patriarch of Moscow welcomes and respects ROCOR

[spyridon]

His Holyness Patriarch of moscow and all of Russia expresses his gratitude to His Eminence Metropolitan Laurus of ROCOR..
its on the site today-
www.rocor.org

[Joseph]

If ROCOR existed as the true continuing Orthodox Church, believing that Moscow ceased to be the Orthodox Church in Russia, wouldn't the Moscow Patriarchate need to return to ROCOR rather than the other way around?

[Justin Kissel]

If ROCOR existed as the true continuing Orthodox Church, believing that Moscow ceased to be the Orthodox Church in Russia, wouldn't the Moscow Patriarchate need to return to ROCOR rather than the other way around?

ROCOR always spoke of a Pan-Russian Council resolving the disunity. In other words, once the communist regime fell, unity would be sought by all Russian Orthodox Christians coming together on an equal footing to meet at a Council, which would establish the hows and whens of becoming one Russian Church again. ROCOR never spoke of the Moscow Patriarchate crawling on it's hands and knees to New York to ask forgiveness.

[Joseph]

How can they be Russian Orthodox Christians now if the Moscow Patriarchate ceased to be the Orthodox Church under communism?
How/when was the Moscow Patriarchate returned to the fold?

[Justin Kissel]

There was a Church in the diaspora, and there was a Church inside of Russia. However, it is anachronistic to say that the Church inside of Russia was consistuted only of catacomb Christians. ROCOR always made a somewhat vague distinction between the hierarchy inside Russia and the Russian people. This distinction can be seen even at Councils from the 1970's, when ROCOR seemed to be at it's most "strict," so this distinction can hardly be said to be an innovation or "new course" that they took recently. ROCOR condemned or anathematized different things during it's sojourn in the disaspora: Bulgakov's doctrine of the Divine Sophia, Free Masonry, Ecumenism. However, one thing it never condemned or anathematized was the Moscow Patriarchate or the hierarchs of the MP. They did not recognize them as being valid, to be sure--but then that is a much different thing that condemning someone as being heretical or unOrthodox, or claiming that everyone administratively under the MP are outside the Church.

As for historical justification for such concepts as these, there have been many times in Church history where the hierarchy was bad, but the people remained Orthodox. And more than once a good hierarch followed a bad (and even heretical) hierarch, and was even put in place by unacceptable (and even heretical) people, but who nonetheless was recognized as Orthodox because... well... he was Orthodox. A good example in this regard is St. Meletios of Antioch.

[George Australia]

If ROCOR existed as the true continuing Orthodox Church, believing that Moscow ceased to be the Orthodox Church in Russia, wouldn't the Moscow Patriarchate need to return to ROCOR rather than the other way around?

This is a bit of a revisionist view of history.

St. John Maximovitch certainly did not see things this way when he wrote the history of ROCOR in 1960.

"Knowing that Russians unite themselves primarily around the Church, the Soviet government, not having the power now to destroy the Church, wishes for the time being to have influence through her on those who are not subject to it: holding the clergy in its hands, by this very fact it calculates on beginning to act on the flock as well. From this comes the demand, through the head of the Church which is subject to it, of a signature of loyalty to the Soviet regime on the part of all clergy. Is such a demand lawful, and can it be fulfilled?

Russians who live outside of Russia are not subjects of the Soviet regime. Remaining faithful to our Homeland, we do not acknowledge as lawful a government which goes against the thousand-year world-view of our people, and we have gone abroad in order not to submit to it. Why, then, should hierarchs and other clergy promise loyalty to it? Does the Archbishop of Constantinople, the Ecumenical Patriarch, demand loyalty to the Turkish government from his flock of Greek and other descent who are in America and other parts of the world? Does the Patriarch of Antioch, whose Patriarchate embraces Syria and Lebanon, demand loyalty to one or the other government from the people subject to him? Did the Holy Synod of Russia demand loyalty to the Russian Government, or even to the Most Pious Emperor himself, from the Orthodox faithful who were citizens of America or were subjects of other governments ?

At the time of the Russo-Japanese War, the enlightener of Japan, the Russian Archbishop Nicholas [now glorified by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia — ed.], who remained in Japan, blessed the Orthodox Japanese soldiers who went to war to fight for their own homeland. Although he himself did not celebrate services, since he could not pray for victory over his native Russia, he nonetheless permitted the Japanese clergy who were subject to him to do so. After the end of the war, for the fulfillment of his pastoral duty he was decorated by the Russian Holy Synod and by the Russian Tsar himself. If the Most Pious Tsar and the Holy Governing Synod acted in this way, does anyone have the right, and is there any moral justice therein, to demand from people who are fighting against an atheist regime, through their spiritual pastors, submission to this regime?

When the Serbian Patriarch Arsenius III, and after him Arsenius IV, together with their flock left their homeland, which was under the rule of the Turks, and settled in another country, the archpastors and pastors of the resettled Serbs did not submit themselves any more to the patriarchs of Serbia, which was enslaved by the Turks, in order to be free.

Did not a similar thing occur in Greece? Why did the Church of Greece arise and why does it exist as an autocephalous Church, whereas its territory from antiquity was a part of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople? When in 1819-20 there was a rebellion of the Greeks against the Turks, the Turkish government demanded of the Patriarch the excommunication of the rebellious Greeks, and the Patriarch fulfilled this. Although the Greeks well knew that he was only outwardly fulfilling what was demanded of him, remaining heart and soul with them, nonetheless, declaring his interdicts invalid, they began to govern themselves ecclesiastically independently of him; and when a government of Greece was formed, an independent Church of Greece was established. For about 30 years the Archbishop of Constantinople and the Synod of Greece had no communion with each other, until a relationship was established between the Churches of the Patriarchate and of Greece as between independent Churches. Until recently the Greeks living in other countries were cared for by the Church of Greece, and only after the First World War, when Turkey was half destroyed and became weak, did the Greeks in the diaspora become again the spiritual flock of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The Church of Greece, however, up to now remains autocephalous and, after the Balkan and two World Wars, there have even entered into her new territories, annexed to Greece, which from of old belonged to the Patriarchate of Constantinople; while the Archbishop of Athens has received the title of Most Blessed. Evidently, only when Constantinople will again become the capital of the Greek Kingdom — if by God's mercy this will be — will the two Greek Churches come together again, just as the two separated parts of the Serbian Church were united when all Serbian territories had been liberated and united in one government". (emphasis added)source

Look at the examples he offers to explain the situation. Do you see that St. John also longed for the re-union of ROCOR with the MP? Why would he want to unite with those whom had "ceased to be the Orthodox Church"? St. John certainly does not seem to accuse the MP of "sergianism", which some call a heresy, (but in my opinion it can't be a "heresy" since it is not a matter of doctrine, but a modus operandi), instead he saw them as oppressed and unable to function, just as Greece sees the EP as oppressed and unable to function freely.
George

[Joseph]

How can ROCOR enter into communion with MP and not be under their own anathama that condemns communion with ecumenism?