TOC Dictionary: Josephites, Sergians, Renovationists, Catacombs and others

Russian True Orthodox Church (RTOC)

, schismatic organization, so-called. “Lazarevskaya” branch of the Russian Orthodox Catacomb Church (ROC).

Address: Ukraine, Odessa, lane. Udelny, 1, Council of Rights. John of Kronstadt
Official site:
On the map: Yandex.Map, Google map

RTOC traces its roots back to the “Andreevsky” catacomb jurisdiction, formed from among the admirers and proteges of Archbishop Andrei (Ukhtomsky) of Ufa. In 1981, Bishop Andreevsky died. Vladimir (Shtromberg) of Ufa and the “Andreevites” turned to the ROCOR Synod of Bishops with a request for help in restoring the bishopric. The Synod of the ROCOR decided to secretly ordain Archpriest Vladimir Prokofiev (Mon. Barnabas), rector of the cathedral in Cannes (France), as Bishop of Cannes and send him to the USSR “in order […] to regulate the church life of the Catacomb Orthodox Church in Russia”

. The secret episcopal consecration of Bishop Varnava took place on May 10, 1982.

Ep. Barnabas (Prokofiev) during a tourist trip to the USSR in one of his Moscow apartments secretly consecrated the catacomb archimandrite Lazar (Zhurbenko) as Bishop of Tambov and Morshansky. Soon, a significant number of secret catacomb communities, totaling about fifty, consolidated around Bishop Lazarus. However, a significant part of the “Andreevsky” catacomb jurisdiction did not recognize the authority of Bishop Lazar over them and continued to remain without episcopal leadership. The Catacomb communities, which submitted to Bishop Lazar (Zhurbenko), formed the so-called “Lazarevsky” branch of the Russian Orthodox Catacomb Church.

“Lazarevskaya” branch of the Russian Catacomb Church in 1982-1993.

From 1982 to 1990 The “Lazarevsky” jurisdiction, which was part of the ROCOR, was in an illegal position. On May 15, 1990, the Council of Bishops of the ROCOR adopted the so-called “Regulations on free parishes,” which presupposed the beginning of the legal existence of dioceses and parishes of the ROCOR on the territory of the USSR; on July 25 of the same year, at a meeting of the Synod of Bishops of the ROCOR, the legalization of the secret bishops of Barnabas (Prokofiev) and Lazar (Zhurbenko).

Since 1989, there have been frequent cases of Russian parishes of the ROC MP transferring to the jurisdiction of the ROCOR, and many of these parishes remained directly subordinate to the Synod of Bishops of the ROCOR and were not subject to the episcopal authority of Bishop Lazar (Zhurbenko). The hierarchical authority of the ROCOR on the basis of these parishes was proclaimed the “Russian Orthodox Free Church” (ROC), and the Suzdal Archimandrite Valentin (Rusantsov), who left the ROC MP in 1990, was appointed Exarch of the Synod of Bishops of the ROCOR in Russia and was given the rights to independently decide on the issue of accepting clergy , transferring from the Moscow Patriarchate. This decision was received extremely negatively by Bishop Lazar (Zhurbenko) and led to a sharp deterioration in the relations of the “Lazarev” branch of the ROC with the ROCOR Synod of Bishops and the leadership of the ROC. Bishop Lazar (Zhurbenko) pointedly ignored Archimandrite Valentin (Rusantsov), not missing the opportunity to express his disagreement with the Russian church policy of the ROCOR.

The Synod of Bishops of the Russian Church Abroad decided to unite both groups on mutually beneficial terms. As part of the implementation of this initiative, Bishop Lazar was elevated to the dignity of archbishop and appointed First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. At the same time, it was decided to ordain Archimandrite Valentin (Rusantsov) to the rank of Bishop of Suzdal, which was carried out in February 1991. Considering the tension in the relationship between both Russian hierarchs, the ROCOR Synod of Bishops decided not to limit their dioceses to geographical boundaries and to provide each of them with the right to manage parishes in any region of the country.

The first separation of the “Lazarev” branch of the Russian Orthodox Church from the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (1993-1994)

The intensive development of the “Russian Orthodox Free Church” led to the fact that in 1992 the Bishop of Cannes Barnabas (Prokofiev) was sent to Russia by the Synod of Bishops of the ROCOR. The main purpose of his visit was the organization of the Moscow Synodal Metochion of the Russian Church Abroad, which was presented as the highest body of church administrative power in Russia. A whole series of miscalculations on the part of the bishop. Barnabas (cooperation with the Memory society, support for Ukrainian schismatics of the Kiev Patriarchate, etc.), as well as personal power ambitions led to an open conflict between Archbishop Lazar (Zhurbenko) and Bishop Valentin (Rusantsov) with the head of the Synodal Metochion.

At the beginning of 1993, Bishop. Barnabas (Prokofiev) convinced the Synod of Bishops of the ROCOR to retire Archbishop Lazar of Tambov and Bishop Valentin of Suzdal, releasing them from the administration of their dioceses. The latter did not want to recognize the behind-the-scenes victory of Bishop Barnabas, and by the summer of 1993, each individually announced their withdrawal from the jurisdictional subordination of the ROCOR while nominally maintaining Eucharistic communion with it.

In the summer of 1993, the Synod of Bishops of the ROCOR decided to recall the Bishop of Cannes Barnabas (Prokofiev), and two people were appointed to the vacant position of Synodal Representative - Archpriest Konstantin Fedorov from the USA and Priest Simeon Donskov from Belgium. During the period described, the only hierarch of the ROCOR who served in Russia and was not under repression was Bishop of the Black Sea Veniamin (Rusalenko).

Archbishop Tambov Lazar (Zhurbenko) and Bishop. By the beginning of 1994, Suzdal Valentin (Rusantsov) tried to forget about the tensions that once existed between them and joined forces to stabilize their church status. In March 1994, they held the IV Congress of clergy and laity of the “Russian Orthodox Free Church” in Suzdal, at which the formation of the “Higher Provisional Church Administration of the Russian Orthodox Free Church” (VVTsU RPTS) was proclaimed, which was considered as a body of the highest church authority, an alternative To the Synod of Bishops of the ROCOR. Archbishop Lazar was elected Chairman of the All-Russian Orthodox Church of the Russian Orthodox Church, and Bishop Valentin, elevated to the rank of archbishop, became Deputy Chairman.

One of the first acts of the All-Russian Orthodox Church was the ordination of new bishops, which included Bishop of Odessa Agafangel (Pashkovsky), vicar of the Suzdal diocese, Bishop of Borisov Theodore (Gineevsky), vicar of the Suzdal diocese, Bishop of Sukhumi Seraphim (Zinchenko), Bishop of Tula and Bryansk Arseny (Tikhomirov-Kiselev) ) and Bishop of Kazan and Mari Alexander. It is noteworthy that the first of the newly ordained was a protege of the archbishop. Lazarus, and four others were presented for ordination by archbishop. Valentin.

In response to illegal episcopal consecrations, the Synod of Bishops of the ROCOR banned Archbishop Lazarus and Bishop Valentin from serving in the priesthood, and the episcopal ordinations themselves were not recognized as valid. In the context of the developing conflict, the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Church Abroad decided to ordain a new bishop to govern Russian parishes. The choice fell on the Russian Archimandrite Eutychius (Kurochkin), who denied the legitimacy of the All-Russian Orthodox Church of the Russian Orthodox Church, and was consecrated Bishop of Ishim and Siberia.

In December 1994, at the Council of Bishops of the ROCOR, a compromise was reached and the Act of Reconciliation was signed between the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia and the Provisional Supreme Church Administration of the Russian Orthodox Free Church. According to the terms of the reconciliation, both the All-Russian Orthodox Church of the Russian Orthodox Church and the position of Representative of the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad in Russia were abolished. In addition, many decisions of the All-Russian Orthodox Church of the Russian Orthodox Church were declared invalid. In particular, Valentin (Rusantsov) lost the title of archbishop and was again called a bishop. In relation to the hierarchs who were arbitrarily ordained in the All-Russian Orthodox Church of the Russian Orthodox Church, a decision was made to recognize their episcopal dignity on the indispensable condition that they take the episcopal oath to the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. For consistency in the management of Russian dioceses, to replace the abolished All-Russian Orthodox Church of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Bishops' Conference of Russian Eminences was created, in its activities completely subordinate to the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad.

The second branch of the “Lazarev” branch of the Russian Orthodox Church from the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (1995-1996)

In January 1995, Bishop. Ishimsky Evtikhiy (Kurochkin) brought forward a number of accusations against the Suzdal Bishop Valentin (Rusantsov) regarding his moral character and style of church governance. Ep. Eutychius expressed his dissatisfaction in writing in a report addressed to the First Hierarch of the ROCOR, Metropolitan Vitaly (Ustinov), accusing Archbishop Lazarus, Bishop Valentin and the hierarchs ordained by them of a lack of loyalty to the ROCOR Synod of Bishops. The result of the confrontation that arose within the “Bishops’ Conference” was the ban on Archbishop Lazar (Zhurbenko) and Bishop Valentin (Rusantsov) from serving in the priesthood, which, as before, was not recognized by them. The spiritual leadership of the Russian flock of the Russian Church Abroad was entrusted to Bishop Eutykhios of Ishim.

Distrust was expressed towards the Russian hierarchs, who were once ordained as part of the All-Russian Orthodox Church of the Russian Orthodox Church. To ensure their trustworthiness, they were asked to recognize the conviction of Archbishop Lazar and Bishop Valentin as fair, and also to live in the United States for a certain probationary period under the control of the leadership of the ROCOR. Only Bishop Agafangel (Pashkovsky) agreed to fulfill the above conditions, who lived in the United States for nine months, after which he was confirmed in the rank of bishop and received the title Bishop of Simferopol and Crimea.

Under the jurisdiction of the ROCOR

Archbishop Lazar (Zhurbenko), who was under ecclesiastical repression, repented in 1996 and was restored to hierarchical rights by the Synod of Bishops of the ROCOR and appointed ruling bishop of the Odessa-Tambov diocese of the ROCOR. In the same year, by the decision of the Synod of Bishops of the ROCOR, the “Bishops' Conference of Russian Bishops” was restored, the main purpose of which was seen as coordinating the activities of the Russian dioceses of the Russian Church Abroad. The Conference, in addition to its chairman, Archbishop Lazar of Odessa and Tambov (Zhurbenko), included Bishop of the Black Sea and Kuban Veniamin (Rusalenko), Bishop of Ishim and Siberia Evtihiy (Kurochkin), Bishop of Simferopol and Crimea Agafangel (Pashkovsky). The function of communicating between the “Bishops' Conference of Russian Eminences” and the Synod of Bishops of the ROCOR was entrusted to Bishop Michael (Donskov) of Toronto, vicar of the Canadian diocese. It should be noted that the independence of the revived Bishops' Council was significantly limited. This was manifested, first of all, in the exclusion of Russian hierarchs from participating in meetings of the ROCOR Synod of Bishops, with absolute accountability of the activities of the Conference to the Synod.

Since 1996, over the next five years, the parishes of the “Lazarevsky” branch of the Russian Catacomb Church, following their spiritual leader Archbishop Lazar (Zhurbenko), continued to remain peacefully under the jurisdiction of the ROCOR. In 1998, both dioceses of the “Lazarevsky” branch of the Russian Orthodox Church, which were under the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, underwent the official registration procedure under the name “Russian True Orthodox Church” (RTOC)

. In the same year, Metropolitan Vitaly (Ustinov), First Hierarch of the ROCOR, issued a decree according to which this name was introduced into church circulation.

At the end of 2001, the ROCOR split into two parts - the ROCOR under the jurisdiction of Metropolitan Laurus (ROCOR(L)) and the ROCOR under the jurisdiction of Metropolitan Vitaly (ROCOR(V)). Archbishop of Odessa Lazar (Zhurbenko) and Bishop of the Black Sea Veniamin (Rusalenko), who were most oppositional, became part of the ROCOR(V). Inconsistency of the new hierarchical appointments of the ROCOR(V) with the archbishop. Lazarus and Bishop Veniamin prompted the latter to declare their alienation from ROCOR(V), the cessation of the commemoration of Metropolitan Vitaly and the concentration of the highest church power in Russia around the “Bishops' Council of Russian Eminences”, which consisted of themselves. Metropolitan Vitaly (Ustinov) began negotiations with Russian bishops in December 2001, offering them, on the terms of a compromise, to maintain unity with the ROCOR. (B) upon gaining significant independence in church government. Soon, the commemoration of the name of Metropolitan Vitaly was restored in Russian RTOC parishes.

