St Met Philaret of NY-General thread

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Oh, fine, no problem !

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RARE photo of Metropolitan Philaret of New York somewhere in the US Northeast with Hieromon Kallinikos Agianntos of the GOC

Credit : Tradition Europa

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I thought people might be interested in exactly WHERE Blagoveshchensk is located. I never had a really clear idea myself, though I have studied his life as best I could for years.

The name Blagoveshchensk refers to the Feast of the Annunciation of course - perhaps a sign of the happy bright future awaiting the future Metropolitan of Rocor from 1964 to 1985.

Here is a vignette about his years growing up in Blagoveshchensk 1909-1920.
It's from the Life of Met Philaret by Vladimir Moss which i will print in toto here later

"In a sermon at his nomination as Bishop of Brisbane, the future metropolitan said:

“There is hardly anything specially worthy of note in my life, in its childhood and young years, except, perhaps, a recollection from my early childhood years, when I as a small child of six or seven years in a childishly naïve way loved to ‘play service’ – I made myself a likeness of a Church vestment and ‘served’.

And when my parents began to forbid me to do this, Vladyka Evgeny, the Bishop of Blagoveshchensk, after watching this ‘service’ of mine at home, to their amazement firmly stopped them:

‘Leave him, let the boy “serve” in his own way. It is good that he loves the service of God.’”

In this way was the saint’s future service in the Church foretold in a hidden way already in his childhood."
Source : https://trueorthodox.eu/a-life-of-st-ph ... -new-york/

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"The Closest Neighbors and Astonishing Geography:

Just 750 meters separate Russia from China!

In a unique geographical scene, the Russian city of Blagoveshchensk (Amur Oblast) lies opposite the Chinese city of Heihe, separated only by the Amur River."

https://x.com/mog_russEN/status/1987561682777125325

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Someone wrote on reddit a year ago :
"Recently I found out about Met.Philaret of New York and how he was canonised by schismatic bodies outside the church.

What are orthodox folks opinion on Met.Philaret of New York and his sainthood"

Someone, a monarchist apparently, wrote disparagingly about True Orthodox :

"He's not officially a saint because of True Orthodox sects immediately canonizing him. However, ROCOR is now looking into his canonization as he was holy man whose relics are incorrupt. I personally believe that St. Philaret of NYC is a saint and I'm getting an icon of him & St. John of Shanghai for Christmas"

Another respondant wrote [tellingly] :

"As far as I’m aware, the only delay in his glorification is that we don’t want to seem like we are just following the lead of the schismatics. They did real damage to his cause. But ROCOR is now looking into it with earnest."

Asked why this is a problem, since they [True Orthodox] like Metropolitan Philaret a lot, the same poster replied :

"Oh, they do! That’s the problem. They went into schism and immediately glorified him. So then, if we were to do it, it would seem like we were just doing it in response, instead of it being a regular, independent initiative. All in God’s time, as they say."

Two others wrote :

"I don't see why he shouldn't be seen as a Saint. He knew Saint John Maxamovitch, had incorrupt relics, and there is apparently a committee looking into the possibility of canonizing him. And even though they may be schismatics, he does have a cult of veneration already, which helps show his sanctity"

"I fully believe, despite the Old Calendarists,[!!!] that Metropolitan Philaret is standing before the throne of God right now interceding for those who ask his prayers. I have a big icon of him on my icon corner table right across from a slightly smaller icon of Saint John Maximovitch."

https://www.reddit.com/r/OrthodoxChrist ... et_of_new/[/color]

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Video of Metropolitan Philaret speaking about the MP

This has received few views so people may want to take a look and make positive comments

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roITOsZih20

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Life Story and Miracles attributed to Metropolitan Philaret
by Vladmir Moss, from the RTOC Europe site listed above

Written by Dr. Vladimir Moss

Early Years

Metropolitan Philaret, in the world George Nikolayevich Voznesensky, was born in the city of Kursk on March 22 / April 4, 1903, into the family of Protopriest Nicholas. In 1909 the family moved to Blagoveshchensk-on-Amur in the Far East, where the future hierarch finished high school.

In a sermon at his nomination as Bishop of Brisbane, the future metropolitan said: “There is hardly anything specially worthy of note in my life, in its childhood and young years, except, perhaps, a recollection from my early childhood years, when I as a small child of six or seven years in a childishly naïve way loved to ‘play service’ – I made myself a likeness of a Church vestment and ‘served’. And when my parents began to forbid me to do this, Vladyka Evgeny, the Bishop of Blagoveshchensk, after watching this ‘service’ of mine at home, to their amazement firmly stopped them: ‘Leave him, let the boy “serve” in his own way. It is good that he loves the service of God.’” In this way was the saint’s future service in the Church foretold in a hidden way already in his childhood.

