Russia's Catacomb Saints

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                THE LATER EXILES OF BISHOP DAMASCENE

 

   In November, 1929, Bishop Damascene was again arrested. This time his prison was Solovki. There Bishop Damascene met many who thought as he did, with whom previously he had only been acquainted by correspondence. Unfortunately, in this period it was very difficult to have correspondence with Bishop Damascene-letters did not arrive, and replies were not received. After he was set free in 1934, Bishop Damascene said almost nothing about his stay in Solovki, except that hunger forced those in Solovki to collect at the seashore all kinds of shellfish and snails to satisfy it to some degree. This was the period of the forced collectivization of agriculture and the terrible famine which was caused by it.

 

    There was one other thing which Bishop Damascene mentioned about his stay in Solovki: To rest from the "bedlam" surrounding him, he would go off into the forest. There, as other exiles of the same period related, they found him on his knees in deep prayer.

 

    Evidently the experience of life in Starodub and the close contact with the world of the concentration camps (by comparison with which even Poloi seemed paradise), where political prisoners were mixed and sometimes placed under criminals, left a profound imprint on the further thought of Bishop Damascene. He already was turning away from any widespread activity; he no longer wrote long letters, addressed to a broad circle of believers. He became convinced that in the conditions of Soviet reality and the general corruption, only an underground Church was possible. And the chief thing: he saw the mass exodus from religion, the success of anti-religious propaganda, the atheism which was growing right and left. Now it was no longer a majority, but a minority which one could hope to save.

 

    Believers in 1934 were a small flock-these were not the called, but the chosen. One had to think about the welfare of this small flock. Bishop Damascene found his small flock on his last trip to Kiev. He went about the cities which he knew, visited those who thought as he did, and sought out new ones.

 

    While in Kiev Bishop Damascene called a certain archpriest, a professor of the Kiev Theological Academy, to join his flock. The archpriest absolutely refused-he would not go into the underground, but would remain in his tiny church...For some reason the refusal of this archpriest caused a great shock to Bishop Damascene. He had a heart attack. Could it really be that up to now-more than six years after the issuance of the Declaration-it was not clear that in place of the "legalization" of the Church it was a liquidation of the Church which was going forward with increasing pace? What more was there to hope for?

 

    The friends and venerators of Bishop Damascene tried to keep secret his place of residence. But how could one protect Vladika, who did not take off his rasson, who did not shave his long beard, who after so many years, continued to act like a bishop and would walk about Kiev with his bishop's staff when he was forbidden to show himself in the Ukraine at all! He did not know how to hide himself. He thought thus: "We are all as sheep for the slaughter."

 

    Even earlier, soon after the publication of Metropolitan Sergius' Declaration,  Bishop Damascene had thought about the fate of the Russian Orthodox Church in the image of two of the Churches of the Apocalypse: those of Philadelphia and Laodicea. The Church of Patriarch Tikhon was the Church of Philadelphia: And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write...Thou hast a little strength, and has kept My word, and hast not denied My name (Apoc. 3:7-8). Him that overcometh I will make a pillar of the temple of My God and he shall go no more out; and I will write upon him the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God... and My new name (Apoc. 3:12).

 

    And side by side with the Church of Philadelphia, the Church of Laodicea-that of Metropolitan Sergius: And unto the angel of the church of the Laodicians write...I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich...and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear, and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see (Apoc. 3:14, 18).

 

    Bishop Damascene told his followers, as far as possible, not to work in government service. Whoever can sew, let him work at home. Whoever can occupy himself with some other handicraft, let him so occupy himself with it that he may live a Christian life and flee from evil. Blessed is the man that hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly. "It is better to be satisified with less and to preserve one's freedom of spirit."

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                 ASCENT TO THE HEAVENLY CITY OF GOD

 

    In the autumn of 1934 Bishop Damascene was arrested again. But what a contrast with the previous years-no parcels, no food, no clothing, no money! No correspondence was allowed. Whoever disappeared behind the gates of the prison was erased from life forever.

 

    Many months later there came rumors that Bishop Damascene at this time was in some collective farm in Kazakhstan and was working as a bookkeeper. Slowly there came further rumors that Bishop Damascene had been transported by various convoys to the north and then again to the south. His beloved spiritual son was with him-Father John Sm., an outstanding priest, a superb preacher, a confessor, who had gone almost out of his mind after his first exile, when he was beaten mercilessly, chiefly on the head. He was unable to walk. Bishop Damascene threw down the sack with his things, gave them to some believer, and took Father John on his shoulders; thus they went to the north. Then news ceased to come at all. The last news was in 1935: in Kazakhstan Bishop Damascene was arrested and was again sent to Siberia. After this-total silence.

