The Enemies of Russian Orthodox Unity
Foreword
It is now no longer a matter of years or months until the Fourth Council of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR), but of weeks and days. It is now clear that those opposed to the re-establishment of eucharistic communion between the Moscow Patriarchate (MP) and ROCOR share the same argument: that it is 'premature', 'not yet time', 'too early', that the process has been 'rushed'. In other words, they admit the inevitability of the event, it is only the timing which is at stake. Some of them forget that there are others who, contrary to them, believe that eucharistic communion should have been re-established earlier, after the Moscow 'Council of Repentance' in August 2000.
Apart from the few extremists who do not wish to belong to the Church anyway, but only to a sect, the majority of those opposed to the re-establishment of eucharistic communion appear to be split into three groups, described below:
The Old Communists
These form a small fringe minority within the Moscow Patriarchate and often belong to parishes of the MP outside Russia. They are often elderly and nostalgic for what they imagine to be the glorious past of the powerful Soviet Union and have not kept up to date with events in contemporary Russia. They remember Soviet Russia as it was when they were young, not as it is. From childhood and youth, many of them admiringly remember Stalin. Nostalgic for their past, they can see no reason why the Moscow Patriarchate should make any concession to what they see as a reactionary 'White Guard' Church. In reality, these people are living not in the past, but in a past which never existed.
They still refuse to accept what even Khrushchev revealed about the horrors of Stalin, let alone what opened archives have revealed since. Cradled by the myths of Soviet nationalism (and myths they are), they have not accepted the repentance of the MP, as demonstrated at the Moscow Council of the Year 2000, with its rejection of Sergianism and ecumenism and, above all, what was effectively its recognition of the 1981 ROCOR canonization of the New Martyrs and Confessors. Fundamentally pro-Soviet, these left-wing 'Old Communists' are in fact anti-Russian, for the Soviet Union was the only real 'enemy of the people', whether Slav people or others.
That, after all, is why the Soviets abolished the name of Russia and so viciously persecuted the Russian Orthodox Church. For the Church is, and always has been and always will be the only spiritual and moral mainstay of the Russian people. That is why Russia so needs the Church today, in order to combat the threefold plagues of abortion, alcoholism and the mafia, brought on it by generations of Soviet atheism. To destroy Russia, you must first destroy the Russian Church. All Russia's enemies know that, which is why all Russia's friends do their utmost to build up the Russian Church.
The
Old Capitalists
On the other hand, there are minority fringes of ROCOR, sometimes inhabited
by the retired warriors of the Cold War from the Western side. Ever grateful
for the refuge given them in the West, and also for sometimes well-paid
jobs in Western secret services like the CIA, many of them too are nostalgic
for the past of their childhood and youth. Then, during the Cold War,
everything was clear; there was black and white. However, when Communism
collapsed, they failed to discern that, at heart, the Western governments
for which they had worked so loyally, were not content. The real goal
of those governments had never been the collapse of Communism, but actually
the collapse of Russia.
The 'Old Capitalists' forget that the Bolshevik Revolution itself had been financed from New York and supported by the German sealed train with the demon inside. They forget that the finance and technology which enabled Communism to survive for seventy-five Babylonian years had come from the West. They forget that the elimination of Russia has always been the aim of the West, because a prosperous Russia, with its huge natural resources, is a rival. It was never a coincidence that as soon as the Russian Empire had been knocked out of the First World War, the United States entered it, rescuing Western Europe from its lunatic bloodshed, but also ensuring US world domination for the rest of the twentieth century.
The present policies of Western governments, as the Russophobe Polish-American Zbigniew Brzezhinsky openly admits, are centred on destroying the Russian Federation by financing and organizing the 'coloured revolutions' on its edges. Thus, tens of millions of dollars pour in from Washington, Brussels and the Soros Foundation in order to destabilize the Russian Federation, the Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia and any other countries where Orthodoxy is being restored. To be anti-Soviet was undoubtedly a virtue, but it is not possible to be anti-Soviet when the Soviet Union no longer exists. Through their right-wing politics, some of these 'Old Capitalists' now actually risk falling into the error of their former employers - being anti-Russian and therefore anti-Church. And that, when you yourself are Russian, would be called suicide.
The Old Liberals
Finally, there is one other ageing group which is violently opposed to Russian Orthodox unity. These are the so-called 'liberals', stuck in the ecumenism of the outdated 1960s and 1970s. They are to be found everywhere, on the fringes of the MP both inside and outside Russia, but especially in eccleiastical groups outside the MP and ROCOR. These Renovationists, or rather Neo-Renovationists, have always been opposed to the integrity of Russian Orthodoxy, which is why, in one way or another, they left the Russian Church. These are the spiritual heirs of the 'Living Church', whose greatest desire is to see the MP 'modernized' according to the secular Western humanist model, and see ROCOR so isolated that no-one will ever speak of it again. Their greatest fear is to see the two independent parts of the Russian Orthodox Church in spiritual communion, working harmoniously together.
Whether in Istanbul or Paris, in London or New York, the combination of these hostile forces and illegitimate children of the Russian Church, who broke away from Her in various ways, physically or spiritually, have never loved Russia. Their forefathers rejoiced at the fall of the Monarchy in 1917. They rejoiced again when the Phanar recognised the Bolshevik-manipulated Renovationists and broke off from the holy confessor Patriarch Tikhon in the 1920s. In the froth of pseudo-intellectualism and bourgeois comfort, their spiritual superficiality blinds them to what is at stake: the eternal salvation of millions of souls.
Unlike the Old Communists and the Old Capitalists, the Old Liberals are neither to the left, nor to the right of the political spectrum. They are merely spiritually irrelevant, floating on the drift-tides of Western secular fashions, the 'fleshly reasoning' described by the Apostle Paul. For decades the liberals have preached shallow humanism, persecuting and slandering all in the MP or ROCOR, who have faithfully followed the Russian Orthodox Tradition against all odds. But now they tremble, for they see their reign of tyranny - and there is no greater tyranny than liberalism - coming to an end. They are the common enemy of the future, because their aim is the destruction of the Russian Orthodox Tradition, to which we jointly witness.
Afterword
All three groups above are ageing. These cliques look to the past, not to the present or the future. For long now, they have held sway, blocking spiritual progress towards normal Church life.
Whatever their viewpoint, the enemies of Russian Orthodox Unity are unmistakably recognisable, for they have two things in common: their intense lack of love for Russia and their intense lack of love for the Russian Orthodox Tradition. Wherever you find that lack of love, there you will find our common enemies.
Fr Andrew
New
Hieromartyr Theodore (+ 1938)
21
March/3 April 2006
