Pavel Adelgeim. The Dogma of the Church in Canons and Practice

September 1, 2013 · Analytics, Books, Denunciations, Vestibule, Orthodoxy, Religious Mafia, Russia, Russian Orthodox Church, Contemporary Persecution

A book by Orthodox priest Pavel Adelgeim, an ethnic German, about the discrepancy between the church hierarchy and God’s institution of the church. He was stabbed to death on August 5, 2013, in his own home, the murderer shouting: “Satan commanded it!” In 1959 he was expelled from the Kiev Theological Seminary by Metropolitan Filaret (Denisenko) “for politics.” In 1969–1972 he was imprisoned for “slandering the Soviet system” for distributing religious samizdat. He lost a leg in prison. In 1992, at a Pskov church he opened a parish general-education Orthodox school for choirmasters. In 1993, at the church in the village of Piskovichi, he opened a shelter for orphaned disabled children. He sharply criticized the arbitrary rule of bishops, for which he faced a church court and was removed from his post as parish rector in 2008. Pavel Adelgeim’s book has been declared satanic.

Pavel Adelgeim’s final articles in his LiveJournal — “The Fiery Ascension of the Prophet Elijah” from August 3 and “Our Days Are Numbered, Not by Us” from August 2 — turned out to be prophetic for his own fate.

The Dogma of the Church in Canons and Practice

Contents.

Invitation to Dialogue 1.

1. The Body of Christ Crucified Crosswise. 2.
1. The Local Church 6.
1. The Primate 9.
1. The Limits of Episcopal Divinity 14.
1. The Bishop in the Church and the Church in the Bishop 15.
1. The Unity of the Church 17.
1. The Problem of Authority 24.
- 7.1 The Evangelical Understanding of Authority 26.
1. The Diocesan Authority of the Bishop 27.
Legal Authority:
8.1 The Executive Authority of the Diocesan Bishop 28.
А. Transfers and Dismissals of Clerics 33.
B. Suspension and Excommunication of Clerics and Laity 36.
8.2 Judicial Authority. 39.
Informal Authority:
8.3 Charismatic Authority 43
8.4 Pastoral Authority 44.
1. The New Lord of the Diocese 46.
1. The Conciliarity of the Church 49.
10.1 The Supreme Church Authority 51.
1. The People of God 58.
11.1 The Parish Statute of 1917–18 60.
11.2 The Statute on the Administration of the Russian Orthodox Church, Adopted by the Local Council on June 8, 1988. “Parishes.” 60.
Parishioners 61.
Laity 64.
11.4 The Statute of the Russian Orthodox Church, Adopted by the Bishops’ Council on August 16, 2000. 68.
1. Conciliar Bodies of Diocesan Administration. 13. 12.1 The Diocesan Assembly 70.
12.2 The Diocesan Council 73.
1. The Tragedy of Initiative. 75.
13.1 The Parish School 77.
13.2 The Parish Library 80.
13.3 Life Goes On 81.
13.4 St. Panteleimon’s Church 82.
13.5 St. Matthew’s Shelter 84.
1. Obedience – a Virtue, a Sin, or a Misfortune? 87.
14.1 The Limits of Church Discipline . 95.
1. The Meaning of a Blessing . 98.
Afterword. 99.
Notes. 100.

My grandfather, Adelgeim Pavel Bernardovich, born in 1878, a Russian German, was educated in Belgium, owned the estates of Glukhovtsy and Turbanovo near Kiev, and built kaolin, sugar, and horse-breeding factories. After the revolution, the estates and factories were nationalized, and my grandfather was invited to Vinnitsa, where he built a kaolin factory and served as its director until 1938. He was arrested and shot in Kiev on April 29, 1938. Rehabilitated on May 16, 1989. My father, Adelgeim Anatoly Pavlovich, born in 1911, was an actor and a poet. He was shot on September 26, 1942. Rehabilitated on October 17, 1962.

My other grandfather, Pylaev Nikanor Grigorievich, was a colonel in the tsarist army. His fate after the revolution is unknown. My mother, Pylaeva Tatyana Nikanorovna, born in 1912, was arrested and sentenced in 1946, and after imprisonment was exiled to the settlement of Ak-Tau in the Kazakh SSR. She was rehabilitated in 1962.