 

    After the Ezhov terror in the mid-30's there was a legend spread about the death of Bishop Damascene. He was taken with the usual convoy to the far north. Somewhere on the shore of a great Siberian river in late autumn he was waiting for a ship. At the last minute another priest was brought, dressed in a light cassock-he had been brought in what he had been wearing when arrested. Bishop Damascene took off his own rasson and with the words, "Whoever has two garments, let him give to one who has none," put it on the priest. But his ruined health could not endure the cold, and right there on the ship, on which the convoy was to travel for several days, he died. His body was wrapped up and sent to the deep of the great Siberian river.

 

    But here is another version of the death of Bishop Damascene: He was imprisoned in a Siberian prison. From the common cell he was brought into solitary confinement-without windows, without light. On the floor of this cell, there was frozen water, and the walls were covered with frost. In this cold and darkness, perhaps even without food, Bishop Damascene stayed until his feet were frostbitten and gangrene set in...It is difficult to imagine without horror all the frightful days of the torment, like that of Gethsemane, of Bishop Damascene. In the prison infirmary Bsihop Damascene died of this gangrene.

 

    In the 20th century the Russian people in their own native land have been present at the raising of their Church upon Golgotha, its crucifixion, its death on the Cross, its placing in the tomb until the bright resurrection, by the will of God. The entire rest of the world that still calls itself Christian passed by the foot of the Cross on which the Russian Orthodox Church was crucified-indifferently, coldy, sometimes even with scoffing, just as the scribes and pharisees passed by. No one stretched out a sponge so as to quench its thrist before death. No one wrapped it in a clean shroud or brought sweet spices. Not a single one of the Eastern Patriarchs did this-those to whom the Russian government had given so bountifully. For them indeed Moscow had been the Third Rome, which supported them morally, materially and politically.

 

    In Europe the people were unable to understand a simple thing: The tragedy of the Russian Orthodox Church was only the beginning of the tragedy of all Christianity. The attack against Christianity is conducted from two sides, and the pincers are closing in. On the ideological front there is being conducted from underneath the skillful work of the replacement of Christianity by anti-christianity, using Christian and church terms and forms for the greater success of Bolshevik propaganda. For this purpose there was even proclaimed the compatibility of Communism and Christianity.

 

    The Russian Orthodox Church for more than 50 years has borne the cross of confession, and by the prayers of her great confessors of our time the gates of hell will not overcome her. In a short, chance conversation, the Serbian Archbishop Nicholas of Ochrida in connection with the Russian Church has said: "At the present time before the Throne of the Almighty, the voices of Russians are drowning out all the rest!"

 

Sources: E. Lopeshanskays (see Sources)

 

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                                                          15

 

                           METROPOLITAN CYRIL OF KAZAN

                 THE FIRST LOCUM TENENS OF PATRIARCH TIKHON

 

                                 Commemorated January 26 (+1937?)

 

                                   

                               The Lord preserved for his chosen people a bishop who

                             did not agree to yield his faith for the sake of peace with 

                            the enemies of Christ's Church. May his name be blessed

                            from generation to generation.

 

                                                                                                   Sergei Nilus

 

    Before his death Patriarch Tikhon left a document concerning his temporary successor, the Locum Tenens, who was to occupy the Patriarchal Throne until a new Patriarch could be freely elected for Russia. The Communist program which was being imposed upon much-suffering Holy Russia, and which was not actually atheistic but rather anti-theistic, had already made it extremely unlikely that such a free election could be held.  In his choice of three successor hierarchs, the Martyr-Patriarch indicated the path for the Church to follow: these men were above all noted for their strict Orthodoxy of faith and boldness in confessing it, qualities which prepared them to become great confessors such as the Church had in the early catacomb times. The first of these pillars of firmness in unadulterated Orthodoxy was Metropolitan Cyril of Kazan, a towering figure in the Russian Church and an inspirer of the Catacomb Church.

