Sacred Synod
of the True Orthodox Church of
His Eminence, Metropolitan Makarios of Toronto, Locum tenens
THE Sacred Synod has received correspondence from
certain clergy expressing concerns that Metropolitan Anthony’s interpretation
of Christ’s agony in the
In offering here the patristic texts which support Metropolitan Anthony’s views, the Sacred Synod in no wise intends to imply that the interpretations of the Holy Fathers stand in opposition one to the other. As any careful, pious reader of the patristic texts has no doubt already noted for himself, one and the same father often expresses differing interpretations of the very same passage in Scripture, depending on the level of the discussion, the audience addressed, and the intent of the exegete. And as many of the patristic citations given below demonstrate, even the very Fathers whom Metropolitan Anthony’s critics think to cite in refutation of his views can be seen in other passages actually to support his position.
In his essay, The
Dogma of Redemption,[1]
Metropolitan Anthony states that our salvation was wrought by Christ out of
His compassionate love toward mankind, and not out of any necessity, nor for
the satisfaction of God’s justice. The “justification” offered to us by Christ
is not the granting of a legal pardon, but a call to reconciliation with God,
restoration, and sanctification. That this is indeed so, is evident from the
Holy Scriptures themselves:
For
with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption; and He
shall redeem Israel out of all his iniquities.
Psalm 129:6
For
God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
John 3:16
He
that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
I John 4:8
But
go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I
am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
Matt. 9:13; (cf. Hosea 6:6)
Since
then love is a thing mighty and irresistible, not a bare word, let us manifest
it by our actions. He reconciled us when we were His enemies, let us, now that
we have become His friends, remain so. He led the way, let us at least follow;
He loveth us not for His own advantage, (for
He needeth nothing,) let us at least love Him for our profit; He loved us
being His enemies, let us at least love Him being our friend.
St. John Chrysostom, On the Gospel of St. John, Homily 76
For
this cause (Paul means) He took on Him our flesh, only for Love to man, that He
might have mercy on us. For neither is
there any other cause of the economy, but this alone. For He saw us, cast
on the ground, perishing, tyrannized over by Death, and He had compassion on us. “To make reconciliation”, he says
“for the sins of the people. That He might be a merciful and faithful High
Priest.”
St. John Chrysostom, On Hebrews,
Homily 5:2
The Apostle Paul movingly declares that it was God Who
was beseeching us to be reconciled to Him. Our salvation and redemption consist
in accepting this reconciliation and in acquiring the righteousness of God:
And
all things are of God, Who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and
hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not
imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word
of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did
beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. For
He hath made Him to be sin for us, Who knew no sin; that we might be made the
righteousness of God in Him.
II Cor. 5:18–21
Concerning which passage St. John Chrysostom says:
For
we ran not unto Him, but He Himself called us. How called He us? By the
sacrifice of Christ.
…Seest
thou love surpassing all expression, all conception? Who was the aggrieved
one? Himself. Who first sought the reconciliation? Himself.…And how did He
reconcile it [the world] unto Himself? For this is the marvel, not that it was
made a friend only, but also by this way a friend. This way? What way? Forgiving them their sins; for in no other
way was it possible. Wherefore also he added, “Not reckoning unto them
their trespasses.” For had it been His pleasure to require an account of the
things we had transgressed in, we should all have perished; for “all died.” But
nevertheless though our sins were so great, He
not only did not require satisfaction, but even became reconciled; He not
only forgave, but He did not even “reckon.”
…He
was outraged Who had conferred innumerable benefits; having been outraged, He not only exacted not justice, but
even gave His Son that we might be reconciled. They that received Him were not
reconciled, but even slew Him. Again, He sent other ambassadors to beseech, and
though these are sent, it is Himself that entreats. And what doth He entreat?
“Be ye reconciled unto God.” And he said not, “Reconcile God to yourselves;” for it is not He that beareth enmity, but
ye; for God never beareth enmity.
St. John Chrysostom, On Second Corinthians, Homily 11
As St. Athanasius the Great explains:
For
in speaking of the appearance of the Saviour amongst us, we must needs speak
also of the origin of men, that you may know that the reason of His coming down
was because of us, and that our
transgression called forth the loving-kindness of the Word, that the Lord
should both make haste to help us and appear among men. For of His becoming
Incarnate we were the object, and for our
salvation He dealt so lovingly as to appear and be born even in a human
body.
On
the Incarnation, 4:2–3, (see also § 8)
St. Isaac the Syrian, in his Ascetical Homilies, writes:
But
the sum of all is that God the Lord surrendered His own Son to death on the
Cross for the fervent love of creation…
This was not, however, because He could
not have redeemed us in another way, but so that His surpassing love,
manifested hereby, might be a teacher unto us. And by the death of His only-begotten
Son He made us near to Himself. Yea, if He had had anything more precious, He
would have given it to us, so that by it our race might be His own. Because of
His great love for us it was not His pleasure to do violence to our freedom…
but He chose that we should draw near to Him by the love of our understanding…
Homily 71 (48, in Russian)
The proponents of the heretical, Scholastic theories
of atonement insist that God’s honor or majesty or justice had to be
“satisfied” or “appeased” before God’s love and compassion could be shown to
mankind. God could not forgive mankind until His wrath had been propitiated.
These beliefs attribute a division, opposition, and contradiction within the
simplicity of the Divinity. Furthermore, they, like the pagan Greek philosophers,
subject the superessential and almighty God to a necessity of His nature.[2]
Concerning the absurdity of any “necessity” ruling
over God, St. Ireneaus of Lyons declares:
It
is not seemly to say of Him Who is God over all, that He is a slave to necessity,
or that anything takes place with His permission, yet against His desire;
otherwise they will make necessity greater and more kingly than God, since that
which has the most power is superior to all others.
And
He ought at the very beginning to have cut off the causes of necessity, and
not to have allowed Himself to be shut up to yielding to that necessity, by
permitting anything besides that which becomes Him.
Against
Heresies, I, § V, 2
Against this pagan concept of necessity, St. John
Chrysostom also writes:
But
some one will say, “Yet if it was written that He was to suffer these things,
wherefore is Judas blamed, for he did the things that were written?…Because if
Christ must needs be crucified, it must be by means of some one, and if some
one, surely by such a person as this. But if all had been good, the
dispensation in our behalf had been impeded.” Not so. For the All-wise knows
how He shall bring about our benefits, even had this happened. For His wisdom
is rich in contrivance, and incomprehensible.
On
the Gospel of St. Matthew, Homily 81, (Matt. 26:17–18)
St. Athanasius the Great, throughout all his works (e.g., On the Incarnation, Against the Arians, Letters) teaches us that we are saved by the entire Theandric dispensation, and that there was no necessity for Christ to die on the Cross. Christ could have saved us by other means, but He chose death on the Cross because of us. Among the many reasons enumerated by St. Athanasius in the above-mentioned works (q.v.) are these:
None, then, could bestow incorruption, but Christ
Who had made; none restore the likeness of God, save His Own Image; none
quicken, but the Life; none teach, but the Word. And He, to pay our debt of
death, must also die for us, and rise again as our first-fruits from the grave.
Mortal therefore His body must be; corruptible, it could not be.
Why then did not Christ die privately, or in a more
honorable way? He was not subject to natural death, but had to die at the
hands of others. Why then did He die? Nay but for that purpose He came, and but
for that, He could not have risen.
But why did He not withdraw His body from the Jews, and so
guard its immortality? It became Him not to inflict death on Himself, and yet
not to shun it. He came to receive death as the due of others, therefore it
should come to Him from without. His death must be certain, to guarantee the
truth of His Resurrection. Also, He could not die from infirmity, lest He
should be mocked in His healing of others.
He did not choose His manner of death; for He was
to prove Conqueror of death in all or any of its forms. The death chosen to
disgrace Him proved the Trophy against death: moreover it preserved His body
undivided.
Why the Cross, of all deaths? He had to bear the curse for
us. On it He held out His hands to unite all, Jews and Gentiles, in Himself. He
defeated the “Prince of the powers of the air” in his own region, clearing the
way to heaven and opening for us the everlasting doors. (See: On the Incarnation, § 20–26.)
But
if any of our own people also inquire, not from love of debate, but from love
of learning, why He suffered death in none other way save on the Cross, let him
also be told that no other way than this
was good for us, and that it was well that the Lord suffered this for our
sakes.
On
the Incarnation, 25:1
No one was ever reconciled with God without the
power of the Cross... How is it possible for a man to be renewed in
all things and reconciled with God according to the Spirit if sin and carnal
life have not been abolished? This is
the Cross of the Lord, the destruction of sin...
Many
who were friends of God before the Law and after the Law were even acknowledged
as such by God without the Cross having
appeared yet. And David the king and prophet, having the certainty that
there existed friends of God at that time, says, “But to me, exceedingly
honorable are Thy friends, O God” (Ps.138:16). But how is it that there were
friends of God before the Cross? I shall show you...Just as before the man of
sin, the son of perdition, even comes, (I mean the Antichrist), the Theologian
and beloved one of Christ says, “Beloved, even now is the Antichrist” [here]
(1 In. 2:18), likewise the Cross existed
among those in earlier times before the Cross came to be constructed. For
the great Paul, clearly teaching us that the Antichrist is in our midst
without having yet come, says, “For the mystery already worketh among us” (II
Thess. 2:7).
Likewise the Cross of Christ was amidst the
forefathers even before it came to exist because the mystery was working in
them. Not even mentioning Abel, Seth, Enos, Enoch, and
Noah, and those up to Noah who were pleasing to God and those who were close
after them, I will begin with Abraham who became the father of many nations —
of the Jews by the flesh and of us by the faith. In order to begin with him who
is our father in the Spirit and with the good beginning associated with him
and the first calling from God, let me ask what are the first words that God
spoke to him? “Come out from your country and your people, and come unto the land
that I shall show you” (Gen. 12:1). This
saying contains within it the mystery of the Cross because it corresponds
exactly with Paul who, boasting in the Cross, says, “the world has been
crucified to me” (Gal. 6:14). In truth, for him who left his country never to
return, his homeland and world according to the flesh has been put to death
and destroyed, and this is the Cross.
Again, according to the divine Paul, the Cross
is our crucifying of the flesh and passions and desires
(Gal 5:24). Isaac was himself a type of Him who was affixed to [the Cross]
when, like Christ, he was obedient to his father, even unto death… But to
leave off from all those before the Law and during the Law, did not Christ Himself, for Whom and by Whom
all things were made, say before the Cross, “He who does not take up his
Cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me?” (Mt. 10:38). Do you see how even before the Cross was
pitched it was the Cross that saved?… This is what it means to crucify the
flesh and the passions and desires: for man to cease from doing all that is displeasing
to God...Such is the word of the Cross. It is such not only in the prophets
before the Cross was completed but now also, after it was done, it is a great
mystery and truly divine... For the Cross is both the form which we venerate
and in the form of its word.
Homily 11, On
the Precious and Life-Giving Cross[3]
It
is incomprehensible how Jesus Christ is united with the sign of the Cross, and
gives it the wonderful power of driving away passions, demons, and to calm the
troubled soul.… And in order that the unbelieving heart should not think that
both the sign of the Cross and the name of Christ act miraculously by themselves,
apart from and independently of Christ Himself, this same Cross and name of Christ do not perform any miracles, until I
see Jesus Christ with the eyes of my heart, or by faith, and until I
believe with my heart all that which
He has accomplished for our salvation.
My
Life in Christ, English p. 21, Russian, vol. I, p. 30
As the holy Patriarch St. Photius the Great boldly asserts in his Epistles to Amphilochius:
It
is precisely in this that the soundness of our mode of thought and doctrine
consists, being in agreement with Scripture, and having been developed by our
Fathers, in order to restore what may have been lost, and to see, as much as
possible, that it agrees with those pious men, who were not lacking in understanding.
Life and Works of
Metropolitan Anthony, vol. 8, p. 274
If St. Photius could declare that already in his day it was necessary to strive to restore teachings of the Holy Fathers which had been forgotten or lost, how much more so is Metropolitan Anthony justified in acting thus after so many centuries, and after the “Latin Captivity”![5]
And as Metropolitan Anthony so rightly points out at the end of The Dogma of Redemption:
Salvation
is our conscious process of perfection and communion with God; therefore the
truths of revelation united with it should be bound to our inner experience,
and not remain completely ununderstood mysteries (p. 53).[6]
CERTAINLY it would be most beneficial if eventually the entire body of documents concerning Metropolitan Anthony’s The Dogma of Redemption were to be translated and published for the enlightenment and edification of the faithful. God grant that this may one day come to pass. For the present, however, the Sacred Synod will address herein only the three chief objections of Metropolitan Anthony’s critics: 1) his explanation of our Saviour’s prayer in the garden of Gethsemane, 2) his supposed denigration of our Saviour’s sacrifice on Golgotha, and 3) his interpretation of Romans 5: 12, concerning the Ancestral Sin and its consequences.[7]
METROPOLITAN Anthony’s critics state that he is in error when he writes that our Lord’s prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane was inspired by His compassionate love for us, and not by fear of His approaching physical suffering and death, and when he maintains that such sentiments would be entirely unworthy of our Lord. Yet many of the Holy Fathers have said the very same thing, and even expressed it much more forcefully.
For example, Saint Basil the Great writes:
If
the Son really said “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me,” He
not only shewed His own cowardice and weakness, but implied that there might be
something impossible to the Father. The words “if it be possible,” are those of
one in doubt, and not thoroughly assured that the Father could save Him. How
could not He Who gave the boon of life to corpses much rather be able to preserve
life in the living? Wherefore then did not He Who had raised Lazarus and many
of the dead supply life to Himself? Why did He ask from the Father, saying, in
His fear, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from Me”? If He
was dying unwillingly, He had not yet humbled Himself; He had not yet been made
obedient to the Father unto death; He had not given Himself, as the Apostle
says, “Who gave Himself for our sins, a ransom”. If He was dying willingly,
what need of the words “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away”? No: this must not be understood of Himself;
it must be understood of those who were on the point of sinning against Him,
to prevent them from sinning; when crucified in their behalf He said, “Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do.” We must not understand words spoken in accordance with the economy to
be spoken simply.
Against
Eunomius, Book 4, (on Matt. 27: 39)
And if one were to read St. Hilary of Poitiers On the Trinity (Book 10:30-40), one would find the very same sentiments as those expressed by Metropolitan Anthony. The saint spends a good portion of his Tenth Book of the above-mentioned work in refuting the idea that Christ felt fear in the Garden of Gethsemane. He writes:
You
allow that [Christ] suffered willingly. Would it not be more reverent to
confess that you had misunderstood this passage than to rush with blasphemous and headlong folly to the assertion
that He prayed to escape suffering, though you allow that He suffered
willingly?
Book 10:30
St. Hilary says that Christ’s words, “My soul is sorrowful unto death” cannot mean that He was sorrowful because of His own impending death. He was sorrowful unto death in that He sorrowed so greatly over fallen humanity that He came unto death over it. “So far from His sadness being caused by death, it was removed by it.” (Book 10: 36)
St. Athanasius the Great, Archbishop of Alexandria, in his Four Discourses Against the Arians, boldly declares:
And
as to His saying, “If it be possible, let the cup pass,” …as man He utters this
speech also, and yet both were said by the Same, to shew that He was God, willing
in Himself, but when He had become man, having a flesh that was in terror. For
the sake of this flesh He combined His own will with human weakness, that
destroying this affection He might in turn make man undaunted in the face of
death. Behold then a thing strange indeed! He
to Whom Christ's enemies impute words of terror, He by that so-called terror renders men undaunted
and fearless. And so the Blessed Apostles after Him from such words of His conceived
so great a contempt of death, as not even to care for those who questioned
them, but to answer, “We ought to obey God rather than men.” And the other Holy
Martyrs were so bold, as to think that they were rather passing to life than
undergoing death. Is it not extravagant then, to admire the courage of the
servants of the Word, yet to say that the Word Himself was in terror, through
Whom they despised death? But from that most enduring purpose and courage of
the Holy Martyrs is shewn, that the Godhead was not in terror, but the Saviour
took away our terror. For as He abolished death by death, and by human means
all human evils, so by this so-called
terror did He remove our terror, and brought about that never more should men
fear death.
Discourse 3: 57
St. Ambrose of Milan, in his Exposition of the Holy Gospel According to Saint Luke, writes:
…For
it would have profited me less if He had not received my grief. Therefore, He
Who had no reason to grieve for Himself grieved for me…He is afflicted by the
weariness of my infirmity. …Thus, Lord, Thou art pained, not at Thy, but at my
wounds, not at Thy Death, but at our infirmity…Here a deep love works upon His soul, for since He was doing away
with our sins whilst in His flesh, He should also abolish the grief of our
souls by the grief of His soul. …He seemed sorrowful and He was sorrowful, not because of His own Passion, but
because of our dispersion.… He was sorrowful, because He left us little children.…
Nor is it strange, if He was sorrowful for His persecutors, whom He knew would
pay the penalty for their wicked acts of sacrilege. So He said, “Remove this cup from Me”, not because the Son of God
feared death, but because He was unwilling that even the wicked should perish…
so that His Passion would be a saving act for all.
Book 10: 56–62
Further, St. John Chrysostom has his own unique interpretation of this scriptural passage in his homily, Against the Marcionites and the Manichaeans. First, he produces some twenty-three or more proofs why Christ could not possibly have been afraid of death! However, says, Saint John Chrysostom, Christ “allowed” Himself to pray to be delivered from death for two reasons: 1) to prove the reality of His incarnation, and 2) to instruct us in virtue by means of His example in accepting death.
St. Paul declares:
Forasmuch
then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise
took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the
power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death
were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For verily He took not on Him the
nature of angels; but He took on Him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all
things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things
pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.
Hebrews 2:14–17
And St. John Chrysostom explains:
Here
he points out the wonder, that by what the devil prevailed, by that was he
overcome, and the very thing which was his strong weapon against the world,
namely, Death, by this Christ smote him. In this He exhibits the greatness of
the Conqueror’s power. Dost thou see how great a good death hath wrought?… Let
us stand then, nobly, laughing death to scorn.
On
Hebrews, Homily 4:6–7
In St. Cyril of Alexandria’s Commentaries on the Gospel of St. Luke, (Homilies 146 and 147), we again find full confirmation of Metropolitan Anthony’s teaching.
For
what reason, therefore, art Thou grieved and sore distressed? Yes, He says, not
unbefittingly am I found thus in anguish.… But withal it grieveth Me for Israel
the firstborn, that henceforth he is not even among the servants.… And tell Me
then, what husbandman, when his vineyard is desert and waste, will feel no
anguish for it? What shepherd would be so harsh and stern as, when his flock
was perishing, to suffer nothing on its account? These are the causes of My grief; for these things I am sorrowful.…
And
that we might learn what was His wish concerning Israel, He told His disciples,
that He is in grief and anguish. For it
would have been impossible for them to have learnt what was hidden within Him,
if He had not revealed by words what His feelings were.
Homily 146
Thou
hast heard Christ say, “Father, if Thou wilt, remove this Cup from me.” Was
then His Passion an involuntary act? And was the necessity for Him to suffer,
or rather the violence plotted against Him, stronger than His own will? Not so, say we. For His passion was not
an involuntary act, though yet in another respect it was grievous, because it
implied the rejection and destruction of the synagogue of the Jews. For it was
not His will that Israel should be the murderer of its Lord, because by so
doing it would be exposed to utter condemnation, and become reprobate, and rejected
from having part in His gifts, and in the hope prepared for the saints, whereas
once it had been His people, and His only one, His elect, and adopted heir.… It was right, therefore, that we should
clearly know, that through pity for Israel He would have put from Him the
necessity to suffer; but as it was not possible for Him not to endure the
passion, He submitted to it also, because God the Father so willed it with Him.
But
come and let us examine further this also. “Did the decree of God the Father,
and the will of the Son Himself, call Him as of necessity to His passion?”
…For God the Father had pity upon the dwellers upon the earth, who were in
misery, caught in the snares of sin, and liable to death and corruption; bowed
also beneath a tyrant’s hand, and enslaved to herds of devils. He sent from
Heaven His Son to be a Saviour and Deliverer; Who also was made in form like
unto us. But even though He foreknew what He would suffer, and the shame of His
passion was not the fruit of His own will, yet He consented to undergo it that
He might save the earth, God the Father so willing it with Him, from His great kindness and love unto
mankind. “For He so loved the world, that He gave even His Only-begotten
Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have life
everlasting.” As regards, therefore, the ignominy of His passion, He willed not
to suffer; but as it was not possible for Him not to suffer, because of the
cruelty of the Jews, and their disobedience, and unbridled violence, “He endured
the Cross, despising the shame, and was obedient to the Father, even unto
death, and that the death of the Cross.”
Homily 147
St. Leo I the Great, Pope of Rome, in his homily on the Transfiguration, has God the Father speak the following words to the three Apostles on Mount Tabor:
“Hear
ye Him” Who opens the way to Heaven, and through the humiliation of His Cross
prepared for you a way to ascend to His Kingdom. Why do you fear to be
redeemed? Why tremble at being healed of your wounds? Let that be done which I
willing, Christ wills. Put away bodily fear, and arm yourselves with steadfast
faith: for it is unfitting that you
should fear, in the Passion of your Saviour, what, by His gift to you, you
shall not fear in your own end.
Blessed Theophylactus, in his commentaries on the Gospels,[8] speaks of the Prayer in Gethsemane thus:
He
was sorrowful and heavy in accord with the divine plan, so as to confirm that
He was truly man.… At the same time, Christ was sorrowful so that the devil
would unknowingly leap upon Him, the God-man, and bear Him down to death as
though He were mere man, and thus the devil himself would be crushed.…[9] He
calls his Passion a cup [as of wine], either because of the sleep which it
brought, or because it became the cause
of gladness and salvation for us. He wants the cup to be removed either to
show that as a man subject to nature He pleads to escape death, as was said
above, or because He did not wish the
Jews to commit a sin so grave that on account of it the temple would be destroyed
and the people perish.”
On
Matthew
Some
have understood the Lord’s words, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death,”
to mean “I am sorrowful, not because I am
about to die, but because it is the Israelites, My kinsmen, who are
themselves about to crucify Me, and for this reason to be cast out from the
kingdom of God.”
On
Mark
His
human nature was permitted to suffer these things, and consequently did suffer
them, to prove that the Lord was truly human, and not a man in appearance
only. And, in a more mystical sense, the
Lord voluntarily suffered these things in order to heal human nature of its
cowardice. He did this by rendering it fully spent in Himself, and then
making cowardice obedient to the divine will. It could be said that the sweat
which came out from the Lord’s Body and fell from Him indicates that our
cowardice flows out of us and is gone as our nature is made strong and brave in
Christ. Had He not desired to heal the fear and cowardice of mankind, the
Lord would not have sweated so profusely and beyond what even the most craven
coward might do. “There appeared an angel unto Him,” strengthening Him, and
this too was for our encouragement, that we might learn the power of prayer to
strengthen us, and having learned this, use it as our defense in dangers and
sufferings. Thus is fulfilled the prophecy of Moses, “And let all the sons of
God be strengthened in Him,” as it is written in the great ode.
On
Luke
THE Sacred Synod has
examined these patristic passages in their entirety, and many more besides.
Although they are far too lengthy to quote in full here, they prove conclusively
that Metropolitan Anthony’s critics are mistaken to claim that he is in error when he writes that our Lord’s
prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane was not inspired by fear of His approaching
physical suffering and death, but rather by compassionate love for fallen
mankind. As St. John Chrysostom has expressed it so succinctly:
Consider
that Christ, when about to be crucified, rejoiced for Himself, but wept for
them that were crucifying Him. This ought to be our disposition also.
On
the Gospel of St. Matthew, Homily 61, on Matt. 18:21
II. Gethsemane versus Golgotha
ANOTHER concern expressed by the aforementioned clergymen is that Metropolitan Anthony’s work, The Dogma of Redemption, “dismisses” Golgotha, and thus, they say, Metropolitan Anthony is a “stavroclast”— that is, one who opposes or belittles the Cross and crucifixion of our Saviour. This assertion, however, is refuted by Metropolitan Anthony’s The Dogma of Redemption itself. Here are his very words:
We do not doubt for a moment that men could
not have been saved unless the Lord suffered and arose from the dead, yet the
bond between His suffering and our salvation is quite a different one [from the
juridical teaching].
The
Dogma of Redemption, p. 6
In
order to grant us this life, Christ had
to be crucified and raised, as the serpent was raised by Moses in the
wilderness…
The
Dogma of Redemption, p. 28
He
was oppressed with the greatest sorrows on the night when the greatest crime
in the history of mankind was committed, when the ministers of God, with the
help of Christ’s disciple, some because of envy, some because of avarice, decided
to put the Son of God to death. And a
second time the same oppressing sorrow possessed His pure soul on the Cross,
when the cruel masses, far from being moved with pity by His terrible physical
sufferings, maliciously ridiculed the Sufferer; and as to His moral suffering,
they were unable even to surmise it. …Ever since the night in Gethsemane and that day on Golgotha, every believer…
recognizes… his inner bond with Christ…
The
Dogma of Redemption, p. 28
As Bishop Gregory Grabbe, a close collaborator with Metropolitan Anthony for many years, notes in his Introduction to The Dogma of Redemption:
Therefore
Metropolitan Anthony’s words, “In this did our redemption consist,” must be referred not only to Gethsemane, but
to Golgotha also, contrary to the claims of the Metropolitan’s critics.
(viii-ix)
And any fair reading of all of Metropolitan Anthony’s Collected Works would demonstrate that nowhere — in his sermons, homilies, talks, scriptural exegesis, ukases, directives, or personal correspondence — does he disparage the Cross or the Passion of our Saviour on Golgotha, but that rather just the opposite is true: he exalts them greatly and commands that they everywhere be worshipped and revered. In accord with the Holy Fathers, Metropolitan Anthony finds the effective cause of our salvation in God’s compassionate love; our redemption springs from it and is accomplished thereby.[10]
As Bishop Gabriel (Chepura) of Chelyabinsk (who had been appointed by the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad in 1926 to review the objections of Metropolitan Anthony’s critics) notes in several passages of his report: Why does the concept of compassionate love have to be seen as contradicting or excluding the ideas of redemption, ransom, sacrifice, and so forth? Rather, does not compassionate love reveal to us the cause or reason for this sacrifice? Why are these concepts seen by Metropolitan Anthony’s critics to be mutually exclusive?
