The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, 2

The hierarchs, who arrived in Constantinople, immediately appealed to the Locum Tenens of the Œcumenical Throne, Metropolitan Dorotheos of Prusa of blessed memory, with a request to permit them to continue to take care of their Russian flock. This permission was given them by an act of 29th December, 1920. At the beginning of the next year, 1921, at the invitation of the Serbian Patriarch Dimitrije, Metropolitan Antony moved to Serbia, and the Higher Administration of the Russian Church Abroad moved there also. Around him all the hierarchs of the Russian Church and all parts of the Russian Church outside the boundaries of the Russian state then united. The churches which had been in the jurisdiction of the vicar of the Metropolitan of Petrograd were entrusted to Archbishop Evlogy at first by the Temporary Higher Church Administration, and then by Patriarch Tikhon. The ecclesiastical missions in the Far East (China and Japan), and likewise those bishops who had emigrated from Russia to Manchuria, acknowledged themselves as subject to the Church Administration Abroad which had just been formed. In accordance with the desire of Patriarch Tikhon, one of the bishops who had arrived in Constantinople from the south of Russia (Metropolitan Platon) was assigned to America by the same Administration. To this Administration there were likewise subject the Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem and a protopresbyter in Argentina.

The Higher Church Administration which originated in southern Russia in the areas that were then free from Soviet authority, in harmony with the later Ukase [decree] of Patriarch Tikhon of 7th November 1920, was confirmed by the Locum Tenens of the Œcumenical Throne, Metropolitan Dorotheos, and was received in a brotherly way by Patriarch Dimitrije of Serbia, and it became in actual fact the higher Church authority for all Russian churches that were outside the boundaries of Russia.

The Higher Church Administration, in which at first, besides bishops, there were included likewise representatives of the clergy and laity, acknowledged as its supreme chief hierarch Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow, and it viewed its separation from him as temporary and considered itself to be responsible before a future All-Russian Sobor after the liberation of Russia from the atheist regime. Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow recognised the assignments made by the Higher Church Administration abroad. He even gave it orders, for example, concerning the assignment of Metropolitan Platon as diocesan bishop of North America and the conducting of an investigation of Bishop Antony, former priest of the church in Copenhagen, who bad been consecrated bishop in Belgrade.

In November 1921, in Sremsky-Karlovtsky in Yugoslavia the first Sobor abroad was held, in which in addition to 24 bishops, representatives of the clergy and laity took part. Being thus the voice of all Russians who had succeeded in leaving the Soviet authority, the Sobor considered itself obligated to express its opinion regarding the situation in Russia, where all the rest of the population of Russia was languishing under the oppression of that authority. The Sobor appealed to the Genoa Conference with the request not to support the Bolshevik regime and to help the Russian people to become free of it.

The Bolshevik regime, seeing in this a threat against itself, decided to exert pressure on the Russians abroad through the Church authorities. Under the strong pressure of the Soviet government, Patriarch Tikhon signed an ukase concerning the suppression of the Higher Church Administration, entrusting to Metropolitan Evlogy the responsibility for organising a new one. After this, Patriarch Tikhon was immediately arrested.

Being guided by the Patriarch’s previous decree of 7th / 20th November 1920, the hierarchs abroad assembled in a Sobor on 31st August 1922, and decreed that in place of the Higher Church Administration a Synod of Bishops should be chosen. As chairman of it there was elected the hierarch eldest in rank, who had occupied the oldest Russian see and had been, beside the Patriarch, the only permanent member of the Russian Synod, Metropolitan Antony (Khrapovitsky) of Kiev.

All Russian churches submitted to the Synod of Bishops, as earlier they had to the Higher Church Administration, and the Synod of Bishops which was elected became recognised as the Church authority abroad. The Synod and Sobor of Bishops continued to consider themselves and the churches in their jurisdiction as an inseparable part of the Russian Church. In accordance with the Russian custom, in all Russian churches abroad at Divine services the name of Patriarch Tikhon was commemorated, and after him the name of the head of the Church Abroad, Metropolitan Antony