Russia's Catacomb Saints Sergianism, the Leaven of Herod
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of crucial importance for an understanding of the Russian Orthodox Church under
the Communist Yoke. They were written by a true confessor of Orthodoxy, who died
in prison in the Soviet Union in 1971 for having written these and similar
texts. They are presented here as a direct response in the plea of the author
himself (p. 484): "This betrayal...must be made known to all believers in Russia
and abroad, because such an activity of the Patriarchate...represents a great
danger for all believers." The texts are primary documents exposing with direct
and irrefutable proof the conscious betrayal of Russian Orthodoxy by its own
hierarchs.
Russian Orthodoxy today-betrayed by its hierarchs in the USSR, and
represented only by the free bishops abroad an by a remnant of the faithful at
home and abroad-lives in expectation of a restoration of true and canonical
church order. This will doubtless come only at the longed-for Council of all
Russian Orthodoxy after the fall of the communist regime, when those who have
kept the faith will be justified. For this restoration of true order the
writings of Boris Talantov will be invvaluable testimony. For they come from one
who consciously experienced the Soviet Yoke from its beginning and they thus
testify from within not only to the facts of Russian church life during those
years, but more importantly, to the attitude toward them of the Orthodox
faithful. Previously this had been known to some extent through those who had
escaped from the USSSR, but from within the country there was nothing to be
heard but the repetitious propaganda of the Moscow Patriarchate, which attempte
d to drown out the truth and did indeed succeed in duping whole generations of
gullible church figures in the West. But now, as the culminaton of a decade of
protests, the true attitudes of the faithful who remain in Russia have become
known.
Boris Talantov, as these texts reveal, did not leave the commuinion of the
Moscow Patriarchate; even though he was sympathetic to the members of the True
Orthodox (Catacomb) Church whom he knew, he nonetheless repeats the standard
Soviet terminnology in calling this Church a "sect." Here, surely, one may be
allowed to diagree. Without passing judgment on those who remain in the
Patriarchate, we abroad can nonetheless not help but see that the solution of
the present crisis of the Moscow Patriarchate-which is actually the culmination,
as Talantov points out, of the betrayal of 1927-cannot come from iwthin the
Patriarchate alone, but must come from the whole confessing Orthodox Church of
Russia: the believers in the catacombs who remain faithful to the testaments of
Metropolitan Joseph and the many bishops in 1927 who declared the "Sergianist"
Church schismatic; the true believers who remain in the Patriarchate; and the
Church Outside of Russia. About the latter is is hardly like
ly that Talantov could have had any unbiased information. It must be remembered,
the, that these documents offer, not a complete picture of the state of Russian
Orthodoxy today, but rather an authentic voice of the Orthodox faithful within
the USSR, and specifically of the Moscow Pariarchate's own flock. These texts,
however, are doubtless some of the primary documents from which the "complete
picture" of the 20th-century Russian Orthodoxy will one day be known.
The two texts are here presented in full, without omissions or additions of
any kind, as translated from the Russian manuscripts obtained in 1968 from an
absolutely reliable source in Paris by the Rev. Michael Bordeaux of the Centre
for the Study of Religion and Communism. The two titles and all parentheses and
empahases (italics) in the text are those of the original; all notes and
comments of the translators have been confined to the footnotes. The tetxs are
published here with kind permission of Rev. Bordeaux.
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In England there has appeared a book by Nikita Struve, Christians in
Contemporary Russia,+ in which he, like others also in the West Patriarch
Sergius is virtually considered to be the saviour of the Orthodox Church in
Russia. Such an incorrect evaluation of the activity of Patriarch Sergius is
based on the fact that Western researchers are not familiar with the underground
facts and manifestations of the life of the Russian Orthodox Church. The roots
of the profound ecclesiastical crisis which has now been revealed were laid
precisely by Partriarch Sergius.
In his Appeal to the faithful of August 19, 1927,** Metropolitan Sergius set
forth new bases for the activity of the Church Administration, which at that
very time were called E. Yaroslavsky++ an "adaptation" to the atheistic reality
of the USSR.
"Adaptation" consisted first and foremost of a false separation of all the
spiritual needs of man into the purely religious and the socio-political. The
Church was to satisfy the purely religious needs of citizens of the USSR without
touching on the socio-political, which were to be resolved and satisfied by the
offical ideology of the CPSU.*
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*Sergianism: Segievshchina. This word is not precisely translable into
English, but is approximately "the Sergianist affair," with a pejorative
connotation.