Formation of the Synod of the “Russian True Orthodox Church” and the separation of the RTOC from the ROCOR(V)

From April 17 to 18, 2002, the II All-Russian Conference of Bishops, Clergy and Laity of the RTOC took place in Voronezh. The most important resolution of this meeting was the decision on the need for the speedy consecration of new bishops of the “Russian True Orthodox Church” and the subsequent transformation of the “Bishops’ Conference of Russian Eminences” into the Synod of Bishops of the RTOC.

In August 2002, Archbishop Lazar (Zhurbenko) and Bishop Veniamin (Rusalenko) performed a number of episcopal consecrations. The decision on the formation of new episcopal sees and the establishment of candidates for new hierarchs was not agreed upon either with the Synod of the ROCOR(V) or with Metropolitan. Vitaly (Ustinov), which gave rise to a new aggravation in the relationship of the “Bishops’ Conference of Russian Eminences” with the Synod of ROCOR(V).

The American hierarchs who formed the entourage of the elderly Metropolitan Vitaly and exerted significant influence on the latter questioned the canonicity of the new RTOC bishops. On November 14, 2002, Metropolitan Vitaly and Archbishop Varnava made a determination according to which the Russian hierarchs Archbishop Lazar (Zhurbenko), Bishop Veniamin (Rusalenko) and all the clergy subordinate to them were excluded from the jurisdiction of the ROCOR(V). Not recognizing the legality of this definition and taking into account the senile infirmity of the 93-year-old Metropolitan Vitaly, who was strongly influenced by his entourage, the Russian bishops continued the nominal liturgical commemoration of the name of the first hierarch of ROCOR(V). The condemnation of episcopal consecrations by Metropolitan Vitaly, who a few months earlier blessed not only episcopal ordinations, but also the establishment of the RTOC Synod of Bishops, was perceived as a behind-the-scenes victory of the Deputy First Hierarch of the ROCOR(V), Archbishop Varnava (Prokofiev), who misinformed someone who was completely unaware of the situation the elderly first hierarch.

With the goal of creating an alternative to the “Russian True Orthodox Church” and retaining part of the Russian parishes, the Synod of Bishops of the ROCOR(V), actually controlled by the Deputy First Hierarch, Archbishop Varnava (Prokofiev), decided to ordain its own Russian bishops. For this purpose, on June 28-30, 2003, in Paris, the vicar of the European diocese, Bishop Anthony of Belta and Moldova (Rudey), Bishop of Vladivostok and Far East Anastasy (Surzhik), and the vicar of the European diocese, Bishop of Slavic and South Russian Viktor (Pivovarov), were consecrated.

On July 5, 2003, the XII Conference of the Russian Eminences of the RTOC was convened, which first of all expressed the following attitude towards the installation of Russian hierarchs of the ROCOR(V):

“The attitude of the RTOC Synod of Bishops to the consecrations performed in Paris is determined, first of all, by the inability to recognize the “church” structure that has developed around the captive Elder-Metropolitan Vitaly as the legal successor of the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.”

The meeting decided to completely distance itself from ROCOR(V) and self-organize the Russian True Orthodox Church on the platform of absolute independence. In this regard, the “Bishops' Conference of Russian Eminences” was transformed into the Synod of Bishops of the “Russian True Orthodox Church”, headed by Archbishop Lazar (Zhurbenko). The second determination of the Conference was the formation of four independent dioceses (Chernigov and Gomel, Vernensk and Semirechensk, Novgorod and Tver, Omsk and Tambov) and giving all four vicar bishops the status of ruling bishops.

June 30, 2005 Archbishop. Lazar (Zhurbenko) died, and on July 7, Bishop of Omsk and Siberia Tikhon (Pasechnik) was elected as the new primate of the RTOC, and elevated to the dignity of archbishop.

In 2006, the Deputy First Hierarch of the ROCOR(V), Archbishop of Cannes and Europe Barnabas (Prokofiev), with repentance returned to the jurisdiction of the canonical ROCOR and was accepted as a supernumerary bishop. However, almost all the parishes that were subordinate to Bishop Varnava during his stay in schism refused to follow him and expressed a desire to become part of the Russian True Orthodox Church.

In 2007, a large number of foreign parishes of the ROCOR joined the RTOC, who did not agree with the restoration of canonical communion with the Moscow Patriarchate.

In order to manage church life on the American continent, in 2007 the Trenton Deanery (for the northeastern part of the USA) was formed, headed by Archpriest Stefan Sabelnik, and the Deanery of the Eastern part of the USA, headed by Archpriest Anatoly Trepachko. The task of both deans was to accept petitions from clergy of the ROCOR to join the jurisdiction of the RTOC.

During the Conference of the clergy and laity of the ROCOR of North America (temporary jurisdiction of the RTOC), held on November 16, 2007, which took place in the presence of the Chairman of the Synod of Bishops of the RTOC, Archbishop Tikhon (Pasechnik), it was decided to unite all parishes that separated from the ROCOR(L) into a single North American diocese. The widowed Archpriest Stefan Sabelnik was elected ruling bishop of the newly formed diocese, who was consecrated Bishop of Trenton and North America on December 18, 2007.

TOC - True Orthodox Church

This name appeared as a reaction to the church course of Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) in the late 1920s and early 30s. The Orthodox, who considered Sergius’s position unacceptable, used the phrase “true Orthodox Christians” in relation to themselves in order to thus indicate their fidelity to the true Church of Christ. In this meaning, this term continues to be used by various church groups in Russia and in the world.

The name TOC or “True Orthodoxy” is also recorded in several dozen cases fabricated by the GPU, which reveal the “counter-revolutionary activities” of the all-Union organization “True Orthodox Church,” which allegedly operated throughout the country through a network of “branches.” In these cases, all active non-Sergian church leaders were either shot, imprisoned, or sent to camps and exile. True Orthodox Christians really united around their leaders - first of all, Bishops Joseph (Petrov), Dimitri (Lyubimov), Alexy (Buya), Victor (Ostrovidov) and others, corresponded and distributed brochures and sermons in which they explained their anti-Sergian position and essentially formed a church structure alternative to the Church of Sergius.

Documentation:

Indictments for CPI cases from different years and regions are collected on Irina Osipova’s website.
Saint Victor (Ostrovidov): Justification for the departure from Sergius and 15 answers to questions from the OGPU.
Hieromartyr Theodore Andreev: Letter of response to the Declaration of Sergius (1928).
New Martyr Mikhail Novoselov: Letter of Apology for Those Who Departed from Sergius (1928).

“From the depths I called to You”

What Orthodox churches are there now in Russia?

The revolution of 1917 split the Russian Orthodox Church into several parts, of which three were the most significant:

The official church that decided to cooperate with the Soviet government (since 1943 - the Moscow Patriarchate);
Catacomb Church in the USSR;
The Church Abroad (ROCOR), which arose outside of Russia and united most of the emigration.

In Soviet times, the Catacomb Church and the ROCOR were physically separated from each other by the Iron Curtain. Since the late 1980s, when the Iron Curtain gradually began to disappear, the Church Abroad was able to “return” to Russia again. The Catacomb Church by this time was already very few in number.

As a result, in Russia there was not one Orthodoxy, but several:

The official church is the Moscow Patriarchate (ROC MP);
Church groups that have succession from the ROCOR, the Catacomb Church in the USSR or the Greek Old Calendarists. Their common name is True Orthodox Churches (TOC).
All other Orthodox church groups, to varying degrees, have aligned themselves with the Russian Orthodox Church MP or the Orthodox Church.

This review is devoted to modern CPIs in Russia. There are many of them, and they are administratively separated. From the point of view of the canons of the Orthodox Church, such divisions are permissible - in the absence of a Local Church, bishops are equal and are not obliged to maintain administrative unity. This is evidenced, for example, by the well-known decree number 362 of Patriarch Tikhon, which allows bishops to exist autonomously and on the basis of which the ROCOR itself was organized. Most of the TOC in Russia have bishops from the ROCOR.

Catalog of ROCOR fragments

During the Soviet Union, the ROCOR was sharply opposed to the Moscow Patriarchate, which in exile was called the “red church.” However, after the collapse of the USSR, a rapprochement between the ROCOR and the ROC MP began. The foreigners were quickly moving towards reunification with the official church, but along the way, various groups began to break away from the ROCOR. These are the fragments of the ROCOR. At the same time, these fragments were joined by the remnants of the Catacomb Church, “people from the street” and those who decided to leave the Russian Orthodox Church MP in search of true Orthodoxy.

We present a list of fragments of the ROCOR in Russia in the order of their occurrence.

— 1995. The ROAC (Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church, formerly called the Russian Orthodox Free Church) separated from the ROCOR Its administrative center is located in Suzdal. The head is Metropolitan Theodore (Gineevsky). After the death of its founder, Metropolitan Valentin (Rusantsov), in 2012, this church is gradually fading away.

- year 2001. The official turn of the ROCOR towards the ROC MP. The result was the collapse of the ROCOR into the ROCOR(L) and ROCOR(V) . The first was headed by Metropolitan Laurus (Shkurla), who later took this fragment to the Moscow Patriarchate. Metropolitan Vitaly (Ustinov) remained at the head of the second. ROCOR (V) subsequently formed many new fragments, which will be discussed below.

- 2002. The (Russian True Orthodox Church) separated from the ROCOR(V) Now it is nominally headed by Archbishop Tikhon (Pasechnik) of Omsk, but in fact all decisions are made by Protopresbyter Viktor Melekhov. After changing more than one jurisdiction, he managed to head the church leadership in RTOC. The RTOC center is located in Dimitrov, near Moscow; the resolutions of the Synods of this church cannot be found in the public domain. Interaction with this fragment is difficult.

- July 2006. ROCOR(V) was divided into ROCOR(V-V) and RosOC (Russian Orthodox Church). The ROCOR(V-V) (which, according to tradition, often continues to be called ROCOR(V) headed by Bishop Vladimir (Tselishchev). Its center has shifted from the USA, where Bishop Vladimir lives, to Kyiv - to the commercially successful and active Bishop Alexy (Pergamentsev). As for RosPTs , it was divided into several parts, which will be discussed below.

- November 2006. Archpriest Veniamin (Zhukov) separated from ROCOR(V-V) and took Bishop Anthony (Rudey) with him. With this bishop, he independently ordained more bishops for himself, forming a very small ROCOR(V-J) . Its center is in Paris, where Father Veniamin (Zhukov) lives, but due to the individual consecration, the canonicity of this fragment is highly doubtful.

- May 2007. ROCOR(L) entered the ROC MP, turning into ROCOR MP . At the same time, Bishop Agafangel (Pashkovsky) separated from her. With the help of the Greek Cyprianites, he ordained other bishops and formed the ROCOR(A) . The Cyprianites occupy an intermediate position between the TOC and the MP, and the ROCOR(A) itself unofficially allows communion in the ROC MP, so this church can hardly be classified as true Orthodox. Its center is in Odessa, where Metropolitan Agathangel lives.

- June 2007. RosPTs was divided into two parts. The first of them, RosOC(A) , is headed by Metropolitan Anthony (Orlov), who lives in the United States. In this group it is considered normal to sympathize with Hitler; some clerics seriously share his teachings. The second part is called RosPTs(D); it is headed by Metropolitan Damaskin (Balabanov), he adheres to strictly monarchical views and openly advocates in defense of imameslaviya.

- November 2008. On the basis of the ROAC, the Bishops' Conference ( AS ROAC ) was formed, which was not recognized in the Suzdal ROAC. Its chairman is Bishop Gregory (Lurie), the center is distributed between St. Petersburg and Myatlevo, Kaluga region. The ROAC AS recognizes the sacraments of all other fragments of the ROCOR that profess the right faith. In June 2021, the AS ROAC and RosPTs(D) officially established mutual communication.

- December 2009. Archbishop Victor (Pivovarov) separated from RosOC(A), forming a small RosOC(V) with its center in Slavyansk-on-Kuban. He remains the only bishop of his fragment. Bishop Victor writes many articles on church and political topics, is interested in aliens and suffers from the fact that his enemies regularly irradiate him from different corners of the room.

— December 2014. A group led by the Alferov brothers - Bishop Dionysius and priest Timothy - separated from ROCOR(A). ROCOR(A-D) was formed . The reasons for secession are related to politics. The ideas of Cyprianism, that is, the so-called middle path between ecumenism and Orthodoxy, are widespread in this church.

— October 2015. ROCOR(V-V) was able to split into three parts at once. Bishop Anastasy (Surzhik) separated from the core of ROCOR(V-V), who remained autonomous (he can be designated as ROCOR(VVA) ), and the group of Bishop Martin (Lapkovsky). She chose the Australian Metropolitan Philaret (Semovsky) as her first hierarch, forming the ROCOR (VVF) . This is a small and very politicized group, some of its leaders profess name-wrestling. Their center is located in the Istra district of the Moscow region.

