"Reflections Over The Ruined City"

 X1: English/Russian: Metropolitan Agafangel:"Reflections Over The Ruined City" — about the present divided sad situation of the various anti-MP Fragments from the old free & canonical ROCOR & from The Catacomb Church heritage  

  Time:  Tue, 21 Feb 2023 

(In English + Russian link): Metropolitan Agafangel: “Reflections Over The Ruined City”

Link to Russian language original text:

http://internetsobor.org/index.php/stati/avtorskaya-kolonka/mitropolit-agafangel-razmyshleniya-nad-razrushennym-gorodom

Metropolitan Agafangel: “Reflections Over The Ruined City”

Author: Metropolitan Agafangel. Publication date:February 20, 2023. Category: Author's column .

“When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth”? (Luke 18.8)

We somehow imperceptibly came to a catastrophe of faith.  All of a sudden, there were no real spiritual people, and indeed there is no longer the visible Church of Christ, everything crumbled, mixed up and turned into a homogeneous mass of dubious "religious organizations," not even "jurisdictions" anymore — on a global scale, we really entered the apocalyptic time, when "the woman [Church of Christ] fled into the wilderness" (Rev. 12.6).  "Big churches" denied the mission of Christ on earth, merged with political structures and turned into their spiritually dead appendages, while small church communities finally degraded into numerous dying sects.  That's where the world has come to today.

The very possibility of talking about modern world Local Churches has already disappeared, since it is obvious that they have finally lost their inner freedom and have become part of large global centers that claim to some extent the role of world government, which use these churches as dead pieces on a chessboard.  The heads of these "churches" no longer live by Christ's commandments and are not going to live according to them, despite the fact that, having absorbed practically all existing heresies and vices, like the ancient Pharisees, they only occasionally remember the Testaments of Christ in words.  Their temples have turned into the likeness of museums, divine services have become a staging of sacred rites that were once performed in them, completely devoid of the inner saving grace of Christ.  And that's at best.

Final degradation of the CPI

Degraded not only "official churches,"  but also "alternative."  In the USSR, the TOC — catacombs — lived in special conditions of persecution in a totalitarian state.  It often happened that a priest who found himself in complete isolation bequeathed to his flock not to join anyone else (because of the danger of joining a sect or MP), not to pray with anyone, and not to commune anywhere else.  This is understandable — it is better to partake of the True Body and Blood of Christ, even if many years ago, and die with it, than to taste the "food of demons" to your death.

* * *

Sects, like graceless gatherings, exist in huge numbers (this is something that many people need to start at least thinking about — some now have reached the point that they no longer believe in it).  They even existed in the USSR among the catacombs — in the form of outright self-consecrates and the so-called "self-theists" (name-worshippers who deny church government and church hierarchy).  Now numerous heterogeneous groups who call themselves Christians fill not only the post-Soviet space, but the whole earth.

But, it is precisely among this motley diverse gathering, as we believe, that the true Church of Christ is also located — the Wife who fled into the wilderness, who will remain until the day of the Last Judgment.

How to distinguish a sect from the true Church?

The main heresy that makes a sect a sect is a false attitude to the dogma of the One (one) Church of Christ, and as a direct consequence, self-isolation and extinction.

The attitude of sectarians to the dogma of the Unity of the Church is twofold: the first lie is disbelief in one Church, and the belief that there are now many of them ("the church ship has crashed, and everyone is escaping on chips from this ship" — ROAC primate Theodore (Gineevsky); another lie is the appropriation exclusively for oneself of the title of the entire fullness of the Church (the rite-worshipper "besides our sense there is no more Orthodoxy in the world" -— ROCOR(V) Primate Vladimir (Tselishchev).  There is also a third variant of visible sectarianism — on the instructions of the KGB-FSB, to organize schisms in the Church and bring their "fragments" to extinction (groups led by agents of the KGB-FSB, like Walter-Nazarov in Moscow, or Yuri Lukin in the USA).  But this is not even sectarianism, this is Satanism, a direct struggle with Christ and His Church.

RTOC, ROAC, ROCOR(V), as well as all sects that broke away from them

One can join the Church, but one cannot detach oneself without becoming a schismatic or sectarian.  At one time, a part of the Catacomb Church, not having its own administration and bishops, when a favorable time for this opened, joined the ROCOR in the person of Hieromonk Lazar (Zhurbenko), — this is good (though, refusing to communicate, at the insistence of the same Hieromonk Lazar, to everyone other directions of the catacombs).  But its subsequent separation from ROCOR in the form of the RTOC was already a schism, and for this fact alone, the RTOC are schismatics.  The same can be said about people from the MP represented by Archimandrite Valentin (Rusantsov) — their separation from the Church in the form of the ROAC cannot be defined otherwise than as a schism.  Hopes that this would not last long, as it was allegedly forced by circumstances, did not come true.  Broke off and withered, unfortunately, according to the word of Christ.