In The Dogma of Redemption Metropolitan Anthony writes:
In
exactly the same way, if we consider Christ’s sacrifice [sic] from the viewpoint of criminal, military, or
commercial law it has a definite meaning in each case, although it is not at
all in the sphere of these relationships.… None of these explanations
contradicts the others in any way, nor in actuality do they contradict the
explanation which forms the subject of this present article; but they have
very little in common with the explanations of Anselm, Aquinas, and the later
Scholastic dogmatic theology…
The
Dogma of Redemption, pp. 41–42
In Archbishop Nikon’s Life and Works of Metropolitan Anthony (vol. 5, pp. 171-72), Bishop Gabriel quotes Archbishop Theophan of Poltava’s objections to The Dogma of Redemption. Archbishop Theophan writes: “The death of Christ the Saviour on the Cross on Golgotha, according to the teaching of the Holy Fathers, undoubtedly is a redemptive and propitiating sacrifice for the sins of the race of man.” Opposite this passage, in the margin, Metropolitan Anthony has written: “I accept and do not deny.”
Archbishop Theophan of Poltava himself goes on to say (p. 172): “This sacrifice was offered not because the Father ‘demanded it or had need of it’ for the satisfaction of His anger or justice, but ‘according to the economy, i.e., for the salvation of the race of man.’” And opposite this passage too Metropolitan Anthony has made the notation: “True, but this contradicts [Metropolitan ] Philaret.”![11]
And commenting on the above statement by Archbishop Theophan, Bishop Gabriel writes (p. 172):
And
with this conclusion [of Archbishop Theophan’s] Metropolitan Anthony is also
in full agreement, but Scholastic theology says that Christ’s sacrifice was
offered for the satisfaction of Divine justice. The expression [by Archbishop
Theophan] “the sacrifice is offered according to the economy” is patristic, and
Metropolitan Anthony explains how this sacrifice relates to the economy, and
which acts of the economy are included in it.
A cardinal teaching of the Church (and one witnessed
to by all her hymnology) which Metropolitan Anthony sought to reiterate is that
we are redeemed by the Incarnation, by the entire Theandric dispensation, and
even by everything that prepared the way for it. Our Saviour’s whole earthly
life — from Bethlehem to Golgotha, and from the Tomb to the session at the
right hand of God the Father — is salvation for us. Golgotha and the Cross
cannot be separated from the Resurrection. Indeed, the words of Scripture and
of the Fathers speak often only of the Resurrection, so that a careless reader
might think that they deny the Cross. They, however, in a form of synecdoche,
speak of the triumph of the Resurrection which includes that whole economy of
dispensation.
If — as the followers of Anselm, Aquinas, Calvin, and
Luther believe — it is only the Blood of Christ spilled upon the Cross which is
our redemption, our salvation from God the Father’s wrath and justice, then why
does St. Paul so often preach that we are saved by the Resurrection? If the
atonement and appeasing of God’s wrath were so central, would not St. Paul have
emphasize it?
And
if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.
I Cor. 15:17
(Note that St. Paul did not say, “if Christ be not crucified…”.)
But
for us also, to whom it [the righteousness of Abraham] shall be imputed, if we
believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; Who was delivered
for our offences, and was raised again
for our justification.
Romans 4: 24–25
And how
I kept back nothing that was
profitable unto you, but have shewed you… Wherefore I take you to record this
day that I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare
unto you all the counsel of God.
Acts 20: 20, 26-27
Thy
Cross do we worship, O Master, and Thy Holy Resurrection do we glorify.
He
redeemed us when He gave Himself over for our sins; He redeemed us by His
blood, by His suffering, by His death, and
by His resurrection.
St. Hilary of Poitiers
St. Leo the Great, Pope of Rome, begins his homily on our Lord’s Ascension by reminding the faithful that:
The
mystery of our salvation, Beloved, that which the Creator of all things deigned
to accomplish at the price of His Own Blood, was, from the day of His birth in the flesh till the last moment of His
Passion, steadfastly accomplished along a divinely decreed path of
condescension.
As St. Paul, in his First Epistle to the Corinthians (11:1), exhorts the Christians there: “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ”. In like manner St. Isaac the Syrian, in his Ascetical Homilies No. 29 (Russian, No. 19), writes that our Saviour’s entire life serves as an example and pattern for us in our moral struggles. When read in its entirety, this homily eloquently expresses the very same sentiments as Metropolitan Anthony in his The Dogma of Redemption:
…The
Lord’s day is a mystery of the knowledge of the truth that is not received by
flesh and blood, and it transcends speculations. In this age there is no eighth
day, nor is there a true Sabbath. …For God has given us [to taste] a mystery,
but he has not [ordained] that we should here lead our lives in the true reality.
The true Sabbath, the Sabbath that is not a similitude, is the tomb, which reveals
and manifests perfect repose from the tribulations of the passions and from the
toil against them. The whole man, both soul and body, there keeps the Sabbath.
In six days God ordered the constitution of this world… From the force of these
primordial elements He fashioned our bodies. But neither did He give the
former repose from their motion, nor our bodies, formed from them, repose from
their husbandry. He fixed repose as a limit to our corporeal elements so that
they should follow their primeval kinship with the earth, which means
dissolution from this life. Thus He said to Adam, “In the sweat of thy face
shalt thou eat thy bread.” Until when? “Until thou return to the earth out of
which thou wast taken.” “And the earth shall bring forth unto thee thorns and
thistles”, which are mysteries [signifying] the husbandry of this life, for as
long as a man lives. But from the time of
that night when the Lord sweated [in Gethsemane], He changed the sweat that brought forth thorns and thistles into a
sweat in prayer and the husbandry of righteousness.
For
more than five thousand years the Lord left Adam to toil in that first husbandry,
because the path of the saints had not yet been revealed, as the Apostle says.
But in His goodness He sojourned among us
in these latter days and commanded the human free will to exchange sweat
for sweat, not allowing us complete repose from all toil, but rather an
exchange. In this manner He manifested
His loving-kindness toward us, because of our prolonged and wearisome
hardship upon the earth. If, therefore, we cease to sweat in the labor of
prayer, we shall necessarily reap thorns; for cessation of prayer means a tilling
of the earth’s corporeality which by nature brings forth thorns. For the
passions are thorns indeed, and they spring up from the seed that lies in our
body. Insomuch as we bear the image of Adam, we necessarily bear his passions
also. The earth cannot discontinue to bring forth shoots in accord with its
nature. The earth of our body is an offspring of this earth according to the
divine testimony, “The earth from which thou wast taken.” The first brings
forth thorns; the second (which is rational), passions.
…by way of a mystery the Lord was for us in
every respect a type and paradigm in all the diverse works of His dispensation,
and even until the ninth hour of the Great Friday He did not rest from labor
and wearisome toil (which is a mystery of the husbandry of our entire life),
but reposed only in the tomb on the Sabbath… Necessity… obliges us daily to
uproot thorns from the earth of our nature so long as it exists… it is clearly
necessary to purify your soil each day.
During the Anaphora of the Divine Liturgy, after the narrative of the Mystical Supper, the priest reads the Anamnesis:
Being
mindful, therefore, of this saving commandment and of all that hath come to pass for us: of the Cross, of the Grave,
of the Resurrection on the third day, of the Ascension into the heavens, of the
Session at the right hand, of the second and glorious Coming again: Thine own
of Thine own do we offer unto Thee, because of all and for all.[12]
Metropolitan Anthony likewise often speaks of Christ pouring spiritual strength into fallen man through His compassionate love as shown throughout His entire sojourn on earth, but especially in His agony in Gethsemane, His voluntary death on the Cross, and His glorious Resurrection, by which is accomplished the deification (theosis) of mankind.
As Christ
Himself declared in His prayer to the Father at the Mystical Supper: “And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they
also might be sanctified through the truth.”
John 17: 19
As the Apostle Peter himself has written unto us:
Simon
Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained
like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour
Jesus Christ: grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of
God, and of Jesus our Lord, according as His divine power hath given unto us
all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him
that hath called us to glory and virtue: whereby are given unto us exceeding
great and precious promises: that by
these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the
corruption that is in the world through lust.
II Peter 1:1–4
St. Ireneaus of Lyons declares:
…the
Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, Who did, through His transcendent love,
become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself.
Against Heresies,
Book V, (preface)
And in many passages St. Athanasius the Great tells us that “He was made man that we might be made God.” (On the Incarnation, § 54; Letters, 60:4; 61:2; Second Discourse Against the Arians: 70, etc.)
St. Cyril of Alexandria states the very same thing in his Exposition of the Gospel of St. Luke:
Of
all, therefore, that was about to befall Him, nothing was unforetold, God
having so ordered it by His Providence for our use, that when the time came for
it to happen, no one might be offended. For it was in the power of one Who knew
beforehand what was about to happen, to refuse to suffer altogether. No man
then compelled Him by force, nor again were the multitudes of the Jews stronger
than His might; but He submitted to suffer, because He knew that His passion
would be for the salvation of the whole world. For He endured indeed the death
of the flesh, but rose again, having trampled upon corruption, and by His resurrection from the dead, He
planted in the bodies of mankind the life that springs from Him. For the
whole nature of man in Him hastened back to incorruption.
Homily 125
And as St. Gregory the Theologian has so beautifully expressed it:
It
remains for us to examine an act and a dogma overlooked by most, but in my
judgment well worth enquiring into. To Whom was that Blood offered that was
shed for us, and why was it shed? I mean the precious and famous Blood of our
God and Highpriest and Sacrifice. We were detained in bondage by the evil one,
sold under sin, and receiving pleasure in exchange for wickedness. Now, since
a ransom belongs only to him who holds in bondage, I ask to whom was this
offered, and for what cause? If to the evil one, fie upon the outrage! if the
robber receives ransom, not only from God, but a ransom which consists of God
Himself, and has such an illustrious payment for his tyranny, a payment for
whose sake it would have been right for him to have left us alone altogether.
But if to the Father, I ask first, how? For it was not by Him that we were
being oppressed; and next, on what principle did the Blood of His
Only-begotten Son delight the Father, Who would not receive even Isaac, when
he was being offered up by his father, but changed the sacrifice, putting a ram
in the place of the human victim? Is it not evident that the Father accepts
the sacrifice, but neither asked for it nor demanded it; but on account of the economy, and because man must be sanctified by
the humanity of God, that He might deliver us Himself, and overcome the
tyrant, and draw us to Himself by the mediation of His Son, Who also providentially
effected this to the honor of the Father, Whom it is manifest that He obeys in
all things? Such are the things concerning Christ; but as for the greater part,
let it be reverenced with silence.
Second Homily on Pascha, § 22
And as St. Symeon the New Theologian exclaims so movingly in his Prayer before Holy Communion:
Neither greatness of
transgressions,
Nor enormity in sinning,
Can surpass my God and
Saviour’s
Great long-suffering and
mercy
And exceeding love for
mankind.
For with the oil of
compassion
Thou dost cleanse and render
shining
All those who repent with
fervour;
And Thou makest them partakers
Of Thy light in all abundance,
And true sharers of Thy Godhood.
THEREFORE the Sacred Synod finds that Metropolitan Anthony’s critics are not justified in accusing him of “stavroclasm” or of “novel interpretations” of our salvation.
III. The Proper Interpretation of
Romans 5:12
Many of Metropolitan Anthony’s critics, including Archbishop Theophan of Poltava, seem to have utterly failed to comprehend the great gulf that separates the patristic Orthodox doctrine concerning the Ancestral Sin of Adam from the heretical Augustinian doctrine of Original Sin.[14]
In support of his criticism of Metropolitan Anthony’s views on this point, Archbishop Theophan of Poltava quotes from the works of Bishop Theophan the Recluse, who, in turn, had cited St. John Chrysostom’s Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. St. John states:
As the
best physicians always take great pains to discover the source of diseases,
and go to the very fountain of the mischief, so doth the blessed Paul also.
Hence after having said that we were justified, and having shown it from the Patriarch,
and from the Spirit, and from the dying of Christ (for He would not have died
unless He intended to justify), he next confirms from other sources also what
he had at such length demonstrated. And he confirms his proposition from things
opposite, that is, from death and sin. How, and in what way? He enquires
whence death came in, and how it prevailed. How then did death come in and
prevail? “Through the sin of one.”
On
Romans, Homily 10
However, Bishop Theophan the Recluse (and Archbishop Theophan of Poltava in his turn) neglected to include the last sentence of St. John’s remarks here: “But what means, ‘for that all have sinned?’ This: he having once fallen, even they that had not eaten of the tree did from him, all of them, become mortal”!
It must be said that, although Bishops Theophan the Recluse and Ignaty Brianchaninov are indeed respected hierarchs and eminent ecclesiastical writers, nevertheless, despite their patristic erudition, their works retain elements of that very Western Scholasticism against which Metropolitan Anthony strove in writing The Dogma of Redemption. For example, it was Bishop Theophan the Recluse who had translated Lorenzo Scupoli’s Unseen Warfare into Russian, and he recommended the use of other Roman Catholic devotional texts. In his scriptural commentaries, Bishop Theophan insisted on an incorrect translation of Romans 5:12, and on a Scholastic interpretation thereof, as Metropolitan Anthony himself pointed out (see below). After he had gone into reclusion, Bishop Theophan would also celebrate the Divine Liturgy totally alone — without even a server — something which is forbidden by the Church, the Liturgy being, by its very nature, corporate worship. As for Bishop Ignaty, he taught the un-Orthodox doctrine of the “aerial toll-houses,” and he believed that hell was located in large caverns within the earth.[15] Therefore, the writings of such ecclesiastical authors cannot carry the same weight as those of the more ancient and authoritative Holy Fathers.[16] (Even more so does this apply to the writings, dreams, and visions of Archbishop Theophan of Poltava, which are lacking in patristic sobriety.)[17]
Bishop Theophan the Recluse’s interpretation of Romans 5:12 hinges on mistranslating §fÉ ⁄ as “in whom” (i.e., Adam), or “in which death”, or “in which sin”; rather than in the correct sense as “in that” or “because”.[18] Bishop Theophan the Recluse, and earlier Blessed Theophylactus, take the antecedent here to be the “one man”, i.e., Adam. However, even Bishop Theophan the Recluse admits that other interpreters do not agree with his exegesis, since the original Greek of this passages reads not §n ⁄, “in whom”, but rather §fÉ ⁄, “in that”, and Bishop Theophan further admits that it should be translated by “inasmuch as”, or “since”. Yet he then insists that, even so, this phrase, when taken in context, must be understood to mean “since all have sinned in him”!
To which Bishop Gabriel (Life and Works of Metropolitan Anthony, vol. 5, pp. 182–83) exclaims:
From
whence does this follow? Death passed by inheritance from Adam, but did sin?… A
mortal nature prone to sin is one thing; sin as a conscious violation of the
will of God is another. How can we, bearing in mind this second understanding
of the essence of sin, say that we sinned in Adam and are morally responsible
for his sin? That the corruption of our nature came from Adam, and that from him
we inherit (by the permission of God) a mortal body prone to sin — this Metropolitan Anthony in nowise
doubts. He denies only our moral–juridical responsibility for the sin of Adam.
Patriarch Photius the Great clearly states that §fÉ ⁄ is not a relative clause referring to the person of Adam or death, but it is used here as a conjunction meaning “because” or “for that”. He declares that 10,000 examples of this usage could be taken from secular literature, but that “even the divine Paul explicitly says elsewhere: ‘For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that [§fÉ ⁄] we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.’ (II Cor. 5:4).… Therefore, because we have all sinned in like manner as he who begot us, we also share in his penalty: death. Sharing in the action also led to sharing in the penalty.” (Epistles to Amphilochius, Questions NN. 83–84: PG Migne, vol. 101, pp. 553–56. Also see NN. 297–300)
Elsewhere in Archbishop Nikon’s Life and Works of Metropolitan Anthony (vol. 5, pp. 185-86), Bishop Gabriel quotes Archbishop Theophan of Poltava’s objections to The Dogma of Redemption. Beneath the list compiled by Archbishop Theophan of sayings of the Holy Fathers concerning the ancestral sin, Metropolitan Anthony has written in his own hand: “All of these sayings of the Fathers are accepted by me with all my heart; I do not deny the sinful contagion from Adam, but I will add, that for this very reason are we his spiritually impotent descendants, that the Lord knew in advance of the evil free will of each of us.”
As St. John Chrysostom writes:
It
cannot be that when one sinneth another should be punished.… This supposition
He removed by the mouth of Ezekiel: “As I live, saith the Lord, this proverb
shall not be, that is used, The fathers haven eaten sour grapes, and the children’s
teeth are set on edge.” And Moses saith, “The father shall not die for the
child, neither shall the child die for the father.”
On
the Gospel of St. John, Homily 56, (On the Man Born Blind)
And concerning the fifth verse of Psalm 50, “For behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins did my mother bear me”, St. John Chrysostom explains:
Of
old, he [David] says, from the very beginning, sin mastered my nature. The
transgression of the commandment had preceded the conception by Eve. For it was
after the fall and the loss of Paradise that Adam knew Eve, his wife: she then
conceived and bore Cain.
Thus
the prophet wishes to say that sin, having mastered our first parents, as it
were, made a road and a path for
itself through our race.[19] We
are to learn from all this that the operation of sin is not natural —
otherwise, of course, we would be free from punishment — but that our nature
has a proclivity to falling while under the influence of the passions;
however, the will can be victorious if it takes pains to that end. Here the
prophet is not faulting marriage, as some have senselessly proposed, having
thus understood the words “I was conceived in iniquities”, but he is
indicating the transgression committed by our first parents at the beginning,
and, he says, that transgression is the source of this proclivity. If, says
he, they had not transgressed, they had not received the penalty of death; and
not being mortal, they would have been above corruption. Freedom from corruption,
in any event, would have been joined to freedom from the passions; and in the
presence of passionlessness, sin would have no place. But since they did sin,
they were surrendered to corruption. Having become corrupt, they begat offspring
like unto themselves. But desires, fears and pleasures accompany them who are
in this likeness. Reason wars against these passions, and winning, is
proclaimed victorious, but suffering defeat, it is put to shame.
PG Migne, vol. 55, p. 583
Again in his Commentary on Romans, St. John Chrysostom — when interpreting the nineteenth verse of chapter five “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous” — plainly denies that we are sinners or that we are punished because of Adam’s sin:
What
he [Paul] says seems indeed to involve no small question: but if any one
attends to it diligently, this too will admit of an easy solution. What then is
the question? It is the saying that through the offence of one many were made
sinners. For the fact that when he [Adam] had sinned and become mortal, those
who were of him should be so also, is nothing unlikely. But how would it follow that from his disobedience another would become
a sinner? For at this rate a man of this sort will not even deserve punishment,
if, that is, it was not from his own self that he became a sinner.
In his exegesis
of John 9:2, St. Cyril of Alexandria dedicates a whole homily to the
condemnation of the doctrine that one generation is responsible for, or guilty
of, the sins of a former generation. He says that people who teach this “silly
nonsense” do not fear “to mingle Greek error with the doctrines of the Church.”
Thus, St. Cyril
writes:
By
the mouth of Moses He published laws innumerable and in many cases those living
in bad habits were ordered to be punished, but nowhere is a command from Him
to be found, that children should share the penalties incurred by their
sinning fathers… nay, not even does He lay upon a descendant the faults of his
ancestors like a burden.
Homilies
on St. John’s Gospel, Book 6, § 1
And
again, St. Cyril declares:
For
it would have been in a manner absurd, that the sentence of condemnation
should fall upon all men through one man, who was the first, I mean Adam; and
that those who had not sinned at that time, that is, at which the founder of
our race transgressed the commandment given unto him, should wear the dishonorable
image of the earthy.
Homilies
on St. John’s Gospel, Book 11, § 17
As St. Cyril
points out, if God actually did “lay upon a descendant the faults of his
ancestors,” He could surely not be considered merciful or long-suffering or
forgiving, but spiteful, vengeful and unjust.
But
someone will say, verily Adam fell, and by disregarding the divine commandment
he was condemned to corruption and death, but how were the many made sinful on
his account? What do his transgressions have to do with us? How is it that we
who were not even born were condemned along with him, and yet God says, “The
fathers shall not be put to death for the children and the sons shall not be
put to death for the fathers; everyone shall die in his own sin”? (Deut.
24:18). Surely, then, that soul that sins shall die; but we became sinners
through the disobedience of Adam in this way: For Adam was created for incorruption
and life, and his life in the Paradise of delight was holy, his whole mind was
continually caught up in divine visions, and his body was tranquil and serene,
since every shameful pleasure was calmed, for there was no disturbance of
intemperate emotions in him.
However,
since he fell under sin and sank into corruption, thence pleasures and
pollutions penetrated into the nature of
the flesh, and so there was planted in our members a savage law. Nature
became diseased with sin through the disobedience of the one, i.e., Adam; thus
the many also became sinners, not as
transgressing together with Adam – for they did not exist at all – but as
being from his nature which had fallen under the law of sin... because of
disobedience, human nature in Adam became infirm with corruption, and so the
passions were introduced into it....
St. Cyril of Alexandria, Interpretation of the Epistle to the Romans
PG 74, pp. 788-789
And
furthermore, if they who were born from Adam became sinners on account of his
sinning, in all justice, they are not liable, for they did not become sinners
of themselves; therefore the term
“sinners” is used instead of “mortals” because death is the penalty of sin.
Since in the first-fashioned man nature became mortal, all they who share in
the nature of the forefather consequently share mortality also.
St.
Cyril of Alexandria
(Euthymios
Zigabenos, Interpretation of the Epistle
to the Romans, 5:19)
As St. Cyril of Alexandria had
explained earlier in the same commentary:
Death
entered into the first man, and into the beginnings of our race, because of
sin, and very soon it had corrupted the entire race. In addition to this, the
serpent who invented sin, after he
had conquered Adam because of the latter’s unfaithfulness, opened up a way for himself to enter the mind of man… For since we have
all copied Adam’s transgression and thus have all sinned, we have incurred
a penalty equal to his.
PG 74, p. 784
St. Anastasius the Sinaite (§ 19)
says:
We
became the inheritors of the curse in Adam. Certainly
we were not punished as though we had disobeyed that command along with him,
but because he became mortal, he transmitted the sin to his seed; we were born mortals from a mortal.
(Vide: J. N Karmiris, SÊnociw Dogmatik∞w
Didaskal¤aw t∞w ÉOryodÒjou Kayolik∞w Ekklhs¤aw, p.
38.)
As St. Ecumenius explains:
So that no one can accuse God of injustice, in
that we all die because of the fall of Adam, Paul adds “for that all have
sinned”. Adam is the origin and the cause of the fact that we all have sinned
in imitation of him.… Death, which
originated with the sin of Adam, had our cooperation in the sins which we all
committed, and so it was able to gain control over us.
And in The
Epistles of the Patriarchs of the Eastern Catholic Church On the Orthodox
Faith of 1672 and 1723, we read:
The
first man fell while in Paradise, and from thence the ancestral sin spread by
inheritance to all his descendants, so that there is no one of those born of
flesh who would be free from this burden. However, we call burden not sin itself,
such as: impiety, hatred, and all the rest that comes forth from the heart of
man, nor from nature, but the proclivity
to sin…
THUS, Metropolitan Anthony’s interpretation of Romans 5:12 is seen to be sound and patristic.
Resolved:
INASMUCH as the views put forth by Metropolitan Anthony can be demonstrated to be in full accord with the teachings of the Holy Fathers, the Sacred Synod finds no cause to suppress the distribution of this most edifying book, nor is there any need to issue a cautionary note warning the faithful against reading it. If the Sacred Synod were to begin banning every spiritual text that proved to be controversial or open to misinterpretation, then before all else we would be forced to ban the reading of the very Scriptures themselves, because of the many heretical views and sects which result from an improper reading of them. Our measuring rod and standard must be the truth and sound doctrine. Metropolitan Anthony’s The Dogma of Redemption meets these standards.
Excursus:
The Sacred Synod would likewise wish to bring to the attention of the faithful the following historical facts bearing on this topic:
In his introduction to The Dogma of Redemption, Metropolitan Anthony notes that the ideas expressed in this treatise had already appeared in print in Russia in various articles in several theological and academic journals over the course of many years, beginning in 1890. The Dogma of Redemption itself was first published in May of 1917, in The Theological Herald, the journal of the Moscow Theological Academy. Soon thereafter, The Dogma of Redemption was printed as a separate brochure and was distributed to all the hierarchs and members of the Pan-Russian Local Council of 1917–1918. [20]
Among the 440 delegates elected to the Council, there were: eleven Metropolitans, seventeen Archbishops (including Theophan of Poltava),[21] fifty-two Bishops, fifteen Archimandrites, two Hegumens, two Protopresbyters, four Mitered Archpriests, fifty-four priests, 201 professors, instructors, and officials, besides merchants, tradesmen, and peasants. No one from among all these delegates raised any objections to, or criticism of, Metropolitan Anthony’s ecclesiology in general, or to The Dogma of Redemption in particular. Rather, when electing the three candidates for the restored office of Patriarch, the majority of these delegates gave their votes to Metropolitan Anthony. On the first ballot, Metropolitan Anthony received 101 votes, Archbishop Arseny of Novgorod received twenty-seven, and the then Metropolitan of Moscow, Tikhon, received twenty-three — the other votes going to a number of lesser candidates. As is known, Metropolitan Tikhon was later chosen by lot to be Patriarch.[22] Would so many pious, educated churchmen have voted for Metropolitan Anthony if they suspected him of harboring heretical opinions? Or would Patriarch Tikhon and his Synod have entrusted Metropolitan Anthony with other very responsible positions in the Church, as did, in fact, occur after the Council?
Soon after the restoration of the Patriarchate, the then Archbishop Anthony was raised to the rank of Metropolitan at the request of Patriarch Tikhon and appointed a member of the Patriarchal Synod.
In 1918 Vladyka Anthony was elected Metropolitan of Kiev by popular vote. At the approach of the Bolshevik forces he had to be evacuated. Metropolitan Anthony then became head of the Temporary Church Administration of Southern Russia.
In 1920 Metropolitan Anthony and his fellow-hierarchs were forced to depart to Constantinople together with thousands of Russian exiles. With the agreement of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, these Russian hierarchs formed the Supreme Administration of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, with Metropolitan Anthony as their president. In 1921, at the invitation of the Serbian Church and King Alexander, the Church Administration was transferred to Sremski Karlovci, Yugoslavia.
