Memoirs of the personal secretary of Bishop Vasily (Rodzianko)

Vasily (Rodzianko)
(1915 - 1999), bishop b. San Francisco and Western American (Orthodox Church in America) In the world Vladimir Mikhailovich Rodzianko, was born on May 22, 1915 in the family estate Otrada, Yekaterinoslav province, the seventh child in the family of landowner Mikhail Mikhailovich, a graduate of Moscow University, who diligently farmed.

His grandfather, Chairman of the last pre-revolutionary State Duma Mikhail Rodzianko, managed to find out that by decision of the revolutionary government “the entire family of the former Chairman of the State Duma down to the last grandson” was sentenced to death. The “last grandson” was Vladimir. The whole family was forced to leave their homeland in 1919. Vladimir remembered those terrible years for the rest of his life; the only bright impression of those days was connected with visiting the temple. Little Vladimir’s mother brought him to church for the first time in the city of Anapa. The boy really wanted to see the icons, but adults stood around and prayed fervently. The child thought with bitterness that such big people could not understand that he, little one, could not see anything. Bishop Vasily recalled:

«
But suddenly they understood everything, and everyone knelt down. I saw a beautiful iconostasis, decorated with gold, wonderful icons. Suddenly, something happened, and everyone started crying as one. Then I realized that it was a farewell to the Motherland. Many of these people never returned to Russia
«.

In 1920, the family ended up in Serbia, which gave Russian refugees “Paradise on Earth”, after the horrors suffered during the revolution, after the monstrous conditions in the hold of an English warship, when “for every meter there were two or three refugee families

«.

The childhood of six-year-old Volodya ended with the appearance of a tutor in the house. The former White Guard officer, who secretly hated his grandfather, took out all his evil on his grandson; in a distant barn he beat the boy with a belt, forced him to his knees on dry corn, and waited until drops of blood appeared on his knees.

Vladyka Vasily later recalled: “ Life faded for me... I had no interest in life

«.

In 1925 he entered the 1st classical Russian-Serbian gymnasium in Belgrade. He served at the altar of the Russian Trinity Church in Belgrade. Here he met the young hieromonk John (Maximovich), the future saint of San Francisco. Father John, who loved children very much, began to carefully heal Volodya’s spiritual wounds. Vladyka recalled: “ He managed to show me another world, bright, wonderful, the paradise in which we were and from which we were expelled. A new life has begun for me...

«

Before leaving for the Bitola Seminary, Father John introduced Volodya to Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky). The love of Father John and Metropolitan Anthony saved the tormented boy, thanks to them he chose his path in life. Subsequently, the Bishop, among his spiritual teachers, in addition to the two named prominent hierarchs, also mentioned the Monk Justin (Popovich) and Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh.

Vladyka recalled:

«My mother, shortly before her death, said: “Forgive me that I inadvertently allowed you to be tortured when you were a child.” - Mom, it was by God’s providence. If it weren’t for what happened to me in my childhood, I wouldn’t be who I am now...

«

Later, in one of his sermons, Bishop Vasily will say:

«Love each other. Who knows, some drop of love for one's neighbor will lead him not to the left, but to the right side... Love, whatever it is, can put us on the right side, and not on the left, at the Last Judgment, when there will be a final division between good and evil. No matter how difficult it is in this world... if at least a small grain of pure, sacrificial love is in the heart, then all is not lost, there is an opportunity to be saved

«.

One day, after a service, Vladimir saw off Hieromonk John. On the way, a conversation took place, after which the boy decided to devote his entire life to serving the Lord. Blessed John then said to Volodya:

«You are already an adult and you understand a lot. When you are completely grown up, you must become a priest to pray for your grandfather. He was a good, religious person, but circumstances were such that he brought a lot of harm to Russia and the Royal Family. You must pray all your life for the Lord to forgive him...