I was born on August 1, 1938. After my mother was arrested, I lived in an orphanage; later I was with her in forced exile in Kazakhstan, and then I was a novice at the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. From there, in 1956, I entered the Kiev Theological Seminary. I was expelled by Abbot Filaret Denisenko on political grounds in 1959 and was ordained a deacon by Archbishop Ermogen Golubev for the Tashkent Cathedral. I graduated from the Moscow Theological Academy and was appointed as a priest in the city of Kagan, Uzbek SSR, in 1964. In 1969, I built a new church; I was arrested, convicted under Article 190’ (slander against Soviet power), and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment. In 1971, during disturbances in the corrective labor colony of Kyzyl-Tepa, I lost my right leg. I was released from prison as an invalid in 1972. I served in Fergana and Krasnovodsk. Since 1976 I have been serving in the Pskov diocese. I am married, with three children and six grandchildren.

One of my two parishes in the city of Pskov is called the Church of the Holy Myrrh-Bearing Women. Since 1992, a parish general-education Orthodox school for choirmasters has been operating at the church.

My other parish, dedicated to the Holy Apostle Matthew, is in the village of Piskovichi. At the Church of the Holy Apostle Matthew, since 1993, there has been a shelter for orphaned disabled children.

Invitation to Dialogue

“Tell it to the church.” Mt. 18:17

In the treasury of the Church there is a precious adamant. For fifteen centuries it has reflected ineffable light with the polished facets of its dogmas. We read the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed at every divine service, so that its words might day by day come alive in the memory of the heart. Can one lose the treasure by trading a diamond for lesser valuables? These are pressing concerns, but they are not worth such a price. The corruption of one of the dogmatic attributes of the Church pierces the Body of Christ, just as once “one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out. And he who has seen has testified.” (1*).

The Lord called His disciples to be His witnesses: “You shall be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (1**) With this testimony we turn to the Church.

The ontology of the Church is initially conditioned by the contradictoriness of human nature. It simultaneously reveals two of its sides: “I am an image of Thine ineffable glory, though I bear the wounds of sin.” 2*. Human nature is disclosed in the Church, first, as the image of God, realized in holiness and incorruption – “the man Christ Jesus” 2**. This is human nature as it came to be according to God’s design. Yet God’s design is not completed. It leaves room for human freedom, and man shows himself to be a fallen creature in need of regeneration. The task of the Church is “to call sinners to repentance.”

“The kingdom of God come with power” 3* regenerates the sinner through repentance “until Christ be formed in him” 4*. These two poles—the accomplished and the becoming—of human nature shine through one another, permeating all theology, worship, and life of the Church with the antinomic task “to save that which was lost” 5*. Only by carefully and persistently gazing with loving eyes at the life of the Church is it possible not to lose sight of her true image, which is not always adequately realized in diocesan practice.

Examining the universally significant problems of church life in the context of personal experience, I rely on official church documents and facts, not creating an artistic image according to the canons of a literary work. So that there is no temptation to guess at a concrete person behind the collective character, I introduce the fictional figure of Bishop Acacius of Uryupinsk and Angora, who shapes church life in his diocese. The statute defines the general principles of church life. They sprout into different flowers. Each gardener, according to his own taste, arranges the flower bed or bouquet. In each diocese, the general principles acquire individual features. On one foundation, diocesan life takes shape in different ways. I am able to observe diocesan life from the parish bell tower. From it a limited horizon opens, and diocesan life is seen only in fragments.

The advantage of the “parish bell tower” is that the perspective opens onto personal experience. This experience is not mediated by the words of others: “That which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, … and which our hands have handled, we declare to you.” 6*.

Unlike the apostolic witness, ours is not cleansed by the Holy Spirit of distortions and mistakes. These are produced by various human passions: resentment, envy, vainglory, and so forth. Therefore I do not exaggerate the true significance of my reflections and welcome well-founded objections. As it feels with a cautious foot for solid ground amid the mire of doubts and delusions, thought always risks stumbling and sliding into the abyss. It must hold fast to the thread of the divinely revealed Word and the Church’s tradition. It needs the reception of the living voice of the Church in order to stay on the invisible path. “Be angry, and do not sin” 7*, for reasonable communication presupposes acknowledging one’s mistakes and repenting of them. Christian communion leads not to a breach of relations, but to mutual understanding, to the removal of scandals and obstacles “unto the building up of itself in love” 8*.

“One of the officers standing by struck Jesus with the palm of his hand, saying, ‘Is that how you answer the high priest?’ Jesus answered him, ‘If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why do you strike Me?’” 9*.

Is it not fitting for a Christian to follow the principle of communication—if you will, of honest polemics—in accordance with this word of Christ the Savior?

By silence God is betrayed.

Chapter 1. The Body of Christ Crucified Crosswise.

I believe… in one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.”

By virtue of its Eucharistic nature, the local Church is the Body of Christ. The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed endows it with four dogmatic marks. These marks are inscribed into the symbolism of the four-pointed cross. Intersecting, the vertical and horizontal beams of the cross reveal the symmetrical ontology of the Church and disclose two components of its nature.