The Dogma of Redemption was reprinted in Serbia in 1922,[23] and again in 1926. It also appears in volume eight of Archbishop Nikon’s Life and Works of Metropolitan Anthony, published in New York in 1961.[24] In 1924 Metropolitan Anthony’s Toward an Orthodox Christian Catechism was printed by the publishing house of the Serbian Patriarchate with funds donated to Vladyka Anthony by Patriarch Gregory V of Antioch, and by other Eastern hierarchs. This Catechism was warmly received and praised by prominent hierarchs of the other Local Orthodox Churches, and was subsequently translated into several foreign languages. Metropolitan Evlogius of Paris, then still a member of the Church Abroad, wrote to Metropolitan Anthony: “Thanks be to the Lord for this catechism… Certainly this departure from Scholasticism and this new, yet in essence, ancient patristic illumination of Orthodox doctrine is precious, now more than ever… It is a great and marvelous gift, both for students and for instructors.”[25]
On March 27 / April 9, 1925, the Synod of Bishops of the ROCA, in the absence of Metropolitan Anthony, officially approved his Catechism. However, Archbishop Theophan (Bystrov) of Poltava, and Bishop Seraphim (Sobolev) of Boguchar — both then living in Bulgaria — sent a formal report contending this Synodal decision and criticizing the contents of both Metropolitan Anthony’s Catechism and The Dogma of Redemption. Thereupon the Synod of Bishops appointed the learned Bishop Gabriel (Chepura) of Chelyabinsk to investigate the matter and submit a report to the Synod. Thus, on April 9/22, 1926, again in the absence of Metropolitan Anthony, the Synod met a second time to review Bishop Gabriel’s detailed report. The objections and criticisms of Bishops Theophan and Seraphim were refuted, and Metropolitan Anthony’s works were again approved. Their Synodal resolution reads:
“In reviewing, for a second time, the question of approving the catechism of Metropolitan Anthony as a textbook… it has been decided: On the basis of our former judgments, and after a thorough discussion of the objections of Archbishop Theophan and Bishop Seraphim, and the review by Bishop Gabriel in connection with Metropolitan Anthony’s brochure The Dogma of Redemption, the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad resolves: Not finding in the catechism of Metropolitan Anthony the deviations from Church doctrine indicated by Archbishop Theophan and Bishop Seraphim, no basis is found to revoke the Synodal resolution of March 27 / April 9, 1925.” (Life and Works of Metropolitan Anthony, vol. 5, p. 167)
Although highly critical of Metropolitan Anthony’s The Dogma of Redemption, both Archbishop Theophan and Bishop Seraphim nevertheless continued to participate in the meetings of the Synod for several more years. Their signatures appear on many Synodal resolutions, beneath that of the “President of the Council, Metropolitan Anthony”. How seriously can their accusations of heresy be taken, if Archbishop Theophan and Bishop Seraphim themselves did not severe communion with the supposed “heresiarch”, but rather, still held him to be their First-Hierarch? Subsequently, however, both Archbishop Theophan and Bishop Seraphim themselves did withdraw from the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad.[26]
Such luminaries as Hieromartyr Ilarion Troitsky, St. John of San Francisco, St. Philaret of New York, and Archimandrite Justin Popovich have all embraced Metropolitan Anthony’s elucidation of the Church’s ancient teachings on the dogma of redemption, and they have incorporated them into their own sermons and writings. These modern Fathers of the Church demonstrate the soundness of Metropolitan Anthony’s views, amplify his teaching, and further refute his ill-advised critics.[27]
In the 1930’s, the Moscow Patriarchate condemned Fr. Sergius Bulgakov (of the St. Sergius Theological Institute of Paris) as a heresiarch for his Gnostic, false teaching of Sophiology. Would they have refrained from likewise officially condemning their arch-enemy abroad, Metropolitan Anthony, if they had felt that there was enough cause to accuse him of heresy?
Conclusion:
TAKING all of the above into consideration, the Sacred Synod wishes to inform its faithful flock, that — following the example of Metropolitan Anastasy, of blessed memory, and of Saint Philaret of New York, and their Synod — we, in like manner, consider this matter to be resolved, and we will not accept or entertain further deliberations or petitions submitted to the Sacred Synod on this topic of The Dogma of Redemption by Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky.
THE Sacred Synod wishes to take this opportunity to warn the faithful against citing the Holy Scriptures, or even the sacred hymnology of the Church, out of context. The Church is One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic, and therefore bases its teachings on the whole of the Holy Tradition, on the consensus of the Holy Fathers. As Orthodox Christians, we do not base ourselves on our “private interpretations” and opinions, or on isolated texts, as do the Protestants and other sectarians. The entire body of the Church’s Holy Tradition must be preserved and accepted and incorporated into our daily lives. The Church is neither “Basilian,” nor “Gregorian,” nor “Chrysostomian” (as the Synaxarion for the feast of the Three Hierarchs, on January 30, points out), while those outside the Church, for example, are designated as “Papal,” or “Lutheran,” or “Calvinist”.
As is evident from the sacred texts themselves, the Holy Church teaches in all her hymns and services that our salvation was accomplished by the entire earthly life of our Saviour and by all that prepared the way for it. Thus we chant:
Christ,
the Light that was before the sun, goeth about incarnate upon the earth; and before the Cross, accomplishing in a
manner worthy of God all things pertaining to His dread dispensation…
From the verses of the Liti for Vespers of
the Lord’s Transfiguration
Joachim
and Anna were freed from the reproach of childlessness, and Adam and Eve from the corruption of death, O immaculate one, by thy holy nativity, which thy
people, redeemed from the guilt of
offences, celebrate by crying to thee: The barren woman giveth birth to
the Theotokos, the nourisher of our life.
Kontakion for the Nativity of the Theotokos
…Today [on the day, that is, of the
circumcision of Christ] He grants salvation to the world…
Kontakion for January 1
Thou
Who didst sanctify the Virgin’s womb by Thy birth, and didst bless Symeon’s
hands as was meet, by anticipation hast
even now saved us, O Christ God.…
Kontakion of the Meeting of the Lord in the Temple
NOW, if we were to quote various passages out of their context, many false teachings would be found in the Church’s sacred texts themselves. By employing an erroneous interpretation here, one could claim that Saint Romanos the Melodist was a stavroclast, since he teaches here that our redemption from death was accomplished by the nativity of the holy Theotokos. There is no mention whatsoever of the Cross of Christ in St. Romanos’ Kontakion in connection with our redemption.
And, in addition to being saved by the Theotokos’ nativity, we also learn that “today,” on January 1st, the world is granted redemption by Christ’s circumcision! Again, no mention is made here of the Cross in our redemption.
And the Kontakion of the Meeting of the Lord in the Temple proclaims that as a forty-day old Babe, Christ had already redeemed us in anticipation!
Certainly, such a method of reading the sacred texts is not, and cannot be practiced by Orthodox Christians.
HOWEVER, a more complete reading of the Church’s patristic and liturgical texts, in addition to a careful reading of The Dogma of Redemption itself, demonstrates conclusively that the charges against Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky are completely unfounded.
Protocol No. 120.
August 23 / September 5, 2002
Hieromartyr Irenaeus
Bishop of Lyons
X Makarios,
Metropolitan of Toronto
X Ephraim,
Metropolitan of Boston
X Moses,
Metropolitan of Seattle
APPENDIX — I
Lest the reader, especially the non-Russian one, be given the impression that this controversy over The Dogma of Redemption has just recently been dredged up from the 1920’s, we offer this brief chronology of this issue over the last fifty years.
— From 1956 to 1969 Archbishop Nikon published his seventeen-volume set of The Life and Works of Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky, which contains the text of both Metropolitan Anthony’s Catechism (vol. 5), and of his The Dogma of Redemption (vol. 8). In all, over 400 pages in various volumes deal with these two works by Metropolitan Anthony and related topics.
— In 1973, hearing that an English-language translation of The Dogma of Redemption was being prepared, Fr. Seraphim Rose composed his Report on it. (See Appendix III.)
— In 1979, Monastery Press (Montreal, Canada) published The Dogma of Redemption in English, as translated by Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Boston.
— In 1983 Fr. Epiphanius Chernov’s biography of Archbishop Theophan of Poltava was published in France, concerning which, see below.
— In 1984, Synaxis Press (British Columbia, Canada) published its own English translation of The Dogma of Redemption as part of its Moral Idea of the Main Dogmas of the Faith by Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky.
— In 1991 the ROCA Archdiocese of Australia reprinted an abridged edition of Metropolitan Anthony’s Catechism for distribution in Russia.
— In 1992, St. Herman of Alaska Press published Fr. Seraphim’s Report (in Russian) as an appendix to the posthumous Russian edition of Fr. Michael Pomazansky’s Orthodox Dogmatic Theology.
— Also in 1992, in its Russian book Archbishop Seraphim Sobolev: Life and Works, St. Herman of Alaska Press reprinted his essay against The Dogma of Redemption.
— Then, in 1994, St. Herman of Alaska Press printed the revised English edition of Fr. Seraphim Rose’s Report in Orthodox Word and in the English edition of Fr. Michael Pomazansky’s Orthodox Dogmatic Theology.
— In 1994 the Valaam Society of America–St. Herman of Alaska Press published (“with the blessing of Metropolitan John of St. Petersburg” of the Moscow Patriarchate) a Russian biography of Archbishop Theophan of Poltava, Spiritual Father to the Tsar’s Family, which also contains much material on his controversy with Metropolitan Anthony.
— In 1997 the Valaam Society of America–St. Herman of Alaska Press published a Russian biography of Gregory Rasputin, The Wheat and the Tares, which also deals with Archbishop Theophan.
— Also in 1997 the newly discovered archives of Archbishop Theophan of Poltava were published in St. Petersburg, Russia. These amount to 766 printed pages and contain the full text of his report to the Synod of the ROCA on The Dogma of Redemption — plus much more related material.
— In its issue No. 7/40, 1998, the Russian journal Vertograd-Inform printed a review of these newly published archives of Archbishop Theophan of Poltava, stressing the significance of their having appeared in print.
— In 1998 in Moscow, the full text of Archbishop Theophan’s report to the ROCA Synod was published as a separate booklet (90 pages) by Pravoslavnoe Deistvie.
— The February 1999 issue of Vertograd-Inform (No. 2/47) contained a book review by Egor Holmogorov on the Moscow Patriarchate’s expurgated edition of the collected works of Hieromartyr Ilarion Troitsky. This review spoke very highly of Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky and defended his reputation and his theology.[31]
— Again in 1999, Vertograd-Inform featured Archbishop Theophan of Poltava’s life and works as the main theme of the June issue, No. 6/51, including a review of Archbishop Theophan’s full report to the ROCA Synod on The Dogma of Redemption.[32]
— And yet a little later in 1999, Vertograd-Inform featured Fr. Seraphim Rose’s life and works as the main theme of the August issue, No. 8/53.
— In 2000 Synaxis Press (British Columbia, Canada) published a critical analysis (37 pages) of Fr. Seraphim Rose’s Report.
— In 2002 Synaxis Press reprinted its Moral Idea of the Main Dogmas of the Faith, which contains an English translation of The Dogma of Redemption.
— Later in 2002, The Dogma of Redemption is to be published in a new French translation accompanied by commentaries.
— In the autumn of 2002, The Dogma of Redemption is to be reprinted in Russian, with supplementary material concerning Metropolitan Anthony’s disciples who shared his theological views.
In addition,
related materials appear in the Russian-language journal of the Matthewite Old
Calendar Church, Holy Russ, and in
the publications of Fr. Ambrose Sievers (concerning whom, see below). Much of
the above-mentioned material is also now accessible online via the Internet at
various web-sites belonging to some of the above groups. Presently several
discussions of this controversy are taking place online too.
At this point it would be helpful to consider who
some of these sources are.
Brief Biographical Sketch of Archbishop Theophan
of Poltava
The two primary sources for all other published biographies of Archbishop Theophan of Poltava (besides his own autobiographical comments and his letters) are 1) the booklet compiled by Archbishop Averky (Taushev),[33] and the full biography written by Schema-monk Epiphanius (Chernov)[34] — both of whom had been cell-attendants of Archbishop Theophan while in Bulgaria. Archbishop Joasaph (Skorodumov) of Edmonton, Canada, has also recorded his reminiscences of his spiritual father, Archbishop Theophan. Herein we will touch upon only those parts of Archbishop Theophan’s biography which pertain to the matter under discussion.
In 1905 Archimandrite Theophan Bystrov was appointed Inspector of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy. On November 13, 1905 he was first presented to the Imperial family; soon thereafter he was invited to become their father-confessor. A week before their first reception of Archimandrite Theophan, the Emperor and Empress had already made the acquaintance of Gregory Rasputin on November 5, 1905, while visiting Grand Duchesses Militsa and Anastasia Nicholaevna, the Montenegrins. It was, however, Archimandrite Theophan who had initially introduced Rasputin to the Montenegrin sisters, while Archimandrite Theophan himself had been introduced to Rasputin in 1903 by the then Bishop Sergius (Stragorodsky), Rector of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, and future first Patriarch of the Soviet Church.[35] Thus, although not directly responsible for having presented Rasputin to the Imperial couple, Archimandrite Theophan did at first encourage the relationship. Later, however, having become disillusioned with Rasputin, Archimandrite Theophan regretted his actions and repented of his involvement.
On February 1, 1909, Archimandrite Theophan was named Rector of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy; three weeks later he was consecrated Bishop of Jamburg, fourth vicar of the St. Petersburg diocese. In 1910 Bishop Theophan was transferred to the see of Sevastopol in the Crimea, then in 1912 to Astrakhan, and in 1913 to Poltava as its Archbishop.
After the First
World War and the Russian Revolution, Archbishop Theophan retreated to
Southern Russia, where he participated in the formation of the Temporary Church
Administration, headed by Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky. With his fellow
hierarchs, Archbishop Theophan was eventually evacuated to Constantinople. In
1921, by invitation of the Serbian Orthodox Church and King Alexander of
Yugoslavia, the Church Administration was transferred to Sremski Karlovci,
Yugoslavia.
In 1925
Archbishop Theophan moved from Belgrade to Sofia, Bulgaria, having been invited
there by several members of the Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church who had
been his students in Russia before the Revolution. It was while he was already
residing in Bulgaria that Archbishop Theophan composed his critique of
Metropolitan Anthony’s Catechism and
of The Dogma of Redemption, and sent
them to the Synod of the ROCA in Sremski Karlovci. Once having moved to
Bulgaria, Archbishop Theophan began to attend meetings of the Synod less and
less frequently, and to gradually withdraw from active participation in church
affairs. However, he did attend the ROCA Sobor of 1927 which condemned
Metropolitan Sergius of Moscow and his infamous “Declaration”. Archbishop
Theophan’s last meeting with his fellow hierarchs was at the Sobor of 1931.
In April of
1931, Archbishop Theophan left Bulgaria for Clamart, France, near Paris. From
the accounts of his biographers, it does not appear that Archbishop Theophan informed
the ROCA Synod in Belgrade of his plans or received their blessing for the move
to Paris. Perhaps Archbishop Theophan no longer considered himself a member of
the ROCA Synod. In any event, he seems to have simply abandoned his throne and
flock in Bulgaria. Fr. Epiphanius (Chapter 30) provides two reasons for this
sudden move. First of all, Archbishop Theophan had had a falling-out with his
former disciple and suffragan, Bishop Seraphim (Sobolev). However, the second,
and chief cause was that Archbishop Theophan had received a most secret and
trustworthy message from his acquaintances in Paris, General Porokhov and his
wife, reporting that Tsar Nicholas II and his family were alive and well. The
Porokhovs, who had been close to the Court in St. Petersburg, were imploring
Archbishop Theophan, as former father-confessor of the Imperial family, to come
to Paris to positively identify the Tsar. Archbishop Theophan was informed that
look-alikes had been smuggled into the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg and had
nobly gone to their death in place of the Imperial family, who had fled from
the cellar through a secret tunnel and then escaped to Western Europe.[36]
In leaving Sofia, Bulgaria, Archbishop Theophan promised his followers there
to send them a cryptic message from Paris informing them of the result of his
meeting with the Tsar. Fr. Epiphanius goes on to relate: “Soon after his
departure from Bulgaria, a letter was received in which Archbishop Theophan
laconically reported: ‘No doubt whatsoever. And no need to travel further.’”[37]
Which Fr. Epiphanius explains as meaning that either Tsar Nicholas was hiding
in the Porokhovs’ apartment, or else he was somewhere in the vicinity of Paris,
and that Archbishop Theophan had met him face to face. However, soon after his
arrival in Paris, Archbishop Theophan came to understand that he was being
followed everywhere.
Realizing that
Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin were aware of Nicholas II’s escape, but not of the
Tsar’s actual whereabouts, Archbishop Theophan became convinced that plans were
afoot to capture him while en route to church, in order to extract this
precious information from him by torture. As Fr. Epiphanius writes: “the
Chekists were literally hunting the Archbishop in Paris”. [38]
Therefore Vladyka Theophan shut himself up at home and began to serve there.
Finally, in
April of 1936, after the latest attempt by the Soviets to abduct Archbishop
Theophan had supposedly been discovered and foiled, he fled for safety and
solitude to the small village of Moune, near Amboise, on the Loire. Then, at
the beginning of September 1939, Archbishop Theophan settled in a series of
chalk caves near Limeray, where he was guarded by “twelve fierce dogs —
Doberman-pincers — capable of tearing a man apart in a minute”.[39]
Fr. Epiphanius (Chapter 31) claims that these vicious dogs were Archbishop
Theophan’s “only available protection from his many enemies.” He also records
that the compound was likewise surrounded by a high steel fence. There, within
his cave, Archbishop Theophan reposed on February 6/19, 1940.[40]
Thus, his disciples are perhaps overstating the facts when they reverently
refer to Archbishop Theophan as a “cave dweller”, for he did not occupy the
cave at Limeray for even a full six months. Nor could he be considered a true
hermit, since he was served by two elderly Russian women, and surrounded by a
menagerie of farm animals.[41]
At the time of his death Archbishop Theophan apparently was in communion with no one. He was buried in the local cemetery by a certain Hieromonk Barnabas, who lived in a nearby village. Some of Archbishop Theophan’s disciples and biographers have expressed their grief that the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad did not perform the burial. Yet these very same people admit that Archbishop Theophan himself had withdrawn from the ROCA years before.[42] Strangely, Archbishop Evlogius of Paris, who was already in schism from the ROCA, was invited to Limeray to conduct the funeral. He refused, rightfully citing the fact that Archbishop Theophan was not a member of his hierarchy. Proof that Archbishop Theophan had cut himself off from the ROCA is the fact that his followers did not summon the ROCA’s own Archbishop of Paris, Seraphim (Lukianov). Nor do these people take into consideration the times and circumstances. In September of 1939 Hitler’s Germany had invaded Poland, igniting the Second World War. By the following February when Archbishop Theophan reposed, tensions and fears in France were very high as they awaited the inevitable German attack, while communications with distant Serbia were very difficult, if not non-existent.[43]
Archbishop Theophan either 1) truly considered that Metropolitan Anthony was preaching heresy, severed all ties with him and his synod, and thus was no longer a member of the ROCA episcopacy; or 2) he remained in communion with the ROCA synod, and thus his accusations of heresy cannot be taken very seriously. Archbishop Theophan’s disciples and followers cannot have it both ways. And in any event, since Archbishop Theophan ceased to communicate with the ROCA Synod for the course of his last nine years, his former fellow-hierarchs had no way of knowing his position in relation to their synod.
In commenting further on the life of Archbishop
Theophan, we do not in any way wish to uncover the nakedness of a father by
drawing attention to Archbishop Theophan’s confusion of thought; and certainly
we would not wish to make known his personal sins and failings lest we
ourselves should be brought naked before the dread Judgment Seat on the Last
Day. However, insofar as his confusions are likely to lead others into
deception (prelest), they should be
brought to light for the protection of the weak. No one denies that Archbishop
Theophan was a great and rigorous ascetic, nor do we doubt that he may have won
his reward among the elect; however, there appears to be something amiss in
his writings. And in his life, there is a lack of that sobriety which was, and
is, the mark of the greatest pastors and spiritual directors. The very
virulence with which he (Archbishop Theophan of Poltava) opposed Metropolitan
Anthony Khrapovitsky, the first Chief-Shepherd of the Russian Orthodox Church
Abroad, is a sign of this.[44]
Fr. Herman Podmoshensky and Fr. Seraphim Rose of Platina have a great love
and respect for Archbishop Theophan, as is known. They even, rather unwisely,
hailed him as “the one Orthodox
hierarch” who in the twentieth century “stands out especially for his patristic
orientation.” Yet, even in the Life
that they published of Archbishop Theophan, there are several things that cause
people to wonder, and to have qualms about him. Notably, his statement that
the bishop of Belgorod — who had committed suicide by hanging himself in the
lavatory of the episcopal residence — had actually been killed by the demons!
Nowhere in the Church’s teaching and tradition do we find that demons are
given power to destroy a man themselves. “The Lord said unto Satan: Behold he
[Job] is in thine hand; but save his life” (Job 2:6). Archbishop Theophan’s
explanation here goes well beyond a mere case of demonic possession, the
consequences of which the demonized man would to some degree be morally
responsible for, having allowed himself to come to such a state. Archbishop
Theophan declared: “The Bishop did not perish [spiritually], since he did not lay hands upon himself,
but the demons did it by means of deception.” If the poor hierarch did not do
himself in — as Archbishop Theophan clearly maintains here — then are we to
understand that the demons physically
hanged him?… Or what is one to make of Archbishop Theophan’s account of the
dead youth who appeared to him asking for his prayers, and who then proceeded
to describe to him the twenty-one steps of the aerial toll-houses in great
detail?
Another very disturbing case involved a certain Russian
man who, in his youth, had been a disciple of Archbishop Theophan. (The man,
now reposed, related his life’s story to the fathers of Holy Transfiguration
Monastery in Boston, himself, thus we have it firsthand). The both of them
being found abroad after the Revolution, Archbishop Theophan had assured this
man, already at that time a young hierodeacon, that a certain Russian woman, a
Staritsa and seer, was genuine and
that her counsels could be trusted. She, in turn, advised this young hierodeacon
that it was permissible for him to return to the world and perform as a
concert musician, as long as he wore his cassock on stage. In this way he would
be able “to bring beauty to the world”. Of course, this didn’t last for long;
the hierodeacon eventually met a young lady, abandoned his monastic
discipline, and married. Such a “dispensation” is simply impossible: for
serious transgressions a hieromonk can be deposed from the priesthood;
released from his monastic vows he cannot be.[45]
Sadly, when this man, at the end of his long life, sought to rectify this
situation and return to his monastic calling, others hindered him from fulfilling
his good intention.
There are certain other eccentricities in Archbishop
Theophan’s life: his misdirected grief about his involvement with Rasputin and
the Imperial family, his apparent paranoia about his own murder by the servants
of Antichrist, the unusual circumstances of his last years, and especially his
death in isolation from the Church. All these things, which are known even to
those that do not read Russian, arouse doubts about him. Also, his own contemporaries,
those whom we ourselves knew, seemed generally to be of the opinion that “Yes,
he was a great ascetic, a learned man, but there was something a little wrong.”
“He was a man given to heeding dreams and visions,” they all say, and this is
borne out in his own writings; yet all our holy fathers have warned strenuously
against paying heed to such things. It is one of the first admonitions in St.
John Climacus’ Ladder of Divine Ascent.
Therefore, although Archbishop Theophan was undoubtedly a great struggler, perhaps
even a holy man, he is not a man whose writings and example it would be advisable
to follow, for there is every indication that before his end he was in some
state of deception (prelest). Maybe
this was not the case, and perhaps the facts could be explained as some sort of
mental disorder, or even a certain foolishness — we cannot say and do not wish
to — but nevertheless, it would be irresponsible not to be on our guard. Archbishop
Anthony (Medvedev) of San Francisco records his spiritual father’s, Archimandrite
Ambrose (Kurganov) of Milkovo, assessment of Archbishop Theophan when the
latter served as abbot of their monastery in Petkovitsa, Serbia: “Holy, but not
skillful.”[46]
For all these reasons, Archbishop
Theophan would be dangerous as a spiritual preceptor, especially since he
isolated himself from the faithful and their archpastors. True guides are such
fathers as Saint Maximus of Kapsokalivia — himself a hermit and cave dweller on
Mount Athos — who did not even accept the Holy Virgin when she appeared to him,
but instead he called himself a sinner and unworthy;[47] or
those fathers who humbly continued in their obediences, and lived together in
sketes and coenobia. If we have wronged the memory of a holy man in what we
write, we beg Archbishop Theophan’s forgiveness and his prayers that we be
corrected; for we write these things not in malice (for we did not know the man)
but to safeguard the piety of the faithful. Archbishop Theophan did not exhibit
that sobriety and discretion and zeal for the unity of the Church which is seen
in the consensus of the Saints and Holy Fathers.
In contrast to the above evaluation of Archbishop Theophan of Poltava, his disciples and latter-day followers have expressed their conviction concerning “that exceptional position which in due time Archbishop Theophan will assume in the terrestrial Church, when he becomes one of the most beloved and revered of the Russian saints of worldwide significance… [The Lord] has predestined him to be a great Leader of people of the true Orthodox Faith in the future Russia resurrected from the dead… With each passing year he is becoming [?] a holy Father of the Church…”[48] These predictions are accompanied by stirring accounts of posthumous appearances of Archbishop Theophan, miracles worked by him, and his prophecies concerning the last times.
Archbishop
Seraphim Sobolev
Archbishop Seraphim (Sobolev) of Boguchar was originally consecrated as Bishop of Lubny by Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky and Archbishop Theophan while in the Crimea, not long before their evacuation from Russia. In 1921 Bishop Seraphim was appointed by the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad to shepherd the flock of Russian refugees in Bulgaria, of whom there were over 50,000. He continued to participate in the affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, being present at the Bishops’ Sobor of 1931 which dealt with the Evlogian schism and relations with the Moscow Patriarchate. In 1934 the ROCA Synod bestowed upon him the title of Archbishop. In 1938 Archbishop Seraphim participated in the ROCA Pan-Diaspora Sobor.
After the Second World War, in 1946, Archbishop Seraphim (and his flock) entered into communion with the Moscow Patriarchate, thus betraying his earlier firm stance against Sergianism as a hierarch of the ROCA. In 1948 he was one of the prominent speakers at the Conference of the Primates of the Autocephalous Orthodox Churches, which was convoked in Moscow in order to discuss what their position should be regarding the Ecumenical movement. Thanks to Archbishop Seraphim’s report: “Should the Russian Orthodox Church Participate in the Ecumenical Movement?” — it was decided to refrain from active membership. Archbishop Seraphim reposed in Bulgaria in 1950.