«

Many years later, in 1998, Bishop Vasily, while in Tsarskoe Selo, delivered a short sermon in the Fedorov Cathedral:

«My grandfather wanted only the best for Russia, but as a weak person he was often mistaken. He was mistaken when he sent his parliamentarians to the Emperor with a request for abdication. He did not think that the Emperor would abdicate for his son, and when he learned this, he cried bitterly, saying: “Now nothing can be done. Now Russia is lost." He became the unwitting culprit of that Yekaterinburg tragedy. It was an involuntary sin, but still a sin. And now, in this holy place, I ask forgiveness for my grandfather and for myself before Russia, before its people and before the royal family, and as a bishop, with the power given to me by God, I forgive and absolve him from involuntary sin

«.

In 1933, after graduating from high school, he entered the Faculty of Theology at the University of Belgrade, which he graduated in 1937, and in 1938 he married Maria Kulyubaeva, the daughter of a priest.

In the same year he began work on his dissertation at Oxford. In 1939, the first child was born into the Rodzianko family.

Priest from Serbia

In 1940, he was ordained a priest by Metropolitan Anastassy (Gribanovsky), First Hierarch of the ROCOR.

It is noteworthy that Father Vladimir had the role of peacemaker: he, as a messenger, took part in the correspondence between Metropolitan Anthony and Metropolitan Evlogii, as a result of which liturgical communication between the two branches of the Russian Church in exile was briefly resumed.

In 1941, Father Vladimir was supposed to become the rector of the house church in the gymnasium, where he taught the Law of God, but the war began.

On April 6, on the eve of the Annunciation, Father Vladimir served his first liturgy under bombs in the city of Novi Sad. During the war, Father Vladimir was the rector of a rural parish and secretary of the Red Cross. Many people owe him salvation from the horrors of war.

In Serbia, after the war, icons of Saints Cyril and Mythodius, the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, icons of the Mother of God and the Savior began to miraculously appear on the windows of houses; Father Vladimir served prayer services in front of the miraculous images. The Tito authorities began to confiscate and break glass containing miraculous images, and cruelly persecute those who spoke about icons miraculously revealed to strengthen the faith.

In 1949, Father Vladimir was sentenced to eight years “ for exceeding permitted religious propaganda)

«.

Bishop Vasily said that in the camps of prisoners who did not fulfill the daily quota, and in one day it was necessary to “ make 700 tiles

“, were placed in a punishment cell - an ice stone bag.
In order not to freeze, the martyr for the faith continuously bowed to the ground with the Jesus Prayer, and also prayed for the salvation of Mother Mary and her children. Mother Maria, immediately after her husband’s arrest, was dismissed from school as the wife of an enemy of the people. Father Vladimir knew that the family was left without a livelihood, and this worried him most. One day, the Venerable Seraphim of Sarov appeared in a dream to the exhausted Father Vladimir, who had fallen asleep on the icy floor, and reassured him: “ You don’t need to worry or despair.
I will take care of your family ."

When Father Vladimir woke up, he immediately felt that the anxiety had left him. On the same day he was released from the punishment cell and transferred to another camp, where he had to listen to and translate foreign radio broadcasts.

And after some time, he received a letter from home, in which his mother wrote that she had been rewarded with a miraculous vision: during prayer, the Monk Seraphim also appeared to her (on the same day on which he appeared to him).

Mother’s life changed, parents of former students began to contact her, asking her to teach English lessons privately.

Finally, thanks to the intervention of English friends and personally the Archbishop of Canterbury, Father Vladimir was released. In 1951 he was deported to France.

In Western Europe

In 1953 he moved from France to the UK. While there as a priest of the Serbian Patriarchate, Father Vladimir began broadcasting religious radio broadcasts on the BBC in 1955 for listeners in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, which soon became weekly. Festive services were also broadcast on radio broadcasts. For more than twenty years he hosted Orthodox programs for Russia on the BBC.

Since 1968 he headed the Brotherhood of St. Simeon and edited the magazine “Aion”.

Father Vladimir accepted the dying confession of A. F. Kerensky.

After the death of Mother Maria in 1978 [1], Father Vladimir became a monk with the name Vasily.

Bishop in the USA

On January 12, 1980, he was consecrated Bishop of Washington, Vicar Primate of the Orthodox Church in America. The consecration took place at St. Nicholas Cathedral in Washington.

On November 10 of the same year he was appointed Bishop of San Francisco and Western America.

In 1981 he visited the USSR, where he was warmly welcomed by those who had revered him for many years as an Orthodox preacher.