In 1920 the family was forced to flee from the revolution into Manchuria, to the city of Harbin. There, in 1921, George’s mother, Lydia Vasilievna, died, after which his father, Fr. Nicholas, took the monastic tonsure with the name Demetrius and became Archbishop of Hailar. Vladyka Demetrius was a learned theologian, the author of a series of books on the history of the Church and other subjects.

In 1927 George graduated from the Russo-Chinese Polytechnical institute and received a specialist qualification as an electrical engineer and mechanic. Later, when he was already First Hierarch of the Russian Church Outside Russia (ROCOR), he did not forget his friends at the institute. All those who had known him, both at school and in the institute, remembered him as a kind, affectionate comrade. He was distinguished by his great abilities and was always ready to help.

After the institute he got a job as a teacher; he was a good instructor, and his pupils loved and valued him. But his instructions for the young people went beyond the bounds of the school programme and penetrated every aspect of human life. Many of his former pupils and colleagues after meeting him retained a high estimate of him for the rest of their lives.

Living in the family of a priest, the future metropolitan naturally became accustomed, from his early years, to the church and the Divine services. But, as he himself said later, at the beginning there was in this “almost nothing deep, inwardly apprehended and consciously accepted”.

“But the Lord knows how to touch the human soul!” he recalled. “And I undoubtedly see this caring touch of the Father’s right hand in the way in which, during my student years in Harbin, I was struck as if with a thunder-clap by the words of the Hierarch Ignatius Brianchaninov which I read in his works: ‘My grave! Why do I forget you? You are waiting for me, waiting, and I will certainly be your inhabitant; why then do I forget you and behave as if the grave were the lot only of other men, and not of myself?’ Only he who has lived through this ‘spiritual blow’, if I can express myself thus, will understand me now! There began to shine before the young student as it were a blinding light, the light of a true, real Christian understanding of life and death, of the meaning of life and the significance of death – and new inner life began… Everything secular, everything ‘worldly’ lost its interest in my eyes, it disappeared somewhere and was replaced by a different content of life. And the final result of this inner change was my acceptance of monasticism…”

In 1931 George completed his studies in Pastoral Theology in what was later renamed the theological faculty of the Holy Prince Vladimir Institute. In this faculty he became a teacher of the New Testament, pastoral theology and homiletics. In 1936 his book, Outline of the Law of God, was published in Harbin.

In 1930 he was ordained to the diaconate, and in 1931 – to the priesthood, serving as the priest George. In the same year he was tonsured into monasticism with the name Philaret in honour of Righteous Philaret the Merciful. He lived in the House of Charity constructed by the well-known Kamchatka missionary, Bishop Nestor, which combined in itself an orphanage and a work-house for the very old. A small monastic community was formed, where Fr. Philaret lived the happiest years of his life. Among his fellow-monks were the future Archbishop Nathanael (Lvov), with whom he lived “in one cell for eight years without once quarrelling”, Fr. Innocent (Bystrov) and Hieromonk Methodius.

“Man thinks much, he dreams about much and he strives for much,” he said in one of his sermons, “and nearly always he achieves nothing in his life. But nobody will escape the Terrible Judgement of Christ. Not in vain did the Wise man once say: ‘Remember your last days, and you will not sin to the ages!’ If we remember how our earthly life will end and what will be demanded of it after that, we shall always live as a Christian should live. A pupil who is faced with a difficult and critical examination will not forget about it but will remember it all the time and will try to prepare him- or herself for it. But this examination will be terrible because it will be an examination of our whole life, both inner and outer. Moreover, after this examination there will be no re-examination. This is that terrible reply by which the lot of man will be determined for immeasurable eternity… Although the Lord Jesus Christ is very merciful, He is also just. Of course, the Spirit of Christ overflows with love, which came down to earth and gave itself completely for the salvation of man. But it will be terrible at the Terrible Judgement for those who will see that they have not made use of the Great Sacrifice of Love incarnate, but have rejected it. Remember your end, man, and you will not sin to the ages.”

He also studied the writings of the holy fathers, and learned by heart all four Gospels. One of his favourite passages of Scripture was the passage from the Apocalypse reproaching the lukewarmness of men, their indifference to the truth. Thus in a sermon on the Sunday of All Saints he said:

“The Orthodox Church is now glorifying all those who have pleased God, all the saints…, who accepted the holy word of Christ not as something written somewhere to someone for somebody, but as written to himself; they accepted it, took it as the guide for the whole of their life and fulfilled the commandments of Christ.