+ London, 1967; original edition in French: Les Chretiens en U.R.S.S.,
Paris, 1963. Nikita Struve is a Russian intellectual of the "Paris" school and
present editor of the Vestnik of the Russian Student Christian Movement.
**The Appeal (Declaration) of Metropolitan Sergius was actually issued on
July 16/29, 1927, but it was first published in the official Soviet newspaper
Izvestia on August 19.
++ Head of the League of Militant Atheists, in charge of the anti-religious
propagnda and activities conducted by the Soviet regime.
* Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
The socio-political activity of every believer, according to this Appeal,
should be directed to the building of a socialist society under the direction of
the CPSU. In its further development this Adaptation resulted in the theory of
Soviet theologians, according to one, one supposedly indicated by the Gospel
itself. At the same time no criticism was allowed of the official ideology,
laws, or actions of the authorities. Any accusation against the actions of the
civil authorities, or any doubt of the correctness of the official ideology was
considered a deviation from purely religious activity and counter-revolution.
The Church Administration headed went to concentration camps for accusing the
arbitrariness and violence of the civil authorities, but even spoke out itself,
with slave-like servility, for the condemnation of such people as
counter-revolutionaries. In essence Adaptation to atheism represented a
mechanical union of Christian dogmas and rites with the socio-political
views of the official ideology of the CPSU. In actual fact all religious
activity was reduced to external rites. The church preaching of those clergymen
who held strictly to Adaptation was totally remote from life and therefore had
no influence whatever on the hearers. As a result of this the intellectual,
social, and family life of believers, and the raising of the younger generation
remained outside the Church's influence. This concealed great dangers for the
Church and Christian faith. One cannot worship Christ and at the same time in
social and family life tell lies, do what is unjust, use violence, and dream of
an earthly paradise. Subsequently, Adaptation to atheism culminated in the
heretical teaching of H. Johnson concerning a new religion, which in his opinion
was to replace the Christian religion and be a synthesis of Christianity and
Marxism-Leninism (see H. Johnson, Christianity and Communism, Moscow, 1957).+
Now the absurdity of H. Johnson's teaching is evident.
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+ Hewlett Johnson, the notorious "Red Dean of Canterbury," a "Christian"
apologist for Communism, wrote his book in English under the title Christians
and Communism (London, 1956). That Soviet authorities should immediately have
this book translated and printed in Moscow reveals that they are not entirely
opposed to "religion"-not to a Communist form of religion!
The Appeal of Metropolitan Sergius of August 19, 1927, made a painful
impression on all believers, as a cringing before the atheist authorities. Some
made peace with it as an unavoidable evil, while others came out decisively with
a condemnation of it. a part of the bishops and faithful separated from
Metropolitan Sergius. The bishops who had condemned the Appeal of Metropolitan
Sergius were soon arrested and banished to concentration camps, where they died.
The ordinary believers who separated formed a special sect, called the True
Orthodox Church, which from the very beginning of its formation right up to the
present time has been proscribed.
Contemporary influential atheists regard Adaptation as a modernization of
religion which is politically useful for the CPSU and harmless for the
materialistic ideology. "This (Adaptation-our addition. B.T.) is one of the
paths to the dying out of religion" (Journal, Science and Religion,* no. 12,
1966, p.78)."
Many both among us and in the West regarded and regard the Appeal of
Metropolitan Sergius as a statement made by the Church Administration under
duress, with the aim of preserving church parishes and clergymen during the time
of the despotism of J. Stalin. But this is incorrect. The Communist Party saw in
this Appeal the Church's weakness, the readiness of the new Church
Administration to fulfill unconditionally any instructions whatsoever of the
civil authority, a readiness to give over to the arbitrariness of the
authorities, under the guise of counter-revolutionaries, those clergymen who
dared to accuse arbitrariness and violence. Here is how E. Yaroslavsky evaluated
this in 1927: "With religion, even though Bishop Sergius may have adorned it in
whatever worldy garb you may want, with the influence of religion on the massess
of workers, we shall wage war, as we wage war with every religion, with every
church" (E. Yaroslavsky, On Religion, Moscow, 1957, p.155).