On April 25, 1984 he retired.

Activities at rest

In retirement, Bishop Vasily resumed broadcasts for Russia on the radio stations Voice of America and Vatican Radio. Since 1991, he had the opportunity to continue this activity directly in Russia, where, during his frequent visits, he took an active part in the work of the Sofia radio station (which then operated on the waves of Radio I), and also held a series of television conversations on religious topics. He also recorded radio conversations in America, which were then broadcast on Russian airwaves.

One day during these years, a group of young Protestants who were studying ancient confessions asked Bishop Vasily to give a course of lectures on Orthodoxy. Two years later, the circle of Orthodox students expanded to three thousand, and after some time all the students became Orthodox.

Bishop Vasily devoted all his strength and all his extraordinary spiritual experience to the service of Orthodoxy. He was the honorary rector of St. Nicholas Cathedral in Washington, the honorary rector of the Church of the Lesser Ascension on Nikitskaya Street in Moscow, and in his last years he was the dean of the theological and philosophical faculty of Natalia Nesterova’s private university.

With the blessing of Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus', Bishop lived for almost six months in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, giving lectures and working in the library. As a result, he wrote the book “ The Theory of the Decay of the Universe and the Faith of the Fathers
,” published in 1996, offering the reader a consideration of the relationship between Orthodoxy and scientific knowledge that is relevant today.

In recent years, Bishop Vasily has been seriously ill.

He had a hard time with the bombing of Yugoslavia by NATO forces; When asked how he felt about this, he answered: “As if Moscow and Russia were being bombed.” As Vladimir Shcherbinin noted, after the start of the bombing, he unexpectedly gave up and fell ill [2].

However, a month before his death, he came to Russia, where at the Cultural Foundation he read out his spiritual parting words, in which he called on Russians not to give up the most important spiritual wealth - the faith of the Fathers. He recalled that Orthodoxy is a universal religion, which is broader than any national boundaries. Orthodoxy is compatible only with love, but not with enmity and hatred [3].

Vladimir Shcherbinin recalled:

«He was always cheerful and keenly interested in everything that was happening in Russia. Two weeks (before his death) during a telephone conversation he said

: “My legs can’t walk at all... I served the liturgy for the Transfiguration while sitting, and in those moments when it was impossible to sit, the deacons supported me.
It’s the mercy of God that I took communion.” Then I remembered his words, spoken on one of his visits to Moscow
: “As long as I can stand before the throne, serve the liturgy, I will live, otherwise there is no need to live.”

He died on the night of September 17, 1999 in Washington, of a heart attack. The funeral service was performed by Metropolitan Theodosius (Lazor) of America, concelebrated by three bishops, at St. Nicholas Cathedral in Washington. A memorial service was also celebrated at the Novo-Diveyevo Monastery of the Russian Church Abroad. He was buried in London next to his wife.

Memories

They said about Vladyka Vasily: “ He is a priest from God

«.

The abbot of one of the Moscow monasteries said that in 1988 he accompanied Bishop Vasily to a theological conference, at which he was supposed to make a report in the presence of the patriarch and other prominent hierarchs. Late for the start of the conference, they hurriedly descended the stairs of a five-story residential building. At one of the sites they met an elderly woman. Seeing a man in a cassock, she asked to give communion to her sister, who was dying in the hospital. Vladyka Vasily immediately agreed. When his companion objected, reminding them that they were late, the bishop replied: “What could be more important for a priest than to give communion to a dying person?” Despite the fact that they were late for the conference, he remained true to himself, his love for his neighbor became an example not only for his companion, but also for everyone who learned about this incident later.

At the end of the 1980s, a Soviet-American summer camp for Orthodox youth was organized in one of the parishes of the Kostroma diocese. The American group was led by Bishop Vasily. On the road to Gorelets, in the wilderness, at the crossroads of country roads, the car in which the bishop was riding stopped. There was a truck on the side of the road, and in the middle of the road, next to an overturned motorcycle, a dead man was lying. His son stood over him. The Bishop approached and asked if the father was a believer. The son said that his father did not go to church, but always listened to religious programs from London and said that Rodzianko was the only person he believed. The Bishop crossed himself and said: “This priest your father spoke about is me.” The son was shocked. And the bishop read the departure prayer and said: “God’s providence brought me from the other end of the world, precisely on this day and hour, to this crossroads, to pay tribute to the one who believed in me, a sinner. Let's pray for his soul...” And a requiem was sung over the deceased.