 

    Born Constantine Smirnov on April 26, 1863, he graduated from the St. Petersburg Theological Academy in 1887. After marriage he was ordained priest, but soon he became a widower and was tonsured a monk and appointed head of an Orthodox Mission in Urmia. In 1904 he was consecrated Bishop of Gdov, a vicar of the Petersburg diocese, where he became spiritually very close to the great luminary of the 20th century, St. John of Kronstadt. The holy pastor was greatly attached to the young hierarch, and in his last will St. John asked that his funeral be served and that he be buried by none other than the young Bishop Cyril. When Saint John died in 1908, Bishop Cyril fulfilled this request with great love and care, placing the body in the coffin and being the chief celebrant in the funeral services that followed, even though there were many elder hierarchs present. St. John had known well and had greatly respected the high spiritual caliber of Bi shop Cyril.

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    During the celebration of Theophany in Petersburg in 1909 Bishop Cyril revealed himself as an outstanding fighter for church truth and tradition. Under the influence of worldly "scientific" elements it was officially decreed that all water which was to be blessed for the feast in the Petersburg diocese must be boiled beforehand, and thus the great Agiasma had to be performed over steaming pots. One outspoken church organ of the time noted that: "More faith was shown in the firewood necessary to boil the water and kill the germs, than in God. Fortunately, however, not everyone stepped away from the anchor of our salvation, and in the same Petersburg the Lord preserved for his chosen ones a single bishop who did not agree to yield his faith for the sake of peace with the enemies of Christ's Church. If these notes ever see the light of print, let them preserve the name of this loyal servant of God and archpastor, for the strrengthening of faith and piety in my overburdened brethren. Cyril of Gdov is the name of this bishop. May his name be blessed from generation to generation." Defying the warnings of the police, Bishop Cyril blessed the water of the Neva River at the St. Alexander Nevsky Lavra right through a hole in the ice. The local police, however, took measures to ensure that no one was allowed to take water from the "Jordan".

 

    In the same year of 1909, apparently in connection with this incident, Bishop Cyril was transferred to the diocese of Tambov. Here he was entirely responsible for the preparations for the canonization of St. Pitirim of Tambov, which occurred in 1914 with great solemnity in his cathedral. After this he became an archbishop.

 

    At the time of the Revolution he was one of the leading hierarchs of the entire Russian Church, taking an important part in the All-Russian Council of 1917-1918. His report to this Council on "Public Education," which he prepared after dealing with the Provisional Government and talking to Kerensky himself, revealed the true anti-Christian plans of those who had overthrown the Tsar and hoped to raise future generations without the Church's influence.

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    When appointed Metropolitan of Kazan he was immediately arrested (in 1919), so that he reached his See only after serving a sentence in prison in 1920. After several months in Kazan he was arrested again for his involvement with the American Relief Organization which supplied food to those who were starving due to the famine caused by the Revolution. In this work Metropolitan Cyril had many devoted helpers, one of whom the late Abbess Juliana (whose particular duty was to supply food and help to imprisoned bishops), has left an account which illuminates the catacomb circumstances under which the true archpastors of Christ had to tend their flock at this time:

 

    "In about 1919 Bishop Gurias was arrested; he was pro-rector (of the Academy) in Kazan when Metropolitan Cyril was rector. Therefore the Metropolitan (who was in Moscow) called me in connection with sending some things to Vladika Gurias. As it turned out, he had agreed with him beforehand as to how the Holy Gifts were to be sent to him in prison. For this he gave me a little box with what seemed to be small white pieces of bread, and he said that these should be registered among the other supplies which were to be given. I was upset at taking the Holy Gifts with me, and in general at the idea of carrying them at all, and I told this to Vladika. To this he answered me: 'What business is that of yours; I am sending you.' But having thought a litttle, he offered me to take the Holy Gifts from him early in the morning on the same day when I would be going with the packages for Vladika Gurias in the Butyrka prison. This was done. Soon I was go ing with packages for Vladika Cyril himself, but not for long. In 1920 Metropolitan Cyril was in the Taganka prison. In the same prison at that time, perhaps even in the same cell, were Vladikas Theodore and Gurias. In the Taganka prison the old rules were still in effect: for good behavior prisoners were called or went over to the category of the 'reformed,' and they enjoyed certain privileges. In the Taganka prison there were five prisoners in this category: Metropolitan Cyril, Archbishop Theodore, Bishop Gurias, Alex,  Dim. Samarin, and Vladimir Theodorovich Djunkovsky. Besides the usual general visits, they were allowed once a week on a certain day to have visitors with the grating lifted. Usuallly, at the general visits, when many people were speaking with the prisoners through a double grating, it was almost impossible to converse because of the noise and shouting. Besides that, these meetings lasted only five minutes. On the other hand, visits to the 'ref ormed' lasted for fifteen minutes, and one could even give things right into the hands of the prisoners. Under these circumstances I had to speak with and give things to Metropolitan Cyril many times. When the Metropolitan was in exile we were able to help him not only with parcels but also by furnishing church service books."