— November 2015. Bishop Stefan (Sabelnik), living in the USA, interrupted his administrative subordination to the RTOC Synod and, together with his diocese, moved to an acephalous position. In March 2021, approximately half of the RTOC clergy came under his omophorion. By analogy with other groups, they can be named by the first letter of the bishop’s name - RTOC(S) .

— June 2021. A schism began in ROCOR(A). The American Archbishop Andronik (Kotlyarov), who is supported by Archbishop Sophrony (Musienko) from the Novgorod region, separates from her. Perhaps we will soon hear about the emergence of the ROCOR(A-A) .

Other CPIs in Russia

In addition to the fragments of the ROCOR, there are other, even smaller church groups in Russia.

HOCNA is the Holy Orthodox Church in North America, centered in Boston. This church officially practices name-glorification and historically has a strong connection with the Greek Old Calendarists. In Russia, HOCNA has two small parishes without priests.
Several groups of Greek Old Calendarists, minimally represented in Russia. The most famous of them: the Chrysostomian synod (name-wrestlers), the Lamian synod , two different groups of Matthewites .
The TOC(R) is a large, diverse group under the leadership of Metropolitan Raphael.
Ecumenical and renovationist church groups: AOC (Apostolic Orthodox Church), UAOC (o) (Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church), etc. Among the famous figures, they include Radio Liberty journalist Father Yakov Krotov and historian Lev Regelson, and previously belonged to Fr. Gleb Yakunin and Valeria Novodvorskaya.

So what is next?

Will the fragments of ROCOR continue to crumble? If only a little. It seems that the crushing process is reaching its limit. People are tired of the unnecessary war and no longer remember well why Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich quarreled. Now the convergence of some fragments united in the faith has begun. In July 2021, communication was established between RosPTs(D) and AS ROAC. Other rapprochement talks are underway. You can simply recognize each other's sacraments without creating a common Synod. If a fragment of the ROCOR considers itself the truest, without recognizing others, it is unlikely to survive in one or two generations.

Nun Ksenia (Mitrenina),

"ISLANDS", July 29, 2021

Sergianism

Among true Orthodox Christians, this is the name given to the heretical teaching about the Church, according to which the preservation of the church hierarchy and the possibility of openly and legally performing divine services in churches is placed in first place, above truth and faith. This understanding of the church lies at the basis of the Declaration of Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) and his church policy. Sergians believe that Sergius saved the church through his actions: by actually placing the management of internal church affairs into the hands of the Soviet state. In public statements and interviews, Sergius and later his comrades from the Moscow Patriarchate denied the fact of cruel persecution of the Orthodox Church in the USSR, thus renouncing the host of new martyrs who suffered for the faith at that very time. In modern Russia, the Sergian Church (ROC MP) considers itself the only canonical local Orthodox church, while calling the true Orthodox churches schismatics.

Documentation:

Declaration of Sergius (published July 29, 1927).
Interview with Sergius and his Synod, published in the newspapers Pravda and Izvestia (February 1930).
A documented conversation between Stalin and Sergius about the creation of the Patriarchate at a Bolshevik pace (September 1943).
Speech by Patriarch Alexy I at Stalin's funeral (published in the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate in 1953).

Missionary department of the Moscow diocese

In February 2004, many media outlets circulated information and reports about the creation of the so-called “Orthodox Russian Church.” “In Orthodoxy, you can say it’s a holiday. Three Orthodox Churches, which are called catacombs, have united,” the Moscow News newspaper reported with jubilation in an interview with the head of the new formation, “Vladyka Raphael.”

Certificate from the Counseling Center in the name of the Holy Righteous John of Kronstadt at the Krutitsky Patriarchal Metochion in Moscow dated December 17, 2004 about the occult activities of “Metropolitan” Raphael, the “Primate” of the so-called “Orthodox Russian Church”

“The first session of the All-Russian Local Council of the True Orthodox Church in Russia (IPCR)” was held on February 16, 2004 in a Moscow mansion on Radio Street, 12, also called the “Orthodox Church of the Archangel Raphael” - where for many years the occult healing center was located, headed by the same “Metropolitan Raphael” (psychic L. Prokopyev) “Metropolitan of Moscow and All-Russia. The Chairman of the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Russian Church, Raphael, declared himself the sole heir, legal successor (with all the ensuing property consequences) of the historical Orthodox Russian Church, and called for “restoring the principles and spirit of the definitions of the Holy Council of 1917–1918.” “to restore full church unity on the basis of fidelity to the truth of Christ.” He sent “messages” to the President of Russia, to all “archpastors of the once united Orthodox Russian Church,” as well as to all “local Orthodox Churches,” members of the “council” called for the convening of an “All-Russian Pre-Conciliar Conference.”

The list of participants in the “council” looked like this: 1. Metropolitan of Moscow Raphael (Prokopyev), Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne. 2. Metropolitan Epiphaiy (Kaminsky) of Minsk and Svetlogorsk, head of the “Sekachev branch” of the Catacomb Church. 3. Metropolitan Kyriakos (Timirtsidi) of Pyatigorsk and North Caucasus, Apostolic Orthodox Church. 4. Metropolitan of Kolomna and Russian Vitaly (Kuzhevatov), Apostolic Orthodox Church. 5. Metropolitan of Tsaritsyn and Nikolaevsk Benedict (Molchanov). Apostolic Orthodox Church. 6. Archbishop of Tatarstan and Mari Alexander (Mironov). RTOC. 7. Archbishop of Tsarskoe Selo Sergius (Sarkisov), Apostolic Orthodox Church. 8. Archbishop of Chersonese and Gothic Damian (Akimov), Apostolic Orthodox Church. 9. Bishop of Penza and Simbirsk Tikhon (Kiselev), RTOC. 10. Bishop of Potino and the Black Sea Nikolai (Modebadze). Georgian CPI. 11. Bishop of Bronnitsky Evgeniy (Starostin), vicar of Metropolitan Raphael. 12. Hegumen Maxim, cleric of the North Caucasus Metropolis, secretary of the Council. 13. Hegumen Alexander, secretary of Metropolitan Epiphanius. 14. Archpriest Viktor Boyko, dean of the RTOC in the Stavropol Territory and in the Karachay-Cherkess Republic. 15. Archpriest Vladimir Protopopov, dean of the Krasnoyarsk diocese of the TOC. 16. Priest George, rector of the Church of St. Raphael.

Here is what Blagovest-info writes: “According to the credentials commission, 120 people were present at the cathedral, including 17 bishops. At the first part of the session, the head of the IOCR, Metropolitan of Moscow and All-Russia, Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne Raphael (Prokopiev), made a report “The definitions of the Holy Council of 1917–1918 concerning church life and governance are the only canonical basis for the restoration of the Orthodox Russian Church.” The author of the report claims that today “the Russian Church is shrinking”, “losing... its children and the respect of the surrounding society”: citing data from sociologists, he notes that even on the biggest holidays, no more than 2% of Russians attend churches.

Metropolitan Raphael sees the reason for this in the fact that the Moscow Patriarchate, “accustomed over the years of godless ideocracy to feel like a kind of “Orthodox monopolist” in our country, did not make the necessary efforts to restore the principles of conciliarity in church life on the basis of the definitions of the Holy Council of 1917–1918, which are normative for the Orthodox Russian Church.” Reference: Of all the participants in the local council, only the elderly Metropolitan of Minsk and Svetlogorsk Epiphapius (Kaminsky) represented the Catacomb Church, the hierarchy of which arose in 1971, when its founder, Metropolitan Gennady (Sekach), officially announced his bishopric and began to consecrate catacomb bishops. The remaining “branches” of the TOC go back to a new church formation that arose in 1996, after, with the blessing of the head of the UAOC Patriarch Dimitry (Yarema), Ukrainian bishops performed two episcopal consecrations “with the aim of restoring the hierarchy of the True Orthodox Church in Russia.” As a result of this, the Russian True Orthodox Church arose. In 1997, the former bishop of the Georgian Orthodox Church, Bishop Ambrose (Katamadze), joined RTOC, who, being a supporter of the ousted Georgian President West Gamsakhurdia, was forced to emigrate to Russia. With his participation, in the same 1997, the episcopal consecration of the current head of the PCR Rafail (Prokopiev), a former Soviet officer who, after being discharged from the army after being wounded, was engaged in healing, was carried out.” In a book with the title “Acquisitors of the Holy Spirit”, entirely dedicated to the special mission of the “witness to the truth of Orthodoxy”, the “resurrector of the Orthodox faith” L. S. Prokopyev - as a successor to the work of Seraphim of Sarov, a photograph of the “episcopal consecration of Archimandrite Raphael by Metropolitan Ambrose (Katamadze), Archbishop Stephen is published (Linitsky) and Bishop Moses (Khadzhava) September 21, 1995.” In fact, by this time “Metropolitan Ambrose” was no longer a metropolitan - in 1992 he was deprived of his holy orders for inappropriate activities on the side of Zviad Gamsakhurdia, who started the war in Georgia (he was his “close friend and spiritual mentor” ). The “archbishopric” of Stefan Linitsky also originates from the defrocking of Filaret Denisenko (excommunicated from the Church in the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate). That is, there is an illegal consecration. However, to regard this new entity as simply a marginal group would be imprudent and dangerous. Currently, esoteric interests are carefully disguised, and on the website of the “Orthodox Russian Church” (https://sinodipc.ru/) the structure of the Russian Orthodox Church is copied in almost everything, or rather, parodied. “The Presidium of the Holy Synod...” – blissful photographs and lists of dignitaries with bishop’s crosses and respectable beards. In total, the OPC, according to the TOC website, has 15 dioceses, its own publishing department, a “theological college”, its own newspaper “Local Cathedral”, the “Monastery of John the Baptist” under construction in the village of Denezhnikovo in the Ramensky district of the Moscow region, its estates and home churches in Penza , Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod and especially in the Caucasus.