Prot. Ioann Sviridov:

«I met Bishop Vasily in 1988, when he began to visit Moscow and was keenly interested in the changes taking place in the Church and in society. His speech and posture sometimes contrasted with the manners accepted among bishops in the Soviet era. A wrinkled and short cassock, a hood covered not with thin silk, but with rough satin, a slightly disheveled beard and clear eyes. One could recognize in him not just a man of old Russia and an emigrant, but a Russian intellectual who dedicated his life to serving the Church. He spoke a lot, although he wrote little. He was loved. And he himself loved people. He was a kind and sympathetic man, eccentric and humble, worthy and holy

«.

Biography facts

In the post-revolutionary period, in 1920, the entire Rodzianko family was sentenced to death because of their grandfather, so they were soon forced to leave Russia and settle in the future Yugoslavia (1929).

For Vladimir these were terrible years, but one very important event for him was imprinted in his childhood memory - a visit to the temple in Anapa. He also recalled that at the age of six he was assigned a tutor, a former white officer, who believed that his grandfather had betrayed Tsar Nicholas II. This embittered and vindictive tutor turned into a strict overseer. He bullied the child as best he could, and as a result the boy lost all interest in life.

Death

Rodzianko experienced the bombing of Yugoslavia by NATO forces very hard and difficult. When asked how he felt about this, he replied that it was as if Russia had been bombed. After these events, Vasily suffered greatly and fell ill.

Two weeks before his death, during one of his conversations, he said that it was hard for him, his legs couldn’t hold him up at all, he had to serve the Liturgy while sitting, and when he couldn’t sit, the deacons supported him, and by the grace of God he even received communion.

The cause of the bishop’s death was cardiac arrest. He died on September 17, 1999 in Washington. The funeral took place on September 23. Three bishops performed his funeral service at St. Nicholas Cathedral in Washington. A large number of people from the clergy and worshipers came to say goodbye to this amazing man. He was buried in Washington at the Rock Creek Cemetery, in a plot for Orthodox believers. This is how Father Vasily Rodzianko ended his long and righteous journey.

Vasily Rodzianko: conversations and sermons

By 1953, he moved to London and became the second priest in the Cathedral of St. Sava the Serbian, which was under the jurisdiction of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Then Rodzianko had a job at the BBC Broadcasting Corporation. Since 1955, at his own suggestion, religious radio broadcasting was opened in the USSR and Eastern Europe.

Vasily Rodzianko spoke a lot on various radio stations with sermons and conversations, taught at Oxford University and in Paris - at the St. Sergius Theological Institute.

At the very beginning of the spring of 1978, his wife died, and his grandson Igor died in a car accident. A year later, he left the BBC radio station and became a monk with the name Vasily (in honor of Basil the Great), this happened under the leadership of the Metropolitan of Sourozh in London. He wanted to carry out his monastic feat secretly and was about to go to Athos, but he was offered to become the vicar of the primate of the Orthodox Church in America.

Arrest

Father Vasily Rodzianko writes a letter to Patriarch Alexy I in 1945, in which he communicates his desire to serve in Russia. But his return never took place. Because it was at this time that relations between Yugoslavia and the USSR deteriorated greatly, and Russian emigrants were repressed. In 1949, Vasily Rodzianko was sentenced to 8 years in prison for “illegal religious agitation” (he was charged with testifying to the miraculous renovation of icons in the temple).

In 1951, he was released early, and he and his family moved to Paris, where his parents, who had left Yugoslavia back in 1946, then lived.