Objectivley this Appeal and the subsequent activity of Metropolitan Sergius
were a betrayal of the Church. From the end of 1929 until June, 1941, there
occurred the mass closing and barbarous destruction of churches, arrests and
sentencing by Troikas+ and secret trials of virtually every single clergyman,
most of whom were simply physically exterminated in concentration camps.
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* A leading official Soviet anit-religious periiodica.
+ Troika: a committee of three secret police officials who sentenced their
victims without hearing or appeal.
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against the persecution of Christians in the Soveit Union. How did Metropolitan
Sergius react to all this? In the Theophany Cathedral in Moscow, with a cross in
his hands, he came out with a declaration that there was no persecution at all
against believers and their organizations in the Soviet Union, and there never
had been any. Individual clergymen and believers, according to his assurance,
were tried not for faith, but for counter-revolutionary manifestations against
the Soviet regime. Such a declaration was not ony a monstrous lie, but also a
base betrayal of the Church and believers. By this declaration Metropolitan
Sergius covered up the monstrous crimes of J. Stalin and became an obedient tool
in his hands.
It should be noted that although the majority of bishops in 1927 acnowledged
Metropolitan Sergius as their head, nonetheless in their activity they did not
hold to the "Appeal" and in their sermons they courageously accused the
arbitrariness, lawlessness, and cruelty of the civil authorities, called on the
people to stand firmly for the faith and help the persecuted. Therefore, for
their sermons they were quickly placed in concentration camps and perished
there. Of course, many clergymen and believers were placed in concentration
camps for no reason at all, as potentially dangerous elements. In these
circumstances a courageous statement by Metropolitan Sergius in defense of
justice and faith could have had a great significance for the fate of the
Russian Orthodox Church, just as the courageous battle for faith and justice of
Cardinal Wyzynski had a great sifnificance for the Polish Church at the end of
'40's.
And what did Metropolitan Sergius save by his Adaptation and monstrous lie?
At the beginning of the Second World War in every region, out of many hundreds
of churches there remained five or ten, the majority of priests and almost all
the bishops (with the exception of a few who collaborated with the authorities
like Metropolitan Sergius) had been martyred in concentration camps. Thus
Metropolitan Sergius by his Adaptation and lying saved no one and nothing,
execpt his own person. In the eyes of believers he lost all authority, but in
exchange he acquired the good will of the "father of the peoples," J. Stalin.
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Sergius.
The role of Metropolitan Sergius in the restoration of churches during the
Second World War is greatly exaggerated in the West and, in particular, in the
book of N. Struve. This evidently speaks of an ignorance of many underground
manifestations and facts in the life of the Church in the USSSR.
The Appeal of Metropolitan Sergius to the believing citizens of the USSR on
June 22, 1941, was received by true believers as a new cringing before the
despotic regime and a new betrayal of the Church's interests. All believers in
Russia regarded and regard the Second World War as the wrath of God for the
immense lawlessness, impiety, and persecution of Christians which occurred in
Russia from the beginning of the October Revolution. Therefore, not to remind
the people to repentnce, not to demand immediately the restoration of churches
and the rehabilitation of all innocently condemned citizens of the USSR, was a
great sin, a great impiety. Metropolitan Sergius again revealed himself to be an
obedient tool of the atheist regime, which at that moment wished to use for its
own ends the religious feelings of its citizens with the fewest possible
concessions from atheism.
The restoration of churches within limited and narrow bounds was the State
policy of J. Stalin, and not the result of the activity of Metropolitan Sergius.
At that time among the people and in the army there was open talk of fundamental
changes in domestic regulations in the land. The people hoped that immediatley
after the end of the war there would be declared freedom of occupation and in
particular the liquidation of the collective farms, freedom of party, and
freedom of conscience. The opening of churches was the bone which J. Stalin
threw to a people worn out by war and hunger. The very opening of churches
occurred under the control of State Security. And these organs sought out often
priests from among those who remained at liberty or had sat out their term of
imprisonment. In the Western Ukraine there were cases when priests refuse to
celebrated in churches under Metropolitan Sergius, and later Patriarch Alexis,
and these same organs put these priests in concentration ca
mps. In many regions the Patriarchate and the bishops took no part t all in the
opening of churches. There were cases when new bishops under one pretext or
another even resisted the opening of churches and the assignment to parishes of
priests who had been in prison. The restoration of church life was incomplete,
external, and temporary. From 1949 on the CPSU began imperceptibly to turn
toward putting new pressure on the Church.