“… Of course, their life and exploit is for us edification, they are an example for us, but you yourselves know with what examples life is now filled! Do we now see many good examples of the Christian life?!…. When you see what is happening in the world,… you involuntarily think that a man with a real Orthodox Christian intention is as it were in a desert in the midst of the earth’s teeming millions. They all live differently… Do you they think about what awaits them? Do they think that Christ has given us commandments, not in order that we should ignore them, but in order that we should try to live as the Church teaches?

“…. We have brought forward here one passage from the Apocalypse, in which the Lord says to one of the servers of the Church: ‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Oh if only you were cold or hot!” We must not only be hot, but must at least follow the promptings of the soul and fulfil the law of God.

“But there are those who go against it… But if a man is not sleeping spiritually, is not dozing, but is experiencing something spiritual somehow, and if he does not believe in what people are now doing in life, and is sorrowful about this, but is in any case not dozing, not sleeping – there is hope that he will come to the Church. Do we not see quite a few examples of enemies and deniers of God turning to the way of truth? Beginning with the Apostle Paul…

“In the Apocalypse the Lord says: ‘Oh if only thou wast cold or hot, but since thou art neither cold nor hot (but lukewarm), I will spew thee out of My mouth’… This is what the Lord says about those who are indifferent to His holy work. Now, in actual fact, they do not even think about this. What are people now not interested in, what do they not stuff into their heads – but they have forgotten the law of God. Sometimes they say beautiful words. But what can words do when they are from a person of abominable falsehood?!… It is necessary to beseech the Lord God that the Lord teach us His holy law, as it behoves us, and teach us to imitate the example of those people have accepted this law, have fulfilled it and have, here on earth, glorified Almighty God.”

In 1933 Fr. Philaret was raised to the rank of igumen, and in 1937 – to the rank of archimandrite. In these early years of his priesthood he was greatly helped by the advice of the then First-Hierarch of ROCOR, Metropolitan Anthony (+1936), with whom he corresponded for several years. The young pastor was a talented preacher and pedagogue. He performed the Divine services with burning faith, and attracted multitudes to the church. All sections of the population of Harbin loved him; his name was also known far beyond the boundaries of the Harbin diocese. He was kind and accessible to all those who turned to him. Queues of people thirsting to talk with him stood at the doors of his humble cell; on going to him, people knew that they would receive correct advice, consolation and help. He converted many to God and the Holy Church, and had hundreds, if not thousands of disciples who remembered him for the rest of their lives. Fr. Philaret immediately understood the condition of a man’s soul, and, in giving advice, consoled the suffering, strengthened the despondent and cheered up the despairing with an innocent joke. He loved to say: “Do not be despondent, Christian soul! There is no place for despondency in a believer! Look ahead – there is the mercy of God!” People went away from him pacified and strengthened by his strong faith.

In imitation of his name-saint, Fr. Philaret was generous not only in spiritual, but also in material alms, and secretly gave help to the needy. Many homeless people turned to him, and he refused help to nobody, except in those cases in which he literally had nothing left, when he would smile guiltily and say: “Nothing, my dear!” But then he would find a way out – and give away the things he was wearing.

Fr. Philaret did not teach others what he himself did not do. He himself, like the saints, whom he called on people to imitate, accepted everything written in the Holy Scriptures and the patristic writings “not as something written somewhere to someone for somebody,” but as a true guide to life. He was exceptionally strict with himself and conducted a truly ascetic style of life. He had a rare memory, keeping in his head not only the words of the Gospel and the holy fathers, but also the sorrows and woes of his flock. On meeting people the holy hierarch demonstrated great interest in all sides of their life, he did not need to remember their needs and difficulties – he himself developed the subject of conversation that interested a man, and gave ready replies to the perplexities tormenting him.

Confessor against Paganism

From 1931 until 1945 Manchuria with its capital city of Harbin was occupied by the Japanese. Towards the end of this period the Russians were called upon to confess their faith; for the Japanese placed a statue of their goddess Amateras, who according to Japanese tradition was the foundress of the imperial race, directly opposite the Orthodox cathedral of St. Nicholas. Then, in May, 1943, they demanded that Russians going to church in the cathedral should first make a “reverential bow” towards the goddess. It was also required that on certain days Japanese temples should be venerated, while a statue of the goddess was to be put in Orthodox churches.

