In 1931, Manchuria was occupied by Japanese forces. In 1945 the Soviet armies crushingly defeated the Japanese army, and a communist regime was established in China. For those Russians who were unable to emigrate to the West or to Australia, a period of afflictions and trials began. The Soviet government began to require the Russian emigrants to take Soviet passports, affirming that in the USSR there was no oppression of believers.
The consequent involuntary canonical submission to the Moscow Patriarchate was particularly burdensome for Archimandrite Philaret, so much so that on more than one occasion he was close to laying aside his ministry. It was only his love for his flock that prevented him from taking this course.
At that time the “Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate” declared that in the Soviet Union there was no persecution of the Church, and that the only conflict was with counter-revolutionaries. Furthermore, Lenin was proclaimed “the greatest genius and the benefactor of mankind.” This deeply disturbed Archimandrite Philaret. From the ambon in church he convicted the Moscow Patriarchate of falsehood, but none of the clergy supported him and he was forbidden to preach.
Having been raised in the tradition of the Holy Fathers, the future hierarch was not afraid to stand alone in the defence of God’s righteousness and Church truth. He instructed his children regarding the true situation of the Church in Soviet lands. Wherever he served, Archimandrite Philaret never once permitted the commemoration of the atheistic and God-fighting powers during the time of the services. Many times he was taken in for interrogation, on one of them they beat him, but this could in no wise change the stance that the future hierarch had taken. Then they set fire to his home, having first sealed up the windows and the door on the ground floor. But the Lord preserved the life of the zealous pastor, and he was able to escape in safety from it all by jumping from the first floor through the flames that were engulfing the house. However, he did suffer severe burns, and the lower part of his face was injured and the vertebrae in his neck.
Vladyka did not abandon his flock until all who had the opportunity to obtain visas had managed to get out of China. Thus it was only in 1962 that he left for Hong Kong. The Synod of Bishops of the Russian Church Abroad had secured permission for him to leave.
Soon thereafter he re-settled in Australia, in Brisbane. In 1963 he became a Vicar Bishop in Australia. In 1964, Bishop Philaret attended the All-Diaspora Assembly of Hierarchs, which was held in New York. The Metropolitan Anastasy was then in deep old age and was going into retirement, and the Synod had by way of an election to resolve the question of a successor. The outcome of the election was that two candidates for the Metropolitanate were level pegging. So as to maintain peace in the Church, Archbishop (St) John of Shanghai and San Francisco proposed a third candidate - the relatively unknown Bishop Philaret, who was the most junior according to his consecration; and it was entrusted to him. So, in 1964, the Russian Church Abroad received a new, - the third in succession, - First Hierarch, Metropolitan Philaret.
In his activity as head of the Russian Church Abroad, Vladyka Philaret firmly stood for the Church’s non-intervention and non-participation in the political affairs of the State, thereby rejecting Sergianism, which is the principle of permitting the existence of the Church only on certain political conditions. With his flock, Vladyka forbade their engaging in any work in any way connected with governmental politics. He considered that a churchman could not work where his liberty was impinged upon, where he was required to modify his views as a Christian in accordance with any kind of ideological demand.
Vladyka Philaret’s first achievement during his tenure as First Hierarch was bringing peace and quelling discord within the Church Abroad. He devoted all his energies to establishing this, both in the earthly sense and in the highest spiritual sense. Metropolitan Philaret’s time as primate was marked by five Glorifications of Saints by the Russian Church Abroad: the Holy and Righteous John of Cronstadt (1964), the Venerable Herman of Alaska (1970), the Holy and Blessed Xenia of Petersburg (1978), the Assembly of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia (1981), and the Venerable Paisius Velichkovsky (1982).
Vladyka Philaret was a true pillar, guarding the purity of the teachings of the True Church. Refuting the “Branch Theory,” he thereby defended Orthodoxy from the danger of the heresy of Ecumenism. In 1969, 1972 and 1975, Metropolitan Philaret addressed the heads of the Local Churches with “Sorrowful Epistles,” cautioning the Archpastors against the heresy of Ecumenism and religious modernism. With his customary patience and meekness, Vladyka strove to defend church truth, but his voice was not heard. In 1983, the Assembly of Bishop anathematized Ecumenism.