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hands of Metropolitan Sergius or Patriarch Alexis, but rather this opening was
done by the atheist regime itself under pressure from the simple people in order
to pacify them.
Patriarch Sergius, and later patriarch Alexis, gathered and placed new
bishops who, as distinct from the former bishops, who as a rule perished in the
concentration camps (there were, of course, exceptions), were obedient to the
patriarchate and assimilated well the leaven of Herod, i.e., Adaptation to the
mighty of this world. Here is how, for example, Bishop Vladimir of Kirov
expressed Adaptation in his sermon of May 28, 1967. "We must adapt ourselves to
new conditions and circumstances of life like a little stream which, on meeting
a rock in its path, goes around it. We live together with atheists and must take
them into consideration and not do anything that displeases them."
It is interesting that B.V. Talantov was told almost the very same thing at
the KGB* on February 14, 1967: "You,"-said the KGB agent, addressing
Talantov-"demand that all closed churches be opened; but you live together with
atheists and must take their wishes into consideration, and they do not wish
that churches be opened."
In the St. Seraphim church in Kirov on January 20, 1966-the day of
commemoration of St. John the Baptist-one priest said in his sermon: "John the
Baptist taught everyone very simply: obey the authorities in everything." From
this it is evident that the new bishop, having assimilated Adaptation to
atheism, has become an obedient tool in the hands of the atheist regime, and
this is a most ruinous result for the Church of the long activity of
Metropolitan, and then Patriarch Sergius.
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*State Security-Secret Police; known earlier under the initials NKVD, Cheka, and
(originally) GPU.
Adaptation to the atheist regime was clearly and precisely set forth in the
book, The Truth about Religion in Russia, published under the editorship of
Patriarch Sergius in the last years of his life, with the participation of
Metropolitan (now Patriarch) Alexis and Metropolitan Nicholas.+
In this book Patriarch Sergius and Metropolitans Alexis and Nicholas
categorically affirm that there has never been in the USSR any persecution of
Christians, that information in the Western press about these persecutions are
malicious inventions of the enemeies of the Soviet regime, that bishops and
priests during the years 1930-41 were sentenced by Soviet courts exclusively for
their counter-revolutionary activity, and that the Church Administration itself
at that time was in agreement with their being sentenced. The monstrous lie of
this affirmation is apparent from the fact that very many priests who were
executed or perished in concentration camps under J. Stalin were rehabilitated
under N. S. Kruschev. The most courageous fighters for truth and Christian faith
are declared in this book to be schismatics, "politicians," and practically
heretics. This book should be anathematized; it will be an eternal shameful
memorial of Patriarch Sergius. And now with full justification
we can call Adaptation to the atheistic regime by the name of Patriarch
Sergius-Sergianism.
Did Adaptation (Sergianism) save the Russian Orthodox Church?
From what has been set forth it is clear that not only did it not save the
Russian Orthodox Church during the despotism of J. Stalin, but on the contrary
it furthered the loss of genuine freedom of conscience and the conversion of the
Church Administration into an obedient tool of the atheistic regime.
Cardinal Wyszynski's categorical rejection of Adaptation to the atheistic
regime and his subsequent and firm battle for Evangelical truth and genuine
freedom of conscience has resulted in the fact that today in Poland the Church*
in actuality is independent from the State and enjoys considerable freedom.
Thus, one cannot defend the Church by a lie.
Adaptation is little faith, lack of faith in the power and Providence of
God.
Adaptation is incompatible with true Christianity, because at its foundation
there is a lie, servility before the mighty of this world, and a false
separation of spiritual needs into the purely religious and the socio-political.
According to the teaching of Christ, faith must direct the intellectual, family,
and social life of every Christian. Ye are the salt of the earth; ye are the
light of the world (Matt. 5:13,14), said Christ, addressing His followers. In
accordance with this Cardinl Wyszynski says: "In Poland the Church must
penetrate everything: books, schools, upbringing, the people's
culture...painting, sculpture and architecture, theater, radio and
television...social and economic life" (quoted from the journal Science and
Religion, no. 1, 1967, p. 63).
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+Of Krutitsk, notorious apologist of the Moscow Patriachate and the Soviet
regime abroad after the Second World War. He later fell from favor and died
under mysterious circumstances in 1961.
*I.e., the Roman Catholic Church, which is dominant in Poland