PATRIARCH ALEXY II OF MOSCOW AND ALL RUSSIA COMMENTS THE RESPONSE OF THE BISHOPS' COUNCIL OF THE CHURCH OUTSIDE RUSSIA TO THE FRATERNAL MASSAGE OF THE MOSCOW PATRIARCHATE
After his meeting with the new US Ambassador in Russia, Mr. Alexander Vershbow, on November 5, 2001, His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II answered questions from journalists, who asked, among other things, about the response of the Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) to the Fraternal Message of Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia and the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Given below are answers of His Holiness to these questions.
Your Holiness, what is your assessment of the response of the ROCOR Bishops' Council?
I thought that the response to our Fraternal Message would be softer. Apparently, the schism that obtains in the Russian Church Outside Russia today tells on it, as there are both ardent opponents of any contacts with the Mother Church and a large group of hierarchs who are proponents of initiating a dialogue and possible reunification.
We hope that the opinion of a majority of sensible hierarchs in the Church Abroad, who believe that it is necessary to return to the fold of the Mother Church, will prevail. There are no reasons today for their continued stay outside the Mother Church. With time the Russian Church Abroad will increasingly lose her Russian character, because the new generation of her episcopate and clergy are no longer mostly Russian by nationality, but belong to those nations in which the Russian Church Abroad carries out her service. One more decade and the Russian Church Abroad will be Russian only by name. Time does not wait, it is necessary to re-unite with the Mother Church.
Your Holiness, in the message of the ROCOR Bishops' Council, the Russian Orthodox Church is again accused of “Sergianism” and ecumenism. What can you say as regards this?
As regards the accusations of the so-called Sergianism, I would like to say that one has to live here, in the homeland, to understand that it is an artificial accusation and an artificial pretext whipped up only to prevent reunification. Reference is made mostly to the message of Metropolitan Sergiy (Stragorodsky) of 1927, the so-called Declaration of Metropolitan Sergiy. By this message he wanted to show to the authorities, which, I will remind you, put clergy and faithful to prisons and shoot them to death, that the Church was not a counter-revolutionary organization. Therefore, the message stated: “…we want to be Orthodox and want to be aware of the Soviet Union as our Motherland whose joys are our joy and whose sorrows are our sorrows”. More often than not, it its these words that arouse far-fetched criticism: “What joys can one have in common with a atheistic state?” But there was no point about an atheistic state, the point was the Motherland, though in 1927 this notion was almost forgotten.
It was a courageous step by which Metropolitan Sergiy tried to save the Church and the clergy. By stating that the church members wanted to be aware of themselves as part of their Motherland and wanted to share her joys and sorrows, he tried to show to those who persecuted the Church, who destroyed it, that we, children of the Church, want to be loyal citizens, so that one's belonging to the Church might not put one outside the law. So it is a far-fetched accusation.
As far the accusation of ecumenism is concerned, I will say that today no Church, including the Russian Church Abroad, can withdraw to isolation. We live in this world and should and will relate to people of other confessions and faiths. Especially today when global terrorism is spreading, all need to unite efforts against the evil.
I would like to stress that participating in the work of international Christian organizations, the Russian Orthodox Church has always witnessed to Holy Orthodoxy. Her presence helped representatives of western confessions to understand the Orthodox position. No one of those who participated in the work of international Christian organizations has ever departed from their faith by a jot. We have always borne witness to Orthodoxy, to our belonging to the Holy Orthodox Church.