In fact, “Metropolitan Raphael” has nothing to do with Orthodoxy, as evidenced by the book by Doctor of Medical Sciences Hieromonk Anatoly (Berestov) and Alevtina Pecherskaya “Orthodox Sorcerers” - who are they? What you need to know about modern magicians, psychics and other servants of the occult" (M.: Sretensky Monastery, "New Book", "Ark", 1998) Here is some data given in this book. Even then, the “rector” of the “temple of the Archangel Raphael” and the head of the occult, former GRU colonel L.S. Prokopyev (aka “Metropolitan” Raphael) was the confessor of the Russian department of the Order of Malta. And in the newspaper “Life” (February-March 1997, No. 2–3) he called himself “the first hierarch and spiritual head of the Great A Priori Russian Order of John of Jerusalem (Order of Malta)”, “a member of the synod of the True Orthodox Church... and was previously priest of the Order of Malta." Some PROIS employees openly called themselves Freemasons. LLP "PROIS" - Center for Folk Healing (the director of which was "Metropolitan Raphael") in Moscow on Radio Street, building 12, offered the same ", offered, drawing up a "resonant horoscope", "horoscope of family, work." Healers were trained here, offering to “awaken extrasensory abilities,” teach “techniques for recruiting and managing energy,” and “break through to the heights of extrasensory mastery.” “Treatment”, “training”, “charging with holy water” (with the help of extrasensory manipulations and the “laying of the cross”) took place simultaneously with “divine services”, “unctions” and other “sacraments”. At the same time, PROIS employees misinformed visitors, calling the “house temple of the Archangel Raphael” belonging to... the Moscow Patriarchate! In blasphemous parodies of church sacraments, deceived people were asked to “churchly” consolidate the results of occult treatment. The reception was conducted by the “lord” himself, creating a special, “temple” occultism. “Metropolitan Raphael” personally selected people for the healing courses, “in meditation, to the accompaniment of astral music, viewing the aura” of future students. At PROIS, according to its accountant and manager, in 1997–1998 there was “a very high level of treatment and healing training. They are taught by professional doctors, scientists, the best bioenergetics specialists, and all the intricacies of extrasensory perception are studied. The basics of Orthodoxy are also given, they are taught by Bishop Sergius from the Theotokos Center” As said by a former teacher of psychic courses at the “Temple of the Archangel Raphael” N.I. Arsinevich (now deceased), who refused to teach, unable to withstand the rampant occultism, there were unofficial attempts to submit applications from “PPOIS” to some structures of Moscow State University to train five hundred specialists experienced in Eastern knowledge, in order to train them to become Orthodox priests! A mixture of pseudo-Orthodoxy and occultism could be seen in occult paintings alternating with icons. And in the book sold in the “temple” by “PROIS” healers Alexander and Olga Tarasov, “Worldview and Vision of Man,” the satanic ideas of “Agni Yoga” were propagated and a frank call was proclaimed: “Leave the Dogmas of the Church.” The true essence and origins of the “Russian Orthodox Church”. “The leader of the occult-sectarian group “Rifailites” - Rafail (Leonid Semenovich Prokopyev) was born in 1947 into a family of communists (his grandfather was a red division commander, an active participant in the civil war). He claims to be a descendant of the Motovilov family. In 1969 he graduated from officer school, joined the CPSU, served in the Northern Group of Forces - in Poland, then in Transbaikalia. After graduating from the Military Academy. Frunze commanded a reduced-strength motorized rifle regiment for two years and a deployed regiment of the Transcaucasian Military District for another two years... From Transcaucasia he was transferred to the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), supervised directly by the KGB, where, as part of a secret Soviet mission, he was sent to Lebanon to participate in hostilities. Served as a “military advisor”. In 1984, near Beirut, he was blown up by mines, lost his right leg and injured his left... He received the first group of disability, but by order of the USSR Minister of Defense D. Yazov, he was retained in the ranks of the USSR Armed Forces and promoted to the rank of colonel. He taught intelligence tactics at the Military Institute, where, under the influence of A. Kashpirovsky, he began to practice “healing” experiments on cadets. In 1990, he retired and organized his own “Healing Center”. By his own admission, he adopted the “gift of healing” from his grandmother, who was engaged in divination and witchcraft... Having created the “Healing Center” in 1990, Colonel L. Prokopyev turned to the Moscow Patriarchate so that it officially accepted his organization for “spiritual care.” Having not received a response from the Moscow Patriarchate, he turned to Lazar Vasiliev, John of Bereslavsky at the “Theotokos Center” and Tikhon Filippov, from whom he received “ordination” first as a “deacon, then as a priest,” and later as a “bishop.” He fictitiously divorced his wife, taking upon himself the name “Raphael the Healer.” At the Center for Folk Healing he created the “Community of Archangel Raphael”; community farmsteads were opened in St. Petersburg, Krasnoyarsk, Astrakhan, Novgorod, Saransk, etc., as well as outside Russia: in Ankara, Istanbul, Minsk, Chernigov. In 1994, having broken with L. Vasiliev, Prokopyev, together with his “vicars” and “bishop” Tikhon Filippov Kolomensky, entered into communication with the UOC-KP Philaret Denisenko, from where in 1997, after their “coronation of the All-Russian Emperor Nicholas III “, were expelled with a scandal... “On September 21, 1997, false bishops A. Katamadze, S. Linitsky and M. Khojava accepted the “metropolitan psychic” Raphael and his exotic “bishops” into the self-sacred “RosIOC” (created in 1996). with the participation of the UAOC), performing additional “consecration” on them. At the same time, “Metropolitan” R. Prokopyev himself was given the title of “bishop” of Volokolamsk, vicar of the Moscow diocese. Then, soon Rafail Prokopyev again proclaimed himself “metropolitan” and staged another coup in “RosIPTS”, seizing power into his own hands. A. Katamadze was overthrown, deprived of his chair, banned from the priesthood and defrocked, and later anathematized, and Prokopyev proclaimed himself “first hierarch.” “First Hierarch Raphael” himself was “defrocked” on November 27, 1999 by the competing TOC, also headed by the occultist (spiritual father of the Academy of Russian Healing) “bishop” of Krutitsky Vyacheslav Lisov (this is reported on the website “True Orthodox Church. Moscow Metropolis." This was followed by a scandal with the "coronation" "As a representative of the only Church faithful to the Emperor, Rafail-Prokopyev took an active part in the "coronation to the All-Russian throne" of the self-proclaimed Emperor Nicholas III, allegedly the grandson of Tsar Nicholas II from the son of Tsarevich Alexy, allegedly miraculously saved by members of the Order of Malta.

In fact, the “emperor” turned out to be a sergeant of the Soviet Army, Dalsky, who was posing as a rear admiral. On December 19, 1996, in the Moscow region, in the presence of members of the movement “Our Home is Russia,” three “priests of the Kiev Patriarchate” (that is, Philaret’s members), among whom was “Metropolitan Raphael,” “crowned and anointed as king” “Sovereign Nicholas III” and his wife his Natalia Evgenievna Kovalenko. From the interview with the “emperor” (“Ogonyok”, January 27, 1997, No. 4) it is known that he “with his first Manifesto abolished the existing Church as “Soviet and illegitimate,” and united all the Churches of the former Soviet Union into one.” After the creation of the “Orthodox Russian Church” in 2004, the seat of which is the “Orthodox Church of the Archangel Raphael,” they began to more carefully disguise themselves as Orthodoxy. Outwardly, the service is practically no different from the Orthodox one. Orthodox icons and crosses made by Sofrinsky, prayer books from Orthodox publishing houses are for sale. This emphasized adherence to form is necessary in order to “ennoble” what happens after the service. According to the “temple” attendant, every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday immediately after the “service”, at 10:15 a.m. “Treatment sessions” are held with “Vladyka Raphael,” to which about 50 people gather by appointment. The “temple” sells a book about the “healing charisma of the ruler” - “Acquisitors of the Holy Spirit.” The photograph of the bishop printed in the book is suggested to be “applied to sore spots”, and also to “talk to the bishop through the photograph.” Methodology of the “Raphaelites” The “Raphaelites” are increasingly trying to infiltrate the Russian Orthodox Church, recruiting unstable and dissatisfied people in various ways. They act very thoughtfully, looking for points of discontent among some Orthodox Christians. The methods of “recruitment” are as follows: Accept everything that the Orthodox Church has rejected 1. In the village of Denezhnikovo, Ramensky district, Moscow region, in the “St. John the Baptist Monastery” being built on the site of the former pioneer camp, in the summer of 2004, a “temple in honor of the icon” was built and “consecrated” of the Most Holy Theotokos, Resurrecting Rus'” - a report about this was placed in No. 7 of the newspaper “Local Council”, published by the “Orthodox Russian Church”. Occult details of the vision that formed the basis of this dubious image are also published here. It is possible that the magazine “Resurrecting Rus'”, published on behalf of the Orthodox of Nizhny Novgorod, is published under the patronage of the Orthodox Church and in Nizhny Novgorod the “Raphaelites” have their own “diocese”. This subversive magazine is widely distributed at Orthodox exhibitions and fairs. It is said that “the Synod did not BLESS the children of the Orthodox Church to take an INN, as it demeans the dignity of a person’s name. Having also considered the issue of issuing Passports of the Russian Federation (new sample), the Holy Synod did NOT BLESS the children of the Orthodox Church to take passports of the new sample. Particular attention to the “ownerless” North Caucasus and Abkhazia, where 5 dioceses have been created.

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Catacomb Church

- True Orthodox communities that existed illegally in the USSR until the end of the 1980s. When in the 1930s it became clear that the Soviet government was determined to destroy the Orthodox Church (and Sergius essentially helped it in this with his Declaration, which divided believers on the basis of loyalty to the authorities), many church leaders of the TOC began to talk about the need to switch to the underground, catacomb position, that is, not to register parishes (after the 30s, such registration was, in principle, no longer possible) and to perform divine services secretly in apartments, in private houses, in the forest. Such communities were usually formed around priests and monastics. Confessions were often transmitted to the confessor in writing, and the Holy Gifts were transported by believers over long distances. Often the catacomb workers did not want to have any relations with the communist state - neither to work in a Soviet job, nor to serve in the army, nor to receive a Soviet passport. The persecution of catacomb workers continued until perestroika.

Memoirs of catacomb Christian women who went through prisons and camps.
Catacomb priests: Amphilochius (Furs), Tikhon (Zorin), Claudius (Savinsky), Anthony (Zheretienko), peasant Ivan Ruchin.

What Orthodox churches are there now in Russia?

CPI in Russia:

The revolution of 1917 split the Russian Orthodox Church into several parts, of which three were the most significant:

The official church that decided to cooperate with the Soviet government (since 1943 - the Moscow Patriarchate);

Catacomb Church in the USSR;

The Church Abroad (ROCOR), which arose outside of Russia and united most of the emigration.

As a result, in Russia there was not one Orthodoxy, but several:

The official church is the Moscow Patriarchate (ROC MP);

Church groups that have succession from the ROCOR, the Catacomb Church or the Greek Old Calendarists. Their common name is True Orthodox Churches (TOC).

All other Orthodox church groups, to varying degrees, have aligned themselves with the Russian Orthodox Church MP or the Orthodox Church.

Catalog of ROCOR fragments

We present a list of fragments of the ROCOR in Russia in the order of their occurrence.

1995 The ROAC (Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church, formerly called the Russian Orthodox Free Church) separated from the ROCOR. Its administrative center is located in Suzdal. The head is Metropolitan Theodore (Gineevsky). After the death of its founder, Metropolitan Valentin (Rusantsov), in 2012, this church is gradually fading away.

year 2001. The official turn of the ROCOR towards the ROC MP. The result was the collapse of ROCOR into ROCOR(L) and ROCOR(V). The first was headed by Metropolitan Laurus (Shkurla), who later took this fragment to the Moscow Patriarchate. Metropolitan Vitaly (Ustinov) remained at the head of the second. ROCOR(V) subsequently formed many new fragments, which will be discussed below.

2002 The RTOC (Russian True Orthodox Church) separated from the ROCOR(V). Now it is nominally headed by Archbishop Tikhon (Pasechnik) of Omsk, but in fact all decisions are made by Protopresbyter Viktor Melekhov. After changing more than one jurisdiction, he managed to head the church leadership in RTOC. The RTOC center is located in Dimitrov, near Moscow; the resolutions of the Synods of this church cannot be found in the public domain. Interaction with this fragment is difficult.

July 2006. ROCOR(V) was divided into ROCOR(V-V) and RosOC (Russian Orthodox Church). The head of the ROCOR(V-V) (which, according to tradition, often continues to be called ROCOR(V)) is now Bishop Vladimir (Tselishchev). Its center has shifted from the USA, where Bishop Vladimir lives, to Kyiv - to the commercially successful and active Bishop Alexy (Pergamentsev). As for RosPTs, it was divided into several parts, which will be discussed below.

November 2006. Archpriest Veniamin (Zhukov) separated from ROCOR(V-V) and took Bishop Anthony (Rudey) with him. With this bishop, he independently ordained more bishops for himself, forming a very small ROCOR(V-J). Its center is in Paris, where Father Veniamin (Zhukov) lives, but due to the individual consecration, the canonicity of this fragment is highly doubtful.

May 2007. ROCOR(L) entered the ROC MP, becoming the ROCOR MP. At the same time, Bishop Agafangel (Pashkovsky) separated from her. With the help of the Greek Cyprianites, he ordained other bishops and formed the ROCOR(A). The Cyprianites occupy an intermediate position between the TOC and the MP, and the ROCOR(A) itself unofficially allows communion in the ROC MP, so this church can hardly be classified as True Orthodox. Its center is in Odessa, where Metropolitan Agathangel lives.

June 2007. RosPTs was divided into two parts. The first of them, RosOC(A), is headed by Metropolitan Anthony (Orlov), who lives in the United States. In this group it is considered normal to sympathize with Hitler; some clerics seriously share his teachings. The second part is called RosPTs(D); it is headed by Metropolitan Damaskin (Balabanov), he adheres to strictly monarchical views and openly advocates in defense of imameslaviya.

November 2008. On the basis of the ROAC, the Bishops' Conference (AS ROAC) was formed, which was not recognized in the Suzdal ROAC. Its chairman is Bishop Gregory (Lurie), the center is distributed between St. Petersburg and Myatlevo, Kaluga region. The ROAC AS recognizes the sacraments of all other fragments of the ROCOR that profess the right faith. In June 2021, the AS ROAC and RosPTs(D) officially established mutual communication.

December 2009. Archbishop Victor (Pivovarov) separated from RosOC(A), forming a small RosOC(V) with its center in Slavyansk-on-Kuban. He remains the only bishop of his fragment. Bishop Victor writes many articles on church and political topics, is interested in aliens and suffers from the fact that his enemies regularly irradiate him from different corners of the room.

December 2014. A group led by the Alferov brothers - Bishop Dionysius and priest Timothy - separated from ROCOR(A). This is how ROCOR(A-D) was formed. The reasons for secession are related to politics. The ideas of Cyprianism, that is, the so-called middle path between ecumenism and Orthodoxy, are widespread in this church.