On the cross the Body of the God-Man is crucified. 2. The divine-human nature of the Church is manifested by its apostolicity and holiness. The vertical beam of the cross joins earth and heaven. By its lower end this beam is rooted in human history: Christ chose the apostles, gave them authority to bind and loose, and sent them to proclaim the good news and to baptize, gathering His Church together from all the ends of the earth. The upper side of the vertical manifests the holiness of the Church, rooted in the Holy Spirit, who has abided in the Church since the day of His descent upon the apostles on the day of Pentecost, as Christ had promised His disciples.

“too many arms for an embrace You stretched out along the edges of the cross.”

Both ends of the horizontal beam symbolize two other

symmetric and identical attributes of the Church: unity and catholicity. The Creed formulates the dogma of the Church in the same synonymous categories as the dogma of the Holy Trinity. Two Greek synonyms: the philosophical term “ousia” and the common word “hypostasis” express in the dogma of the Holy Trinity the identity of essence, uniting the three irreversibly distinct Persons, not absorbing their distinction into unity, but granting us a new reality—the Christian revelation of personhood in divine and human being. Through baptism in the name of the Holy Trinity, all Christians equally partake of the divine-human nature of the Church. If the mystery of the Holy Trinity can only be reverently contemplated, then in the divine-human essence of the Body of Christ we abide and must not only experience our participation but also comprehend the content of its transfigured life. In the High Priestly Prayer, Christ asks God the Father that the multitude of human persons might realize their unity in the Church after the image of the Holy Trinity: “that they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us.”10* Unity and catholicity reveal the nature of the Church—the one Body of Christ in a multitude of hypostases after the image of the Holy Trinity. The Creed defines the dogma of the Church, describing the “Whole”—the Body of Christ—in terms of unity and catholicity. They relate simultaneously as synonyms and antonyms, defining the essence of the Church in the antinomy of unity and multiplicity. Catholicity denotes the Whole in a cohesive multitude. The limit of this multitude proves to be the unity of love. This cohesion has not petrified into the homogeneity of a monolith that has swallowed up the multiplicity of hypostases. A monolith excludes catholicity: where a single block alone abides, there is nothing to gather into unity. Catholicity preserves in the Whole the multitude of hypostases, “gathered together into one assembly,” for originally they were “scattered throughout the world.”10** The catholic unity of the Church is not seen as a homogeneous block that suppresses and dissolves the person. It is a qualitative concept, expressing the primacy of the person over the cohesion of a depersonalized mass: a barracks or a crowd. Unity is expressed in the conscious and free incorporation of the person into the Church, who has responded to the call of Christ. The Whole appears in such unity as “the Head, Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every supporting ligament, by the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the upbuilding of itself in love”11*. Each of the many hypostases living in the organism of Christ’s life can say: “it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me”12*.

In the history of understanding the Creed, there is a noticeable tendency to blur the ontological meaning of ecclesiological definitions. The concept of the unity of the Church can express two distinct ideas. Unity can be viewed as an ontological category. And it can be seen as merely the exclusivity of the Church’s position and ministry among other Christian confessions. The first understanding refers to the one Church gathered from many members, just as a body consists of individual organs. This understanding is based on the literal text of Holy Scripture about the Church as “the building up of the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God”13*. “you are the body of Christ, and individually members of it”14*. The idea of the organism of Christ’s life preceded the Creed. It was born from the New Testament Revelation, mediated by the Gospel and apostolic texts, and was organically incorporated into the Creed: “I believe in one…”

The second idea of “uniqueness” is mediated by the experience of the Church’s historical life. It took shape as the concept of the “uniqueness” of the Church among a multitude of Christian non-churches. Logic suggests: if the Church is the Body of Christ, it must be “unique.” Christ had one Body, in which He “was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became man.” Therefore, the Church can be only one unique. “I appeal to you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people, my brethren, that there are quarrels among you… you say: ‘I belong to Paul,’ or ‘I to Apollos,’ or ‘I to Cephas,’ or ‘I to Christ.’ Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?”15* Christ cannot be divided. Therefore, everything that separates from the Church is established as heresy or schism. The concept of the “uniqueness” of the Church is mediated by the interpretation of Scripture, theological contemplation, and logical inferences, but most importantly by an assessment of the historical experience of confessional relations. The idea of “uniqueness” proved to be entirely human: empirical and rational. It took shape much later than the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, when numerous divisions—heresies and schisms—tore apart the Body of Christ and raised questions about the ecclesiological quality of the new formations. The problem was especially sharpened by the Great Schism of 1054 and the Reformation that followed it.

