbitrarily seized a foreign (Moscow) diocese/See, in spite of the 16 Rights. Antiochus Council/Cathedral. But such persons cannot in any way be recognized as "worthy" accusers, as required by Canon 74 of The Holy. Apostles. Their inadmissibility in this case follows with indisputable evidence from Canon 6 of the Second Ecumenical Council, which prescribes, during the trial of a bishop accused of church guilt, not to allow persons to bring accusations against Orthodox bishops, "even if they profess our faith sensibly, but separate and gather meetings against properly appointed bishops.” This rule does not allow or accept the testimonies of schismatic accusers of Orthodox bishops,
Finally, there was no investigation of the charges brought against the Patriarch at the Council at all. His trial consisted in the fact that three accusatory speeches were delivered against him - Vvedensky, Krasnitsky and Bishop Antonin. But their accusations were not confirmed either by questioning of witnesses or by examination of documents.
According to the rules approved for itself by the Council, at its first business meeting, on the morning of May 2, two speakers are given the floor on all proposals - one "for" and the other "against" (§ 5). This order was maintained on all issues, except for the trial of the Patriarch. In the same case, they limited themselves to only three speeches against the accused, after which the question of his guilt was immediately put to a vote, despite the fact that more than 100 memos demanding the floor were submitted to the chairman of the Council! The condemnation of His Holiness the Patriarch was not the result of a correct judicial examination of his case, but was predetermined before any court, and the best proof of this is the questionnaire offered to all members of the Council for filling out before the beginning of his studies and serving as a condition for their admission to the Council. By filling out this form, each had to write how he felt about the deprivation of the Patriarch of his priestly dignity. Thus, the members of the Council, the future judges of the Patriarch, demanded a definite answer to the question of his guilt before the very judicial investigation.
The rules of the Church (28 Apostles, 4 and 12 Antiochus. Sob.) Establish that a bishop who has been defrocked at the Council is obliged to obey his sentence and not begin the priesthood until his case is reviewed by a larger Council, i.e. , not a Sobor/Council consisting of merely a greater number of local bishops, but by the Council of a wider ecclesiastical area. A bishop condemned by the Council of the Metropolitanate may demand a review of his case at the Regional Council, in which the bishops of several metropolises take part. According to these rules, His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, in the event of his condemnation by the Orthodox Council of the Russian Church, could ask for a reconsideration of his case to the Ecumenical Council or, at least, to the Council of his local Church, but with the participation of the Eastern Patriarchs and primates of other Orthodox Churches. But these rules are not applied in the present case of Patriarch Tikhon, because they define and mean- Orthodox, and not heretical or schismatic councils. Cathedral/Councils in -absentia, such as deposed St. John Chrysostom, were a revision of the definitions of which that Holy Father sought at another Council, consisted of the bishops of the wicked, power-hungry, vengeful, vicious, but, no doubt, catholic bishops. The council that condemned Patriarch Tikhon was a schismatic council. Recognizing the validity of his definitions, (if he had) the Patriarch would have then submited to the illegitimate authority he knew it be and would himself commit the sin of falling away from the Ecumenical Church, for which the clergy and laity are now accused, who surrendered themselves under the authority of the illegitimate “Supreme Church Administration”, drawn up by renegade Bishop Antonin, and his Council. Moreover, the 28th rule of The Holy Apostles referred to requiring the bishop to submit to the Council only if the accused was deposed on it correctly and for obvious guilt. His Holiness the Patriarch was deposed unrighteously, in violation of the basic rules of church legal proceedings, and therefore is not subject to this rule. And Balsamon, interpreting this canon, says:
“Having revealed in everything previously stated the Orthodox teaching on the unity of the Orthodox Catholic Church and having given a historical survey of the events that have brought division into our church life, with their canonical assessment, we consider it our pastoral duty to make the following solemn declaration before the entire Russian Church.
1) The only undoubtedly legitimate bearer of supreme power in the Orthodox Russian Church before the convening of a cononical Local Council is His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, elected by the 1917=18 Moscow First Local All-Russian Council in compliance with all church rules and accepted into communion by the Eastern Patriarchs and primates of all Autocephalous Orthodox Churches; submission to his spiritual leadership and communion with him in prayer, sacraments, faith and love is an indispensable condition for the preservation of the unity of the Russian Church and its union with the Universal Church.
2) The ecclesiastical movement that arose in May last year, following the removal of His Holiness the Patriarch from affairs, initiated by Bishops Antonin and Leonid, priests Vvedensky, Krasnitsky, Kalinovsky, Belkov and others, and united into a whole religious organization with special supreme management and a special hierarchy, does not constitute a part of the Orthodox Russian Church, but is a community that has broken away from it and constitutes a schism.
3) The highest government institution of this schismatic community, which is its initiator and organizer, which has seized church power on its own without any canonical succession and authority, by violence and deception, and therefore it is illegal and has no canonical justification.
4) The hierarchy, which received its origin from the bishops Antonin and Leonidas, as arising without the knowledge and consent of the Primate of the Russian Church and His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, and in violation of the church canons, prescribing celibacy for bishops, is illegal, and therefore must be rejected.
5) The so-called "Second Local Council" of the Russian Church, convened in May of this year, is not an Orthodox Council, but by its convocation, composition and activity is a collection of schismatic bishops, clergy and laity who have broken away from the Church.
6) All types of religious communion with an arbitrary hierarchy are a grave sin against church unity and falling away from the Orthodox Church into schism. Therefore, we call on all the faithful children of the Orthodox Catholic Church to refrain in every way from communicating with its representatives in prayer and sacraments, not to invite them to correct their needs, not to support their churches and chapels with monetary donations, and most of all, not to obey any decrees of the schismatic Council and the Supreme Council elected by their church council.