The question of the admissibility of participating in such ritual venerations was discussed at the diocesan assemblies of the Harbin diocese on September 8 and October 2, 1943, in the presence of the hierarchs of the Harbin diocese: Metropolitan Meletius, Bishop Demetrius and Bishop Juvenal (Archbishop Nestor was not present). According to the witness of the secretary of the Episcopal conference, Fr. Leonid Upshinsky, “the session was stormy, since some objected that… Amateras was not a goddess but the Ancestress.” It was decided “to accept completely and direct to the authorities” the reports of Bishop Demetrius of Hailar and Professor K.I. Zaitsev (the future Archimandrite Constantine), which expressed the official view of the episcopate that participation in the ritual venerations was inadmissible.

However, on February 5, 1944 the congress of leaders of the Russian emigration in Manchuria met in Harbin. The congress opened with a moleben in the St. Nicholas cathedral, after which the participants went to the Japanese temple “Harbin-Jinjya”, where they carried out a veneration of the goddess Amateras. On February 12 the Harbin hierarchs responded with a archpastoral epistle, in which they said: “Since any kind of veneration of pagan divinities and temples is forbidden by the commandments of God…, Orthodox Christians, in obedience to the will of God and his Law, cannot and must not carry out this veneration, for such venerations contradict the basic theses of the Orthodox Faith.” Archbishop Nestor refused to sign this epistle.

In March both vicars of the Harbin diocese, Bishop Demetrius and Bishop Juvenal, were summoned to the police, where they were closely interrogated about the circumstances of the illegal distribution of the archpastoral epistle and about the attitude of the flock to this question. On April 28 Metropolitan Meletius was subjected to interrogation. The conversation, which lasted for several hours, produced no result. Referring to his extreme exhaustion and illness, Vladyka Meletius asked that the conversation be continued on May 1. This again produced no result. Bishop Demetrius, who also took part, categorically and sharply protested against the venerations.

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On May 2, an Episcopal Convention took place (Archbishop Nestor, as usual, was not present), at which this position was confirmed. Several days later, Metropolitan Meletius presented the text of the Episcopal Convention to Mr. Kobayasi. Kobayasi demanded that he give a written promise not to raise the question of venerations until the end of the war. Metropolitan Meletius asked that the words “if there will be no compulsion to venerations” should be added to the text. Vladyka’s demand again elicited a quarrel. However, in the end Kobayasi gave in. On August 31 the Harbin archpastors sent a letter to Archbishop Nestor in which they appealed to him “to unite with us, return, and may your voice sound out in defence of the purity of the Faith and zeal for its confession. Sign (better late than never) our Archpastoral Epistle and announce this publicly – in whatever way and place you can.” In reply, Vladyka Nestor wrote that he did not disagree with his brother archpastors about the inadmissibility of venerating the temples of Amateras.

An important influence on the Japanese in their eventual climb-down was the courageous confession of Fr. Philaret. The Japanese seized him and subjected him to torture. His cheek was torn and his eyes were almost torn out, but he suffered this patiently. Then they told him: “We have a red-hot electrical instrument here. Everybody who has had it applied to them has agreed to our requests. And you will also agree.” The torturer brought the instrument forward. Then Fr. Philaret prayed to St. Nicholas: “Holy Hierarch Nicholas, help me, otherwise there may be a betrayal.” The torturer commenced his work. He stripped the confessor to his waist and started to burn his spine with the burning iron. Then a miracle took place. Fr. Philaret could smell his burning flesh, but felt no pain. He felt joyful in his soul. The torturer could not understand why he was silent, and did not cry out or writhe from the unbearable pain. Then he turned and looked at his face. Amazed, he waved his hand, muttered something in Japanese and fled, conquered by the superhuman power of the confessor’s endurance. Fr. Philaret was brought, almost dead, to his relatives. There he passed out. When he came to he said: “I was in hell itself.” Gradually his wounds healed. Only his eyes were a bit distorted. And the Japanese no longer tried to compel the Orthodox to bow down to their idol.

Confessor against Communism

In 1945 the Soviet armies defeated the Japanese army; later the Chinese communists took control of Manchuria. In the first days of the “Soviet coup” the Soviets began to offer Russian émigrés the opportunity to take Soviet passports. Their agitation was conducted in a skilful manner, very subtly and cleverly, and the deceived Russian people, exhausted from the hard years of the Japanese occupation during which everything Russian had been suppressed, believed that in the USSR there had now come “complete freedom of religion”, and they began to take passports en masse.

50,000 Russian citizens of Harbin, and every third young person, fell into the snare. The reality was soon revealed to them. At Atpor station 14,000 people were shot, and the remaining 36,000 were deported to concentration camps, where most of them perished of hunger and other privations.