So the ROAC and RTOC started out as obvious schismatics.  Archbishop Lazar, having lived in the catacombs for many years, mastered the ecclesiology of the catacombs — there is no Church without a bishop, and, unfortunately, a false conclusion from this formula — where the bishop is, there is the Church.  He often repeated this and firmly believed that where he is, there is the Church.  For him, the main thing was — the correct episcopal consecration — in the catacombs, under conditions of totalitarian persecution, this was traditionally considered sufficient.  In the catacombs — yes, but when the persecution is weakened — no, here paragraph 2 of Decree No. 362 of Patriarch Tikhon comes into force: 

"2) In the event that a diocese (…) finds itself out of any communion with the Supreme Church Administration or the Supreme Church Administration itself (…) ceases its activities, the diocesan Bishop immediately enters into communication with the Bishops of neighboring dioceses with a view to organizing the highest instance of church authority for several dioceses in the same conditions".

In all the catacombs in the USSR in the 1980s, one bishop could not be found, let alone "neighboring bishops."  But when ROCOR and its legitimate bishops became open and accessible, violation of the 2nd paragraph of Decree No. 362 becomes a canonical crime, and violators of this rule put themselves outside the Church, as indicated by the 9th paragraph of this Decree, with them without fail "church communion is interrupted, "as with disobedient ones.  That is, bishops who do not want to enter into communion with other canonical bishops, according to this rule, are schismatics and are outside the Church without hope both for their own salvation and the salvation of all who are with such lawbreakers in communication.

The same can be said not only about the ROAC and RTOC, but also about those who broke away from them, as well as about all those who refuse to comply with paragraphs 2 and 9 of Decree No. 362 - ROCOR (V) and everyone who separated from them.  There can be no doubt that these divided groups, unwilling to establish communion with each other, have degenerated into sects from schismatics to this day.  Among their representatives there are no noticeable leaders — they are not cold and not hot, not smart and not stupid — ordinary people, there are no outstanding theologians, missionaries or ascetics of piety among them.  They have become irresponsible and their conscience is silent, because what is written here, they do not understand in their hearts.  But from those of their ranks who understand, there will be no less severe demand from them on the Day of Judgment than from the schismatic leaders themselves.

The difference between a sect and the Church is that a sect is closed to external Christians, whom Christ acquired with His Blood, and by closing itself off from them, it blocks its path to the Kingdom of God.  Because we have a fundamentally different faith with the sectarians.  They believe that it is possible to withdraw and be saved in isolation, while we believe that we will be saved only in the One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

* * *

Metropolitan Anthony in his article, "The Moral Idea of ​​the Church's Dogma," calls grace the very life of the Church, which is "the life of Christ, which He gave to the Church and which He infuses into the soul of every individual."  The Church, as he writes, through this grace is called to unite disparate personalities into a single human nature renewed by Christ.  Proceeding from such a definition of grace, it follows that there is no saving grace among the schisms of ROCOR, since between them there is absolutely no “centripetal” movement towards Christ.  They have no peace and no desire for unity and, therefore, they do not represent the Christian community in their totality, as some think.

* * *

In the history of a sect, there must be a moment of its separation from the Church (if it was once in It, and not self-formed), a moment of cessation of Eucharistic communion with the Church (since the Church is one in Eucharistic communion).  Each sect is distinguished by belief in self-sufficiency, and the main features of a sect are: a special dogma that "justifies" its separation from the Church (first of all, a false understanding of the dogma about the Church, but other things can be added), and the complete absence of even an internal need for reunion with fullness Church (that is, in fact, with the Church).

The references of the sectarians to the fact that in all administrative disputes the All-Russian Church Council should have the last word is just an excuse to cover up self-isolation, since the Church Council is assembled from among those who are in Eucharistic communion.

* * *

Of course, we believe that we are the Church of Christ, but, unlike a sect, we do not know and do not claim that among the numerous hosts of sectarians there are no other representatives of the true Church, whom we do not know about, but they do not know about us, and therefore we do not get tired of looking for Christians of the same faith with us — just like the catacombs in the USSR were constantly looking for Orthodox people of the same faith.  So far, unfortunately, our search has not been successful.  It is in the striving for Unity in Christ that one of the main distinguishing features of the true Church lies.  If there is no such aspiration, then there is no Christ in the midst of such a closed community.

* * *

Fear not, little flock! for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom (Luke 12:32).

Of course, we do not need to despair about this.  Metropolitan Vitaly said that he believes that all those whom God has prepared for salvation are among our parishioners and those with whom we are in communion.

I believe him, the faithful saint of Christ.

+ Metropolitan Agafangel