In addition to countersigning Archbishop Theophan of Poltava’s protest against Metropolitan Anthony’s Catechism and The Dogma of Redemption, Archbishop Seraphim also wrote his own critique. It appears in his The Distortion of Orthodox Truth in Russian Theological Thought, Chapter 5: “Concerning the Article by Metropolitan Anthony ‘The Dogma of Redemption.’”[49] As others have noted, this work is written from the point of view of school-book, rote theology, and therefore is neither very Orthodox, nor very convincing.[50] Oddly, Archbishop Seraphim chose to publish his refutation only in 1943, when his opponent in this controversy, Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky, and his ally, Archbishop Theophan of Poltava, had both already reposed.
Recently the Russian-language periodical Pravoslavnaia Zhizn, published by Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville NY, devoted its June 2002 issue entirely to Archbishop Seraphim Sobolev, as did their English-language magazine Orthodox Life (Vol. 52, No. 3, May–June, 2002). There it is reported that in February 2002, Bishop Photius of Triaditsa, of the Bulgarian Old Calendar Church under Metropolitan Cyprian of Fili, officially glorified Archbishop Seraphim. In reporting this event, Pravoslavnaia Zhizn’ made a point of explaining that “the Bulgarian Old Calendar Church is found in full canonical communion with the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad.” Oddly, nowhere in the Life of the newly glorified saint is it recorded that he reposed as a member of the Moscow Patriarchate, or that he had ever written or said anything against Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky, first Chief-Hierarch of the ROCA.
In like manner, the most resent issue of Pravoslavnaya Rus, (No. 14, 2002) features a front-page editorial on the glorification of Archbishop Seraphim Sobolev. Thus, all three of Holy Trinity Monastery’s publications have granted this event prime coverage. The editorial in Pravoslavnaya Rus contains two paragraphs of particular interest.
Apparently it was felt that some mention, if only in passing, should be made of the fact that Archbishop Seraphim had reposed outside of the fold of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. Hence we read:
As
is well known [?], the greater part of the prelate Seraphim’s life as a hierarch
took place within the confines of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. He
remained true to the ideals of our Church unto his last days. And, after the
Second World War, being found under the regime of the God-haters, he
fearlessly continued to preach those ideals.
The concluding paragraph of this editorial expresses a dire warning.
The
holy fathers say, that he who does not worthily revere a newly glorified saint,
that man severs his link with all the preceding saints…
If such indeed is the case, then what is to be said of those who irreverently reburied the God-revealed, incorrupt relics of the New Confessor, Saint Philaret of New York, and who have ignored his ecclesiastical glorification which was performed by two separate synods of bishops?[51]
Fr.
Anthony (Epiphanius) Chernov
Since much of the biographical material on Archbishop Theophan of Poltava (and much of the information on his controversy with Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky over The Dogma of Redemption) comes from the various accounts written by Fr. Epiphanius Chernov, one’s confidence in the credibility of his testimony will, of necessity, depend on one’s perception of Fr. Epiphanius Chernov himself.[52]
Alexander Andreevich Chernov was born in 1909 in Southern Russia. Being orphaned at an early age, he was enrolled in one of the Cadet Corps. In 1919 Alexander Chernov emigrated together with the retreating White Army forces. He eventually went to Bulgaria, where in 1927 he became closely acquainted with Archbishop Theophan of Poltava who was then residing there in Varna. In 1929 Alexander moved to Sofia and became Archbishop Theophan’s cell-attendant. When Vladyka Theophan left for France in 1931, Alexander Chernov remained in Sofia in order to continue his studies, eventually completing the Military Academy and receiving degrees from both the History–Philology and the Theology departments of the University of Sofia.
In 1932 Alexander Chernov joined the ranks of the Russian émigré political organization, the National Labor Union of the New Generation.[53] As soon as the advancing Soviet forces entered Bulgaria in 1944, Alexander Chernov, being General Secretary of the Bulgarian branch of the NLU, was immediately arrested and deported to the Soviet Union. Tried and convicted, Alexander was sentenced to ten years imprisonment in the Gulag, where he met many Catacomb Orthodox Christians.
At this point the various narratives of Alexander Chernov’s life diverge sharply. Some biographers maintain that Alexander united himself to the Catacomb Church in all sincerity and that his many subsequent testimonies and recollections concerning the True Orthodox Christians are true and trustworthy. Others contend that he was recruited by the Soviet security forces as an agent-provocateur, and that he spent the rest of his days spreading disinformation about the Catacomb Church and sowing mistrust and suspicion among her members — eventually even among the members of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. The facts given below are according to Fr. Epiphanius’ own account.
In 1953 Alexander Chernov fell under the general amnesty following upon Stalin’s death and was finally released from prison in 1955. Soon thereafter Alexander joined the Catacomb Church and began the life of a wanderer. At the beginning of the 1960’s Alexander was tonsured into the mantia and given the monastic name of Anthony. He was arrested in Kiev in 1975 for producing samizdat literature.
In 1978 Fr. Anthony Chernov was permitted to emigrate to Switzerland, supposedly because he had been a Bulgarian citizen (not Soviet) at the time of his first arrest in 1944. Soon after his arrival in the West, Fr. Anthony gave an interview to the émigré journal Possev.[54] As Fr. Anthony put it: “I… fought for more than a year to leave the USSR. I wrote three times to Brezhnev something like this: ‘I’m not yours and I will never be yours. You are sending your own out of the country and depriving them of Soviet citizenship. With me it is simpler — you don’t have to deprive me of anything. For you I am some kind of foreign body. Give me freedom. I have been deprived of freedom already for 35 years. I’m already an old man and sick. Here, I have no one, but there, I have relatives. I have already been in camps twice. Do I have to wait for a third time?’”!
After a short sojourn in the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad,[55] Fr. Anthony joined the Matthewite Greek Old Calendarists and was tonsured into the Great Schema, with the name Epiphanius, by Metropolitan Epiphanius of Kition, Cyprus. Fr. Epiphanius returned to Russia in 1991, where eventually he convinced other Catacomb Christians to also join the Matthewites. Fr. Epiphanius Chernov reposed in November 1994.
In addition to his biography of Archbishop Theophan of Poltava, Fr. Epiphanius has also written his own history of the Russian Catacomb Church, and essays on Sergianism, on The Dogma of Redemption and the so-called stavroclast heresy, on the Church Typicon, and several “Open Letters” on various ecclesiastical topics. Much of this material is available online, or has been reprinted recently.
In the course of his interview with the journal Possev, mentioned above, Fr. Anthony Chernov made one very revealing comment. He related how a certain Catacomb priest, whom he had known in Russia, had once been invited to the home of a high-ranking Communist Party functionary. This Communist declared to the priest that he had come to believe in Christ, and he asked him whether it was necessary for him to leave the Communist Party — a thing which the man was prepared to do, although he understood the consequences. Apparently this “Catacomb” priest did not insist on the man’s leaving the Party. And Fr. Anthony Chernov (himself being a “Catacomb” monk) declared: “The most extreme section of the Catacomb Church is the True Orthodox Christians (TOC). …they will not accept a Communist into their group under any circumstance whatsoever. However, as far as I am concerned, this barrier — membership in the [Communist] Party — is not an impediment. By not accepting Communists you simply strengthen them in their own views and alienate them further.”![56]
Basil (Fr. Gregory) Lourie’s Review of Archbishop Theophan’s Report
(Vertograd-Inform, No. 6/51, June 1999)
In his review of Archbishop Theophan of Poltava’s report,[57] Basil Lourie (now Hieromonk Gregory, under Metropolitan Valentin) informs us that in his critique of The Dogma of Redemption, Archbishop Theophan exposes the chief error in Metropolitan Anthony’s teaching. According to Archbishop Theophan (and others), Metropolitan Anthony confuses the terms “nature” or “essence” and “will” and “operation”, and that thus Metropolitan Anthony lays a false foundation for all his subsequent dogmatic constructs. We cannot agree, but rather feel that Archbishop Theophan and his like-minded followers are, among other things, forcing too literal an interpretation on one phrase in Metropolitan Anthony’s The Dogma of Redemption: “Hence we see that nature is not an abstraction of the common attributes of different objects or persons made by our minds, but a certain real essence, real will and operation, acting in separate persons” (pp. 33–34).
Here the copula “is” should not be taken to mean “equals”; in this passage Metropolitan Anthony does not equate nature and essence with will and operation, but rather, he seeks to emphasize that all of these: nature, will, and operation, are not abstract concepts divorced from real, concrete existence, but present together in hypostatic form in individual persons. Such a distinguished scholar and theologian as Metropolitan Anthony, having been the inspector or rector of three theological academies, was quite well aware of the distinctions made by the Holy Fathers between “essence”, “will”, and “operation”, nor did he have need of Archbishop Theophan (or Basil Lourie) to point them out to him.
Concerning Metropolitan Anthony and Archbishop Theophan’s respective views on the topic of Ancestral Sin, Basil Lourie admits that, although Archbishop Theophan’s report contains many more patristic citations than does Metropolitan Anthony’s The Dogma of Redemption, and although Archbishop Theophan
attacks with the complete
armory of the academic scholarship of those days, nevertheless, not always he
is right, whose argumentation is more convincing. Today we can state with full
certainty that the “history of the dogma of Ancestral Sin”[58]
which had been assimilated by Vladyka Theophan from his courses at the Theological
Academy, was tendentious (under the influence of Western Augustinianism) and
superficial (not having taken into consideration the majority of Patristic
opinions on this topic, not excluding even those fathers whom Vladyka Theophan
quotes, for example, St. Cyril of Alexandria. Vladyka Theophan cites in his
favor even Origen… who considered as a contranatural condition not only the
“pollution of generation”, but even the very life in the flesh!)…
Observing that Archbishop Theophan had clearly indicated the “peculiar teaching of Metropolitan Anthony concerning essence”, Basil Lourie once more admits that “Archbishop Theophan’s own understanding of the patristic teaching concerning essence is in places quite peculiar” and that, in reacting to Metropolitan Anthony’s teaching, Archbishop Theophan “for polemics’ sake, deviated from the patristic teaching in the opposite direction from his opponent.” Further, Basil Lourie notes that it is obvious from the passage in The Dogma of Redemption (cited above), what it was that Vladyka Anthony was reacting against: the then prevalent idea that such “general concepts” exist only in the abstract. Basil Lourie then goes on to say that “as we shall see, the critic of Vladyka Anthony, Vladyka Theophan of Poltava himself arrives at just such an [abstract] interpretation of the concept of ‘essence’”!
In another passage Basil Lourie expresses his surprise that Archbishop Theophan would come to the conclusion (and state categorically) that the Holy Fathers do not at all allow a metaphysical teaching concerning essence — which conclusion Basil shows to be false. He also notes that in one place Archbishop Theophan, becoming confused, misquotes St. John Damascene’s An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. A little later Basil registers his bewilderment at Archbishop Theophan’s unexpected pronouncement that the word “essence”, when used in regard to the human nature of the Saviour, is taken by the Holy Fathers in a “special sense”. Basil flatly states that
…we have not read this
either in the citations from St. John Damascene produced by Vladyka Theophan or
anywhere else in the Holy Fathers, however, we have read it… in the
Monophysites… By not allowing any sort of “metaphysical” unity between the
humanity of Christ and the humanity of the rest of men, Vladyka Theophan is forced
to speak already not of the unity of the human nature of Christ and our human
nature, but only of a similarity… Vladyka Theophan’s conceptions remind one of
those of the Nestorians…
And in yet another passage Basil demonstrates how Vladyka Theophan has constructed one of his dogmatic formulations based on a mistranslation (not Archbishop Theophan’s own) of St. Maximus the Confessor.
In conclusion, Basil muses that, apparently, Archbishop Theophan, startled by Metropolitan Anthony’s “errors”, made a “sharp retreat to Scholastic Augustinianism”. Basil states that, in his opinion, none of these solutions to the question: neither that proposed by Metropolitan Anthony, nor by Archbishop Theophan, nor by Archbishop Seraphim Sobolev, are satisfactory in the forms expressed by them, and that the correct explanation of the dogma of redemption still remains to be elucidated.
However, in his official reports, lectures, and letters, Fr. Gregory Lourie has been much more outspoken concerning Metropolitan Anthony, declaring, for example, that “The Dogma of Redemption, by its very contents, is pure and unadulterated heresy”.[59] One can’t help wondering why Fr. Gregory reveals such harshness toward what he perceives to be Metropolitan Anthony’s “errors”, and yet shows such condescension toward those real errors of Archbishop Theophan which he himself has exposed in his review. Why the double standard here? It would seem that Fr. Gregory cannot forgive Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky for his strong opposition to the “Worshippers of the Name of God” movement in pre-Revolutionary Russia[60] — a movement for which in the past Fr. Gregory has not disguised his sympathy.[61]
In branding the theology of Metropolitan Anthony as heretical, Fr. Gregory Lourie, and others like him in the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church (or even those within the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad itself, for that matter), are being very nearsighted. After all, from whence did their own hierarchs receive their apostolic succession and the grace of ordination? By attacking Metropolitan Anthony (and by extension, his Synod), many of his critics are cutting the very branch on which they are sitting.[62]
Fr. Ambrose Smirnov (“Count von Sievers”)
A biographical sketch of Fr. Ambrose Smirnov–Sievers — by far the most colorful and notorious critic of Metropolitan Anthony — would be a relatively simple matter, but for the fact that Fr. Ambrose himself has re-written his life story so often, forever stitching on new and fantastic details and often contradicting his earlier autobiographies. We must warn the reader that, other than our own limited contact with Fr. Ambrose (concerning which, see below), we know of no independent sources which could verify these outlandish claims of his. All the biographical details given here concerning his birth, background, tonsure, ordination and consecration are taken exclusively from Fr. Ambrose’s own accounts.
According to Fr. Ambrose (Count Alexis von Sievers), he was born in Moscow in 1966 and is descended from an illustrious Baltic-German aristocratic family. Supposedly his paternal grandfather adopted the surname “Smirnov” from the peasant family that hid him during the Red Terror. (Fr. Ambrose’s parents make no such exalted claims.) Fr. Ambrose reports that he received baptism in the Catacomb Church in 1967 and was tonsured into the mantia in 1985. In 1990 Fr. Ambrose joined the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, being placed under Archbishop Mark of Berlin, and being entrusted with the supervision of those parishes of the many Orthodox Germans supposedly then found in the USSR. Fr. Ambrose was given this position as a descendant of Baltic German nobility. Be that as it may, it seems very odd to see a monastic, who has supposedly renounced the world, still countersigning documents as “Count von Sievers”!
In June of 1994, Fr. Ambrose was ordained deacon, then priest, and finally was consecrated “Bishop of Gothia” by one “catacomb” hierarch,[63] Bishop Amphilochius of Chita (in Siberia), who supposedly traced his own consecration back to Archbishop Andrew of Ufa. (The other, senior candidates had, out of humility, insisted that Fr. Ambrose, the youngest among them, be consecrated first). Then the ancient Vladyka Amphilochius, ninety-six years old, and the newly-consecrated Bishop Ambrose, age twenty eight, proceeded to consecrate the other candidates. (Bishop Ambrose modestly informs his readers that this event was one of “world-wide significance”.) A month after these consecrations, Bishop Amphilochius reposed. In 1995 the members of this catacomb synod blessed “Vladyka” Ambrose to begin to minister to the flock openly. At the Sobor of 1997, his fellow hierarchs raised Bishop Ambrose to the rank of Archbishop.[64] At present Fr. Ambrose Smirnov (AKA “Count von Sievers” and “Archbishop of the Autonomous Gothic Church of True Orthodox Christians”) lives in a cell located in the apartment of his parents (with whom he is not on speaking terms, since they are not “true believers”, but “apostates”). In addition to his pastoral duties, “Archbishop” Ambrose is the publisher of the well-known journal Herald of the True Orthodox Christians: Russian Orthodoxy, which he distributes far and wide throughout Russia, thereby gaining a certain credibility for himself and his views.
“Archbishop” Ambrose also claims to have copies of the proceedings (protocols, resolutions, canons, etc.) of a whole series of “Catacomb Sobors” which he says have taken place since 1927. Interestingly enough, these documents — the texts of which he cites and publishes constantly, without ever showing the originals to anyone — always support his own ecclesiological stance. Regrettably, most of Fr. Ambrose’s publications are also accessible at his web-site — a fact which has helped disseminate the opinions of his small fringe group even more widely. (The source of the funds for Fr. Ambrose’s many publications is unknown.)
In the autobiographical sketch featured on his web-site, http://katakomb.postart.ru, Fr. Ambrose writes that “in the summer of 1992, I entered into partial [?] communion with the Greek Old Calendarist Synod of Archbishop Auxentius (Pastras) of Athens, but in the autumn of the same year I severed all contact with them”. The actual story of Fr. Ambrose’s period as a member of our Church is slightly different. Among other documents dealing with this case, the following are found in our Synodal archives:
1) The official petition of June 8/21, 1992, from Fr. Ambrose Sievers, and signed by him, to Archbishop Auxentius of Athens asking to be received for reasons of faith. Fr. Ambrose claimed that he was attracted to Bishop Gury of Kazan because Vladyka Gury was a disciple of hierarchs consecrated by Archbishop Andrew of Ufa. (Fr. Ambrose desired very much to be ordained to the priesthood so that he could conduct missionary work among the “tens of thousands” of German Orthodox Christians in Russia.) Fr. Victor Melehov, Synodal Exarch for Russia, received Fr. Ambrose as a simple monk later that same month during his pastoral visit to Russia.
2) Copies of Archbishop Auxentius’ letters of acceptance to Fr. Ambrose — in Greek, Russian, and English.
3) A facsimile message of August 1, 1992, to The Holy Orthodox Church In North America from Fr. Ambrose Sievers, containing Fr. Ambrose’s own proposed Russian text for a letter inviting him to visit us in America for three months free of charge. We also have a copy of the actual invitation issued by us on August 3, 1992.
4) A letter of June 10/23, 1993, from Fr. Victor, warning Fr. Ambrose of the dire consequences of his having misappropriated church property, including sacred church vessels, a pyx containing the reserved Holy Gifts, consecrated antimensions, and episcopal vestments. This letter was accompanied by a similar letter of warning from Archbishop Auxentius.
5) A letter of December 14, 1993 from Fr. Victor informing Fr. Ambrose that he and his accomplices have been put under ban by Archbishop Auxentius for their thefts and disobedience.
Glory be to God, most of these ecclesiastical items were eventually returned, but only in July of 1994 and not by Fr. Ambrose, who had already “severed all contacts” with our Church in Russia. Of course, it was only after this sad incident that Fr. Ambrose began in his publications to disparage and slander our Synod and Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Boston.
Until recently, the only other Orthodox Church that Fr. Ambrose would recognize as genuine, besides his own, was the Matthewite Old Calendarist Church in Greece. (A reciprocal recognition was never offered to Fr. Ambrose by the Matthewites.) In fact, Fr. Ambrose would often assume a much more rigid ecclesiastical position than even the Matthewites. Recently however, in 2000, both parties have published Open Letters on their respective web-sites denouncing the other and claiming that they have nothing to do with each other.
Sadly, “Archbishop” Ambrose’s obsession with things Gothic and with his supposed Teutonic roots (as Count von Sievers) have taken a frightening turn.[66] Among the resolutions of his hierarchy’s “Sacred Sobor” of May 1999 (printed in the journal Race, of which Fr. Ambrose is suspected of also being the publisher)[67] are several declaring the superiority of the Chosen People, the Aryan race, and announcing that they are awaiting the appearance of another “God-chosen leader” such as were King Cyrus of Persia, Alexander the Great, and the Fuhrer, Adolph Hitler![68] This same issue of Race contains an article (opposite a photograph of Adolph Hitler) entitled: “Our Love for the Fuhrer is Fervent and Boundless”. The home-page of Fr. Ambrose’s web-site now features a swastika instead of a Cross. His “Gothia” page is decorated with a teutonized Byzantine double-headed eagle with a Templar Cross superimposed on its shield. All of this could simply be dismissed as the ravings of a poor, mentally unbalanced soul, if it were not for the fact that Fr. Ambrose is one of the chief propagators and disseminators of materials accusing Metropolitan Anthony of heresy.
APPENDIX — II
Metropolitan Anthony’s pedagogical and pastoral methods bore such fruit that by 1908 — when Metropolitan Anthony was only forty-five years old — there were to be found in the Russian Orthodox Church two archbishops, thirty-five bishops, and scores of hieromonks from among his former students and devoted disciples.[69] The excerpts from the works of several of these disciples, given below, demonstrate how deeply these clergymen shared Metropolitan Anthony’s theology, while their encomiums of him reveal their great love and respect for their Ecumenical Father. These quotations will also vindicate them of any implicit imputation of cowardice or hypocrisy. Their respect for the person of Metropolitan Anthony was founded on the recognition and acknowledgment that he spoke under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit with the authentic voice of the Holy Fathers of the Church.
In this and the following selections from the writings of these illustrious clergymen, we have italicized those passages which are almost direct quotations of Metropolitan Anthony’s thoughts or which indicate their unity of opinion with him and respect for him.
Hieromartyr Ilarion Troitsky, Archbishop of Vereya († 1929)
In a book review on the Moscow Patriarchate’s expurgated edition of the collected works of Hieromartyr Ilarion, Egor Holmogorov,[70] a contributor to the then ROCA journal Vertograd-Inform (No. 2/47, February 1999), made the following astute observations concerning Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky and Hieromartyr Ilarion:
…One of the most renowned
works of Saint Ilarion was ignored by these vigilant fighters against heresy
— the article, Bethlehem and Golgotha…
One can see why. Criticism of the Scholastic teaching about Redemption as
“satisfaction” is associated — in the minds of the majority of the flock and
pastors of the Moscow Patriarchate — before all else, with the myth of the
“Stavroclast heresy”, over whose dissemination are energetically laboring
the followers of Hegumen Herman (Podmoshensky), who… to all appearances,
considers his life’s work to be the speculating on the memory of the
ever-memorable Fr. Seraphim (Rose), and the slandering of the memory of His
Beatitude, Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky) — the chief critic of
Scholasticism, and whose true disciple Saint Ilarion was. In this regard it is
understandable that any testimony that this hieromartyr shared the views of
his teacher, Metropolitan Anthony, on Redemption must be suppressed. …[thus]
the article Bethlehem and Golgotha —
maintaining a more strictly theological tone, and being considerably more resolute
in its conclusions — did not find a place in this collection …And yet, precisely
in the article Bethlehem and Golgotha
Saint Ilarion declares with all resoluteness: “It is not possible to agree with the juridical theory of salvation,
which disregards both the Incarnation and Resurrection, and which recognizes
only Golgotha alone, with the sun darkened, with nature troubled, with the
earth quaking, with the rocks rending. This is a theory foreign and
un-churchly, which infiltrated ecclesiastical theology only two hundred years
ago…”
Nevertheless, a publication
of the articles and works of Metropolitan Anthony and his disciples (Saint
Ilarion, Saint John, Saint Philaret, the Righteous Justin [Popovich]) on this
topic would be of great significance. It would destroy the myth concerning the
“Stavroclast heresy” once and for all. It would become clear to every
unbiased reader that there can be no question of either some founding of a
“Christianity without the Cross”, or of some disparagement of the sacrifice on
Golgotha. Fr. Seraphim (Rose) was correct in warning against a minimizing of
the redemptive significance of the sufferings of Christ. He was wrong in
attributing such tendencies to Metropolitan Anthony himself. It was important,
both to Metropolitan Anthony and to Saint Ilarion, to emphasize the
significance of the exploit of the God-Man. For them it is a matter of comprehending
the Cross within the context of the entire
redemptive exploit of the God-Man, of a ceasing to reduce Redemption to
Deicide, in which the God-Man figures as little more than the passive Victim,
in which He is the “Offered” and the “Received”, but in no wise the “Offerer”
or the “Receiver”. In the teaching of Metropolitan Anthony the pre-eminent
significance belongs not so much to the dogmatic sense (which was formulated to
a sufficient degree already by Patristic antiquity, and is in need of nothing
more than a refusal to understand it through the prism of Roman Catholic
“Summas”), as to the ascetical and pastoral. It is not by chance that the
greatest number of attacks were provoked, not by the teaching concerning the
struggle in Gethsemane (it is obvious to the attentive reader of the works of
Metropolitan Anthony that he nowhere
says that our Redemption was accomplished in Gethsemane), but by the
teaching on the compassionate love of Christ toward each sinful individual,
the relating of redemption and deification not only to human nature in
general, but likewise to each man who is willing to accept Christ and to
respond to His love with his own love, to drink His cup and to be baptized with
His baptism.
Precisely toward the
repudiation of the significance of the compassionate love of Christ, toward the
negation of the necessity for every Christian, and especially pastors, of
acquiring the gift of this love, are directed the primary efforts of the
enemies of Metropolitan Anthony and of our Church… For the Moscow Patriarchate
it is extremely important to emasculate the very essence of the Orthodox
doctrine on Redemption, to forget about the moral rebirth which is demanded of
the Christian, about the moral exploit of active love, which is expected of
him daily by the Lord, and to reduce salvation to a purely juridical procedure…
It’s quite evident that the emphasis on the moral element in Redemption, the
understanding of the Christian life as a struggle and the killing of the old
man, the understanding of the Holy Mysteries not as something granting
“salvation”, but as a God-given, grace-filled power for the accomplishment of
this saving exploit, the understanding of a pastor’s duty as a duty of love, as
the supreme spiritual commission, and not as the perfunctory performance of
rites — in short, all that constitutes the very essence of the teaching of
Metropolitan Anthony — is for the Moscow Patriarchate like unto death, for
it totally discredits those principles on which she is constructed. …Therefore
it is so important for the apologists of the Moscow Patriarchate at any cost
whatsoever to blacken the memory of Metropolitan Anthony and cast upon him the
shadow of the accusation of heresy.
We do not assert that in the
teaching of Metropolitan Anthony everything is indisputable, just as
Metropolitan Anthony himself did not assert such a thing. But it is imperative
to note that it [i.e., his teaching] was, in its fundamental concepts, incorporated
by ecclesiastical Orthodox theology in the works of such totally diverse
authors as Saint John of Shanghai, Righteous Justin (Popovich), the Hierarch
Philaret (Voznesensky), Bishop Gregory (Grabbe), and Fr. Georges Florovsky, all
of whom did not conceal the influence of His Beatitude, Metropolitan Anthony,
on their works. …and, thus, to call him a “heretic” and to accuse him of an
imaginary “Stavroclasm” would manifest an
absolutely inexcusable audacity. And it is quite ridiculous to apply
this accusation to the ROCA as a whole. And even more ridiculous is it to
undertake a “purge” of our patristic heritage, more particularly of such a
true, talented, and undoubtedly Orthodox disciple of the Most-blessed Abba, as
Saint Ilarion, with the purpose of removing any traces of the influence of
Metropolitan Anthony on the theological mind of his disciples.