October 2015. ROCOR(V-V) split into three parts at once. Bishop Anastasy (Surzhik) separated from the core of ROCOR(V-V), who remained autonomous (he can be designated as ROCOR(VVA)), and the group of Bishop Martin (Lapkovsky). She chose the Australian Metropolitan Philaret (Semovsky) as her first hierarch, forming the ROCOR (VVF). This is a small and very politicized group, some of its leaders profess name-wrestling. Their center is located in the Istra district of the Moscow region.

November 2015. Bishop Stefan (Sabelnik), living in the USA, interrupted his administrative subordination to the RTOC Synod and, together with his diocese, moved to an acephalous position. In March 2016, approximately half of the RTOC clergy came under his omophorion. By analogy with other groups, we can call them by the first letter of the bishop’s name - RTOC (S).

June 2021. A schism began in ROCOR(A). The American Archbishop Andronik (Kotlyarov), who is supported by Archbishop Sophrony (Musienko) from the Novgorod region, separates from her. Perhaps we will soon hear about the emergence of the ROCOR(AA).

Some other church groups in Russia

In addition to the fragments of the ROCOR, there are other, even smaller TOC and church groups in Russia.

— HOCNA — Orthodox Church in North America, centered in Boston. This church officially practices name-glorification and historically has a strong connection with the Greek Old Calendarists. In Russia, HOCNA has two small parishes without priests.

— Several groups of Greek Old Calendarists, minimally represented in Russia. The most famous of them: the Chrysostomian synod (name-wrestlers), the Lamian synod, two different groups of Matthewites.

— The TOC(R) is a large motley group under the leadership of Metropolitan Raphael.

— Ecumenical and renovationist church groups: AOC (Apostolic Orthodox Church), UAOC(o) (Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (renewed)), etc. Among the famous figures they include Radio Liberty journalist Father Yakov Krotov and historian Lev Regelson, and previously belonged to Fr. Gleb Yakunin and Valeria Novodvorskaya.

So what is next?

Will the fragments of ROCOR continue to crumble? If only a little. It seems that the crushing process is reaching its limit. People are tired of the unnecessary war and no longer remember well why Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich quarreled. Now the convergence of some fragments united in the faith has begun. In July 2021, communication was established between RosPTs(D) and AS ROAC. Other rapprochement talks are underway. You can simply recognize each other's sacraments, without creating a common Synod. If a fragment of ROCOR considers itself the truest, without recognizing others, then it is unlikely to survive in one or two generations.

Prepared by nun Ksenia (Mitrenina) for the Islands

ostrova.org

Josephites

This is how they began to call the true Orthodox Christians who united around Joseph (Petrov), Metropolitan of Petrograd. In 1928, Joseph signed an act of resignation from Metropolitan Sergius and, in response, was banned from serving by him. The very next year, Joseph was arrested and deported to Kazakhstan, where he remained until his martyrdom in 1937. The Josephites recognized Joseph and those who were in Eucharistic communion with him as their bishops, believing that the Sergians had fallen away from the Church and therefore continue to be with Sergius in one church organization is impossible. Various true Orthodox groups were also called Buevtsi (after the surname of Bishop Alexy Bui) and Viktorovtsy (named after Bishop Viktor Ostrovidov of Glazov). These groups were in ecclesiastical communion with each other and with other Josephite parishes through their bishops.

Basic information about the Josephite movement was collected in the study of M. V. Shkarovsky.
New Martyr Anatoly Zhurakovsky: Sermons of a Josephite Priest in Kyiv.

True Orthodox Church

“I know your works, and that you live where the throne of Satan is, and that you uphold My name, and did not deny My faith even in those days in which My faithful witness was killed among you, where Satan lives... Fear nothing, what you will have to endure” (Rev. 2:10,13).

Dedication to the Mother of God
Cathedral dedication to the Cross

Dedication to the Mother of God

“A peculiar form of resistance to the atheistic authorities in Russian Orthodoxy was the so-called catacomb movement or the True Orthodox Church (TOC). Having declined significantly in numbers in the first post-war decade, this movement began to grow again in the mid-1950s. Hundreds of its participants were released from the camps, and the reports of the KGB, party and government agencies were again full of information about the illegal activities of the True Orthodox.

...In the early 1960s. The catacomb movement received a new impetus for development. When, as a result of persecution and the closure of a mass of churches, thousands of priests were left without places and registration, most of them did not renounce their priesthood, but continued to serve the spiritual needs of believers secretly from the civil authorities. Thus, Schema-Metropolitan Gennady (Sekach), from whom the most numerous catacomb hierarchy comes, was a patriarchal priest until 1962. But he was expelled from the parish and began to serve illegally. The authorities responded to the revival of the activities of the True Orthodox with a new campaign against them.

...But the Katamb movement was not crushed.” (M.V. Shkarovsky “The Russian Orthodox Church and the Soviet State in 1943-1964. From the “truce” to a new war”, scientific editor Iofe V.V., St. Petersburg, 1995, publishing house “DEAN+ADIA-M” ", p.90-91).

* * *

Archbishop John: “The Russian Transfiguration of the Cross is the appearance of the Most Pure Virgin to the sovereign in March 1917, the night before the abdication of Nicholas II from the throne. On the same day and hour, the miraculous “Sovereign” icon was opened in Moscow.

The Royal Virgin, having accepted the crown of the imperial court from the hands of the Tsar, delighted her to the thrones on high and with her all the righteous Russians. Having been crowned with the royal crown from the hands of the sovereign, the Mother of Holy Rus' accepted the co-redemptive Cross, ascending after the Lord to the Russian Golgotha in the person of Her Church, in the person of the martyr Tsar and his slandered and tortured family, the warriors of the White movement and all the righteous who made sacrifices for Russia.

When and how did Metropolitan Agafangel (Yaroslavsky) or Bishop Peter (Polyansky) serve as locum tenens?.. Is it really that important? Is it so important to remember minor milestones? In thirty years, World War II and even the Gulag will be erased from the memory of posterity. They will be a heavy prisoner number - historical information, historical past... Other dates will be highlighted in the memory of our children. And two reassignments:

I. March 1917. Abdication of the Emperor in favor of Grand Duke Mikhail. The last emperor does not desert the throne, as anti-monarchical propaganda imagines, but is deprived of the opportunity to take power by the conspirators - and Tsar Nicholas II sacrificially entrusts the imperial crown to the Mother of God, during the revelation . The miraculous “Sovereign” icon is unveiled in Kolomenskoye.

II. Patriarch Tikhon, three days before his death, entrusts the Church to the Sovereign Mother of God . She to whom the king-confessor entrusted the crown - the Mother of God. “Mistress of Heaven, I entrust the Church to You. You arrange it. Help me!..”

The agreement with the Bolsheviks led to collapse. All around there are arrested priests, the Red Terror, confiscated utensils, persecuted bishops, insolent renovationists. The Patriarch admits his guilt. It was necessary to begin with deep church-wide repentance, with the acceptance of the cross of witness and martyrdom

.
It is not agreement with the atheists and persecutors of the faith (renovationists) and not bitterness and cursing of enemies (Josephites, Andreevites, etc.), but witness martyrdom in repentant, prayerful standing before the Cross will save Russia from now on. But who will take upon himself the crown of martyrdom as the head of a different
Church, for the first time in a thousand years not Byzantine?..

Patriarch Tikhon did not find a single worthy candidate among his entourage. We will have to give up regalia, distinctions, parishes, income... The Church will bear the cross in order to bloom with golden branches to the sky. The patriarch's choice falls on the priest Seraphim Pozdeev, who was ordained by him in 1917 (shortly after the emperor's abdication of the throne). The most faithful, closest and reliable. This one will receive the crown of martyrdom. Neither torture nor interrogation will break him. Death will win - and the Church will survive.

An unheard of event in the history of Russia! The Byzantine Symphony is falling apart before our eyes. Not from the outside, disrupted by the communists (as superficial researchers believe) - from within itself. Both princes, both sides of the symphony - secular and ecclesiastical, break the agreement.

Emperor Nicholas was the first to renounce the autocratic model in favor of the Lady of Heaven. The symphony, or the commonwealth of the Patriarch with the Tsar (a pinched theocracy without the guiding hand of God), passes into Her theocracy (the Sovereign icon, unveiled in Kolomenskoye on the night of the abdication of Emperor Nicholas). The king is now named and determined. In the house of Her inheritance, the Lady of Heaven has become King! But where is the patriarch? Where is the prophet? Golden Triangle stretched over the Russian sky? And the Most Holy Virgin becomes the Queen, High Priest and First Prophetess of Holy Rus'. She took full power upon herself.

The last Russian patriarch consciously renounces the state-political, institutional model that arose in the 4th century. He renounces the symphony, which in those conditions meant a direct covenant with the atheistic government. And he advocates confession and martyrdom. The Byzantine emperor Justinian, the author of a symphonic project for the ages, did not expect it. The prophets of Moscow as the third Rome did not foresee such a sad ending to the history of the double-headed eagle. Both heads dropped. But a third mighty eagle will fly out of it, flap its wings and carry the Woman Clothed in the Sun into the desert (Rev. Chapter 12).

The cross linked old and new Orthodoxy... The omophorion of St. Gregory Palamas with crosses clothed the truly Orthodox desert dwellers, prayer books, hermits, the righteous, prophets, elders, wanderers, seers... - a host, a cloud of God's witnesses. And the Solovetsky bishops, going to witness and holding in their hands the confessional cross of the bride of Christ, heard: “Some of those standing here will not taste death...”.

There, on Solovki (where there was external dishonor of the Divine and the defeat of the church), the Kingdom of God was revealed, revealed in the fiery power of the cross!” (As a manuscript. Archbishop John “Seraphim the Myrrh-Streaming - Patriarch of the TOC”, M., 2000)

Cathedral dedication to the Cross

Archbishop John: “What were Solovki needed for?.. They were preparing the Church for the third millennium. Neither the church nor the world were ready to enter the 21st century. The great elders and mentors, the prophets of Holy Rus' - Seraphim of Sarov, John of Kronstadt, Innocent of Balta and many other lamps of true Orthodoxy were rejected. And the Lord chose the last resort...

The world, torn apart by wars, mired in sin, in monstrous deceptions, was transformed by the great sacrifice. The Solovetsky cross took upon itself the sins of all mankind for 2 millennia of the era of Christ. By the power of the Solovetsky Golgotha, disasters are postponed and will ultimately be defeated. Our fathers made a sacrifice on Solovki. They will become apostles and stand at the 12 gates of Jerusalem on high.

The secret of the Solovki is that 100 meters above them in the spirit stood Kitezh-grad: the Cathedral of Holy Rus'. All Russian saints were located above the capital of the Gulag. (Our Bishop Seraphim Pozdeev and his fellow-hidden brothers saw this). From the High City, the second Russian Golgotha, John Chrysostom descended and brought a cup, Archangel Raphael served miraculous oils, the Blessed Virgin was transfigured in two hundred images of the heavenly iconostasis, the Lord came to the liturgy...

Spaces merged as martyrdoms were performed and the miracles of ancient lives were repeated. The blood of the righteous flowed in rivers on earth - and the throne of the High Father was revealed.

Holy Rus' on Solovki, in the Gulag, through the exploits of millions, petitioned for the beginning of a new life and light from the East, which would come from Russia, from Solovki.

From the first Golgotha, in Jerusalem, the Church of Christ was born, existing for 2 thousand years. From the second Golgotha, Solovetsky, all-Russian and worldwide, the third millennium, the Holy Spirit, was announced. Just as from Jerusalem the Second Coming of the Lord and the resurrection of the dead, so from Solovki - the appearance of the Lady of Heaven and the glory of the Life-giving Cross, the revelation of the Holy Spirit.

The All-Russian and all-human Solovetsky Golgotha glorified the Lord and raised the Church to unprecedented heights. In the most severe persecutions of the 20th century, the all-Russian and all-church cup of sin was lightened. Now we are entering a new era - the revealed, conciliar testimony of the righteous under the Protection of the Sovereign Woman Clothed in the Sun (Rev. Chapter 12) and the Council of Saints.

* * *

The spiritual difference of the Solovetsky Shining Branch of the TOC is not so much external, social, but mystical - dedication to the Cross. Conciliar dedication to the Cross of Christ on Solovki, in the Gulag camps. The Church passed through the forty-day wilderness of the Lord and learned the mysteries of His Way of the Cross. And today he instructs us from the Kingdom about the Cross.

It is impossible to immediately enter into this secret. And although there were outbreaks of sudden dedication (martyrdom), these are isolated cases of the distant past. In general, all of humanity are disciples of the Cross.

The uniqueness of Russian history: dedication to the Cross. One church branch, the Josephites, became hardened. Renovationist (“Living Church”) - has finally exhausted its potential, having entered into a covenant with the atheists. The other, non-covetous, confessor, followed the Lord going to Calvary - and for many years was dedicated to the life-giving sacrament of the Cross.