Notes

1. History of the Dnieper (Dnepropetrovsk) and the Dnieper region
2. ↑ 1234
   Kataev, A. M. VASILY // Orthodox Encyclopedia, vol. 7, p. 94-96
3. ↑ 1 2 3
   Preface //
   Vasily (Rodzianko), bishop.
   Salvation by love / Comp. and preface M. G. Zhukova. - M.: Sretensky Monastery Publishing House, 2007. - 208 p. — (Spiritual heritage of the Russian diaspora).
4. ↑ 12345678910111213
5. ↑ 1 2
   Archived copy
   (unspecified)
   (inaccessible link). Date accessed: March 25, 2021. Archived April 6, 2021.
6. Bishop Vasily (Rodzianko): “...To be a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven” | Orthodoxy and peace
7. Prot. Alexander Shmaman. Diaries. 1973-1983. M., 2005. P. 501, ed. “Russian Way”, 2005. 720 pp., ill. ISBN 5-85887-188-7
8. “Church of the Ascension on Nikitskaya in the White City” Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street 18
9. Alexander Korolev Meeting of the hierarchs of the church and theater // “Trud”, 09/27/1997
10. ↑ 123
    "Last bow." Biography of Bishop Vasily (Rodzianko) | Bishop Vasily (Rodzianko)
11. ↑ 12
    Bishop Vasily Rodzianko: all his life he served people
12. What does the book Unholy Saints show?

Studies

Having matured a little, Vladimir graduated from the Russian-Serbian gymnasium in Belgrade (1933), and in the same year he went to study at the Faculty of Theology at Belgrade University. As fate would have it, Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky) became his patron. His acquaintance with Hieromonk John (Maksimovich) in 1926 had a great spiritual influence on him.

He then graduated from the University of Belgrade with a PhD in Theology (1937). Then he married Maria Vasilievna Kolyubaeva, the daughter of a priest who also fled the USSR.

He continued his studies at the University of London, where he began writing his dissertation. Upon completion of his studies, in 1939, he was invited to Oxford to lecture on Russian theology. But the war began, and Vladimir was forced to return to Yugoslavia, where he began teaching the Law of God at the Novi Sad school.

Publications

articles

• Church or Pope // Bulletin of the Russian Western European Patriarchal Exarchate. M., 1953. - No. 16. - P. 207-222.
• How to solve the Filioque problem? // Bulletin of the Russian Western European Patriarchal Exarchate. M., 1955. - No. 24. - P. 259-291.
• International Congress of Scientists in Oxford [dedicated to discoveries in the field of studying the text of the Gospel] // Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate. M., 1958. - No. 1. - P. 74-75
• Historic Decisions by the Church in Russia // Syndesmos. Ser. 2. 1960. No. 10 (July).
• "The New Testament in Our Days." Second international congress of scholars dedicated to the study of the New Testament (Oxford, September 11-15, 1961) // Bulletin of the Russian Western European Patriarchal Exarchate. M., 1961. - No. 40. - P. 233-246
• On the Calendar Change // The Orthodox Church. 1982. Dec.
• Our relations with the Church Abroad // “Russian Life”. San Francisco. — 1982, September 23
• What I remember. Metropolitan Nicodemus and the Roman Catholic Church // Light of Christ. - 1987. - No. 2.
• In memory of Father John Meyendorff // Russian Thought. - 1992. - August 7.
• Ecclesiological deviations of our days (in connection with the activities and theology of Archpriest Georgy Kochetkov) // Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate. - 1995. - No. 6-8. — P. 67-70.
• Ecclesiology, which dismembers the Church // Unity of the Church: Theological Conference. November 15 - 16, 1994 - M.: Publishing House of the Orthodox St. Tikhon's Theological Institute, 1996. - 288 p. - pp. 85-87;
• On the boundaries of the Church // Unity of the Church: Theological Conference. November 15 - 16, 1994 - M.: Publishing House of the Orthodox St. Tikhon's Theological Institute, 1996. - 288 p. — P. 227—230
• A Word about Vladyka John // Saint of the Russian Diaspora, Ecumenical Wonderworker John / comp.: A. Lednev, E. Lukyanov. - M.: Orthodox Pilgrim, 1998. - 702 p. — P. 11-21
• Family and marriage of our time // Alexander Nevsky Bulletin. - 2010. - No. 7 (165). — P. 2-3.