St. John Maximovich of San Francisco († 1966)
…It was necessary for Him to redeem man from sin and death, and re-establish
the union of man with God. It was necessary that the sinless Savior should take
upon Himself all human Sin, so that He, Who had no sins of His own, should feel
the weight of the sin of all humanity and sorrow over it in such a way as was
possible only for complete holiness, which clearly feels even the slightest
deviation from the commandments and Will of God. It was necessary that He, in
Whom Divinity and humanity were hypostatically united, should in His holy,
sinless humanity experience the full horror of the distancing of man from his
Creator, of the split between sinful humanity and the source of holiness and
light — God. The depth of the fall of mankind must have stood before His eyes
at that moment…
And now there came the time when all this was to come to pass. In a few
hours the Son of Man, raised upon the cross, would draw all men to Himself by
His own self-sacrifice. Before the force
of His love the sinful hearts of men would not be able to stand. The love of
the God-man would break the stone of men’s hearts. They would feel their own
impurity and darkness, their insignificance; and only the stubborn haters
of God would not want to be enlightened by the light of the Divine greatness
and mercy But all those who would not
reject Him Who called them, irradiated by the light of the love of the God-Man,
would feel their separation from the loving Creator and would thirst to be
united with Him. And invisibly the greatest mystery would take place — mankind
would turn to its Maker, and the merciful Lord would joyfully accept those who
would return from the slander of the devil to their Archetype. “Mercy and
truth have met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other”
(Psalm 84:10); righteousness has pressed close from heaven, for the incarnate
Truth has shone out on the cross from the earth. The hour had come when all
this was about to take place.
The world did not suspect the greatness of the coming day. Before the
gaze of the God-Man all that was to happen was revealed. He voluntarily sacrificed
Himself for the salvation of the human race. And now He came for the last time to pray alone to His Heavenly Father.
Here [i.e., Gethsemane!] He would accomplish
that sacrifice which would save the race of men — He would voluntarily give
Himself up to sufferings, giving Himself over into the power of darkness.[72]
However, this sacrifice
would not be saving if He would experience only His personal sufferings — He
had to be tormented by the wounds of sin from which all mankind was suffering.
The heart of the God-Man was filled with inexpressible sorrow. All the sins of
men, beginning from the transgression of Adam and ending with those which would
be done at the moment of the sounding of the last trumpet — all the great and
small sins of all men stood before His mental gaze. They were always revealed
to Him as God — “all things are manifest before Him” — but now their whole
weight and iniquity was experienced also by His human nature. His holy,
sinless soul was filled with horror. He suffered as the sinners themselves do
not suffer, whose coarse hearts do not feel how the sin of man defiles and how
it separates him from the Creator. His sufferings were the greater in that He
saw this coarseness and embitteredness of heart…
But so as to feel the full weight of the consequences of sin, the Son
of God would voluntarily allow His
human nature to feel even the horror of separation from God. This terrible
moment would be unendurable for His holy, sinless being. A powerful cry would
break out from His lips: “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” And
seeing this hour in advance, His holy soul was filled with horror and distress…
But in order that He should feel the full weight of sins, He would also
be allowed to feel the burden of separation from the Heavenly Father. And at
this moment His human will can wish to avoid the sufferings. But it will not be
so. Let His human will not diverge for one second from His Divine Will. It is about this that the God-Man beseeches
His Heavenly Father. If it is possible for mankind to re-establish its
unity with God without this new and terrible crime against the Son of God (cf.
St. Basil the Great, Against Eunomius, book 4), then it is better that this
hour should not come to pass. But if it
is only in this way that mankind can be drawn to its Maker, let the good
Will of God be accomplished in this case, too… If it is possible that the work of the economy should be completed
without a new and terrible crime on the part of men…
And willingly drinking the whole cup of mental and physical sufferings to the bottom, Christ glorified God
on earth; He accomplished a work which
was no less than the very creation of the world. He restored the fallen nature
of man, reconciled Divinity and humanity, and made men partakers of the Divine
nature (II Pet. 1:4).
And in 1955, on the nineteenth anniversary of Metropolitan Anthony’s repose, St. John delivered an encomium[73] in which he declared that Metropolitan Anthony was:
A great hierarch not only of our century: in the life of the Church few
have been the hierarchs as gifted as he, or who have given so much to the
Church. His Holiness Barnabas, Patriarch of Serbia, while serving in the
Russian Church of the Holy Trinity, in Belgrade, said that Metropolitan Anthony
was a hierarch like unto the great hierarchs of antiquity. In theological
circles in Serbia he was called the Athanasius of our time. He spoke, having been made wise by the Holy
Spirit.
His teaching on the Trinity and on the Church, which revealed Divine Truth,
sounded like something novel. But this
was not some new, hitherto unknown, teaching, but rather those Truths,
according to which the Church lives, expressed anew, which, however, had been
forgotten by many. On account of the calamities in the historical life of
the Orthodox peoples, theological scholarship declined in those lands, and
upon the re-establishment of scholarship and schools, they were formed
according to the patterns of other confessions, and were under their
influence. His Beatitude Metropolitan
Anthony regenerated Orthodox Theology.
He was called Athanasius the Great. … Metropolitan Anthony possessed
the all-encompassing heart of Saint Basil the Great… He was an Ecumenical Hierarch in the full sense of the word.[74].
On one occasion His Holiness
Patriarch Barnabas, while present at some solemn assembly, said that, after
the First World War, when the wave of modernism rushed upon the Local
Churches and submerged many, in Serbia that wave broke against the lofty
promontory of Metropolitan Anthony, who at that time saved the Serbian Church.
… Metropolitan Anthony was not a martyr, however he was always prepared
to become a martyr. But a confessor he can undoubtedly be reckoned. We do not
know how the Lord has crowned His confessor. But for us he is the icon of
meekness, a teacher of the faith, an image of one rightly dividing the word of
truth.[75] … And now, recalling his
life, his great podvig, we can in
truth state that those words, chanted by the Church to the Holy Apostle John
the Theologian, are likewise applicable to him: “he, being filled with love,
also became filled with theology”.[76]
As can clearly be seen, this is not the perfunctory speech which one might expect a disciple to feel obliged to deliver upon the death of his teacher. The intervening nineteen years gave Saint John ample time to reflect upon the life and teachings of Metropolitan Anthony, and to distance himself from them, if he so desired. Yet we see no such thing occurring here. Rather, with his own lips Saint John eloquently refutes those who would now seek to convince us that he supposedly did not revere the memory of his teacher and mentor, Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky, and did not share his theology.[77]
Furthermore, after the publication of the first volume of the series Life and Works of Metropolitan Anthony, Archbishop Nikon received many letters of commendation, among them, one from St. John Maximovich (then the ruling Archbishop in Western Europe) in which he wrote:
Accept my heart-felt gratitude, both for sending me the first part of
the Life of Metropolitan Anthony, and
for its marvelous composition, which conveys not only the exterior side of his
life, but the very spiritual make-up of the man. Reading this book, it is as if
one comes into contact with him. May the Lord aid you in this work for the
future![78]
St. John Maximovich was still alive and well when most of the subsequent volumes of The Live and Works of Metropolitan Anthony were published, including the fourth volume (1958), the fifth volume (1959), and the eighth volume (1961), which three volumes contain the texts of Metropolitan Anthony’s Catechism and his The Dogma of Redemption, plus much material related to these topics. Nowhere is it recorded that St. John expressed any objections to the publication of these texts.
St. Philaret of New York († 1985)
Although St. Philaret and
Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky never met face to face, yet, during his years
in China, Archimandrite Philaret carried on a steady correspondence with
Metropolitan Anthony, whose disciple and spiritual son he considered himself to
be. In fact, one of Archimandrite Philaret’s greatest griefs upon leaving China
was the loss of his correspondence, especially of Metropolitan Anthony’s
letters, the testament of a great and God-bearing man. In his later letters,
St. Philaret lovingly refers to Metropolitan Anthony as “that great ‘Abba’ of all abbas”.[79]
In his sermon at the burial of Metropolitan Anastasy, Metropolitan Philaret, the new Chief-Hierarch, spoke movingly of his own predecessors:
…It seems to me that should the mind of an Orthodox Russian person, a
true son of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, ponder the question: Who was
most remarkable, greatest, most illustrious in the history of the Russian
Orthodox Church during all these years and decades of our sorrowful and
terrible evil times — then three names will, first of all, come to everyone’s
mind. The first of these is, of course, the name of… His Holiness Tikhon,
unforgettable Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.
The second name, so dear to us children of the Church Abroad, is of
that great prelate, who, at a time when His Holiness Tikhon was defending the
truth and freedom of the Church within Russia — he was, abroad, also under completely
new and unprecedented conditions, building something new and unprecedented.
With God’s help and with his clear and profound mind, with his broad prelate’s
heart, he was able to lead Russian people abroad onto the holy, canonical,
spiritually-healthy path, becoming the founder of our Church Abroad. This
was that unforgettable Father, the blessed Metropolitan Anthony.
And behold — a third name… the name of our beloved father [Metropolitan
Anastasy]…[80]
And the sermon preached by St. Philaret on Holy Friday in 1973 shows him to be of one mind with his beloved Abba, Metropolitan Anthony:
…This exclamation [“My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”] was
still that of a sufferer and not a conqueror. This exclamation tells of
boundless torment and suffering, and indicates to us with what terrible
sufferings the act of our redemption was accomplished. But, as the God-inspired Holy Fathers of the Church tell us, and as our
great father of the Church Abroad and renowned theologian, His Beatitude
Metropolitan Anthony, express with particular precision, our redemption
consisted of two parts, so to speak: first, the Lord Saviour accepted upon
Himself all the weight of our sins, then He nailed them to the wood of the
Cross on Golgotha…
Here the prayer in Gethsemane begins. In this prayer we see that the
Lamb, which was ordained at the time of the creation of the world for the
salvation of mankind, steps back as if terrified before what is approaching Him
and what He has to accept and suffer. Is He so much afraid of the physical suffering?
Is it that which makes Him step back? No!
From the narration of His
suffering we see how calmly, how majestically and with what wonderful, and of a
truth Divine, patience He endured the terrible physical, bodily torments.…
In the Garden of Gethsemane during this terrible struggle, He received
into His soul the whole of humanity. As the All-knowing God for Whom there is
no future and no past but only one act of the Divine omniscience and understanding,
He knew each one of us, He saw each one of us, and every one of us did He
receive into His soul, with all our sins, our cold unwillingness to repent,
with all our weaknesses and moral defilement. And what does He see? In order to
save us, whom He loved so much and whom He received into His soul, He has to
take upon Himself all our sins as if He Himself had committed them. And in
His holy, sinless and pure soul every sin burned worse than fire. It is we who
have become so accustomed to sin that we sin without hesitation. As the prophet
said, man drinks unrighteousness as a drink (Job 15:16), and does not count his
sins. But in His holy soul every sin burned with the unbearable fire of Hades,
and here He takes upon Himself the sins of the entire human race.
What a torment, what a searing torment it was for His all-holy soul!
But on the other hand, He sees that if He does not accomplish it, if He will
not receive upon Himself this weight of human sins, then humanity will perish
for all ages, forever, for endless eternity. Here His human nature, stricken with
horror, steps back before this fathomless abyss of suffering, but His endless, His boundless, His
inexpressibly compassionate love will not consent that humanity should perish;
within Him there occurs a terrible struggle.
…But we see how much this struggle cost Him. The Heavenly Father sent
an angel from Heaven to support Him because His human strength had reached its
limit, and we see that He is exhausted and covered with a terrible bloody
sweat which, as medicine states, occurs as a result of inner spiritual
struggles which shake the whole being of a man.
Saint Demetrius of Rostov, meditating on the sufferings of the Saviour
says, “Lord Saviour: why art Thou all in blood? There is yet no terrible
Golgotha, no crown of thorns, no scourging, no Cross, nothing like unto this
as yet, yet Thou art all stained with blood. Who dared to wound Thee?” And the
saintly bishop himself answers his question: “Love has wounded Thee.” Love brought Him to torment and suffering;
from this struggle He is covered with blood but comes forth as Conqueror. And
in His redeeming, heroic deed, He took upon Himself our sins and carried them
on the Cross to Golgotha, falling under its weight. And there began that other, central part of our redemption,
when He suffered all those sins which He took upon Himself in Gethsemane, in
the terrible torments on the Cross…[81]
Archimandrite
Justin Popovich († 1979)
Concerning Archimandrite Justin’s attitude to Metropolitan Anthony, Bishop Gregory Grabbe writes in his Foreword to the English translation of The Dogma of Redemption:
…Metropolitan Anthony’s
thoughts received further development in complete agreement with him in Fr.
Justin Popovich’s Dogmatic Theology,
though the latter’s custom was never to cite modern theologians, but only to
quote the words of the Holy Fathers. In the Fathers, Fr. Justin found many thoughts akin to those of Metropolitan Anthony,
but not systematized as Vladyka Anthony had done, and Fr. Justin after him.
In his presentation, grounded upon the words of the Fathers, he supplements much of what Metropolitan
Anthony said and totally abolishes the misunderstanding which arose among
hostile critics, who reproached the Metropolitan for diminishing the
significance of the Saviour’s sufferings on the Cross.
…Developing the thoughts of Metropolitan Anthony in his Dogmatic Theology, Archimandrite Justin
sums them up, as it were, when he
explains that the work of redemption cannot be reduced to any one period of
time: the sufferings of the Saviour began at His very birth into this world
and continued until His crucifixion on the Cross between two thieves. The
God-Man was unable not to suffer and endure anguish unceasingly, having at
every moment before His all-seeing eyes all the sins, all the vices and all the
transgressions of His contemporaries, as well as those of all men of all
times. Fr. Justin writes the following words in complete harmony with this article of Metropolitan Anthony,
whom he so esteemed:
“Even
before Gethsemane, but especially in Gethsemane, the man-befriending
Lord experienced all the torments of human nature which had rushed upon it as a
result of sin. He suffered all the sufferings which human nature had suffered
from Adam until his last descendant; He endured the pain of all human pains as
though they were His own; He underwent all human misfortunes as though they
were His own. At that moment He had before His all-seeing eyes all the millions
of human souls, which as a result of sin are tormented in the embrace of
death, pain, and vice… In Him, in the
true God-Man, human nature wept and lamented, beholding all which she had done
by falling into sin and death.”
(Protosyngellus
Dr. Justin Popovich, Dogmatic Theology of
the Orthodox Church, Belgrade, 1935, Vol. II, p. 377)
Nevertheless, without mentioning Metropolitan
Anthony’s name, Fr. Justin gave an answer, well-grounded on the Holy Fathers to
all the points raised by the Metropolitan’s opponents.[82]
To remove any doubt whether Fr. Justin acknowledged Metropolitan Anthony as a great teacher and learnt from him, here are excerpts from the marvelous talk by Fr. Justin himself — The Mystery of the Personality of Metropolitan Anthony.
I find myself in the position of an ant who must
speak about the soarings of an eagle. Can an ant follow the path of an eagle?
No! However, it is possible, from its ant’s perspective, for it to admire the
eagle soaring in the heavens, and to stand frozen by the awe of sweet delight
Therefore, with my ant’s tongue I want to babble on
with some of my observations, and I ask you to pardon an ant, that he dares to
speak of an eagle of Orthodoxy. Oh! I am firmly convinced that I possess
neither the skill nor the capability to explain the mystery of the wondrous
personality of His Beatitude, Metropolitan Anthony, but I am only able to bow
down, in fervent awe and pious respect, before the wonders of his boundless
love for Christ and his gracious love for man.
What is the mystery of the blessed Metropolitan
Anthony? It is his boundless love for
Christ. Examine any of his thoughts, or feelings, or desires, or works — and
everywhere you will find, as a creative force, his immeasurable love for Christ.
He lived and worked by the Lord Christ, and therefore everything that he
possessed can be attributed to the God-Man. His biography is a Gospel copied
in miniature. In reality, there exists in the world only one biography which
has eternal value, and this is the biography of the God-Man — Christ; human
biographies are valuable only insofar as they are united with it and proceed
from it. Blessed Metropolitan Anthony was wholly united with it and proceeded
from it. He, a Christ-bearer,
following in the footsteps of the great apostle, desired to know nothing among
us save the Lord Christ and Him crucified
(I Cor. 2:2). Thus, the mystery of his exceptional personality matured into the
mystery of the personality of the God-Man and now radiates off into all of its
infinity.
…Be not deceived, the
blessedly reposed Metropolitan is an exceptional patristic phenomenon in our
time. He
passed through our stormy century fearlessly, like an apostle, and with
evangelical meekness, just like the great fathers of the Church, Athanasius,
Basil, and Gregory passed through the fourth century. Looking at him, I say to
myself: yes, even now one can actually live in a patristic manner, even now one
can be humble and fearless like the fathers, even now one can actually be a
bishop like the holy fathers. Why is this so? Because the Lord Jesus Christ is
the same yesterday, today, and unto the ages… That mystery, the mystery of
Christ, completely permeates these evangelical heroes. It uninterruptedly
flows through the apostolate of the apostles, through the martyrdom of the
martyrs, through the struggles of the ascetics. Even more must be said: it
still flows continuously through the Orthodox Church, through its holiness,
catholicity, apostolicity, and unity.
This holy mystery has been successively transmitted
with exceptional force even through the patristic personality of the blessed
Metropolitan Anthony. His entire being
is rooted in the holy fathers. Thence sprang his very touching love for the
holy fathers; he could not even speak of them without compunction and tears.
Thus his personality, his life, his labors can also be explained through the
holy fathers. The holy fathers are his parents, his teachers, his tutors, his
guides. They taught him holiness, they inspired him to asceticism, they gave
him a catholic sensitivity and an orthodox consciousness. Tirelessly, striving
through patristic struggles, he transformed his own nature and habits into evangelical
love, humility, meekness, and mercy. To
realize the Gospel in one’s own nature — this is the very meaning of human
existence in this world. In this the blessed Metropolitan is an irreplaceable
teacher and guide. Finding through struggles evangelical co-suffering love
for men, he lived by it and produced it in others. In this was his wondrous
might and his miraculous power.
…In more recent times no one
has exercised such a powerful influence upon Orthodox thought than the blessed
Metropolitan Anthony. He lead Orthodox thought away from the scholastic–rationalistic path
and onto the blessed ascetic path. He showed and proved indisputably that the
eternal power of Orthodox thought lies in the holy fathers. Only the saints
are true enlighteners, and thus true theologians. For in their own lives they
experienced the truths of the Gospel as the essence of their own lives and
thought. All dogmatic truths are given to us in order that we may transform
them into the life and spirit of our spirit, since they are, according to the
words of the Saviour, spirit, truth, and life. Therefore, this godly-wise
hierarch has written: “The truth of God is comprehended in no other way than
through the gradual perfection in faith and virtue. Hence, this knowledge is by
nature tied to our inner rebirth, with the stripping off of the old man and the
putting on of the new” (Col. 3:9).
Along with the immortal Khomiakov, our holy Vladyka
enlivened patristic theology and showed that Orthodoxy is Orthodoxy only by
virtue of its patristic holiness and apostolicity. Nothing is so foreign to
Orthodoxy as lifeless scholasticism and icy rationalism. Orthodoxy before all
else and above all is an experience and life of grace, and through that the
blessed knowledge of God and the blessed knowledge of man.
…Only a life of prayer in
God permits correct thinking about God. Metropolitan Anthony recognized this
great truth of Orthodoxy in the prayerful communion with all the saints. And together with them, he
experienced in himself, as his own experience, the universal experience –– the
sense and consciousness of the church — the love for Christ surpassing all (see
Eph. 3:18-19).
…The ascetical personality of the
blessed Metropolitan Anthony has tremendous meaning for the entire Orthodox
world. How is that? Precisely in that he
is the sole patristic manifestation in our day and that he perceived, in a
patristic manner, the universality of Orthodoxy. The basis of his life and labors
was, before all else and above all, Orthodoxy.
…If our time possesses a great
and holy preacher, apostle and prophet or religious, ecclesiastical, universal
patriotism, then this is the great hierarch of the great Russian land, the blessed
Metropolitan Anthony.
…Because of his evangelical virtues and especially due to his Orthodox
catholicity, the great and holy Vladyka, the blessed Metropolitan Anthony, was
dear and close to us Serbs, as he was to you Russians. He was our common treasure,
our common saint and enlightener, our common guide and leader. Permit me to confess before you — the blessed
Metropolitan Anthony was the actual master of my soul, the true bishop and
overseer of my heart. In his person I had my most dear spiritual father.
Always of a pan-Orthodox frame of mind, he gathered us foreign Orthodox under
the broad wings of his great Russian soul, as a hen gathers her nestlings under
her wings. Many times I felt the power of his pan-Orthodox love — for him, we
Serbs were as dear as the Russians. A
touching, all-embracing power was shed forth from him. I would call it
Orthodox catholicity. If you will, he was a contemporary pan-Orthodox
patriarch. By his ascetic life he became and has always remained, a rule of
faith and an image of meekness, a God-inspired nourisher of hierarchs and a
fervent intercessor for our souls. In this world he always lived in
prayerful communion “with all the saints.” Without a doubt, now, even in that
other world, he lives with all the saints, there “where the sound of those
rejoicing is ceaseless, and the joy of those beholding the ineffable goodness
of Christ is unending.”
…Having before us the wondrous and delightful
personality of the holy and blessed Metropolitan Anthony, what remains for us
Serbs? We bow to the ground before the great hierarch and saint of the Russian
land, who sanctified and strengthened the Serbian land in Orthodoxy by his
sojourn of many years. We prayerfully bow and humbly throw ourselves at the
feet of the holy and glorious Metropolitan. We bow to him for his boundless
love of Christ and tender love for man, we bow to him for his meekness, for his
humility, for his loving kindness, for his prayerfulness, for his life in
Christ and for his suffering for Christ. We throw ourselves before him because
of his tireless love for us who are small and worthless. We bow before the
great Russian nation, for she has given Orthodoxy such a great and holy
hierarch, who by his own evangelical light illuminated even our tormented Serbian
land.
He is yours — in this is your joy and delight; but
he is also ours. Oh! I know that we Serbs are not in a position to compare
ourselves with the great Russian nation, that tortured Christ-bearer and
God-bearer. Neither are we in a position to compete with you. However, permit
us, as your least and lowest brothers, nevertheless to compete with you in one
thing — in our immeasurable love for the great saint of the Russian land, the
blessed Metropolitan Anthony, and in prayerful reverence for him — for we as
well as you, pray to him — fall down before him, that he may pray day and night
before the throne of the sweetest Lord Jesus, not only for the great
much-suffering Russian people, but also for the Serbian people, and for the
tormented Serbian land.[83]
A recent issue of Orthodox Word contains a feature article by Hieromonk Damascene entitled “The Place of the Lives of the Saints in the Spiritual Life.”[84] Fr. Damascene tells us that “in order to begin to understand the importance of the Lives of the Saints for our spiritual lives, I believe we can turn to no better or more thorough source than St. Justin Popovich’s Introduction to his own compilation of the Lives of the Saints. A theologian, St. Justin saw no dichotomy between the Lives of the Saints and the theological writings of the Church.” Citing the counsel of Fr. Seraphim Rose to a budding Orthodox writer, that “when one is writing on a spiritual subject, one should try… to give living examples from the Lives of the Saints”, Fr. Damascene declares: “I will now attempt to implement Fr. Seraphim’s advice… I will give the example of a Saint who made use of them to an astonishing degree. This is Fr. Seraphim’s mentor, a friend of St. Justin Popovich, and the Bishop who blessed the establishment of our Brotherhood: St. John Maximovich, Archbishop of Shanghai and San Francisco.” And at the conclusion of this article, Fr. Damascene exclaims: “May St. Justin Popovich be a guide to us in understanding the theological significance of the Lives of the Saints, and may St. John Maximovich be an example to us of how to make use of the Lives of the Saints in our own spiritual lives.” We wholeheartedly agree with this pious aspiration, and, joining our voice to that of Fr. Damascene’s, we urge our readers (and Fr. Damascene himself) to re-read and ponder well what these two “guides and examples” (as Fr. Damascene calls them), “the theologian, St. Justin Popovich” and “Fr. Seraphim’s mentor, Archbishop John”, had to say concerning the person and theological writings of Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky.
Bishop Gregory Grabbe († 1995)
A devoted disciple and trusted collaborator of Metropolitan Anthony, Bishop Gregory Grabbe had been appointed by him as Head of the Chancery of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad in 1931 at the age of twenty nine. He held that post, in one form or another, for almost fifty five years. In his Foreword to The Dogma of Redemption, the then Protopresbyter George Grabbe spoke of Metropolitan Anthony’s critics thus:
…I should not be mistaken if
I were to say that of all his compositions Metropolitan Anthony especially
cherished The Dogma of Redemption,
which he pondered and nurtured over a period of many years. His Orthodox
consciousness as well as the conscious understanding which evolved in him
through the influence of a deeper study of the works of the Holy Fathers and a
series of Russian theologians, could not be reconciled with the Western,
juridical interpretation of one of the fundamental dogmas of our Church. A. S.
Khomiakov initiated an impetus for our theology to return from Western
scholasticism to the Holy Fathers, and this became manifest in the works of
various theologians, some of whom were students of Metropolitan Anthony.
…This criticism is based for the most part on an
inattentive reading of the Metropolitan’s words, whose starting point was from
the fact that the God–Man had human flesh and a human soul and hence suffered
in both parts of His human nature. Because Western theology stopped at the
sufferings of His Body, Metropolitan Anthony, though in no wise disregarding
these, centered his attention more upon the sufferings of the Saviour’s soul. Therefore, it would be unjust to say that he
dismissed Golgotha and transferred the focal point of the grievous weight of
redemption from there to Gethsemane. By no means! In both events he strove
to penetrate into the sufferings of the soul of the God-Man as a manifestation
of His compassionate love, which in a spiritual manner unites us with Him and
regenerates the children of the Holy Church. I shall cite the following words
of Vladyka Anthony which have remained unnoticed by his critics:
“He
was oppressed with the greatest sorrows on the night when the greatest crime in
the history of mankind was committed, when the ministers of God, with the help
of Christ’s disciple, some because of envy, some because of avarice, decided to
put the Son of God to death. And a second
time [emphasis mine — Protopresbyter G. Grabbe] the same oppressing sorrow
possessed His pure soul on the Cross, when the cruel masses, far from being
moved with pity by His terrible physical sufferings, maliciously ridiculed the
Sufferer; and as to His moral suffering, they were unable even to surmise it.”