The Orthodox cathedral shone on Solovki. The Lady of Heaven herself convened him.

There were transfigured bishops in this cathedral. Their iconographic faces shone. The triumphant Church was revealed to the hidden witnesses of the truth: the wise elders came and instructed. The martyrs of Christ and the universal teachers, the blessed and the holy fools, revealed themselves and strengthened the faithful. The Solovetsky lambs formed their own Cathedral. And some inherited the bishop's rod, some the grace of the holy fool... Those who knew the prayer of the Catacomb Church ascending to heaven in the Solovetsky earthly hell remembered it forever.

Betrayed by the institutionalist renovationists, tormented by the atheists, the Holy Church survived and won. No more than a quarter of the secret prayer houses were discovered by the security officers. Although a special department was working to search for “Tikhonov’s counter-revolutionaries,” the Lord protected His beloved. Security officers, following a denunciation, sometimes came to the secret monastery and left with nothing, not noticing the hidden ascetics praying behind the door, lined with a chest of drawers. And that quarter that was discovered and suffered martyrdom—honor and glory to it! They did even more for the Orthodox faith.

Alas, to this day the hypnosis prevails, as if no “other” church, besides the Byzantine-Symphonic one, existed in Holy Rus', and no other Orthodoxy is possible. But no matter how much the oprichnina Malyuta Skuratovs strangle Metropolitan Philip, the blessed branch flourishes. And from Anthony and Theodosius of the Kiev-Pechersk, Sergius of Radonezh, the founders of Russian non-covetous monasticism, the crowns pass to Nil Sorsky and his associates, and from them to the last elders of the new monasticism, Solovetsky.

Our Lady of Zeytun appeared on the outskirts of Cairo in 1960. And above Solovki it stood in 1935, above the dull barracks, 25 years before the appearance in Egypt. And the Solovetsky confessors saw Her in night prayer. Our Lady revealed to our fathers Her mission for the Church of the future. In wondrous admiration, the tormented prisoners contemplated the canvases of the transfiguration, the pillar of fire walking across the sky, the mysterious movements of the angels, as if the Church was already making its last exodus into the heavenly spheres for the coming Kingdom of Christ. This pillar separated from Solovki and walked along the sea to the center of Russia.

The great promise of the saints was fulfilled over the confessors, great martyrs and passion-bearers of the Gulag: “And as you have kept the word of My patience, I also will keep you from the hour of temptation...” (Rev. 3:10).

The mission and co-redemptive service of Holy Rus', the great cover of the Council of Russian New Martyrs will still be revealed to humanity - in the days of coming apocalyptic cataclysms and pan-human epiphanies.

* * *

The Gulag is not a camp just for prisoners. GULAG - and initiation into the great schema and more. No one has ever dared to teach about him spiritually. No one has yet justified God for allowing the Gulag. One thing is to point to the death camp as a punishment from God, and the other is to see the goodness of God, glorify it, like Job. For those for whom “the mysterious return is indicated” - for the second term of service in the spirit (V. Ivanov).

If there was a conversion, it was not even from the touch of Moses—an angel’s rod. How the prophet Moses drew water from a mountain - an angel touched the heart of prisoner named 3031, 25 years in prison, article 58-b, or - 15, Dmitry camp and execution. What power of conversion! Only archangels can convert in this way. Without baptism and the Gospel. What kind of “Philokalia” is there? They didn't know the evangelists. Mark was not distinguished from John. And they were honored with the secret of the great schema. No church sacraments, no anointings, no smoking incense... Only the Life-Giving Cross. This is the face of the Gulag Church. And below, at the foot, there are sheep on the right, “goats” on the left...

Pharisaism has brought external ritual belief to the point of absurdity. Theology has staked out the task of justifying the deal, of blessing the seared conscience. And so, the Lord led the bishops through the second baptism, the second anointing, already at the Royal Doors of the heavenly Iconostasis, crowned with His Cross. Fat, loud, revered by the world, they became like six-month-old babies. The church performed its bringing into the temple. Was it really the Woman Clothed in the Sun who brought the Divine Infant to the temple, born of Her, when almost the full number of church shepherds (initially 5, 10, 70, then, with the increase of Stalinist repressions, finally 100, 150 bishops) were passed through Solovetsky Monastery?..

The Gulag was adorned with the crown of the bride of the Lamb. I was disheartened like no other monastery. Is it comparable to Kiev-Pecherskaya. It is not for nothing that in his prayers Seraphim of Solovetsky (the second solar, after Seraphim of Sarov), mentioned Anthony and Theodosius, the forerunners of his thousands of years ago. On Solovki, in the martyrdom of thousands and thousands, in the cold of the coffins, among the hosts of raised hands, the new Kiev Pechersk Lavra shone.

The monks tried to observe three vows in the world: poverty, obedience and virginity. At the beginning of the twentieth century, they did not dare to talk about the highest levels: silence, unceasing prayer, contemplation... Nilov’s non-covetous branch was cut off by the horrors of the Josephite barracks - the Lord gave internal conversion. The cross brought into the interior, even without memory, verses and consecrated oil.

What appeals! And what tonsures... What a vow of poverty - to spend 20 years in the same rotten rags. What a fast to spend at least six months on a “kulag”: a glass of hot water and two spoons of dirty flour a day. What obedience to the Father Superior of the Holy Spirit! Tolerate, be silent and come to terms with everything. If you try to rebel, you will disappear, as if you never existed. Who will remember?

What supernatural power of monasticism! Who courageously accepted the truth about non-return, who did not indulge in vanities, did not flirt with the Reds by participating in the zak newspaper “Perekovka”, did not strive, like Lada Mogilyanskaya or the former futurist Igor Terentyev, two months before the execution, to become candidates for membership in the Writers' Union; those who did not work for three people in order to “cut off” their sentence, and then receive a bullet in the second term - for those, the worldly things, dilapidated before their eyes, melted away like Balzac’s shagreen skin.

No earthly hopes. No hopes. Only the Lord.

What in the world was extinguished by decades of prayer, the fight against sin, fornication, pride, on Solovki, from a convert in just three months, a Sarov schema-monk or an Optina elder turned. How difficult it is to become a virgin in a monastery! And here are the laity. Are we talking about monasteries? Despicable prisoners, “heretics”, Tikhonites... They were tonsured into virginity by the First Abbess of the heavenly cities herself.

O Mother High Priest, Mother Superior! In the silence of the night You initiated into the great schema of the Gulag, surpassing Athos. O Mother Distributor of gifts and gracious mercies, who opened in 1830 in the Parisian chapel on the Rue de Bac! From the heavenly treasuries, You distributed how many angelic candles to send for the secret liturgy to Bishop Seraphim in the eighth barrack, which is a hundred meters from the Vokhrov smoky hut.

Oh, this wise providence of the Holy Spirit - to free the church from inquisition and parasitism. Work continually, schemamonk of Solovetsky in tattered rags. 21 hours a day masonry work with Jesus. It's okay that he looks like a skeleton and is breathing his last. The angel strengthens. God is stronger than His enemies! With this faith we won.

Whose kingdom was in the Gulag, it is unknown - God or the devil... “Someone” was the head of the Gulag... The Great Solovetsky Schema raised to the level of struggle against the three eternal enemies of man: death, fear (the enemy clung to him) and illness (the consequence of sin). It was impossible to defeat them in the world. And on Solovki, 30 thousand were crowned with pearls. And the myrrh flow from more than five hundred relics still sanctifies the earth and the sea, and everything in them. The hellish criminal atmosphere of the Gulag is filled with the fragrance of incorruptible relics.

Here is the Solovetsky olive branch. Here is the Church, washed from the inside. Here is the victorious branch of Nilov!

God is strong in sweeping away Josephiteism, which ruled the Russian Church for 500 years. Powerful to send saints. It is strong to give the Woman Clothed in the Sun as the Savior of Russia. He is strong to proclaim His glory and create a great power from the “state of orphans and widows.” Holy Rus' will rise from the Gulag, no matter how absurd it may sound. From the Gulag a great transformation will begin. From the land, watered with the blood of holy fathers and mothers, coughed up, martyred, monastic, unknown...

This is the illuminated altar in the death camps! And what was not achieved in the world, on Solovki was accomplished with a sudden illumination from a life-giving rod in the hands of a mysterious young man, a wonderful messenger from the Kingdom.

Who will say about Solovki as the highest spiritual school? Even if one in a hundred converted, how many great mourners, how many martyrs in bright robes shone! How many relics have given, like pearls for the Russian land! How many crowns has the Church been adorned with!.. Oh, this incessant, dull Golgotha MOAN... And no matter what the Vokhrovites did with this abode of angels, it remained a laurel, and moreover, a bride of the Bridal Chamber. The place of the appearance of the third tabernacle, the wedding bed of Christ, the magnificent palace, the greatest glory.

Two thousand years ago, the Lord from the Cross of Jerusalem turned His gaze to the world's Solovki, foreseeing the next crucifixion in time in the person of His Church - for Holy Rus' and the world. The Church of Christ arose on the witness blood of the early Christian martyrs. Through the feat of the cross of the Council of New Martyrs, the co-redemptive deeds of all the righteous souls of humanity, the New Holy Rus' was reborn in an atheistic country, in a spiritual desert.

For some reason, people still remember only the testimonies of the faith of the early Christians, tormented by the persecutors of the faith. Solovki gave no less crowns of martyrdom than Roman courts. Who will know about them?.. Who will accept and inherit the grace of the saints?..

One of Satan's arguments is the obscurity of martyrdom. “No one will ever know about your suffering, you are suffering in vain, no one will follow you,” the enemy of the human race inspires, trying to enslave the soul through fear and attachment to earthly life. “The Lord will glorify,” the angels from the rebirth answer, “and will grant a second term after His descent in the thousand-year kingdom with the saints.” The names of the righteous are forever engraved in the book of Holy Rus' in heaven.

Glory to you, faithful of Christ, who defeated the bloody state of the Gulag, who rejected the false promises of the spirit of the world! Kitezh-city will come down to earth with your sorrows, your great deeds …

Official website of the Centralized religious organization Orthodox Church of the Mother of God Sovereign 18+

From 1982 to 1991 - Catacomb Church. In 1991, a voluntary public association was registered in Moscow - the public and charitable educational foundation “Virgin Center”, which in 1993 was renamed the “New Holy Rus'” foundation and ceased to operate in 1999. In 1992, the voluntary religious association “Community of the Church of the Transfigurating Mother of God” was registered in Moscow. According to the requirements of the Federal Law of the Russian Federation on freedom of conscience and on religious associations adopted in 1997, it was renamed and operates to this day as “Local religious organization - Community of the Orthodox Church of the Mother of God Sovereign in Moscow”, OGRN 1037700054094. 02/04/1997. The Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation registered the voluntary religious association Orthodox Church of the Mother of God Derzhavnaya, registration certificate N388, OGRN 1025000003621 10.30.2002 in accordance with the requirements of the law, approved the name Centralized religious organization Orthodox Church of the Mother of God Derzhavnaya.

You can write to us: mail @ avemaria. ru

(without spaces)

Unremembering

Part of the church opposition to Mother Sergius, whose representatives reacted negatively to the Declaration and stopped remembering Sergius during divine services as their first hierarch, but did not separate from his church and build their own independent church structure, as the Josephites did. Those who did not remember had full communion in the sacraments with the Sergians, therefore for the True Orthodox they themselves were Sergians. Famous people who do not remember include, for example, priest Sergius Mechev, who suffered from the Bolsheviks and was shot in 1941, and Bishop Afanasy (Sakharov). After the creation of the Moscow Patriarchate in 1943, most of those who did not remember reunited with the official Sergian Church.

Person of the Russian Federation

The True Orthodox Church (abbreviated as TOC) is a self-name (or part of a self-name) of a number of non-canonical jurisdictions that profess Orthodoxy, but oppose themselves to the Orthodox churches and are not in Eucharistic communion with them and, as a rule, with each other. (Kotlyarov) (in the world Kotlyarov Vladimir Savvich)

"Themes"

Tandem “Putin-Medvedev”, “Religious Organizations of the Russian Federation”

Metropolitan Raphael (Motovilov Leonid Semenovich) - Primate of the True Orthodox Church.

