The Shepherd, September 2007
Large movements of protest opposed the reformers in both the Russian and Greek Churches, producing the deep divisions which exist until now in the Orthodox world. In the Russian Church, Sergianism was decisively rejected by very many of the bishops and faithful, led by Metropolitan Joseph of Petrograd; this “Josephite” movement later became organized to some extent and became known as the “True Orthodox Church.” The history of this illegal “Catacomb” Church of Russia is, to this day, veiled in secrecy, but in the past few years a number of startling evidences of its present-day activities have come to light, leading to stern repressive measures on the part of the Soviet government. The name of its present chief hierarch (Metropolitan Theodosius) has become known, as has that of one of its ten or more bishops (Bishop Seraphim). In the diaspora, the Russian Church Outside Russia committed itself from the very beginning of Sergianism in 1927 to a firm anti-Sergianist position, and on numerous occasions it has expressed its solidarity with the True Orthodox Church in Russia, while refusing all communion with the Moscow Patriarchate. Its uncompromisingness and staunch traditionalism in this and other matters were not to the taste of several of the Russian hierarchs of Western Europe and America, who were more receptive to the “reform” currents in 20th-century Orthodoxy, and they separated themselves at various times from the Russian Church Outside Russia, thus creating the present “jurisdictional” differences of the Russian Diaspora.
In Greece the movement of protest, by a similar Orthodox instinct, likewise took the name of “True Orthodox Christians.” From the beginning in 1924 (when the calendar reform was introduced), this movement has been especially strong among the simple monks, priests and laymen of Greece; the first bishop to leave the State Church of Greece and join the movement was Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Florina, and today it continues its fully independent life and organization, comprising about one-fourth of all the Orthodox Christians of Greece, and perhaps one-half or more of all the monks and nuns. Although popularly known as the “Old Calendarists,” the True Orthodox Christians of Greece stand for a staunch traditionalism in Orthodox life and thought in general, viewing the calendar question merely as a first stage and a touchstone of modernism and reformism.
“Christians know that when they believe in the Kingdom of Heaven and search for it, then the Kingdom of Heaven is already entering ‘inside them’ and into the world through the Church. But if they intend to build a happy life of the Kingdom of God now on earth for themselves or even for future generations, not only will they fail to build it on earth, but they may lose it in Heaven as well.”
Fr. Michael Pomazansky
As the “ecumenical” cancer eats more and more away at the remaining sound organs of the Orthodox Churches today, an increasing sympathy is being shown by the most sensitive members of the “official” Orthodox jurisdictions for the cause and the representatives of the anti-ecumenist, anti-reformist Churches of Russia, Greece, and the Diaspora. Some, seeing the “official” jurisdictions as now irrevocably set on a course of anti-orthodoxy, are abandoning them as sinking ships and joining the ranks of the True Orthodox Christians; others, still hoping for the restoration of an Orthodox course in world Orthodoxy, think it enough for now to express sympathy for the True Orthodox Christians or to protest boldly against the “reformist” mentality in the official jurisdictions. The ten years of anti-ecumenist epistles of Metropolitan Philaret, Chief Hierarch of the Russian Church Outside Russia, have struck a responsive chord within a number of the Orthodox Churches, even if the “official” response to them has been largely silence or hostility.
“For our faith, brethren, is not of men nor by man, but by revelation of Jesus Christ, which the divine Apostles preached, the holy Œcumenical Councils confirmed, the greatest and wisest teachers of the world handed down in succession, and the shed blood of the holy martyrs ratified. Let us hold fast to the confession which we have received unadulterated from such men, turning away from every novelty as a suggestion of the devil.”