Therefore, his words, “In this did our redemption
consist,” must be referred not only to Gethsemane, but to Golgotha also, contrary
to the claims of the Metropolitan’s critics.
Some further very interesting details are revealed in a
eulogy which Bishop Gregory wrote on the repose of Archimandrite Justin
Popovich in 1979:
…For Fr. Justin himself,
Vladyka Anthony was as great an authority as he was for each of us. After
Vladyka’s repose, Fr. Justin published an article entitled “He is in Their
Midst.” The “he” referred to is Metropolitan Anthony, and the “they” are the
saintly hierarchs of the Church. The basic thrust of the article was that
Metropolitan Anthony, through the loftiness of his theology, had entered into
the company of the Fathers of the Church.
When at the beginning of the
1920’s (1923–25), Dr. Parenta, rector of the seminary in Sremski Karlovci,
wrote a rude article about Metropolitan Anthony, criticizing his Catechism from an extremely Scholastic
point of view, Fr. Justin wanted to print a rebuttal; and to compose such a reply,
the Russian students at the Theological Faculty met at Belgrade. I do not now
remember all those involved in our collective effort. There were M. B.
Maximovich (later Archbishop John of Shanghai and San Francisco),[85]
V. F. Fradynsky, A. N. Yelenev and others. We divided Parenta’s article into
sections, and each of us replied point by point. Who was later responsible for
combining these into one article, I do not now recall. It seems, however, that
the article turned out to be quite convincing, and Fr. Justin gladly printed it
in his magazine.[86]
And in his own essay The
Unity and Uniqueness of the Church, Fr.
George Grabbe wrote concerning Metropolitan Anthony and The Dogma of Redemption: “The Western error, with its extremes of
juridical interpretations, was necessary so that one of the ‘approved’ should
be made manifest (cf. I Cor. 11: 19).”[87]
Patriarch
Barnabas of Serbia (†1939)
Patriarch Barnabas had graduated from the St. Petersburg Theological Academy in 1905, whereupon he was tonsured a monk by the then rector, Bishop Sergius Stragorodsky, the future Soviet Patriarch. During the First World War the then Bishop Barnabas was evacuated with other Serbian refugees to the Greek island of Corfu. In 1916 he visited Russia, where for some time he was the guest of Metropolitan Anthony, then Archbishop of Kharkov. The Russian Revolution found Bishop Barnabas still in Russia; he later returned to liberated Serbia via Constantinople.
Patriarch Barnabas often spoke of the theological caliber and Ecumenical stature of Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky. Thus, on July 9/22, 1930, while serving the Divine Liturgy in the Russian Church of the Holy Trinity, in Belgrade, for the first time since his election as Patriarch, he addressed the following words to the congregation:
Here [in Serbia] the Russian
Orthodox people have the great joy of being guided by this great hierarch,
Metropolitan Anthony. In your midst there stands this great hierarch, who is an adornment of the Universal Church.
He is a great mind, like unto the first hierarchs of the Church of Christ at
the dawn of Christianity. Ecclesiastical truth is to be found in this man,
and those who have separated themselves [from him] are schismatics, and they must, once they have repented, return to him.
All of you — not only those living in our Yugoslavia — but also those found in
America, in Asia, and in all the nations of the world — must unite yourselves
under the leadership of this great arch-pastor, Metropolitan Anthony. You must
become one invincible body which will not retreat before the attacks and
provocations of the enemies of the Church. Here with him is found the center of
Church life and Russian statehood.[88]
APPENDIX — III
Concerning Fr. Seraphim Rose’s
Report on the New Interpretation of The Dogma of Redemption
Fr. Seraphim Rose first wrote his Report in 1973, purportedly at the behest of Bishop Nektary of Seattle. Its chief aim was to try to prevent the publication of The Dogma of Redemption in English. At that time this Report was shown to several hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad who were considered to be sympathetic to the concerns expressed by Fr. Herman and Fr. Seraphim. The report appeared in print only in 1992 as an appendix to the posthumous Russian edition of Fr. Michael Pomazansky’s Orthodox Dogmatic Theology. Then in 1994, the amplified English text of the report was printed in the May–June issue of Orthodox Word. It is this version which we shall examine here.
A detailed analysis of Fr. Seraphim’s Report already exists: Father Seraphim Rose and The Dogma of Redemption by Synaxis Press.[89] This was first published as a separate pamphlet, and then later incorporated as an appendix in the second edition of The Moral Idea of the Main Dogmas of the Faith, by Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky (2002).[90] Therefore, it is not our intention to repeat much of that material here, but rather to refute other points of Fr. Seraphim’s Report, making use of information which has come to our attention during the course of researching and composing our Resolution above.
In all frankness it must be stated that Fr. Seraphim Rose, and after him, Fr. Herman Podmoshensky, have knowingly misrepresented this issue, have made unconscionable attributions which are totally unfounded, and have made wild assertions that cannot be substantiated. They have surrounded this subject with a hysteria, pathos and agitation unbecoming the topic and totally unwarranted. Other observers have noted that many of Fr. Seraphim Rose’s quotations of published works are misrendered or tendentiously misconstrued, and his historical facts are often different from what is generally known and accepted as true. Furthermore, after the death of Fr. Seraphim, Fr. Herman and those with him have taken these distortions even further by their outrageous statements in such books as Not of This World and in their Russian-language magazine, Russky Palomnik, which is published “with the blessing of Patriarch Alexis II”. We shall consider some of these statements here below.
As their ecclesiology has been “evolving” over the years, so too has the attitude of the Platina fathers towards Metropolitan Anthony fluctuated.[91] For that matter, their representation of St. John of San Francisco is constantly undergoing modifications, as others have also noted and as we shall see further in this study.
In July 1976, on the Sunday of the Holy Fathers of the Seven Ecumenical Councils, Fr. Seraphim Rose gave an informal lecture at St. Herman’s Monastery, Platina, entitled “The Theological Writings of Archbishop John, and the Question of ‘Western Influence’ in Orthodox Theology.”[92] In the chapter “Balanced Between Extremes”, Fr. Seraphim writes:[93]
From his theological
writings, we see in Archbishop John someone quite different from Metropolitan
Anthony. …He [Archbishop John] wrote also about one question: “For What Did
Christ Pray in the Garden of Gethsemane?” Here we see how he was very expert
in handling a subject that at that time was quite controversial. It had become
controversial because his teacher Metropolitan Anthony had, in opposing what he
called the scholastic interpretation of the “payment made to an angry God,”
gone himself a little too far in the
opposite direction, and therefore had placed an overemphasis on the meaning
of the prayer of Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, as though this were
the most important part of our redemption; and the Cross was somehow
underemphasized. This often happens when one is involved in polemics, that is,
with arguments with other theologians. Some go overboard on one side a little bit too much, and in counteracting
that sometimes one goes a little too far
on the other side. Archbishop John, however, had a very nice balance in
this, which shows how sound his outlook was and how he did not go to any kind of extremes. He took the best part of Metropolitan
Anthony’s teaching on this subject, about the compassionate love of Jesus
Christ for all mankind, and at the same time he corrected some of the mistakes
which Metropolitan Anthony had put into his article. For example, Metropolitan
Anthony said that it was unworthy of us to think that Jesus Christ should be
afraid of His coming sufferings, whereas as a matter of fact most of the Holy
Fathers talk about precisely this point: that this proves the human nature of
Jesus Christ, that He was afraid of the coming sufferings. So Archbishop John
corrected this and also gave the best part of Metropolitan Anthony’s teaching
on compassionate love. People were talking back and forth, some defending one
point of view, some defending the other — and Archbishop John discussed it without making any controversy out of it
at all. In fact, from reading his article you could never guess that there
was any kind of controversy. This shows
how very well balanced he was.
Likewise there was this
question of “Western influence,” which Metropolitan Anthony also talked about
a great deal. It is very important for us to understand exactly what this
means, because it is true that, for several hundred years in the Orthodox
Church, there were borrowings from the West, from Roman Catholics, in
theological writings. Some people talk a little too much about Western
influence; they go overboard and want to throw out everything from the last
seven hundred years. Of course this is wrong. But in Archbishop John we notice
that, just as he was very balanced towards Metropolitan Anthony when some
people were protesting against his teaching, he was also very balanced with regard
to the question of Western influence.
Once we ourselves asked Archbishop John about the question of Metropolitan
Anthony’s teaching, and he had a way of moving his hand and saying, “It’s
unimportant.” That is, this teaching has very important parts and if there are
mistakes in it, that’s secondary, that’s
unimportant.
(pp.
146–47)
An Analysis of Fr.
Seraphim Rose’s Report of 1973:
(Here below we will follow Fr. Seraphim’s own subdivisions.)
I.
Introduction
A) From the very start of his report Fr. Seraphim seeks to demean and belittle Metropolitan Anthony, saying that he “is unquestionably a great church figure, but he should be understood first of all as a pastor [Fr. Seraphim’s emphasis.]. With him theology is secondary and proceeds from his pastoral thoughts and feelings… He had a great compassionate heart, but when he tried to translate this feeling into theology, he ran into difficulties…”
In response, we ask the reader to call to mind what another great theologian, Archimandrite Justin Popovich had to say about his beloved mentor and spiritual guide, Metropolitan Anthony. (See Appendix II, above.)
B) Fr. Seraphim’s History of the Controversy is very confused, and he distorts the known facts. According to Fr. Seraphim, “[Synodal approval of] the Catechism of Metropolitan Anthony (which contained the new teaching on ‘redemption’)… caused a furor, which was led by the most eminent and patristically minded among the Russian hierarchs abroad, Archbishop Theophan of Poltava…” Hardly the case! And what an odd turn of phrase. If the decision to approve the Catechism is what “caused the furor”, how was this furor being “led” by Archbishop Theophan? Or perhaps it was Archbishop Theophan that was “causing the furor”?…
Fr. Seraphim further writes that “because of the opposition, Metropolitan Anthony requested that the Catechism would not be made official,” and that “the Synod ruled that since the Catechism had not been officially approved this was unnecessary, and the question of The Dogma of Redemption was therefore subject to private exchanges of opinions between hierarchs and theologians. This status quo has been preserved up until today [1973]…”
A brief glance at the minutes of the April 9/22, 1926 session of the ROCA Synod (as provided in the text of our Resolution above) will put the lie to Fr. Seraphim’s claim. It reads in part: “…the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad resolves: Not finding in the catechism of Metropolitan Anthony the deviations from Church doctrine indicated by Archbishop Theophan and Bishop Seraphim, no basis is found to revoke the Synodal resolution of March 27 / April 9, 1925” (which had approved the Catechism for use as a textbook).
As for Metropolitan Anthony, he had no desire to insist on a decision that had been made in his absence, and without his knowledge or participation. Thus, in his request to the Synod not to implement its decision to replace Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow’s catechism with his own, Metropolitan Anthony reminded his fellow hierarchs that in the Foreword to his Catechism he himself had already pointed out that the prerogative to make such a decision lies with the Pan-Russian ecclesiastical authority, and not with just a part of it, i.e., the Church Abroad. In his Foreword, Metropolitan Anthony had also made it clear that he intended his Catechism as a supplement and corrective to Metropolitan Philaret’s earlier Catechism, not as a replacement. Metropolitan Anthony then stated that he felt it would be best to postpone this decision, “while yet retaining this Towards an Orthodox Christian Catechism[94] — in accordance with the opinion of Bishop Gabriel and the decision of the Religion Teachers’ Conference in Prague — as a school textbook, and to leave it to the discretion of the teachers whether to use it as a textbook.”[95]
In his Encyclical Letter of July 10/23, 1926, written in order to dispel various rumors which had begun to spread after the recent Bishops’ Sobor, Metropolitan Anthony also touched upon this subject:
Nor was there was any
discussion at the Sobor of the Catechism
compiled by me, and consequently, there could have been no resolution to
declare it either incorrect or heretical. …[and since I declined having it
declared the official textbook] this my work can be the subject of academic
debates, but not of a Conciliar judgment; even more so since the opinions
expounded in it and in my brochure The
Dogma of Redemption, were many a time printed by me in Russia in our
academic publications, while the brochure [The
Dogma of Redemption] was printed in full at the beginning of 1917 in the
journal Theological Herald, and in the fifth volume of my collected
works published in Russia, and it was distributed to all the hierarchs and
members of the Holy Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church.[96]
Continuing his Report, Fr. Seraphim declares that if The Dogma of Redemption should appear in English translation it “could well cause public dispute and scandal of incalculable proportions.” To be brief, it simply didn’t happen.
Fr. Seraphim then modestly exclaims: “Hence this report, in which nothing is of our own opinion, but only what has been handed down to us by the best theological tradition of the Russian Church Abroad.” Once again, a debatable statement.
Fr. Seraphim continues his gratuitous and condescending tone by informing us that there exists considerable literature critical of The Dogma of Redemption “authored by outstanding hierarchs and theologians. Almost all of these theologians are extremely well-disposed and sympathetic to Metropolitan Anthony, but nonetheless have expressed privately their grave differences with him…” As before, Fr. Seraphim’s statement here raises many questions. If these criticisms were expressed privately, how is Fr. Seraphim privy to them, and how is anyone else to verify them? Fr. Seraphim furnishes no proof; nor does he cite any sources for his attributions. We are simply presented with a list of the prominent hierarchs of the Church Abroad. This list is meant to impress the simple, and to intimidate the skeptical. Thus, according to Fr. Seraphim, to defend the ideas expressed in The Dogma of Redemption is to place oneself in opposition to these hierarchs.
The implications of Fr. Seraphim’s supposedly kind remarks are insulting to the memory of these eminent hierarchs whom he then goes on to mention by name. If true, it would mean that they were either cowards or hypocrites — or both. Having known and respected these hierarchs, we consider them to have been neither one nor the other. One can dispassionately love a heretic and pray for his salvation. An Orthodox Christian layman, let alone a hierarch, cannot associate with and obey a hierarch whom he suspects of teaching heresy. Such public outward deference, coupled with private inner misgivings, on the part of their hierarchs would only confuse and tempt the laity.
Although we cannot contradict every one of Fr. Seraphim’s allegations concerning these hierarchs, the fact that we have been able to disprove many of them, gives us and the reader both the right and duty to be skeptical of the others. A glimpse of Metropolitan Anthony’s true relationship with several of these clergymen can be gained from reading his collected letters, many of which were written to some of these same people.[98]
Let us now consider Fr. Seraphim’s comments concerning some of these hierarchs and The Dogma of Redemption.[99] He assures us that:
1) “Metropolitan Anastasy regarded it with hostility as a heresy.”
If truly so, then why did Metropolitan Anastasy remain in communion with Metropolitan Anthony as a member of his Synod for so many years, eventually even succeeding him as First-Hierarch of the ROCA? Metropolitan Anastasy had been a student of Metropolitan Anthony’s at the Moscow Theological Academy and, therefore, was quite aware of his theological views.
Then too, it was Metropolitan Anastasy himself who, in the early 1960’s categorically refused to allow this topic to be brought up again at a Synod meeting and declared that the matter had been settled once and for all in the 1920’s in Serbia.[100] For if Metropolitan Anastasy had indeed considered it a heresy, he should rather have welcomed the opportunity — and one presented by a third party — to raise this issue again and to resolve it in a manner more in accord with his own opinion. Nor should it be forgotten that the seventeen-volume series of The Life and Works of Metropolitan Anthony, edited by Archbishop Nikon, and which contains the text of both his Catechism and The Dogma of Redemption, was published by the North American Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, of which Metropolitan Anastasy was the local ruling hierarch. And the publishing of this series continued under Metropolitan Anastasy’s successor, St. Philaret of New York.
2) “Archbishop Theophan of Poltava [because of his report] was dismissed from the Council of Bishops by the devotees of Metropolitan Anthony and departed to France where he lived peacefully in caves. He was deprived of the honor of a hierarchical funeral.” (In Not of This World, p. 491, Fathers Herman and Damascene take this fantasy even farther, declaring: “Archbishop Theophan had been banished, retired, and accused of being ‘perfectly mad’ as a result of the report he submitted to the Synod…”)!
From the biographical sketch of Archbishop Theophan given in Appendix I above (q.v.), the attentive reader can clearly see to what degree Fr. Seraphim has confused the facts and even the chronology. From the accounts of Archbishop Averky[101] (who was one of Archbishop Theophan’s cell-attendants in Bulgaria) and of others, it is evident that: 1) Archbishop Theophan moved to Bulgaria in 1925, before the Council was held, 2) he continued to attend the Synod meetings, 3) he was present at the Sobors of 1927 and 1931, 4) he moved to France only in 1931 (apparently without informing his Synod or obtaining a blessing, thereby forsaking his throne and flock in Bulgaria), 5) thus, the ROCA Synod never expelled him from its midst, nor did they deprive him of a hierarchical funeral. As is well known, Archbishop Theophan himself gradually withdrew from the Church Abroad.
3) “Archbishop Vitaly (Maximenko) of Jordanville openly called this teaching of Metropolitan Anthony a heresy.”
If “openly”, then to whom, when, and where? Heresy doesn’t exist as an abstraction — its existence demands the existence likewise of a heretic who is preaching it. Now, since Metropolitan Anthony never renounced his The Dogma of Redemption, and if Archbishop Vitaly Maximenko truly considered this teaching to be a heresy, then why did he consent to be consecrated to the episcopacy at the hands of Metropolitan Anthony in 1934 — eight years after The Dogma of Redemption had been published? In his acceptance speech at his nomination, Vladyka Vitaly — after stating that he felt it his duty to consent for the sake of peace in the church in America — declared to Metropolitan Anthony and the other hierarchs present: “Thus have you, Holy Masters, and Thou, my constant guide, O Most Blessed Abba, resolved concerning me…”[102]
After all, it had been Metropolitan Anthony who had convinced the ecclesiastical authorities to accept the blacklisted lad, Vasily Maximenko, into the Theological Academy in Kazan, who had tonsured him a monk, had trained him, had later summoned him to Pochaev Monastery, and after the Revolution had been instrumental in getting him released from imprisonment and evacuated abroad. And, as recorded in the life of Archbishop Vitaly which was written by the then Archbishop Laurus and printed in Orthodox Word, “many times Archimandrite Vitaly refused the rank of bishop, and it was only the necessity to support the canonical Church in North America that finally led him to heed the plea of his infirm Abba, Metropolitan Anthony, and be consecrated bishop in 1934.”[103] A biography of Archbishop Vitaly printed in Orthodox America even claims that only “after Metropolitan Anthony threatened to refuse to be his spiritual father any longer, he agreed” to be consecrated.[104] In his later years in America, Archbishop Vitaly Maximenko had assisted Archbishop Nikon in gathering material for the volumes of The Life and Works of Metropolitan Anthony.[105]
4) Archbishop Tikhon of San Francisco. Fr. Seraphim offers no further proof or commentary whatsoever.
Archbishop Tikhon (Troitsky) had been a student and disciple of Metropolitan Anthony while at the Kazan Theological Academy. Under the influence and spiritual direction of Metropolitan Anthony, he received the monastic tonsure in 1905 from the renowned Elder and Schema-monk Gabriel, of the Seven Lakes Monastery, near Kazan. In 1912 Hieromonk Tikhon was appointed Inspector of the Volyn Seminary, while Metropolitan Anthony was the ruling hierarch there. Archbishop Nikon writes that Hieromonk Tikhon, “being of a strictly monastic and ascetical mind, always treated Vladyka Anthony with deep esteem and love.”[106] Found in exile in Yugoslavia after the Russian Revolution, Hieromonk Tikhon participated in the labors of two of Metropolitan Anthony’s closest disciples: serving as an instructor together with Hieromonk John Maximovich at the Bitol Seminary, and staying for long periods of time at the monastery at Milkovo, under Archimandrite Ambrose (Kurganov). In 1930 Hieromonk Tikhon was consecrated as Bishop of San Francisco by Metropolitan Anthony in Belgrade. And many years later, in 1963, while in retirement at Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville NY, Archbishop Tikhon was deemed worthy to quietly repose on March 17/30, the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky, and at that very point in the Pannikhida when “With the Saints Grant Rest” was being chanted for his beloved Abba. At Archbishop Tikhon’s funeral, Archbishop Nikon read the speech Metropolitan Anthony had delivered in 1930 while presenting the episcopal staff to the newly consecrated Bishop Tikhon. In his later years in America, Archbishop Tikhon had also collaborated with Archbishop Nikon in gathering material for the volumes of The Life and Works of Metropolitan Anthony.[107]
5) Archbishop Joasaph of Canada. Again, Fr. Seraphim does not elaborate.
Archbishop Joasaph (Skorodumov), being a devoted disciple and former cell-attendant of Archbishop Theophan of Poltava, most likely did share many of Archbishop Theophan’s views. However, it should not be forgotten that, in 1930, when Hieromonk Joasaph — at that time already located in America — was nominated to become Bishop of Montreal, he insisted on making the long and arduous journey back to Belgrade in order to receive the grace of the episcopacy there at the hands of Metropolitan Anthony and the other senior hierarchs of the ROCA.[108]
6) Archbishop Andrew of Novo-Diveyevo, “who had been fervently entreating God that this new danger could be avoided, a danger that could lead to a whole stream of liturgical reforms.”
After the repose of the blessed Elder Hieronymos of Aegina (†1966) and until his own repose in 1978, Archbishop Andrew was the spiritual father of Archimandrite Panteleimon and the fathers of Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Boston. The fathers travelled to see him often and consulted with him on all important matters. Never during the course of all those years did they ever hear him criticize either Metropolitan Anthony himself, his theology, or The Dogma of Redemption in particular.
As for the “whole stream of liturgical reforms”, they simply never happened.
7) “Archbishop Leonty of Chile…called the teaching a heresy while he was still living in Russia.”
With all due respect to his memory, Archbishop Leonty had practically no formal theological education, and so would not fit Fr. Seraphim’s own definition of a theologian capable of passing judgment in this case.
8) Archbishop Averky of Jordanville.
Archbishop Averky was a fervent disciple of Archbishop Theophan of Poltava, so his position on this issue is to be expected. We love and esteem the memory of Vladyka Averky very much, but we feel that, as a human being, he had possibly erred in this whole matter. To us, at least, it seems very much like the initial reluctance which St. Cyril of Alexandria felt in accepting the sanctity of St. John Chrysostom, having, as it were, “inherited” his uncle, Patriarch Theophilus’ animosity for St. John. It was a reluctance born of misunderstanding, which sometimes is inevitable since we are finite and human.
However, it is telling that the disciple of Archbishop Theophan of Poltava, Archbishop Averky, felt it possible to allow Monophysite Copts to celebrate their “liturgy” in the monastery church at Jordanville; while the disciple of Metropolitan Anthony, Saint Philaret of New York, declared such a liturgy to be “a blasphemous absurdity” and proved conclusively that such a thing is in no wise permitted by the teachings of the Holy Fathers or the canons of the Church. Noteworthy too is the fact that, in his refutation of this false “economia”, St. Philaret cites an incident from the life of St. John of San Francisco which demonstrates that St. John was of the same mind.[109]
9) Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky.
Fr. Michael Pomazansky’s true opinion of Metropolitan Anthony’s The Dogma of Redemption is rather difficult to determine. A short history of the publication of Fr. Michael’s works will demonstrate why this is so. Fr. Michael’s Orthodox Dogmatic Theology was first published by Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville, in Russian, in 1963. A second Russian edition, revised by the author, was printed by the same monastery in 1973. Fr. Seraphim Rose reposed in 1982. In 1984 St. Herman of Alaska Press published Fr. Seraphim’s translation of Fr. Michael’s Orthodox Dogmatic Theology in English for the first time. Fr. Michael Pomazansky himself reposed in 1988. Then, in 1992, St. Herman of Alaska Press published their own edition of the revised Russian text of Orthodox Dogmatic Theology; and in 1994 they printed a second edition of their English translation.
The 1984 English edition of Orthodox Dogmatic Theology by St. Herman of Alaska Press contains a “Preface to the English Edition” written by Fr. Michael Pomazansky himself. Although Fr. Michael composed this “Preface” in 1981 — three years after Metropolitan Anthony’s The Dogma of Redemption appeared in English, having been published by Monastery Press in Montreal — he makes no mention of Metropolitan Anthony’s essay: neither in his “Preface”, nor in that section of his book which deals with the subject of our redemption. This 1984 English edition also lacks the “Appendix IV — The 1973 Report of Fr. Seraphim Rose on The Dogma of Redemption.” Suddenly, in the 1992 Russian edition, and again in the 1994 Second English edition — both published by St. Herman of Alaska Press — this new material makes its appearance, accompanied by a very telling introduction from Fr. Herman which is rather insulting to the intellectual capabilities of so renowned a theologian as Fr. Michael Pomazansky. Fr. Herman writes:
…Due to personal
circumstances, Fr. Michael Pomazansky was always devoted to Metropolitan
Anthony, and thus paid little heed to objections to his novel teaching. Being
in the midst of the exiled society that consisted of the devotees of the
renowned orator, he did not even suspect
the danger that threatened the purity of Orthodoxy which could result from
the “Karlovtsy”[110]
Catechism compiled by Metropolitan
Anthony and printed in Yugoslavia. …Because of this, Fr. Michael did not even notice the sorrow, and in
some cases persecution, of those hierarchs and laymen who stood up against
this imminent danger.[111]
…After Metropolitan Anthony’s essay The
Dogma of Redemption was published as a book in the English language,
however, Fr. Michael was alerted to the danger of this teaching…[112]
He paid heed and decided to revise and publish his textbook on Dogmatic
Theology in the English language, setting forth the Orthodox teaching … so
unequivocally that it would leave no room for acceptance of the false “dogma”,
but without referring to the dispute.[113]
…Insistence on such an interpretation [as Metropolitan Anthony’s] of the dogma
of redemption gives this theological formula: Christianity without the Cross
or morality without struggle. This is precisely the prerequisite for the new
“Christianity without Christ”, the Religion of the Future, the mystical
spirituality of Antichrist, in a word Stavroclasm, or a war against the Cross.
pp. 397–400
It is unfortunate that this material was published only after the repose of both Fr. Seraphim Rose and Fr. Michael Pomazansky, when it is no longer possible to make inquiries of either of them.