"Episcopate "True Orthodox Church""

1. Bishop Ioannikiy 2. Bishop Vitaly 3. Bishop Ambrose 4. Bishop Vsevolod 5. Bishop Savva 6. Bishop Alexander 7. Bishop Jacob (Brazil)

Official website: https://www.ipckatakomb.ru/

"News"

The rector of the Moscow church of the Orthodox Church (R) on Radio Street, Mitred Archpriest Georgy Maksimov, has died

A long-time cleric of the Church in the name of the Holy Archangel Raphael on Radio Street in Moscow (True Orthodox Church - Synod of Metropolitan Raphael (TOC(R))), mitred Archpriest Georgy Maximov died on the morning of December 4 after a serious and long illness, reports the information blog of the TOC(R) . link: https://www.portal-credo.ru/site/?act=news&id=97219&cf= INTERVIEW: Primate of the True Orthodox Church (Synod of Metropolitan Raphael - TOC(R)) Archbishop of Moscow, Metropolitan of All-Russia RAPHAEL (Motovilov) o scandals surrounding the Russian Orthodox Church MP and the only way out for Russian Orthodoxy

Vladyka Raphael, you are observing the crisis in the Russian Orthodox Church MP from the outside, but still more in on the topic than we, the worldly ones. Is everything really so neglected that it was necessary to hold a prayer service of many thousands for the sake of rehabilitating the “honorable name of the Church”? link: https://www.portal-credo.ru/site/?act=news&id=92166 The Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation is conducting a comprehensive audit of the activities of the True Orthodox Church (Synod of Metropolitan Raphael)

The order “On conducting a planned documentary inspection of the religious organization “Centralized religious organization True Orthodox Church”” was signed in mid-February by the First Deputy Minister of Justice of the Russian Federation A.V. Fedorov. The correspondent of “Portal-Credo.Ru” was introduced to this order and the text of the response to it at the Synod of the True Orthodox Church (under the omophorion of Metropolitan Raphael (Motovilov) - TOC (R)) on March 2. link: https://www.portal-credo.ru/site/?act=news&id=90403

Former brethren and co-servants of “Metropolitan of Moscow” Raphael (Prokopyev-Motovilov)

On July 13, 2011, the non-canonical religious community “True Orthodox Church” under the jurisdiction of “Metropolitan of Moscow” Raphael (Prokopiev) - TOC (R) - entered into liturgical communion with three foreign schismatic groups. link: https://www.anti-raskol.ru/pages/1863

The Synod of the True Orthodox Church adopted as a basis the “Regulations on the Bishops’ Conference of Ukrainian Eminences”

The next meeting of the Holy Synod of the True Orthodox Church, chaired by Metropolitan Raphael (Motovilov) (TOC(R)), took place on September 5 in the Moscow Synodal House of this Church. According to the correspondent of "Portal-Credo.Ru", in addition to Metropolitan Raphael, the meeting was attended by Metropolitan of Montenegro, Exarch of the Balkans Sergius (Moiseenko), Metropolitan of Vladimir and Orekhovo-Zuevsky Sergius (Sarkisov), Metropolitan of Kiev and Galicia Andrey (Tregub), Metropolitan Korsunsky Evgeniy (Starostin), Archbishop of Kuban and Don Alexy (Boiko), Archbishop of St. Petersburg and Veliky Novgorod John (Abramenko) and Bishop of Budva Daniil (Mogutnov). link: https://www.religion.in.ua/news/ukrainian

The Synod of the True Orthodox Church established the Ukrainian Exarchate

The next meeting of the Holy Synod of the True Orthodox Church (Synod of Metropolitan Raphael - TOC(R)) was held on June 6 in Moscow under the chairmanship of the Archbishop of Moscow, Metropolitan of All-Russia Raphael (Motovilov), reports "Religion in Ukraine" with reference to Portal-сredo. link: https://www.religion.in.ua

Updaters

They were also called the “Zhivotserkovniki” or Living Church, a church movement that was elevated to the status of the official Orthodox Church by the Bolsheviks in the 1920s to split and weaken Russian Orthodoxy. The Renovationists created the Supreme Church Administration (HCU), and in 1922 it was recognized as the only canonical church authority by three bishops (one of them was Metropolitan Sergius of Stragorod). At the same time, from the point of view of the church, the renovationists constantly violated the canons and in fact separated themselves from the Church.

The Renovationist schism was opposed by Patriarch Tikhon, for which he and his followers, the “Tikhonites,” began to be persecuted by the authorities. Then the Soviet government became disillusioned with the renovation project as a tool for subjugating the Orthodox Church and took a different path - including the “Tikhon’s” church itself into the state machine. At this stage, the authorities first tried to force Patriarch Tikhon to cooperate and speak to believers in support of the communist state. Tikhon truly enjoyed unconditional authority - having become the first patriarch after the two-hundred-year synodal period, he was, from the moment of his election in 1918, a symbol of freedom and the revival of the Russian Church in the 20th century. Patriarch Tikhon did not agree to a compromise with the communists, but after his death in 1925 they found a more accommodating candidate in Metropolitan Sergius.

Where is the true Church?

Professor Alexey Ilyich Osipov.

The main problem that we all face now and from which we will not go anywhere is the question of the direction of development of modern Christianity. Throughout history, two tendencies have been fighting in him. One is the sanctifying world, the other is the secularizing Church. This struggle is going on with varying success, and if we proceed from the revelation of God, from the words of the Savior himself, then, sad as it is, we should expect victory for the second of them. “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth”

?
(Luke 18:8) True, we often repeat something else: “I will build My Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it
. (Matthew 16:18) But let’s not forget that we are not talking about the external structure of the Church (council-synod-patriarch-bishops-priests-deacons and so on). The Church is not just a society of believers. It is the unity in the Holy Spirit of those Christians who strive to live according to the commandments of Christ. It is in this sense that she is the Body of Christ, the living organism of Christ, which is invincible. And structures, management, institutions, etc. are only a necessary form of existence of the Church in this world under certain historical conditions. The form, of course, may change somewhat. So, as history shows, believers who see the Gospel as the focus of their lives are becoming fewer and fewer.

The concept of " secularization"

“(in pre-revolutionary spelling this word was written with i) is now acquiring extraordinary relevance: it very accurately characterizes the state and the main trend in the development of modern Christianity.
The meaning of this concept is revealed by the words of the Apostle John the Theologian: “Everything that is in the world: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not from the Father, but from this world”
(1 John 2:16). Worldliness has captured all confessions without exception. It manifests itself especially strongly in Western Christianity, which is ahead of us Orthodox in this regard. But we are diligently and not unsuccessfully catching up with him.

Western churches at the moment set their main and, in essence, only task to solve the problems of worldly life. One of the most striking illustrations is the International Conference of the World Council of Churches, which took place in Bangkok in 1973, entitled “Salvation Today.” Two of our representatives who were there told what happened there. (You know that in 1961 the Russian Orthodox Church joined the World Council of Churches, and with it, and in subsequent years, all the Orthodox Churches of the socialist countries).

It turns out that this most important topic of salvation was considered there exclusively in the so-called “horizontalist”, that is, purely materialistic plan - as salvation from disease, poverty, ignorance, exploitation, lawlessness, from the dominance of transnational corporations, etc., etc. . And when the Orthodox delegates proposed to talk about salvation, for which Christ came, they were looked at as some kind of antediluvian creatures.

This conference perfectly showed what goal modern Christianity is striving for, or rather, modern Christians are striving for good on earth. This aspiration characterized all the General Assemblies of the World Council of Churches.

The groundedness of Christian consciousness could not but be expressed in theology and in the corresponding moral standards of life. And we see what Western Christianity has come to now - to things that, if told about 50 years ago, no one would have believed. When in 1927, at the first conference “Faith and Order,” Archpriest Sergius Bulgakov invited everyone to take communion from a single Chalice (all: Orthodox, Anglicans, Old Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists...) and thus solve the problem of unity, do you know who was the first to protest? Anglicans. Since then the situation has changed catastrophically. By the way, the consequences of World War II were of great importance here.

Now we see something different. At the General Assembly of the WCC in 1991 in Canberra, Australia, the Orthodox were forced to make a special statement to the leadership of the WCC, to the entire Assembly. They demanded to consider the issue of direct deviations of individual WCC member churches from the most fundamental Christian truths. We are talking about the pagan understanding of God the Trinity (it has come to the point that the Holy Spirit is declared a “female deity.” In the same Canberra, one Protestant professor declared this), about the actual denial of the Divinity of Jesus Christ and His Resurrection, about the materialistic understanding of salvation, direct chiliasm, etc.

In the field of morality, modern Western Christianity has gone straight down the path of open contempt for the moral standards indicated in the Holy Scriptures. You understand what we are talking about - these so-called. unfortunate minorities. At the same Assembly, a whole plenary session was arranged for them, and they sat on the stage for two hours and complained that not all Churches accepted them, blessed their “marriages”, that they were not ordained. Since then, since 1991, the process has come very far. An increasing number of so-called churches not only no longer expel them from their midst, but also accept them into their communities, admit them to Eucharistic communion, even bless their cohabitation (for example, the Rhineland Evangelical Lutheran Church in Germany), appoint them as pastors, etc. There is no need to talk about the female priesthood. In the overwhelming majority of non-Catholic churches in the West, this has already become an ordinary, “normal” phenomenon, and many Catholic and even individual Orthodox theologians do not see any danger for the Church in this.

This is why all this is important to us. Currently the so-called freedom of information, but in fact the power of money, the rich West has received immeasurably greater propaganda opportunities in our country than the Church, therefore the spirit and ideas of the West freely penetrate our people and our Church. And when we talk about the problem of secularization and point to the West, we do this not for the sake of condemning it, but with the aim of fighting against the secularization of our church environment.

Worldliness threatens that those infected with this spirit, as St. Ignatius Brianchaninov writes, will unnoticeably accept the Antichrist and suffer cruelly. St. Ignatius directly says that the one who does not fight with his old man (passions, in our time especially with the thirst for profit, conceit and fornication), he, being of one spirit with the Antichrist, recognizes him as Christ. This will happen naturally, for like connects with like. One of the reasons for the development of this false spirituality is that, according to the teachings of secularized churches, the main task of the Church should be to serve its neighbors, and this presupposes its most active social, political, economic, and cultural activity. What's wrong with that? That there is a substitution of the goal.

For the Church it is one and only - the salvation of man from spiritual slavery to passions and communion with God through the acquisition of God-like properties, the most important of which are humility and love. External service to others is only one of the means of acquiring these properties, but in no way the goal or “earning” of salvation. Reducing the main task of the Church to solving earthly “horizontal” problems will lead secularized Christians to the imperceptible acceptance of the Antichrist. For when he comes, he will unite all states into one, armies will become unnecessary, expenditures on weapons will cease, the population of the globe will decrease (because the extra billions will be destroyed, and one “golden” billion will remain), astronomical means will be released, with the help of cruel laws will bring order everywhere, etc. This way he will solve social and other problems. The gentlemen will live like roundworms, basking in comfort, everyone else will be normal slaves and guinea pigs. It will solve all problems - war and peace, hunger, social security, rights and responsibilities, etc. Who could ever do that? Isn’t he the savior of the world, isn’t he the Christ? Secular Christians will accept him as Christ, “instead of Christ” (“anti” means not only “against”, but also “instead”). And if instead, therefore, against. This is why worldliness is death for any church, for any Christian.

By the way, the name of the Antichrist, which is expressed in the Apocalypse by the mysterious number 666, essentially means nothing more than mammon, i.e. complete dedication of all the powers of the mind, heart and will to caring exclusively about earthly goods and values. This is evidenced by Jewish tradition, which recorded this number (see 1 Kings 10, 14; 2 Chronicles 9, 13) as a symbol of the amazing, highest prosperity in the history of Israel. The small penny state under King Solomon received 666 talents of gold per year. And if each talent is 49.11 kilograms of gold, then in total there were 32 tons 707 kg for an insignificant number of inhabitants! This is the pinnacle of worldly happiness. Mammon is worldliness. Prot. A. Men once noted: in Judaism, the concept of the Kingdom of God was often associated with the external triumph of Israel and fantastic prosperity on earth. Isn’t it about this prosperity on earth that modern Christian churches care more than about heavenly ones?

One of the MDA graduates of the early twentieth century, Tarasy Kurganovsky, wrote the work “A Turning Point in Old Russian Theology.” This is a small work, but it has become significant; it needs to be addressed, expanded, and supplemented with facts. The idea itself is very important. The author writes that in the Russian Church of the 14th and 15th centuries there was a serious appeal to the essence of Christian life, to its spiritual side, there was an understanding that the main thing was the fulfillment of the commandments of the Gospel, and external forms of piety, the liturgical Charter, rituals were considered only as means promoting achieving the goal. But gradually the form and content began to change places. Ivan Vasilievich Kireevsky writes very strongly about this in his wonderful article “On the nature of the enlightenment of Europe and its relation to the enlightenment of Russia.” His idea is that in our Church, gradually, respect for the tradition that Russia stood for, insensitively for itself, turned into respect for its more external forms than for its animating spirit. This spiritual change was already evident at the Councils of 1503 and 1505 (at which the Monk Nil of Sorsky was also present), but was especially pronounced at the Council of the Hundred Heads in 1551.