Metropolitan Valentine of Suzdal writes: “I remember the year 1956, the Dormition men’s monastery in Odessa, where I was an unwilling witness as there returned from the camps and prisons, having served their terms, those hierarchs who returned to Russia after the war so as to unite with the ‘Mother Church’ at the call of Stalin’s government and the Moscow patriarchate: ‘The Homeland has forgiven you, the Homeland calls you!’ In 1946 they trustingly entered the USSR, and were all immediately captured and incarcerated for 10 years, while the ‘Mother Church’ was silent, not raising her voice in defence of those whom she had beckoned into the trap. In order to be ‘re-established’ in their hierarchical rank, they had to accept and chant hymns to Sergianism, and accept the Soviet patriarch. And what then? Some of them ended their lives under house arrest, others in monastery prisons, while others soon departed for eternity.”

At this time Fr. Philaret was the rector of the church of the holy Iveron icon in Harbin. There came to him a reporter from a Harbin newspaper asking his opinion on the “mercifulness” of the Soviet government in offering the émigrés Soviet passports. He expected to hear words of gratitude and admiration from Fr. Philaret, too. “But I replied that I categorically refused to take a passport, since I knew of no ‘ideological’ changes in the Soviet Union, and, in particular, I did not know how Church life was proceeding there. However, I knew a lot about the destruction of churches and the persecution of the clergy and believing laypeople. The person who was questioning me hastened to interrupt the conversation and leave…”

Soon Fr. Philaret read in the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate that Lenin was the supreme genius and benefactor of mankind. He could not stand this lie and from the ambon of the church he indicated to the believers the whole unrighteousness of this disgraceful affirmation in an ecclesiastical organ, emphasising that Patriarch Alexis (Simansky), as the editor of the JMP, was responsible for this lie. Fr. Philaret’s voice sounded alone: none of the clergy supported him, and from the diocesan authorities there came a ban on his preaching from the church ambon, under which ban he remained for quite a long time. Thus, while still a priest, he was forced to struggle for church righteousness on his own, without finding any understanding amidst his brothers. Practically the whole of the Far Eastern episcopate of the Russian Church Abroad at that time recognised the Moscow Patriarchate, and so Fr. Philaret found himself involuntarily in the jurisdiction of the MP, as a cleric of the Harbin diocese. This was for him exceptionally painful. He never, in whatever parish he served, permitted the commemoration of the atheist authorities during the Divine services, and he never served molebens or pannikhidas on the order of, or to please, the Soviet authorities. But even with such an insistent walling-off from the false church, his canonical dependence on the MP weighed on him “as a heavy burden, as an inescapable woe”, and he remained in it only for the sake of his flock. When the famous campaign for “the opening up of the virgin lands” was declared in the USSR, the former émigrés were presented with the opportunity to depart for the Union. To Fr. Philaret’s sorrow, in 1947 his own father, Archbishop Demetrius of Hailar, together with several other Bishops, were repatriated to the USSR. But Fr. Philaret, on his own as before, tirelessly spoke in his flaming sermons about the lie implanted in the MP and in “the country of the soviets” as a whole. Not only in private conversations, but also from the ambon, he explained that going voluntarily to work in a country where communism was being built and religion was being persecuted, was a betrayal of God and the Church. He refused outright to serve molebens for those departing on a journey for those departing for the USSR, insofar as at the foundation of such a prayer lay a prayer for the blessing of a good intention, while the intention to go to the Union was not considered by Fr. Philaret to be good, and he could not lie to God and men. That is how he spoke and acted during his life in China.

Such a firm and irreconcilable position in relation to the MP and the Soviet authorities could not remain unnoticed. Fr. Philaret was often summoned by the Chinese authorities for interrogations, at one of which he was beaten. In October, 1960 they even tried to kill him…

As he himself recounted the story, at two o’clock on a Sunday morning Fr. Philaret got up from bed because of a strange smell in his house. He went to the living-room, in the corner of which was a larder. From under the doors of the larder there was coming out smoke with a sharp, corrosive smell. Then he went to the lavatory, poured water into a bowl, returned to the larder and, opening the doors, threw the water in the direction of the smoke. Suddenly there was an explosion and a flash. The fire burned him, while the wave of the explosion lifted him up and hurled him with enormous force across the whole length of the living-room and against the door leading out. Fortunately, the door opened outwards: from the force of his flying body the bolts were broken, and he fell on the ground deafened but alive. On coming to, he saw the whole of his house on fire like a torch. He understood that the explosion had been caused by a thermal bomb set to go off and burn down the house at a precise time.