Encyclical of the Eastern Patriarchs, 1848
Today, more than at any other time in the 50-year struggle to preserve the Orthodox tradition in an age of apostasy, the voice of true and uncompromising Orthodoxy could be heard throughout the world and have a profound effect on the future course of the Orthodox Churches. Probably, indeed, it is already too late to prevent the renovationist “Eighth Œcumenical Council” and the “ecumenical” Union which lies beyond it; but perhaps one or more of the Local Churches may yet be persuaded to step back from this ruinous path which will lead to the final liquidation (as Orthodox) of those jurisdictions that follow it to the end; and in any case, individuals and whole communities can certainly be saved from this path, not to mention those of the heterodox who may still find their way into the saving enclosure of the true Church of Christ.
“Those seven thousand (I Kings 19:18), he said were saved by Grace... By saying ‘election’, he showed them to be approved, but by saying ‘Grace’, he indicated the gift of God.... And if by Grace, it will be said, how did we not all come to be saved? Because you refused. For Grace, even though it be Grace, saves the willing, not those who will not have it, and turn away from it, those who persist in fighting against it, and opposing themselves to it......”
Saint John Chrysostom
IT IS OF CRITICAL importance, therefore, that this voice be actually one of true, that is, patristic Orthodoxy. Unfortunately, it sometimes happens, especially in the heat of controversy, that basically sound Orthodox positions are exaggerated on one side, and misunderstood on the other, and thus an entirely misleading impression is created in some minds that the cause of true Orthodoxy today is a kind of “extremism,” a sort of “right-wing reaction” to the prevailing “left-wing” course now being followed by the leaders of the “official” Orthodox Churches. Such a political view of the struggle for true Orthodoxy today is entirely false. This struggle, on the contrary, has taken the form, among its best representatives today, whether in Russia, Greece, or the Diaspora, of a return to the patristic path of moderation, a mean between extremes; this is what the Holy Fathers call the ROYAL PATH.
A HAND-WROUGHT image ye would not worship,/
O thrice-blessed ones ,/ but armed by Indepictable Essence,/
ye were glorified in your ordeal by fire./
Standing in the midst of the irresistible flame,/ ye called upon God:/
Speed Thou, O Compassionate One/
and hasten since Thou art Merciful,/ to come unto our aid;
for Thou art able, if it be Thy will.
Contakion to the Three Youths:
Misail, Ananias and Azarias in the Babylonian fiery furnace.
The teaching of this “royal path” is set forth, for example, in the tenth of St. Abba Dorotheus’ Spiritual Instructions, where he quotes especially the Book of Deuteronomy: “Ye shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left, but go by the royal path” (Deut. 5:32, 17:11), and St. Basil the Great: “Upright of heart is he whose thought does not turn away either to excess or to lack, but is directed only to the mean of virtue.” But perhaps this teaching is most clearly expressed by the great Orthodox Father of the 5th century, St. John Cassian, who was faced with a task not unlike our own Orthodox task today: to present the pure teaching of the Eastern Fathers to Western peoples who were spiritually immature and did not yet understand the depth and subtlety of the Eastern spiritual doctrine and were therefore inclined to go to extremes, either of laxness or over-strictness, in applying it to life. St. Cassian sets forth the Orthodox doctrine of the royal path in his Conference on “sober-mindedness” (or “discretion”), the Conference praised by St. John of the Ladder (Step 4:105) for its “beautiful and sublime philosophy”:-
“With all our strength and with all our effort we must strive by humility to acquire for ourselves the good gift of sober-mindedness, which can preserve us unharmed by excess from both sides. For, as the Fathers say, the extremes from both sides are equally harmful, both excess of fasting and filling the belly, excess of vigil and excessive sleep, and other excesses.” Sober-mindedness “teaches a man to go on the royal path, avoiding the extremes on both sides: on the right side it does not allow him to be deceived by excessive abstinence, on the left side to be drawn into carelessness and relaxation.” And the temptation on the “right side” is even more dangerous than that on the “left”: “Excessive abstinence is more harmful than satiating oneself; because, with the cooperation of repentance, one may go over from the latter to a correct understanding, but from the former one cannot” (i.e., because pride over one’s “virtue” stands in the way of the repentant humility that could save one).
St John Cassian the Roman, Conferences, II, chs. 16, 2, 17
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