The Monk Nil of Sorsky spoke with questions concerning monastic and monastic life. He saw the changes that began to occur, and called for the monasteries to be poor, their sacristies, vestments, vessels, etc. - modest, so that the monks feed only on the labor of their hands. Their clothes should be the simplest, poorest. Neither monks nor monasteries should have any luxury, no gold and silver. I remember the words of St. Philaret of Moscow: “If war had to be declared on any clothing, then, in my opinion, not on the hats of priestly wives, but on the magnificent robes of bishops and priests. At least this is the first thing, but this was forgotten. Let your priests, O Lord, be clothed with righteousness.”

To this Nile of Sorsky was told: “You, Nile, are mistaken. If such a life exists in our monasteries, then which of the boyars will become a monk? Nobody, because they can't live by your rules. And if no one goes, then where will we install bishops? And if there are no bishops, then there will be no Church. You, Neil, are wrong."

At this time, just at the beginning of the 16th century, two trends collided, later called Josephiteism and non-covetousness. Here took place, if you like, the last open battle for true monasticism and, consequently, for the fate of Orthodoxy itself in Rus'. Josephiteism won. And the process of secularization in the Church took a free path. Monasteries and temples began to turn into wonderful and rich works of art, just beautiful toys. (Children play with small toys, adults play with large toys.) The sacristies became the richest. (In the Lavra museum, for example, there is a miter, which has no price, it is covered in precious stones). The monasteries became the richest landowners and peasant owners (Kartashev writes that, for example, Catherine II confiscated 106 thousand souls from the Trinity-Sergius Lavra). What did this lead to? You understand perfectly well.

1612, many churches and monasteries were destroyed, desecrated, and looted. The Lord allowed it. And do you think we've learned anything? Nothing like this. They began to restore the external splendor of the church with new energy. The extent to which the concept of the meaning of spiritual life was lost can be judged by the schism of the 17th century. It would seem that the reasons for the split are insignificant: correction of books, change of rituals, triplicity, etc. However, for many they were the main content of their faith. In the ritual, the Orthodox saw the whole essence of the Orthodox faith. For many, the form turned out to be more valuable than the precious content.

A direct consequence of spiritual cooling is Peter I, the “first Bolshevik,” as Maximilian Voloshin very accurately called him, and the entire anti-church 18th century. St. speaks best about the spiritual state of the Church in this age. Tikhon Zadonsky: “Monasteries have become worse than secular houses.” The century was logically ended by Paul I, the great master of the Order of Malta, who, despite the strict reprimands of the Ecumenical Councils, encroached on power over the bishops and declared himself the head of the Russian Orthodox Church (and none of the subsequent emperors removed this shame from the Russian kingdom).

The Napoleonic invasion did not help either. Moscow was burned, magnificent churches were destroyed. Have you wondered why this happened? Have you repented? Have you paid attention to improving your life? No, they again set about restoring the external splendor of the Church, having, in fact, forgotten about the internal. 80s - 90s of the 19th century, Bishop Theophan the Recluse writes: “In a generation, many in two, our Orthodoxy will dry up...” Bishop Ignatius literally sobs: “Monasticism is like a luxurious, green tree, but which is completely rotten from the inside. The very first storm will overthrow him, and with him all Orthodoxy.” But no one listens to their voice. These hermits - what do they understand? Saint Philaret wrote with bitterness: “How boring it is to see that monasteries all want pilgrims, that is, they themselves seek entertainment and temptation. True, they sometimes lack methods, but what they lack more is non-covetousness, simplicity, hope in God and a taste for silence.”

A generation and a half passed after the prophetic words of St. Theophan and the year 1917 arrived. Like a cow with its tongue, the revolution licked away all that splendor that was not based on the stone of correct Christian life. The issue, about which a serious dispute began in the 16th century, seemed to be over. “History,” said Cicero, “is the best teacher.” He is right. History has once again shown that Divine Providence always acts in relation to our spiritual state. People are only blind instruments in the hands of the will of God.

Now another and perhaps the last period in the life of our Church has opened. Her fate will depend on the path taken by her revival, which is now being talked about so much. What will win and become primary in it: external splendor, the number of monasteries, churches, bishops, priests, theological schools, etc., or the establishment of correct spiritual life and, above all, in monasteries, among monasticism and the clergy. Will monks, especially young ones, live in actual monasteries or carry out obediences in half-male-half-female ones, serve in cities, in parishes, in metochions (weddings, confessions and baptisms), in women's monasteries? Will theological schools become spiritual or will they be theological, as before the revolution, i.e. secular? Will it be possible to raise shepherds and archpastors, and not mercenaries? Will our confessors be elder brothers, good advisers, as St. writes? Ignatius, or will they follow the path of the leaders of totalitarian sects who demand unquestioning obedience to themselves as to God?

This last problem, by the way, is constant and perhaps one of the most acute in the life of the Church. Remember how back in the middle of the 19th century St. wrote. Ignatius: “Vanity and conceit love to teach and instruct. They don't care about the merits of their advice! They do not think that they can inflict an incurable ulcer on their neighbor with absurd advice, which is accepted by an inexperienced beginner with unconscious gullibility, with carnal and blood heat! They need success, whatever the quality of this success, whatever its beginning! They need to impress the newcomer and morally subjugate him to themselves! They need human praise! They need to be known as saints, wise, perspicacious elders, teachers! They need to feed their insatiable vanity, their pride!” (About residence by advice. – vol. 5. P. 77). And he adds: “Those elders who take on the role of [the elder]… (let’s use this unpleasant word)… in essence, are nothing more than soul-destroying acting and the saddest comedy. The Elders who take on the role of the ancient holy Elders, without their spiritual gifts, should know that their very intention, their very thoughts and concepts about the great monastic work - obedience - are false, that their very way of thinking, their mind, their knowledge is self-delusion and demonic delusion...” (5, 72).

The secularization now taking place in the churches testifies to the Judaization of Christianity. How is it shown? In the prevailing and all-consuming attention of modern Christianity to earthly values. Already in the first centuries, a heretical teaching arose that Christ came in order to establish a 1000-year Kingdom of bliss, goodness and justice on this earth. In our theology, they were defended by Vladimir Solovyov and other philosophers, Archpriest Pavel Svetlov, a Kiev professor, who has an entire work, “The Idea of the Kingdom of God in its Meaning for the Christian World Outlook.” This idea continues to live and develop and at present, I think it can be said without exaggeration that it is the main driving force of Christian activity in the world. This idea is of Jewish origin. Remember what Fr. said. A. Men: in Judaism, the concept of the Kingdom of God was often associated with the external triumph of Israel and fantastic prosperity on earth. Worldliness is the aspiration of Christianity towards the implementation of this Jewish idea. And if Christ said: “You cannot serve God and mammon”

(Matt. 6:24), then modern Christians strongly disagree with this.

In the West, even a term appeared - Judeo-Christianity. An amazing connection. After all, for Orthodox Judaism, Christ is a false messiah, and the true Messiah, who according to Christian Revelation is the Antichrist, has yet to come. How can we talk about Judeo-Christianity? It turns out to be very simple. We must remain silent about Jesus Christ as God and Savior and about the fact that His Kingdom is not of this world, but talk only about the common prophets, the common Bible, the common 10 commandments. Christ is becoming an increasingly less important Person for Western Christianity.

The Vatican has gone very far in this regard. There in the curia there are two papal councils: for inter-Christian cooperation and for dialogue with non-Christian religions. It is clear that non-Christian religions are those that do not recognize Christ as God. In what Council is dialogue conducted with Judaism, which rejects Christ? In inter-Christian!

Pope John Paul II has already agreed to such things that it becomes simply strange to listen to him. On November 1, 1997, when the Catholic Church celebrates All Saints' Day, an interchurch symposium ended at the Vatican, the topic of which was: “The roots of anti-Judaism in the Christian environment.” The Pope then said: “The goal of our symposium is to arrive at a correct theological interpretation of the relationship between the Church of Christ and the Jewish people. At the beginning of this small people, surrounded by pagan empires that surpassed them in the brilliance of their culture, is the step of God's election. This people is called and led by God, the Creator of heaven and earth. Therefore, its existence does not belong only to the sphere of natural and cultural phenomena... The existence of this people is a supernatural fact. These are the people of the Testament, and they will always remain so and no matter what, even when people are unfaithful, for the Lord is faithful to His Testament” (Russian Thought. No. 4196. November 6–12, 1997. P.5). Comments, as they say, are unnecessary.

The Pope does not seem to know what people Christ is talking about: The Kingdom will be taken away from you and given to another people. (Matthew 21:43) They will come from north and south, east and west, and will lie down in the Kingdom of Heaven, and the sons of the Kingdom will be cast out. (Luke 13:29) The Pope does not seem to remember that in the Church the chosen ones are not this or that people, but those who have accepted faith in Christ, that is, Christians of any nationality. The Pope “forgot” that the task of the Church and the “Vicar of Christ” is to make the Jewish people see their historical mistake and repent. The Pope, on the contrary, considers the state of opposition as infallible, for “he will always remain such (that is, supernatural) and no matter what, even when people are unfaithful.” The conclusion is obvious: if you were born a Jew, even Judas Iscariot, the Lord God will not go anywhere, since he gave his word. Paradise is guaranteed! There has never been such a “revelation” in the history of the Catholic Church. And I think that with such provocative speeches John Paul II brings more harm to the Jewish people than good.

This is the current stage of the process of Judaization of Christianity. You can predict what will happen tomorrow. And we must not forget about the expansion of Catholicism currently taking place in our country and what hopes are pinned on it by forces that are far from sympathetic to us. Let me just read one quote: “In the American view, Russia represents one of the greatest threats to the security of the United States... therefore... American foreign policy can achieve its goal by promoting change in Russia: the final abandonment of a single worldview and the movement towards a pluralistic society... in all respects human life, primarily in ideological and religious life. Thus, America is interested in the strengthening and growth of non-Russian religions and philosophies in Russia, including Catholicism, which is a powerful international force” (F. Shtarkman, “Russian Thought,” October 31, 1996).

Pay also attention to what kind of peace on earth modern Christian churches strive for: the Old Testament (shalom), meaning earthly prosperity (lack of war, absence of suffering, adversity, troubles, sorrows, misfortunes), or the New Testament (irini). In the Gospel we read: “The world is “irini” - I give it to you.” According to the unanimous interpretation of the fathers, the peace of Christ is understood as the state of the soul freed from passions. So, at Christian conferences they talk only about shalom, there is no talk about Irini. Shalom, prosperity on earth - this is what Christians fight for. If anyone wants to be convinced of this, take at least the “Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate” and look at the ecumenical issues of the recent past. The peace of Christ is not of interest, although it and only it can be the unshakable basis of true peace between peoples, at least between Christian peoples.

If we replace the world of the soul with the world of the so-called. earthly prosperity - mammon, then what will our Christianity turn into?!

What else I would like to say is about the pagan perception of Orthodoxy.

There is a process going on that is not new in history, which we have encountered both in Christianity in general and in the history of the Russian Church - a process of, basically, an unconscious substitution of Christianity for paganism, the substitution of Christian spirituality for paganism. This happens, unfortunately, very easily and here's why. The main reason is the lack of proper theoretical and experimental knowledge of Christianity among a significant part of the clergy. The recent rapid opening of parishes has led to the ordination (to some extent this still continues) of many priests without spiritual experience, without any theological education. And some of them do not even have proper secular education and cultural development. I know a shoemaker who was ordained a priest. An attempt to teach him in absentia failed. Having never completed his first year of seminary, he was expelled due to his complete learning disability. But he is a good practitioner, a builder, and he doesn’t miss a beat when it comes to money. His teachings are “amazing.” Unfortunately, there are many of them now, and they will determine the face of our Church for a long time. Many of them seduce the people with their behavior, push them away from the faith, others, starting to do strange things, scold, talk about the end of the world, the Antichrist, carry away simple ignorant people with them. Please note that in the motor industry, someone who cannot drive a car will never be put behind the wheel of a bus - they understand that he will ruin people for this life. When we are talking about souls and eternal death, then, it turns out, everything is possible. This is where paganism revives and develops in Orthodoxy. And the reason for this, as you see, is not in the enemies of the Church, but in ourselves. The priest, alas, is understood in a pagan way - only as a performer of sacred rites, as a priest, and not in a Christian way - as, first of all, the spiritual leader of the flock.