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    At one time, when Metropolitan Cyril was banished to Turokansk, he lived  with Archbishop Athanasius Sakharov in whose biography we find some information on the sufferings of Metropolitan Cyril.

 

    During their common exile, the two archpastors used to pray together. Once, when Bishop Athanasius was placed in solitary confinement and was in great difficulty, Metropolitan Cyril began to pray for him using the prayer rule of the righteous Partheny of Kiev and consecutively reading the Gospels. Suddenly Bishop Athanasius was released. His confinement has been so short that Metropolitan Cyril had not yet finished reading the Gospel of St.John-this they finished reading together.

 

    Bishop Athanasius cherished for the rest of his life the best and the fondest memories of Metropolitan Cyril. He loved to tell stories about him among which were the following: "In 1924, while Patriarch Tikhon was still alive, Vladika Cyril was returning from exile in the Ziryansk region. He had been summoned to Moscow to appear before the Soviet minister of cults, Eugene Tutchkov, with explicit instructions not to visit anyone on the way. Nevertheless, when Metropolitan Cyril reached Moscow, he went first of all to the Patriarch who had just signed an agreement accepting into communion the Renovationist Krasnitsky. When Metropolitan Cyril asked the reason for his having agreed to such an unorthodox action, Patriarch Tikhon said to him: 'I'm sick at heart that so many archpastors are imprisoned. The authorities promise me to free them if I accept Krasnitsky.'

 

    To this Metropolitan Cyril replied: 'Your Holiness, do not worry about us archpastors. Our only use is in the prisons now.'

 

    "On hearing this, the Patriarch crossed out Krasnitsky's name from the recently signed document. Later, in Metropolitan Cyril's meeting with Tutchkov, when the subject of Krasnitsky was discussed, Tutchkov insolently reproached him for not listening to the Patriarch who wanted to accept Krasnitsky.

 

    'I do not understand you,' said Vladika Cyril. 'Exactly a year ago, on this very spot, you accused me of excessive obedience to the Patriarch, and now you demand just the opposite.'"

 

    After the death of the Patriarch, there was no possibility of lawfully convening the Sobor (Council) in order to elect a new Patriarch: most of the hierarchs were in prison or in exile. Besides, it was hardly likely that Tutchkov would have allowed them to call a council in any case.

 

    Archbishop Hilarion (Troitsky), who was at that time in the Solovki concentration camp, proposed to bring about the election of a new Patriarch by collecting signatures of various archbishops. Together with bishops of like mind who were also in Solovki, he wrote an appeal on this subject to the bishops of the Russian Church. In this appeal he recommended that Vladika Cyril be elected Patriarch. One bishop who was about to be released from Solovki, put this appeal in his suitcase which had a false bottom, and thus it was smuggled out of the camp. Quite a large number of signatures had been collected in favor of Metropolitan Cyril's candidacy. But hardly had this Solovki appeal reached the hands of Metropolitan Sergius, than it became known to the authorities and was immediately suppressed. Those bishops whose signatures appeared on the appeal, paid for it with an increase in their suffering. The initiator of the appeal likewise did not go unpunished. Sti ll sick and barely standing on his feet after a bout with typhus, Archbishop Hilarion was sent under convoy to Leningrad in the fierce cold with only one thin rasson. Having reached his destination, he soon died.

 

    Before Metropolitan Sergius became the "Locum Tenens," Tutchkov offered his position to those heirarchs chosen by Patriarch Tikhon to be his successors, that is, to Metropolitans Agathangelos and Cyril. It was reported that Metropolitan Agathangelos had been forbidden to accept this position by a blessed fool-for-Christ whom he greatly revered, the blind Xenia from the city of Rybinsk. She had told him: "If you accept this, you will lose all that you have previously acquired."

 

    When Tutchkov summoned Metropolitan Cyril, the latter would have agreed to accept the position were it not for the following conditions set by the communist authorities. "If we decide to remove some archbishops," said Tutchkov, "you will be obliged to help us." To this Metropolitan Cyril answered: "if the hierarch is found to have violated a church canon, then yes; but if this is not the case, I shall say to him: Brother, I don't have anything against you, but the Soviet authorities demand of me to remove you and I am compelled to do so." At this Tutchkov retorted, "No, no not so. You will have to make believe that you are doing it of your own will, and you will have to find some pretense for his removal." Under such conditions, of course, Vladika Cyril refused to accept the patriarchal throne. It is reported that he then said to Tutchkov: "Listen, Eugene, you are not a canon, and I'm not a bomb with which you hope to blow up the Russian Church from wit hin."