Fulfilling in this epistle our duty to edify the Church of the Lord, according to her Sacred Traditions and the Truth of the Word of God, we turn our hearts first of all to you, our beloved co-servants and fellow servants of our sorrows and patience, the bishops of the Universal/Catholic Church, who courageously rejected this pernicious schism. The bishopric in the Church of Christ is one, and each bishop participates in it integrally. Therefore, we would not allow ourselves to make this appeal without consulting you, if, due to the circumstances of the time, such a consultation was easy and if we were not sure that each of us, while remaining faithful to the holy CANONS/Rules of the Church, cannot but share our thoughts. And now we call you, wherever you are, when our word reaches you, to add your unblemished voice to the true conversion of our humility,
With sorrow and heartfelt sympathy, our love also turns to you, leaders and voluntary and involuntary accomplices of division, with whom so recently we entered the House of God with one mind for prayer. We urge you to realize your sin, cleanse yourself with repentance and turn to the One Church. May the labor of repentance not confuse you, for it, setting the line between our past and our future, protects us from new temptations and new falls. The Church of God does not consist of only the clergy and not of one people of God, but of both the clergy and the laity together, and therefore the exploits and sins of the church community are the common cause of concern for the whole. Shepherds, do not place the blame on the flock, for it is your duty to lead, not to be led. Please, do not place the blame on the shepherds alone, but ask your conscience if you have always supported them with the due force of persuasion and selflessness. Shepherds and flock, cover mutual sins with mutual repentance and oblivion of the past, in order to grow in mutual love according to the age of Christ. The leaders of the movement that split our Church, suppress in yourself, by the power of the Holy Spirit, who calls to everyone’s personal feelings, if you have them, and turn not to us, oh no, for our unworthiness, no less than you, we are burdened by the bonds of sin, but to the common Mother of our Church, for, in the words of Saint Cyprian: “To whom the Church is not a Mother, God is not a Father”. What separates us? You find that church government, worship, discipline need transformation, we do not deny either the need for improvements/’reforms’ , nor the right of the Church to make them. But these transformations must be beneficial for the Church, must correspond to her spirit, must be introduced without disregard for the authority of the Universal Faith, must be done with circumspection and deliberately, in order not to seduce a weak brother, and most importantly, they must be made not by force, not by the arbitrariness of the political party spirit, that accidentally gained power, but in the spirit of love and freedom, by the voice of a Council, correctly convened, impartially guided, fearlessly deliberating, graciously listening to every word of even the smallest of its members.
May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God The Father and the communion of The Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
Done no earlier than mid-July and no later than mid-August 1923.
A manuscript recently discovered in the archives of Archbishop Seraphim (Samoilovich) of Uglich. Reprinted according to "Christian Reading" No. 4, 2021, p. 397-409. St. Petersburg, SPbDA Publishing House 2021. Link
The text is adapted to the modern standards of the Russian language.
# RE: Epistle of a group of bishops on the Renovationist schism (1923) - Metropolitan Agafangel 12/23/2021 12:38 PM
An interesting and instructive message from Orthodox bishops who opposed the Renovationist schism. It is still relevant today, it is useful for all modern schismatics to read it. There are 5 points in this message that should be kept in mind by all Orthodox:
1. There can be no "parallel" bishops on the territory of the diocese."Anyone else who, in the existence of the former, wished to seize bishop's powers and gather under his leadership a part of the flock, splits in the diocese and cuts its single body in two, but since the Church is one, then of the two communities formed, headed by two bishops who are not in communication with each other, there is really only one Church, the owner of the grace of God, and it is the one that follows her legitimate bishop, the same one that left him, recognized the authority of another bishop over herself, seized by him on his own, not the Church, but the graceless community, and the bishop at the head of it is not the second bishop, because he is not a bishop at all. "
2. There cannot be "fraternal churches" in one Local Church."If in the Local Church, along with its legal head, some other supreme ecclesiastical authority arises that has not received authority from the Chief Hierarch and is not in communion with him, and part of the bishops and the clergy and people led by them join this authority through recognition , then there is a division of the Local Church into two associations, of which only one, and precisely headed by a legally appointed hierarch, is the One Church and the bearer of the grace of God, and the other is not already the Church, but a graceless community. "
3. If the Local Church is isolated and does not belong to communion with other Local Churches, then this Church does not belong to the number of the One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church."A local Church is a part of the One Universal Church only if its primate occupies his high position according to the rules of the Church, having a canonical succession of power, and has communion with the Primate and other Local Churches. If the supreme ecclesiastical authority of the Local Church does not have legal powers, if it is not recognized by the heads of other Orthodox Churches and is not accepted by them into the communion of love, then the entire Local Church is rejected from the single body of the Universal Church. "
4. To appoint a bishop, “two or three legitimate bishops” are not enough, but the blessing of the Primate of the Church and the Council of Bishops is needed."Canonical ordination of the bishop becomes not only in the case where the ordination commit two or three who have the apostolic succession of bishops, but when the bishops devote celebrate the sacraments as the commissioners of the Primate of the Church and the Council of Bishops.
5. For the trial of the Primate of the Church (or to appeal against the decision Council of Bishops about him), we need a Council, which is attended by the Primates of other Local Churches... “For the trial of the Patriarch, a Council of bishops subordinate to him is not enough. (...) The same conclusion follows, for example, from Canon I of the III Ecumenical Council, according to which, if a council trial of a regional metropolitan is necessary, his case is subject to consideration not only by the bishops of the metropolis, but also the neighboring metropolitans. (...) For the trial of Patriarch Nikon, the local Council of 1660 was not enough - and the presence of two Eastern Patriarchs at the Great Moscow Council of 1666-1667 was required. "
