The Shepherd, October 2005
The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, 3
The cessation of the separate existence of the Church Abroad is needful and would be profitable only to the Soviet regime. Through the clergy the latter desires to have control over the emigration and influence on it. Those emigrants who would not desire to be under the spiritual leadership of pastors dependent on the Soviets, being left without a Church would be scattered and would no longer be dangerous for the Soviet regime. The clergy in Russia, especially the hierarchy, are hostages for the emigration. If, when there was no basis at all for making Patriarch Tikhon responsible for the activities of the hierarchy of the Diaspora, he was nonetheless accused of this, - then if that hierarchy were subject to the Patriarch, he now would, bear full responsibility for it. Then, when Russian emigrants would make statements against the Soviet regime, the latter would not hesitate to hang the Patriarch from the gates of the Kremlin, just as the Turks hanged Patriarch Gregory V from the gates of the Patriarchate.
Without having visible contacts with her Church in the homeland, the Russian Church Abroad is in spiritual communion with all there who suffer and are persecuted, who languish in confinement and banishment.
We believe and know that Orthodox faith in Russia is strong.
The Lord God, Who preserved seven thousand men who did not bend the knee before Baal in the days of Elias, today also has a multitude of His servants who secretly serve and pray to Him throughout the whole expanse of the Russian land. Even among the hierarchs outwardly subject to the Soviet regime, many are inwardly tormented by this and when the opportunity will come, they will act according to the example of those at the Council of Chalcedon who declared with tears that they had given their signatures at the Robber Council under coercion, and according to the example of the Most Holy Patriarch Paul, who was tortured by his conscience and took the Schema in recognition of his weakness under the Iconoclasts. Of this there is the testimony of many who left the homeland at the time of the Second World War. The Soviets know this also and they hold all of them under both open and secret supervision, especially those who are temporarily allowed abroad.
But at the same time there are manifestations of the opposite case. Just recently a professor of the Theological Academy, Archpriest Osipov, who several days before this had occupied a prominent position in the clergy, attacked God and Christian faith in print with frightful blasphemy. It turned out that in agreement with him were several other members of the clergy who by a decree of the Patriarchal Synod of Moscow on 30th December, 1959, were deposed from their rank and deprived of all ecclesiastical communion.
They went out from us, but they were not of us, states the decree in the words of Holy Scripture (1 Jn 2:19). Without doubt, besides these that have already been uncovered, there are also other secret enemies of the Church who until the proper time pretend to be her loyal sons in order then to bring disgrace upon her. Under the regime of the godless there is a spiritual winter, during which it is impossible to distinguish trees that are deprived of their leaves (the “Shepherd” of Hermas). There the words of the Prophet Micah are completely fulfiled: Trust ye not each other, put ye not confidence in a friend; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house (Mic. 7:5-6).
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