From Fr. Herman we also learn for the first time that Fr. Seraphim, not long before he died, travelled to Jordanville to consult with Fr. Michael Pomazansky concerning his English translation of Orthodox Dogmatic Theology. A lengthy correspondence ensued in which Fr. Michael supposedly made many corrections and emendations to the translation. Thus, so Fr. Herman claims, the St. Herman of Alaska Press’ final edition must be considered Fr. Michael’s definitive text. Not being privy to the correspondence between Platina and Fr. Michael to which Fr. Herman refers, we are unable to judge, but from what has been made available, it sounds more as though Fr. Michael was seeking to calm and reassure Fr. Herman and Fr. Seraphim, rather than to criticize or attack Metropolitan Anthony. Nor were we able to acquire a copy of the 1973 Jordanville revised Russian edition of Orthodox Dogmatic Theology in order to compare it with St. Herman of Alaska Press’ English translation. (Holy Trinity Monastery is presently carrying a Moscow Patriarchate re-print of their own 1963 original edition of the book.) What we do have are the published reminiscences of Fr. Michael’s cell-attendant at Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, Fr. Benjamin.
…At
the age of nine Father Michael entered the Theological School in Volhynia,
where Bishop Anthony (Khrapovitsky) was especially attentive to him. The bishop
left in his heart traces of his own wide social, intellectual, and moral
influences. At every convenient moment, even during breaks, Fr. Michael hurried
with like-minded friends to the Cathedral in Zhitomir in order to hear Abba’s
sermons. Once I was a witness of how someone accused Vladyka Anthony of heresy
in front of Father Michael. Fr. Michael meekly but firmly responded, “We will
not allow our Abba to be offended.” Thus,
till the end of his life he maintained a reverent attitude toward Vladyka
Anthony as toward an Abba. Having left the diocese of Volhynia after finishing
Seminary, Father Michael continued to maintain contact with Bishop Anthony
through letters.[114]
Since Fr. Seraphim Rose sets such store in the opinions of graduates of pre-Revolutionary Russian theological academies, then, on the same basis, the views of those ecclesiastical figures who approved of Metropolitan Anthony’s Catechism and The Dogma of Redemption should also be of equal worth. Patriarch Barnabas of Serbia, who proclaimed Metropolitan Anthony to be equal to the Three Hierarchs, graduated from the St. Petersburg Theological Academy. Patriarch Gregory IV of Antioch, who provided the funds for the publication of Metropolitan Anthony’s theological works abroad, also completed a Russian theological academy.[115] Bishop Gabriel Chepura, who reviewed Metropolitan Anthony’s Catechism and The Dogma of Redemption for the Holy Synod, was a graduate of the Kiev Theological Academy. For that matter, Metropolitan Anthony himself was at various times inspector or rector of three theological academies: first that of St. Petersburg, then of Moscow, and later of Kazan.
10) “Archbishop John Maximovich: For What Did Christ Pray in the Garden of Gethsemane? Although there is no mention here of Metropolitan Anthony, nonetheless it appears to be in essence a correction of the error of his beloved Abba, Metropolitan Anthony, written soon after the latter’s death.”
To whom does “it appear to be in essence a correction…”? Elsewhere, in a talk he gave on the tenth anniversary of Vladyka John’s repose, Fr. Seraphim maintains that “from his theological writings, we see in Archbishop John someone quite different from Metropolitan Anthony.”[116]
We think the reader will agree with us that the excerpts from St. John of San Francisco’s works, provided in Appendix II, above (q.v.), totally refute Fr. Seraphim’s hypothesis here.
Concerning the bond between Metropolitan Anthony and Archbishop John, we have the account of Archbishop Anthony of San Francisco: “…Vladyka [Anthony Khrapovitsky] himself testified, saying that closest of all to him in spirit were Father Ambrose [of Milkovo] and Father John (Maximovich, later Archbishop of San Francisco).”[117]
And, as reported in the biography of St. John of San Francisco published by St. Herman of Alaska Press, Metropolitan Anthony — declining an invitation from Archbishop Dimitry to retire to the Far East — himself wrote concerning the newly consecrated hierarch John:
But in place of myself, as my soul, as my heart, I am sending
you Vladyka Bishop John. This little, frail man, looking almost like a child,
is in actuality a miracle of ascetic firmness in our times of total spiritual
enfeeblement.[118]
It should also be noted that in the later editions of the St. Herman of Alaska Press’ English-language account, Blessed John, the Wonder-worker, the chapter entitled “The Discovery of Metropolitan Anthony” — wherein it is stated that Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky had been the one man “who guided, who inspired and pushed” Archbishop John to serve the Church — has been deleted. The same has been done in the Russian-language version distributed in Russia. Is such dishonest editing worthy of clergymen? And Archbishop John of San Francisco is now being depicted by St. Herman of Alaska Press and the Valaam Society in their publications as even having been somehow favorably inclined towards the Moscow Patriarchate and the Orthodox Church in America.
11) Archimandrite Constantine (Zaitsev) of Jordanville, “Blessed Metropolitan Anthony”, Pravoslavnaya Rus, No. 10, 1963.
Archimandrite Constantine (†1975) was the spiritual father of the brotherhood of Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, N. Y., an instructor at the seminary, and the editor of Pravoslavnaya Rus and Orthodox Life. In 1963 Archbishop Nikon, having compiled a collection of Metropolitan Anthony’s essays, The Moral Ideas of the Most Important Orthodox Christian Dogmas, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Metropolitan Anthony’s birth, wished to announce the publication of this new book by having the text of his Introduction printed in Pravoslavnaya Rus. Archimandrite Constantine complied with Archbishop Nikon’s wishes, but felt it necessary to relegate the Introduction to the central pages of the paper, while putting his own critique of Metropolitan Anthony on the first three pages.[119] This lead article by Archimandrite Constantine, “Metropolitan Anthony of Blessed Memory”, is a classic example of “damning with faint praise”.
In this supposed eulogy, Archimandrite Constantine condescendingly declares that Metropolitan Anthony was above all else a “pastor” [i.e., not a theologian], but that he over-emphasized certain themes, such as the concept of “compassionate love”. Fr. Constantine contends that Metropolitan Anthony sought to delve into mysteries that should remain unexamined and unspoken, and that, by attempting to “prove” and “demonstrate” dogmatic truths, Metropolitan Anthony found himself on that very same rationalistic footing for which he so castigated Roman Catholicism. Archimandrite Constantine totally misunderstood Metropolitan Anthony’s arguments concerning the false dogma of “Original Sin”, and he insists that Christ’s death on the Cross, and the Cross itself, constitute the culmination point of our salvation. In concluding his article, Archimandrite Constantine remarks that, if the readers of Pravoslavnaya Rus would bear these warnings and correctives in mind, then they, the editors, can, with a clear conscience, assist the faithful in acquainting themselves with the views of Metropolitan Anthony.
To anyone familiar with Archimandrite Constantine Zaitsev’s somewhat muddled ecclesiology, it is obvious why he would seek to discredit Metropolitan Anthony and disparage his teachings. Archimandrite Constantine found it very difficult to agree fully with St. Cyprian of Carthage (and Metropolitan Anthony) that “outside of the Church there is no salvation.”[120] Rather, Fr. Constantine believed and insisted unequivocally that the Latin (and even Protestant) rites are grace-bearing. At one time he adamantly and categorically refused to baptize a Roman Catholic convert — even in the face of an explicit written order from Metropolitan Philaret of New York. [121] In essence, Fr. Constantine opposed The Dogma of Redemption because he could not and would not accept the strictly patristic ecclesiology of Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky.
No theologian himself, Archimandrite Constantine composed articles often more concerned with patriotic and national themes than ecclesiological issues. Fr. Constantine wrote extensively on the need to preserve one’s “Russian-ness”(russkost’), and is credited by some with having even coined the word itself. Thus, his anti-ecumenism was often based more on nationalism than on Orthodox doctrine.
In an article which he wrote in 1970, entitled “Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy Before the Face of Antichrist”,[122] and which caused quite a stir at the time, Archimandrite Constantine explains that there are two kinds of ecumenism: the ecumenism of the official churches — which he calls the ecumenism of Antichrist — which entails doctrinal negotiations leading to a dilution or abandonment of the Apostolic Faith, and another, positive ecumenism of all who wish to remain faithful to Christ.[123]
…But
the consciousness of the unity which disregards all the bonds which, until the
present “ecumenical” period of the history of the Church, were accepted as
being absolutely impassable,
and in this, especially in regard to faithfulness to Christ, however
subjectively it might have been understood — such a consciousness has by no
means yet defined itself.
…Service
to Christ is by no means limited formally; it can be accepted by Christ in any
form — by grace adopted and clothed by Him in His power, to one degree or
another.
…
But as for the forms of communion with Christ, they are losing more and more
their character of formal successiveness. Communion with Christ, in an
entirely new and ever growing force, is capable of being born anew, on any
soil!
…
This phenomenon which will decisively define itself only in the time of the
Antichrist, nonetheless can be noted in our times in the natural, mutual attraction
to one another of those who want to remain with Christ. Thus there appears a
certain contrasting analogy to the ecumenism of Antichrist — in the spiritual
kinship of all the appearances of faithfulness to Christ, wherever they be
found, even if in the manifestation of a heterodoxy far from the fullness of
Truth. Be it the colossus of Catholicism or some crumb of an ecclesiastical
body on the most distant periphery of heterodoxy, if there arises a reaction
against the ecumenism of Antichrist in the form of a defense of a minimal bit
of the genuine Christ which remains in that ecclesiastical body, then this
cannot but arouse sympathy from all the “faithful,” regardless of the degree to
which they are “orthodox.” And here, of course, is not excluded any
formulation of such a unity in faithfulness to Christ. Moreover, if this unity
embraces all the “faithful,” regardless of the fullness of their faithfulness,
then does there not quite naturally arise a striving for the general possession of the fullness of
Truth?
…
All those, each in their own denomination, who courageously remain with Christ,
thus separate themselves from their own denomination, which, as a whole, is
joining Antichrist. And is not their mutual drawing together generated into a
general preparedness to rise to the level of the fullness of Orthodoxy? And in
this, does there not seem to be realized just what Christ spoke of as the one
fold which will arise, uniting around the one Shepherd?
…
To define the Orthodox point of view more precisely in this process of
thickening apostasy, it can be said that all, in the eyes of Orthodoxy, are her
own, if only they manifest a faithfulness to even that little bit of genuine
Christianity which they receive in their denomination. But, on the part of Orthodoxy,
more than ever before, a missionary effort must be directed to these heterodox
in the name of forming, before the face of Antichrist, one fold following one
Shepherd.[124]
This article by Archimandrite Constantine is being cited favorably even to this day. Thus, in his book Upon This Rock, David Dale, a convert from the Anglican church, writes: “Fr. Constantine provides … a recognition that historical circumstances have led to the existence of groups within other churches which hold to the Apostolic Faith and life. This can be discerned by their opposition to what he calls the ecumenism of Anti-Christ. He asserts salvation by repentance and faith in the saving works of Christ rather than by jurisdiction.”[125]
12) “The Moscow Patriarchate officially condemned this teaching after it was thoroughly discussed with the participation of Metropolitan Eleutherius and of Archbishop Benjamin (Fedchenkov) of Western Europe, who was personally close to Metropolitan Anthony.”
Why should a loyal son of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad — which is what Fr. Seraphim Rose’s followers always claim him to have been — seek for testimony from the Moscow Patriarchate against his Chief-Hierarch? As for this Archbishop Benjamin Fedchenkov, “who was personally close to Metropolitan Anthony”, he defected from the Church Abroad to the Moscow Patriarchate in 1931. From 1933 to 1947 he was exarch of the Soviet-affiliated parishes in America. He died in the USSR in 1961. In the life of Archimandrite Ambrose of Milkovo, we read that “Fr. Ambrose was to experience a bitter disenchantment which later passed over into a sharply negative relationship with Bishop Benjamin when the latter defected.”[126]
And as for Archbishop Eleutherius (Bogoyavlensky) of Vilnus and Lithuania, the end of the Russian Revolution and the Civil War found him under Polish domination, and for several months he was imprisoned in a Roman Catholic monastery. After the Metropolitan of Warsaw, under pressure from the Polish government, declared the Polish Orthodox Church to be autocephalous, Archbishop Eleutherius had to undergo further persecution from the Polish secular authorities, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Polish Orthodox Church. Seeking succor and protection, Archbishop Eleutherius turned to the Moscow Patriarchate. Not comprehending the true facts of the Church’s position in the USSR, Archbishop Eleutherius travelled to Moscow in October 1928 and united himself to the Moscow Patriarchate with all his heart. Soon Metropolitan Sergius elevated him to the rank of Metropolitan. As a reward for his loyalty, in 1931 Metropolitan Eleutherius was placed in charge of the Moscow Patriarchate’s churches in Western Europe. Thus, in Metropolitan Eleutherius’ attempts to discredit Metropolitan Anthony, one must see not so much a dogmatic controversy, as a political attack.
Even when arguing on a theological level, Metropolitan Eleutherius’ attachment to the idea of predestination is so deeply seated in his mind, that he resorts to distorting the texts of Holy Scripture in order to make them serve his ends. To such a degree was he carried away by the passion of polemics.[127]
And as others inside Russia have pointed out, if Metropolitan Eleutherius wished to criticize Metropolitan Anthony so severely for his views on Redemption, then to be consistent, he should have been just as critical of Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) of Moscow, a former pupil and disciple of Metropolitan Anthony, and one who shared his views on this topic. In The Dogma of Redemption (p. 12), Metropolitan Anthony even refers to “Archbishop Sergei’s superb dissertation ‘The Orthodox Doctrine of Salvation.’” Instead, Metropolitan Eleutherius united himself to Metropolitan Sergius and defended Sergianism wholeheartedly.[128]
13) St. Philaret, Metropolitan of New York, New Confessor.
In Not of this World, we are told that: “In 1973 Fr. Seraphim was called upon to defend the Church against a strange and novel teaching which was, in his own words, ‘potentially not only explosive, but absolutely catastrophic.’” [129] In the course of the chapter, we are informed by the authors, Fathers Herman and Damascene, that, supposedly due to the intervention of Bishop Nektary of Seattle — for whom Fr. Seraphim’s Report had been composed — Metropolitan Philaret “scratched the ‘dogma’ off the agenda”, and thus it was not declared to be the official teaching of the Church Abroad. It is more than highly doubtful that there was ever even any movement to have it officially proclaimed. What seems more likely, although we have no proof, is that it was Fr. Seraphim’s Report that was submitted, and Metropolitan Philaret, as a devoted disciple of Metropolitan Anthony, refused outright to consider the matter, as had Metropolitan Anastasy before him. And the homily by Metropolitan Philaret for Holy and Great Friday, which we included in Appendix II above, clearly demonstrates to what a profound degree he shared Metropolitan Anthony’s views on The Dogma of Redemption.
In any event, it was Metropolitan Philaret himself who gave his blessing to the fathers of Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Boston to translate The Dogma of Redemption into English, and then, when they sought to calm the fathers at Platina by postponing its publication, it was again Metropolitan Philaret who kept urging the monastery to print their translation. In the end, one of the reasons that the monastery proceeded to publish The Dogma of Redemption in English was so as not to be disobedient to Metropolitan Philaret and the other senior hierarchs of the Church Abroad.
It will probably come as no surprise to the reader that none of the catastrophic events predicted by Fr. Seraphim and Fr. Herman came to pass. The book was well received, and many wrote to express their gratitude that so edifying a work had finally appeared in English.
14) The New Hieromartyr Victor (Ostrovidov), Bishop of Glazov.
At the beginning of his Report, Fr. Seraphim writes that “the ideas of Metropolitan Anthony expressed in The Dogma of Redemption had been criticized previously, but the great controversy arose only in 1925…” This may be a passing reference to a supposed incident in the life of the Hieromartyr Victor, as recounted earlier by Fr. Herman and Fr. Seraphim. Their Life of St. Victor begins thus: “Bishop Victor (Ostrovidov) was the son of a church chanter. He entered a monastery early in life and spent many years there. Nonetheless, he acquired also a good theological education, and in 1912 published a detailed study on ‘The New Theologians’, criticizing a new theological trend that had found expression particularly in the book of Metropolitan (later “Patriarch”) Sergius, The Doctrine of Salvation (Kazan, 1898).” [130]
The question of the true authorship of the article “The New Theologians” is rather complex and somewhat confused. However, since the enemies of Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky make use of “The New Theologians” even to this day to discredit him, the issue of its authorship needs to be addressed here. A short chronology of the case will prove helpful.
The future Metropolitan Sergius graduated from the St. Petersburg Theological Academy in 1890. His dissertation The Orthodox Doctrine of Salvation was first published in 1895. The second edition came out in 1898, and, by the time of the Russian Revolution, it was in its fourth edition. The Hieromartyr Victor graduated from the Theological Academy in 1903. (The accounts of his life differ: some say he completed the St. Petersburg Academy, others, that of Kazan.)[131] Yet the essay “The New Theologians” was not written until 1912.[132] One cannot help wondering: Why should St. Victor have waited fourteen years to criticize The Orthodox Doctrine of Salvation if he considered it such a burning issue?
Where the essay “The New Theologians” appeared in print is also a puzzling matter. It was published in Moscow, in the Old Believer journal Church in 1912, and under the pseudonym “Strannik” (Wanderer). This was necessary, we are told, because at that time the then Archbishop Anthony Khrapovitsky of Volyn and Archbishop Seraphim of Finland could not be criticized openly in the ecclesiastical press. Why this is so, is not explained. And even if that were the case, why should an Orthodox clergyman resort to printing his theological critique in an Old Believer publication? Besides, by 1912 the then Archimandrite Victor had already served as a hieromonk of the Russian Mission in Jerusalem, supervisor of the Archangelsk seminary, abbot of the Zelenetsky Monastery of the Holy Trinity, and was presently Acting Superior (Namestnik) of the St. Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg. It hardly seems credible that such an outspoken man as Archimandrite Victor — having such credentials and occupying such a responsible position in the capital — would have been restrained by fears for his career.
The authorship of “The New Theologians” is attributed to St. Victor based on two statements supposedly made by him many years after the article’s publication. However, the authenticity of these two quotations is also debatable. The first of them comes from the Encyclopedia of Hierarchs by Metropolitan Manuil Lemeshevsky.[133] In his biographical sketch of Bishop Victor of Glazov, Metropolitan Manuil writes concerning St. Victor’s criticism of Metropolitan Sergius’ Declaration of 1927:
To this should be added
that, apparently Bishop Victor had even earlier treated Metropolitan Sergius
with prejudice. To his friend, Bishop Abramius (Dernov) of Urzhum, he wrote:
“His [Sergius’] errors concerning the Church and man’s salvation within her were
apparent to me already in 1911, and I wrote concerning him in an Old Believer
journal that the time would come when he would shake the Church.”
Vol. II, p. 170
However, Metropolitan Manuil Lemeshevsky is famed for his extreme subjectivity, Sergianist bias, his trust in dubious sources, and even for outright lies. It is sufficient to recall the assertion made in his Encyclopedia that the Hieromartyr Gregory (Lebedev) — arrested at the Saint Alexander Nevsky Lavra and expelled from St. Petersburg in 1929 — “left Leningrad without being noticed and got a job as a guard at a poultry farm in the Tver oblast”,[134] or his extremely hostile and totally groundless description of the Hieromartyr Joseph (Petrovykh) of Petrograd. More to the point, continuing his account concerning St. Victor, Metropolitan Manuil, on the very next page (171), declares:
Upon his arrival [at the
Solovki concentration camp], Bishop Victor met with something unexpected. He
had been certain that the Solovetsky hierarchs held one and the same views as
he. But in actuality, it turned out that they condemned his separation from
Metropolitan Sergius and strenuously sought to make him change his mind…[135]
Bishop Victor resisted for a long time… but at last was convinced and made
peace with Metropolitan Sergius.
Concerning his uniting with
Metropolitan Sergius, he informed his flock in Vyatka, apparently at the
beginning of 1929, and he issued the appropriate instructions…[136]
Bishop Victor reposed on
July 19, 1934, in the monastery of the Righteous Zosimas and Sabbatius [i.e.,
still at the Solovki camp].
In actual fact, St. Victor died on April 19/May 2, 1934, from the harsh conditions of exile in the far northern village of Neritsa, whither he had been banished precisely because he would not “make peace” or “unite” with Metropolitan Sergius. In the face of such distortions and duplicity on the part of Metropolitan Manuil Lemeshevsky, one cannot help but question the authenticity of the letter attributed by him to St. Victor.
The second statement on Metropolitan Sergius attributed to St. Victor is contained in a document bearing the date January 18, 1928 and entitled: “The Replies of Bishop Victor to 15 Questions of the GPU on the Declaration of Metropolitan Sergius.” The excerpt in question here reads:
The “Declaration” is a
separation from the truth of salvation. It looks on salvation as on a natural
moral perfection of man; it is a pagan philosophical doctrine of salvation,
and for its realization an external organization is absolutely essential. In
my opinion, this is the same error of which, as early as 1912, I accused
Metropolitan Sergius…
As far as we can ascertain, this document first appeared in the Life of St. Victor printed in Orthodox Word in 1971, and was then reprinted in I. Andreyev’s Russia’s Catacomb Saints in 1982.[137] This document does not appear in Fr. Michael Polsky’s Life of St. Victor in his Russian Catacomb Saints. The article in Orthodox Word simply says that “the ‘15 Questions’ are from a manuscript copy”, without giving any further details. And when this document was reprinted by Pravoslavnoe Deistvie (see above) in 2000, the editors admitted that it had been translated back into Russian from the English text found in Andreyev’s Russia’s Catacomb Saints. Thus the province of this document remains a mystery.
A third document which should be taken into consideration when discussing St. Victor’s possible authorship of the essay “The New Theologians”, is his First Letter to Metropolitan Sergius, of October 1927, the authenticity and authorship of which are not doubted.[138] (St. Victor’s Second Letter to Metropolitan Sergius is well known and often quoted; his First Letter less so.) St. Victor opens his First Letter with the following words:
Just now I received your
blessing to award one of the protopriests of the town of Vyatka with a miter,
and I saw your dear, familiar inscription, and from the unexpectedness of it my
heart was filled with a forgotten delight and with the former reverence I had
for you when I parted from you a year ago. Tears involuntarily flowed from my
eyes — these were tears of love for one’s father, and of gratitude to God. May
these tears serve as a testimony before God that I do not at all intend to
offend you by sending you this letter.
I write this out of grief
for the Holy Orthodox Church.
Dear Vladyka — after all, it
was not so long ago that you were our valiant helmsman, and for all of us a
desired Chief Pastor, and the recollection alone of your holy name infused our
hearts with courage and joy. And now suddenly — for us such a sad change…
Even if one makes allowance for the usual ecclesiastical style, this hardly seems to be the sort of letter one would expect someone to write who already in 1912 had accused Metropolitan Sergius of holding erroneous teachings. Perhaps, in time, God will reveal whether or not the two passages in question do indeed belong to the pen of St. Victor.
As for the article “The New Theologians” itself, it is directed as much against Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky — the former instructor and mentor of Metropolitan Sergius — as it is against Metropolitan Sergius himself. As mentioned earlier, Metropolitan Sergius had written The Orthodox Doctrine of Salvation as his doctoral dissertation. Metropolitan Anthony mentions it twice in his The Dogma of Redemption, commending it highly:
…Archbishop Sergei’s superb
dissertation The Orthodox Doctrine of
Salvation, now in its fourth edition.
We mention the book of
Archbishop Sergei because of the enormous influence it has indirectly
exercised, contributing to the formulation of a correct comprehension of the
relationship between Christ’s exploit and our salvation. The work, relying
entirely upon the Fathers of the Church (whose words the author cites
continually, making a great number of quotations), has established the simple
truth, which was lost by Western Scholastic theology, that our salvation is
nothing else but our spiritual perfection, the subduing of lust, the gradual
liberation from the passions and communion with the Godhead. This simple truth
has escaped the scholastic theology of the West. In other words, the Archbishop
completely frees the concept of our salvation from those juridical conditions
so foreign to morality by which the Latins and Protestants have, although in
different ways, deeply undermined the very goal of Christianity as it is
expressed by the Apostle when he says: “For this is the will of God, even your
holiness”.
(I Thess. 4:3).
The Dogma of Redemption, p. 12
On the other hand, the author of “The New Theologians” — whoever he may have been — finds fault with the then Archbishop Sergius, accusing him (and thereby also Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky) of Pelagianism, of a “magical” conception of grace, of denigrating certain of the Mysteries of the Church, such as Marriage and Holy Unction, and of denying any superessential element in our salvation. A detailed, seven-page refutation of these accusations has been written by the Alferov brothers — Hieromonk Dionysius and Priest Timothy (both erudite members of the ROCA under Metropolitan Vitaly, who live near Novgorod) — in their journal Uspensky Listok.[139] In general, their analysis of this question is very sober and intelligent. Fathers Dionysius and Timothy rightly conclude that:
…if indeed this article does
belong to the pen of the Hieromartyr Victor — a thing which we simply do not
wish to believe — then we shall simply recall that, after all, we revere this
Saint not for this newly discovered composition, but for his subsequent
unwavering confession of faith. This, his article — for all its integrity in a
number of individual passages — should be acknowledged as unsuccessful and
prejudiced.
And as they also correctly point out, we could leave the matter at that, if it were not for the sad fact that, unfortunately, Saints — who occasionally do err — often have disciples and successors, who, while repeating or amplifying their teacher’s error, do not attain to his degree of sanctity.
Thus, in 2000, the publishers Pravoslavnoe Deistvie (Orthodox Action) reprinted the article “The New Theologians” as part of their series “On New Heresies” and posted it on their web-site. They also published the archives of Archbishop Theophan of Poltava, including his criticism of Metropolitan Anthony’s The Dogma of Redemption. In fact, No. 5 in their series “On New Heresies” deals with Metropolitan Anthony and his “heresy” of stavroclasm.[140] Then, in September 2000, Fr. Stephan Krasovitsky and Roman Vershillo wrote an article published in the Moscow newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta,[141] in which they use the essay “The New Theologians” to prove that, inasmuch as Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky was the mentor of Metropolitan Sergius, he, Metropolitan Anthony, is the founder of Sergianism! This is an astounding statement, especially coming from Fr. Stephan, who at that time was still a member of ROCA. Roman Vershillo, as the editor of Pravoslavnoe Deistvie, could be expected to utter such nonsense. They conclude their article by declaring that, just as the Moscow Patriarchate must renounce Sergianism, so too, the Church Abroad must renounce the “false teachings” of Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky in order for both parties to unite! But as Fathers Dionysius and Timothy demonstrate, many of the passages in Metropolitan Sergius’ dissertation, The Orthodox Doctrine of Salvation, soundly refute his subsequent ungodly pronouncements.[142] And it is precisely because Metropolitan Sergius betrayed the teachings and counsels of his mentor, Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky, that he did not find the moral courage to resist unto the end.[143]
15) “Fr. George [sic] Florovsky, Ways of Russian Theology, a very severe criticism, exposing the foreignness of Metropolitan Anthony’s teaching to Orthodox Patristics.”