 

   

 

   

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    Metropolitan Cyril was immediately exiled. He was taken to his place of exile in a small boat along the upper Vychegda River. The armed guards who were conducting him did not bother to feed him and only the boatmen out of pity secretly gave the suffering hierarch some bread. When they arrived at their destination Metropolitan Cyril was given over to the care of the owner of a small cabin. The latter was instructed not to give anything to the Metropolitan. Somehow Vladika Cyril fashioned a fishing rod and managed to provide himself with some fish which he boiled in an old tin can. He was in such a state of agony-both from physical exhaustion and psychological torment-that he burst out in bitter tears when his faithful nun Evdokia, after seeking him in these wilds, finally managed to reach him and saw him sitting on the shore thus occupied.

 

    Protopresbyter Michael Polsky gives a few words as to the further fate of Metropolitan Cyril: "At the interrogations of the GPU, discussions are conducted on general topics, and religious disputes are even devised. If your understanding and knowledge are discovered, not to mention opinions on the activities of the authorities, you become a definitely harmful individual. Fortunate is he who can pretend to be stupid, unable to reply to anything. Metropolitan Cyril of Kazan, during the years of his endless exile, had two weeks of freedom in Moscow itself. The GPU agent demanded of him that he exert influence on the Patriarch either in the question of the reply to the Archbishop of Canterbury or in some other question. I don't remember which. The Metropolitan several times suffered in silence the petty probes of the agent, but finally he said to him: 'Oh, what a smart one you are!' The maddened agent gave Metropolitan Cyril only an hour to get ready. The Metropo litan was sent first to Ust-Syolsk, and then, in the spring of 1925, to some dense forest at which he arrived only after two weeks of travelling in a boat on a river. He was not given anything to eat, he was left to sleep in the cold outside the forest cabins in which the agents themselves lodged: he was dragged by the beard under the rule of a Communist in a forest where there were only two hunting cabins." (Conditions of the Church in Soviet Russia, pp. 42-43).

 

    In 1924, when Metropolitan Cyril had refused to join the Living Church, the head of the secret police, Tutchkov, had promised him that he would "rot in prison" : and indeed, for the rest of his life he went from prison to exile to yet more remote exile. Being in exile in 1925 when Patriarch Tikhon died, he was unable to undertake the responsibilites of Locum Tenens and this position fell to the Patriarch's third choice, Metropolitan Peter of Krutitsa. When the latter's substitute, Metropolitan Sergius, issued his infamous "Declaration" in 1927 Metropolitan Cyril was in exile in a remote village in Turukhan in the far north, beyond the Arctic Circle, suffering from a kidney disease. From there he sent outspoken letters to Metropolitan Sergius and to Bishop Damascene of Glukhov (who was in exile in the same region) breaking off communion with Metropolitan Sergius, declaring his acts null and void, and stating that he had overstepped his authority by insti tuting a whole new church policy without even consulting the Locum Tenens. Bishop Damascene's secretary at that time, E. Lope, who recently published one such letter, also states that in "1931 all the bishops in exile recognized Metropolitan Cyril, and not Metropolitan Sergius, as the head of the Orthodox Church". (Bishops-Confessors, p. 35).

 

    According to information received from the Soviet Union in 1937, Metropolitan Cyril was killed in exile at that time on direct order from Moscow, at the beginning of the Ezhov purges, as a "chief inspirer"of the Catacomb Church.

 

Sources: Polsky, The New Martyrs of Russia, Vol. II, Jordanville, NY, 1957 and The Condition of the Church in Soviet Russia, Jerusalem, 1931;  A Pastoral Wreath to Fr. John of Kronstadt, St. Petersburg, 1911; E. Lope, Bishops-Confessors, 1971; manuscript material from Alexei Rostov, Abbess Juliana, Prof. I. M. Andreyev; L. Regelson, The Tragedy of the Russian Church, Paris, 1977; "Le Messager", No. 107, Paris, 1973; (all in Russian). In English: W. Fletcher, The Russian Orthodox Church Underground, 1917-1970, Oxford, 1970.