books

• A brief history of the schism in the Russian Church Outside of Russia and attempts to end it. - 1935. RKP.
• Relations between the Church and the State in the USSR: (Doc., read in Subotica 02/25/1948). - P., 1949;
• The theory of the disintegration of the Universe and the faith of the fathers: Cappadocius. Theology is the key to apologetics of our time: Apologetics of the XXI century. - M.: Pilgrim: Publishing House "Grail", 1996. - 237 pp.; 20 cm. The theory of the collapse of the Universe and the faith of the fathers. Cappadocian theology is the key to the apologetics of our time. Apologetics of the XXI century. - 2nd ed. / From afterword priest Oleg Petrenko. - M.: Palomnik, 2003 (Type. JSC Mol. Guard). — 249 p. — (Christian view of the universe). — ISBN 5-87468-187-6

San

Deacon Rodzianko was ordained to the first rank of priesthood in 1940 by Metropolitan Anastasius (Gribanovsky), First Hierarch of the ROCOR. A year later in Belgrade, Patriarch Gabriel of Serbia ordained him to the rank of priest, and then he began to serve in the Serbian parish at a school in Novi Sad. Then he was a priest in the village of Voevodino (Serbia), and served as secretary of the Red Cross.

But with the outbreak of World War II, Orthodox Christians were subjected to terrible repression. Bishop Vasily Rodzianko participated in the Serbian resistance and helped liberate Serbs from concentration camps. He even adopted a Ukrainian orphan girl.

When the communists came to power in Yugoslavia after the war, Russian emigrants again rushed in all directions, but the majority wanted to return to their homeland, to Russia.

America

In January 1980, in Washington, at St. Nicholas Cathedral, where Vasily Rodzianko began to serve, he was ordained a bishop.

In 1984, due to old age, he was fired. He lived in Washington and became honorary rector of St. Nicholas Cathedral. He worked as the director of the Holy Archangel Broadcasting Center, located in his small apartment, and also taught in theological seminaries and broadcast on the waves of radio stations Vatican Radio, Voice of America and others.

In Washington, until his very last day, Rodzianko was a real confessor to a large number of Orthodox emigrants, he even conducted seminars with Protestants who studied the history of the Eastern Christian churches, as a result of which he led many of his listeners to Orthodoxy.

Links

In related projects

• Quotes on Wikiquote
• Media files on Wikimedia Commons

• Official website about Bishop Vasily
• Bishop Vasily (Rodzianko).
  Essays. // “ABC of Faith”, Internet portal.
• Bishop Vasily Rodzianko. Biography, Memories, Photos, Films and Audio
• Vasily (Rodzianko) on the Russian Orthodoxy website
• Bishop Vasily (Rodzianko Vladimir Mikhailovich)
• Vasily (Rodzianko) at Rodovode. Tree of ancestors and descendants
• Felix Corley Obituary: Bishop Basil Rodzianko // independent.co.uk, 23 September 1999
• Sermons in audio format
• Sermons
• Works of Bishop Vasily Rodzianko

Memory

A multi-part documentary film “Bishop Vasily (Rodzianko): My Destiny” was shot about Bishop Vasily, in which he talked about his life.

One of the chapters of the book “Unholy Saints” by Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov) is dedicated to Bishop Vasily.

According to the memoirs of Deacon Vladimir Vasilik: “I remember the amazing greatness of the Bishop, in some incomprehensible way combined with heartfelt simplicity and accessibility. He could communicate with a simple student in the same way as with persons invested with dignity and power, and at the same time you understood who was in front of you”[12].

Bibliography

• Bishop Vasily (Rodzianko) 05/22/1915 - 09/17/1999 // Alpha and Omega. 2000. - No. 1 (23). - pp. 385-389.
• Kosik V.I.
  Russian Church in Yugoslavia (20-40s of the twentieth century). - M.: St. Tikhon's Theological Institute, 2000. - 287 p.
• Nivier A.
  Orthodox clergy, theologians and church leaders of the Russian emigration in Western and Central Europe. 1920—1995: Biographical reference book. - M.-Paris, 2007. - P. 115-116.
• Bishop Vasily (Rodzianko) / comp.: O. L. Rozhneva. - Moscow: Sretensky Monastery Publishing House, 2021. - 140 p. - (On guard of faith). — 7000 copies. — ISBN 978-5-7533-1232-7.