We refer the reader to the many,
many patristic citations contained in the actual text of our Resolution above in order to decide for
himself how “foreign to Orthodox Patristics” Metropolitan Anthony’s teaching
really is.
As for Fr. Georges Florovsky’s critique,[144] at first glance it does appear to be weighty and scholarly, but upon closer examination, and in the light of the very many patristic passages cited above, it is not nearly so impressive. First and foremost, Fr. Georges Florovsky was a religious historian and philosopher. For a fuller discussion of Fr. Georges Florovsky’s magnum opus — The Ways of Russian Theology, its style, scope and methodology, we refer the reader to Marc Raeff’s essay, “Enticements and Rifts: Georges Florovsky as Russian Intellectual Historian.”[145] Marc Raeff does readily concede that Ways “does not pretend at completeness and balance of coverage…”, that “the pictures may be highly subjective and impressionistic…”, that Florovsky’s manner is permeated with polemical passion and greater acerbity “when he deals with themes and personalities that are antipathetic to him…”, that his intellectual talents “often mask Florovsky’s polemical intent, and the reader, especially the novice to the field, must be wary of the logical leaps and connections in Florovsky’s analysis and argumentation.” For example, in regards to Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky, Fr. Georges stoops to such petty remarks as: “This was the only book he ever wrote. He had the temperament of a journalist, and usually wrote only sketches or essays. …No researcher or scholar, he nevertheless had his own lively ideas.”[146]
In general, Fr. Georges seems simply not to have understood Metropolitan on many points.[147] In one sense, Fr. Georges and Metropolitan Anthony are perhaps speaking on different theological levels. Fr. Georges speaks as an academic (but perhaps not Scholastic) theologian; whereas Metropolitan Anthony speaks more as a theologian who has come to know God not so much by means of theological studies, as through a cleansing of the heart by an intense spiritual and liturgical life of prayer — a life in Christ. Fr. Georges writes of theology as of a “science”, whereas for Metropolitan Anthony theology is experienced.
Ironically enough, it was Fr. Georges himself who, many years ago, first brought Metropolitan Anthony’s essay The Dogma of Redemption to our attention. Fr. Georges likewise informed us that The Dogma of Redemption (or at least a portion of it) had appeared in English translation in 1917 in the journal The Constructive Quarterly.[148] Fr. Georges himself was not adverse on occasion to reminding his non-Russian lecture audiences that the modern patristic revival had begun with the Russians, and in the person of Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky in particular! Thus, at a Patristic Symposium in Thessalonica — apparently the one held in 1959 to commemorate the sixth centenary of the repose of St. Gregory Palamas — Fr. Georges, in his address to the scholars present, proudly referred to “our own Russian Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky who even from the last century” had been a forerunner in the study of, and exponent of patristic theology. (A further irony here is the fact that it was Fr. Herman and Fr. Seraphim who in 1972 pointed out to us the deficiencies of the 1917 translation, whereupon we thanked the fathers and assured them that we would check the text over carefully, comparing it to the original Russian.)
We knew Fr. Georges Florovsky well and we respect his memory. Several of the senior fathers at Holy Transfiguration Monastery — as well as some of our other clergy and laymen — had Fr. Georges as their instructor when, from 1955 to 1965, he served as Professor of Patristic Theology at Holy Cross Theological School in Brookline, Massachusetts. And in the early years, before the fathers of Holy Transfiguration Monastery had their own monastic clergy, they would invite Fr. Georges to serve the Liturgy for them.[149] Since he had no car, a taxi would be sent to fetch Fr. Georges. Thus, we were well acquainted with Fr. Georges, and we had the opportunity on many occasions — sermons, lectures, informal discussions, and conversations — to learn his views and opinions. Other of our clergy, and his other former students, continued to keep in touch with Fr. Georges over the years, and they spoke to him at length concerning his career and life’s work not long before his death.
Obviously it is far beyond the scope of this short work to analyze the theology of Fr. Georges Florovsky; however, a few points about his ecclesiology should be raised here inasmuch as they may help to explain his interpretation of Metropolitan Anthony’s The Dogma of Redemption, or his failure to understand it. In his essay, “The Neo-Patristic Synthesis of Georges Florovsky,” George Williams informs us that Fr. Georges’ article, On the Tree of the Cross,[150] was written, to refute Metropolitan Anthony’s The Dogma of Redemption. [151] If so, then from an Orthodox point of view this article is not very successful. >From Fr. Georges’ use of such unpatristic terms as “beatific vision”, “original sin”, “atonement,” etc., one can’t escape the impression that, for him, there actually was an atonement of sorts. In the expanded version of this article, Redemption, Fr. Georges writes:
…the climax of the Gospel is
the Cross, the death of the Incarnate. Life has been revealed in full through
death.… However, the climax of this [i.e., Christ’s] life was its death.… The
redeeming death is the ultimate purpose of the Incarnation… salvation is
completed on Golgotha…He [Christ] had to die. This was not the necessity of
this world. This was the necessity of Divine Love.
…And the death of the Cross
is a victory over death not only because it was followed or crowned by the
Resurrection. The Resurrection only reveals and sets forth the victory achieved
on the Cross. The Resurrection is accomplished by the very falling asleep of
the God-Man.[152]
Yet, as we have seen, the very concept of “atonement”, or the very idea of “necessity” in regards to the Godhead, are foreign to the mind of the Holy Fathers. Furthermore, in elucidating the moral idea of the dogma of redemption, Metropolitan Anthony did not seek to contradict or deny any of the generally accepted beliefs held by the Church and expressed by Fr. Georges in his article.
Fr. Georges’ On the Tree of the Cross is in places self-contradictory: when it seeks to refute The Dogma of Redemption, it becomes Scholastic; when it strives to avoid Scholasticism, it tends to agree with Metropolitan Anthony. In the introductory remarks to On the Tree of the Cross, it is stated that “this article is a chapter of Dr. Florovsky’s forthcoming book on the patristic doctrine of atonement.[153] The late Archbishop Theophan, of Poltava, …who read the original manuscript before his death, stated that for the first time in a modern Russian theological work, the teaching of the Church is presented in a strict Orthodox manner.” This is rather surprising, since the longer work, Redemption, mentioned above, contains many echoes of Metropolitan Anthony’s The Dogma of Redemption — views which Archbishop Theophan, as demonstrated from his written protests, did not approve of — at least, not when pronounced by Metropolitan Anthony. For example, Fr. Georges declares that:
The Saviour’s life, as the
life of a righteous and pure being, as a life pure and sinless, must inevitably
have been in this world the life of one who suffered. …The Saviour submits
Himself to the order of this world, forebears, and the very opposition of this
world is covered by His all-forgiving love: ‘They know not what they do’. The
whole life of Our Lord is one Cross.
p.
99
And was death really a
terrifying prospect for the Righteous One, for the Incarnate One, especially
in the supreme foreknowledge of the coming Resurrection on the third day? But
even ordinary Christian martyrs have accepted all their torments and
sufferings, and death itself, in full calm and joy, as a crown and triumph.
The Chief of martyrs, the Protomartyr Christ Himself, was not less than they.
p. 101
In other words, [at the
Mystical Supper in the Upper Room] the voluntary separation of the soul from
the body, the sacramental agony, so to speak, of the Incarnate, was, as it
were, already begun.
p. 135
And the free “taking up” by
the Lord of the sin of the world did not constitute for Him any ultimate
necessity to die. Death was accepted only by the desire of the redeeming Love.
p. 136
The
God-man languishes and suffers at
Gethsemane and on Calvary until the mystery of death is accomplished.
Before Him are revealed all the hatred and blindness of the world, all the
obstinacy and foolishness of evil, the coldness of hearts, all the
helplessness and pettiness of the disciples, all the “righteousness” of human
pseudo-freedom. And He covers everything with His all-forgiving, sorrowful,
compassionate and co-suffering love, and prays for those who crucify Him, for
verily they do not know what they are doing.… The salvation of the world is
accomplished in these sufferings and sorrows.
p.
137
…the
path of life is the path of renunciation, of mortification, of self-sacrifice
and self-oblation. …one must personally and freely associate himself with
Christ… in confession of faith, in the choice of love… The Christian struggle
is… first of all, following in love.
p. 148
However, it would be incorrect to conclude from such passages that Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky and Fr. Georges Florovsky were of the same mind. Despite his constant appeals to return to the patristic texts, Fr. Georges always remained more of an Augustinian than a Cyprianite. Even George Williams, in his essay on Fr. Georges cited above, has noted this fact, contrasting the theological views of Metropolitan Anthony with those of Fr. Georges.
Florovsky
considered Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky of Kiev, and then Karlovci
Yugoslavian exile, as in line with Khomiakov in holding that there was no grace
outside the Orthodox, that is, the true Church, although Anthony was quite
willing to enter into friendly personal relations with the non-Orthodox in the
early stages of the ecumenical movement. Father Florovsky himself frequently
quoted him approvingly, more especially, however, with respect to Anthony’s
efforts to turn the Slavophile enthusiasts back to the Fathers of the Church.…
But if Father Florovsky frequently cited Anthony, he more frequently quoted
his more “liberal” and much earlier counterpart, Metropolitan Philaret of
Moscow (d. 1867). Philaret, the prelate, was more comprehensive in his ecclesiology
than Khomiakov, the lay theologian, readily acknowledging that the sacraments,
for example, have “some real charismatic
significance even outside the strict canonical
boundaries of the [Orthodox] Church.” The words here italicized (by us [i.e.,
George Williams]) with reference to Philaret become, in Florovsky, nearly
technical terms for designating the still undetermined boundary between the
empirical and the true Church. And though Florovsky twice formally retracted
his youthful high estimate of the comprehensive lay ecumenist Soloviev as
expressive of “the genuine spirit of Eastern Orthodoxy,” he still retained sympathy
for him… [Florovsky] was quite prepared to go beyond Anthony and even Philaret;
and, distinguishing the “gnostic” Idealist from the truly Orthodox in Soloviev,
precisely for the realm of ecclesiology, he was willing to say: “…Soloviev’s
true prophecy in the ecumenical search was that ‘Catholic Unity’ could be
achieved not by way of ‘conversion,’ but only by way of mutual acknowledgment
in the Truth.”
…In
suggesting a certain fluctuation in Florovsky’s ecclesial boundaries, ranging
from affinity with Metropolitan Anthony to sympathy at the far (Orthodox)
left with a “reinterpreted” Soloviev, we have jumped over into another section
of our systemic coverage without giving the whole of Florovsky’s evaluation of
the Slavophiles et alii, but this
much of an excursus has seemed necessary in order to locate him with respect to
his Russian background in characterizing his description and definition of
the Church.
Differing
accents in Father Florovsky’s formulation of his view of the Orthodox Church
may be seen in contrasting the following two statements.
The
one (1950) is in the spirit of Metropolitan Anthony:
“I have no
confessional loyalty; my loyalty belongs solely to the Una Sancta.... Therefore, for me, Christian reunion is just a
universal conversion to Orthodoxy....This does not mean that everything in the
past or present state of the Orthodox Church is to be equated with the truth of
God....The true Church is not yet the perfect Church.”
A
second statement (also 1950), in the spirit of Metropolitan Philaret and a
“reinterpreted” Soloviev, represents a tactical, though not an ecclesiological,
shift:
“All local
Churches indeed have their particular contributions. But the Eastern Church is
in an unparalleled position to contribute more and something different. The
witness of the Eastern Church is precisely a witness to the common background
of ecumenical Christianity because she stands not so much for a local
tradition of her own but for the common heritage of the Church Universal. Her
voice is not merely a voice of the Christian East, but a voice of Christian antiquity.”
In
another major statement on the Church after establishing himself in America,
“The Doctrine of the Church and the Ecumenical Problem” (l950), Florovsky took
as his starting point the third-century controversy between Cyprian and Pope
Stephen. Some [?] exponents of Orthodox ecclesiology find their sanction in
Cyprian’s De unitate ecclesiae and
related writings. Cyprian, like Metropolitan Anthony, Florovsky observed, could
say that outside the Church the sacraments were invalid and that separated
brethren “were not brethren at all and were to be treated exactly as ‘an heathen
man and a publican’.” Of Cyprian’s position Florovsky said, using his own distinctive
terminology, that “the canonical and charismatic limits of the Church
completely and invariably coincide.” Later Augustine, siding with Stephen
instead of with his fellow African Cyprian, elaborated the basic Roman ecclesiology,
noting that “duas vitas novit eccliesia,”
thereby acknowledging in one Church both the historical-eschatological and the
canonical-pastoral tension. Florovsky, agreeing — however only in part—with
Augustine, accepted his solution in the “limited form of the eschatological
reservation.” By this Florovsky meant that “Christ will judge. In the meantime
there must be some pastoral accommodation.”
Florovsky,
indeed, repeatedly said that it will be for “the Lord of the harvest” to make
the final determination as to the boundaries of His Church in the latter days
and that in the meantime “nobody is entitled to anticipate His judgement.”
…Florovsky
was aware that so great a draftsman of Latin ecclesiology and so important an
architect of Western Christendom as Augustine has not always been accepted as a
saint in the Orthodox Church, which, in any event, on the limits of the Church
has tended to follow Cyprian rather than Stephen.[154]
Fr. Georges Florovsky clearly did believe and teach that salvation is found only within the True Church of Christ. However, in the practical application of this belief, Fr. George was at times too accommodating and equivocating in his ecclesiology. It is one thing to acknowledge — as all Orthodox Christians do — that the ultimate judgment on those found outside of the Church belongs to God, and to Him alone. It is quite another matter, however, to declare that the Church, therefore, does not know who are her own, or that she cannot proclaim where her boundaries lie. Although Fr. Georges criticized the Western, Scholastic period in Church history and its dire effects on Orthodox theology, nevertheless, he seems not to have been able to completely free himself from its teachings, e.g., that there is somehow grace outside the visible bounds of the Church.
Thus, in The Boundaries of the Church, Fr. Georges writes:
In
many cases the Church receives adherents even without chrism and sometimes even clerics in their existing orders, which must all the more be understood and
explained as recognizing the validity or reality of the corresponding rites
performed over them “outside the Church”. But, if sacraments are performed, it
can only be by virtue of the Holy Spirit. …In the form of her activity the
Church bears witness to the extension of her mystical territory even beyond the
canonical threshold; the “outside world” does not begin immediately.
…Roman
theology admits and acknowledges that schismatics have a valid hierarchy and
that in a sense even “apostolic succession” is retained, so that under certain
conditions the sacraments can be and actually are accomplished among
schismatics and even among heretics. The basic premises of this sacramental
theology have already been established with sufficient definition by St.
Augustine and the Orthodox theologian has every reason to take into account the
theology of St. Augustine in his doctrinal synthesis. The first thing to
attract attention in St. Augustine’s work is the organic relation between the
question of the validity of sacraments and the general doctrine concerning the
Church. The validity of the sacraments celebrated by schismatics signifies for
St. Augustine the continuance of their links with the Church. He directly
affirms that in the sacraments of sectarians the Church is active; some she
engenders of herself, others she engenders outside, of her maid-servant, and
schismatic baptism is valid for this very reason, that it is performed by the
Church. …To this is connected St. Augustine’s second basic distinction, the
distinction between the “validity” or “actuality”, the reality, of the sacraments
and their “efficacy”. [Thus, according to Augustine] the sacraments of
schismatics are valid, that is, they genuinely are sacraments. But they are not
efficacious because of the schism or division itself.
…
The sacramental theology of St. Augustine was generally not well known by the
Eastern Church in antiquity. It also was not received by Byzantine theology,
but not because they saw or suspected something alien or superfluous in it.[!]
In general, St. Augustine was not very well known in the East. In modern times
the doctrine of the sacraments has been not infrequently expounded in the
Orthodox East and in Russia on a Roman model and there is still no creative appropriation
of St. Augustine’s conception. Contemporary Orthodox theology must express and
explain the traditional canonical practice of the Church in relation to
heretics and schismatics on the basis of those general premises which have been
established by St. Augustine…
…Metropolitan
Filaret of Moscow [declared]: Mark you, I do not presume to call false any
church which believes that Jesus is the Christ… in the end the power of God
will triumph over human weakness…
…
This is only a beginning, a general characteristic; not everything in it is
clearly and fully said. But the question is correctly posed. There are many
bonds still not broken, whereby the schisms are held together in a certain
unity.[155]
The above-cited work by Father Georges was written by him in English and first appeared in print in the Church Quarterly Review, in 1933, under the title “The Limits of the Church.” Concerning this article, we are now told by Archbishop Chrysostomos of Etna, California, and others, that
…in
a rather insignificant article on the thinking of the Blessed Augustine,
written early in his career, Father Florovsky once unwisely suggested that
Augustine’s wide notion of the sacramental boundaries of the Christian Church might
serve the ecumenical movement, of which he was a supporter. …his later writings
demonstrate that Father Florovsky’s views in this respect matured and came to
reflect more precisely the Patristic consensus…
…He
saw this as a heuristic piece and presented it as such. Those who make more of
it than that are guilty of academic dishonesty.[156]
If this were so, then Fr. Georges should have publicly stated as much. Suitable occasions presented themselves each time The Boundaries of the Church was published in another foreign language: in Russian (1934), in French (1961), and in Greek (1972). But consider another article by Fr. Georges, St. Cyprian and St. Augustine on Schism, wherein he elaborated the very same points as in The Boundaries of the Church.
The
problem of the nature and meaning of schisms and divisions in the Church was
set forth in all its sharpness and precision at a very early date in Christian
history, and opposite solutions were at once suggested and accepted. This in
itself constituted a new division. All students of Church History are familiar
with the controversy between St. Cyprian and Pope Stephen. Strictly speaking,
this controversy has never been resolved. [?] In the West, the solution offered
by the Church of Rome ultimately prevailed. It was theologically shaped and
established by St. Augustine…
The
primary emphasis of St. Cyprian was on the schismatic will, on the divisive
and disruptive intentions of all schisms. It was subversive of unity, and for
him unity was the very being of the Church. There was a profound truth in his
conception. And it may be that the teaching of St. Cyprian has never been refuted,
even by St. Augustine. Yet it seems to be dangerously one-sided. St. Cyprian
begins with the unexpressed presupposition that the canonical and charismatic
limits of the Church completely and invariably coincide. This, however, is
precisely what is open to serious doubt. …In her sacramental being she defies
and surpasses all merely canonical measurements, It is precisely this that the
Augustinian conception tended to emphasize.
St.
Augustine inverts the initial presupposition of St. Cyprian, as it were, and
starts with another assumption: the Church is where the sacraments are administered,
even though it be sometimes in a reduced or imperfect state, compromised by
disloyalty and rebellion, for the very reason that the reality of the Church is
constituted by the sacraments. This identification of the Church with the
sphere of the sacraments is fully accepted by both St. Cyprian and St.
Augustine.
But
St. Augustine especially emphasizes the supernatural aspect of the sacraments.
As supernatural, they cannot be destroyed by human disloyalty and disobedience.
They have their own subsistence, being grounded in the redeeming will of God,
which can never be ultimately frustrated by human failure
…[Augustine’s
theology] admits the existence of some enigmatic “sacramental sphere” beyond
the canonical borders of the Church Militant. This is a sort of third
“intermediate state,” between the Church of God and the outer darkness of
“this world.” It wrestles with a paradoxical situation, with the existence of
that which should not have existed at all, but still does exist.
St.
Augustine’s view is, of course, no more than a “theologoumenon,” a doctrine
set forth by a single Father. Yet it must not be hastily dismissed by Orthodox
theology simply because St. Augustine wrote in Latin and not in Greek, or
because his point of view has been generally adopted by the Roman Catholic
Church. St. Augustine is a Father of the Church Universal, and we must take his
testimony into account, if we are to attempt a true ecumenical synthesis. The
Cyprianic conception is also but a “theologoumenon.”[157]
And it simply dismisses the paradox. “The abnormal” is treated as a matter of
discipline only. The famous dictum: extra
ecclesiam nulla salus admits a double interpretation. It is a self-evident
truth, for salvation is synonymous with membership in the Church, which is the
Body of Christ. “To be saved” means precisely “to be in Christ,” and “in
Christ” means “in His body.” Yet if we confine ourselves to the canonical or
institutional limits, we may force ourselves into a very dubious position. Are
we entitled to suggest that all those who, in their earthly career, were
outside the strict canonical borders of the Church, are thereby excluded from
salvation? Indeed, very few theologians would dare to go so far. On the
contrary, one is very anxious to emphasize that the ultimate judgment belongs
to Christ alone and cannot be adequately anticipated by man, especially with
regard to those who have fought a good fight in this life but happened to be
outside the Church, though not by their own deliberate choice or decision. Even
the strictest Orthodox theologian would find it hard to believe that Francis of
Assisi and John of the Cross are beyond the promise of salvation and are to be
regarded “as an heathen man.” [!] But usually the obvious implication of this
“eschatological reservation” is overlooked. Just because one can be saved only
in the Church, the hope of salvation for “the separated” inevitably involves
recognition of the fact that they do possess some kind of membership in the
Church, that is to say, if some of those who had been outside the Church
Militant are saved at all, they will be found in the Church Triumphant. Now,
there is but one Church and our distinction between the “two Churches” is
inexact. Again, “eschatology” does not refer only to the “future” state. The
whole being of the Church is eschatological. It will be a dubious escape, if
we appeal to the concept of “uncovenanted grace,” which hardly fits into the
scheme of a “catholic” ecclesiology. Moreover, an “uncovenanted grace”
suggests rather some sort of salvation extra
ecclesiam, as “Covenant” is inseparably connected with the Church. Thus, in
the last resort we are driven back, on the strength of our own reasoning,
namely to an Augustinian” distinction between the canonical and mystical
limits of the Church, between the “historical” and “eschatological” aspects of
her life (of which St. Augustine was fully aware), or else to a distinction
between “perfect” and “imperfect” membership in the Church.[158]
As another disciple of Archbishop Chrysostomos has noted concerning Fr. George:
…it is extremely hazardous for those whose faith is not so strong to participate in ecumenical activities. Even a theologian of the stature of Father Georges Florovsky was in some ways adversely affected by his admittedly heavy involvement in the ecumenical movement, a fact that he came to regret towards the end of his life.[159]
In further revising his evaluation of Fr. Georges Florovsky and his ecclesiology, Archbishop Chrysostomos now tells us that Fr. Georges
…would
not have been… pleased with the dedication of the new library at St. Vladimir’s
in his honor. …at least privately, also disavowed [St. Vladimir’s Seminary].
…was
not… passive about the OCA’s acceptance of autocephaly from Moscow. …he called
it a ‘betrayal of sorts’ and ‘unwise.’ …he did not, in fact, publicly
concelebrate with OCA clergy when he Liturgized at Princeton.
:…was
not himself an Old Calendarist. The issue was not an important one for him.… At
the same time, Father Florovsky was most sympathetic to the moderate Greek Old
Calendarists. If you read his comments about the book… published by Archbishop
Chrysostomos and Bishop Auxentios…
…For,
in fact, in all things, Father Florovsky NEVER allowed his intellectual
vagaries… to supplant his absolute fidelity to Holy Tradition.[160]
The events of the last years of Fr. Georges Florovsky’s life simply do not support such assertions. If, at the end of his days, Fr. Georges really came to reject the OCA and St. Vladimir’s Seminary, then why — especially after his wife’s death — did he not start attending either of the two ROCA parishes which were closer to his home in Princeton than the OCA parish in Trenton, where Fr. Paul Shafran was pastor? Why did he continue to concelebrate and take communion in the Trenton parish? Why did he name Fr. Paul Shafran the executor of his will? Why did he leave a major portion of his library and personal papers, plus $40,000 from his estate, to St. Vladimir’s Seminary? Why did he leave his priest’s Cross to St. Vladimir’s, to be borne by successive deans there? Why did he not bequeath any of these things to some obviously more traditional institution, such as Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, or to St. Gregory Palamas Monastery, for that matter? Why did he attend the fortieth anniversary celebration at St. Vladimir’s and acknowledge the special toast and standing ovation in his honor? Why was he so pleased by the personal visit and attention paid to him a little later by Metropolitan Theodosius — the very man who had travelled to Moscow to receive the Tome of Autocephaly?[161] And finally, if all that Archbishop Chrysostomos claims is true, then why, when his life and career were coming to a close and he had nothing more to lose, did Fr. Georges not renounce his past errors and his involvement in the ecumenical movement, and make a firm confession of Faith? We loved Fr. Georges, and we grieve that he did not find the courage to take such a stand before his repose. May God grant rest unto his soul.
We write all this not to disparage the memory of Fr. Georges Florovsky, but to demonstrate that his criticisms of Metropolitan Anthony have to be evaluated in the light of Fr. Georges’ own ecclesiology, and not just accepted blindly because of Fr. Georges’ reputation as a prominent theologian. In our opinion, the sympathetic, but sober eulogy of Fr. Georges, written earlier by the then Archimandrite Chrysostomos and Hieromonk Auxentios of St. Gregory Palamas Monastery, both former students of Fr. Georges, perhaps best expresses what they themselves called “a tragedy of Orthodox theology.”
Father
Florovsky was above all a scholar. Indeed, his scholarship, many have charged,
seemed to dwarf his priesthood. In this sense, he was not free from the taint
that mere intellectual knowledge of the Holy Church casts on a man. …Fr.
Florovsky could not… come to a full, uncompromised statement of Orthodox Truth.
…In his personal life, Fr. Florovsky’s timidity once again evokes an atmosphere
of tragedy, of contradiction, and paradox. …We can marvel too, that Florovsky
was to remain for the greatest part of his priesthood… under the Ecumenical
Patriarch. …His statements [on ecumenism] came to be misused and misunderstood,
and he failed at elevating his conceptualization of Orthodox Truth beyond the
realms of academic philosophy.
Granted
that Fr. Florovsky’s most distinguished accomplishments were academic and not
wholly spiritual, those accomplishments were none the less impressive…
The tragedy of Fr. Florovsky: the contradiction of superb Patristic scholarship and a failure to express its application in strong witness; the paradox of a man expressing Patristic humility in the context of compromising truth; and the sad image of a man separated from the depths of what he studied, yet without question also in some way joined to Orthodoxy in a profound way — all of these elements touch a greater tragedy in contemporary Orthodoxy. … Fr. Florovsky’s appearance, marked by his black rason and blue beret, perfectly expressed this tragedy. Clothed in t