For the Orthodox consciousness, only the one unique Orthodox Church is the true Body of Christ. For the Catholic consciousness, only the one unique Catholic Church is the true Body of Christ. The dilemma—who is right?—cannot have a clear-cut solution, because behind each stands a mentality crystallized over centuries, professing the same Revelation, the same Creed, but understood differently in their cultural-historical experience. Over a thousand years, this concept grew in the West and in the East into two barely distinguishable yet rigidly opposed ecclesial traditions, supported on both sides by the names of holy fathers and authoritative theologians. Both rest on the Creed that confesses “one Church.” The confessional notion of the “uniqueness of the Church” displaces the original meaning of the Creed into a neologism, since it came not from the Creed but from disparate historical experience.

A similar confusion of concepts occurs with the term “sobornost.” This term defines the Church by the Greek word “katholiki,” affirming the all-embracing nature of the Kingdom of God, which is inserted into the historical process like leaven that the Gospel’s “woman hid in three measures of flour, till the whole was leavened.”16* The Nicene “katholiki” expressed an ecclesiological quality. Its original meaning correlated with “unity” and expressed the ontological gathering together of the children of God from the ends of the earth into “the Church, which is His Body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”17* The Nicene “katholiki” grew out of the literal texts of the New Testament. “We, being many, are one body in Christ”18*; “Abide in Me, and I in you”19*; “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him”20*. The Eucharist was perceived as the means of gathering together the Body of Christ.

With the development of church structures into local metropolias and patriarchates, “katholiki” acquires a geographical nuance, designating a global structure consisting not of individual children of God but of individual communities of the Universal Church. Having acquired an administrative-geographical nuance, the new aspect of sobornost can preserve the former ecclesiological meaning, denoting a global organism having the mystical nature of “the Body of Christ, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”21* The globalization of church structures gave rise to two different ways of church-administrative community. In the West, there emerged a single headship of Rome with a visible head of the Church, the Pope. In the East, the local churches remained as autocephalous sisters. Both structures have their pros and cons.

The translation of “katholiki” into Slavonic by the word “sobornost” restored to this term — after a thousand years — the Eucharistic meaning of “gathered together into one.” It emphasizes not so much the unification of church structures as the composing and joining together of the Body of Christ from the multitude of scattered children of God, gathered through Eucharistic communion.

Chapter 2. The Local Church.

“I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” Mt. 16, 18.

The fulfillment of these words began on the day of Pentecost.

In the flame of the fiery tongues of the Holy Spirit, a new nature was born, which the Apostle Paul calls the Body of Christ. Since the day of Pentecost, the Church abides identical to herself, however much the external forms of her historical existence may change. Eucharistic ecclesiology is rooted in the Last Supper and finds there its point of support. There Christ the Savior instituted the Eucharist. In Jerusalem, the original Eucharistic community came into being under the presidency of St. James.

The Last Supper and the primitive Christian community of St. James open up a dimension in terms of which we recognize the Eucharistic community, always identical to herself in the Roman catacombs, in the Carthaginian or Asia Minor churches. In them, as in the later historical analogues of the Eucharistic community, day by day, century by century, the breath of the Holy Spirit blows. “Where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God; and where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church and all grace,” writes St. Irenaeus of Lyons. Eucharistic ecclesiology points to a mark that indicates the being of the Church in space and time, manifesting from the very beginning her self-identical content, starting from the Last Supper. This is the Holy Eucharist, which Christ commanded to be celebrated “in remembrance of Him”23*. This is the Church’s memory of herself, revealing her own self-awareness at every time and at every hour of history, and testifying to the common root of all her manifestations in space and time. The Eucharist is like the heart, filling the organism with blood and life. Just as the pulse reveals the working of the heart, so the Eucharist confirms the manifestation of the Church in every mode of her existence “yesterday, today, and forever.” The Church manifests herself where the Eucharistic community has gathered. The Holy Table, on which the consecration of the Holy Gifts takes place, is her backbone. Around it, the whole mystical and practical life of the Church takes shape: the sacraments and worship, hierarchy and governance, teaching and the ascetic struggle of those who are being saved. The Church has no being outside the Eucharist, and the Eucharist is not celebrated outside the Church.

The local concrete Church realizes herself in the Eucharistic community headed by the primate: “The mystery of the seven stars which you saw in My right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands which you saw are the seven churches.”24*

The ecclesiological status of the “local Church” is preserved in contemporary practice by the diocese, which, headed by the bishop, manifests the complete fullness of the Body of Christ: “The organic cell of the Church, as in all living things, must be endowed with all the elements of completeness in itself. Such completeness presupposes a unit that represents a microcosm. This unit, with its plenipotentiary fulfiller, is represented in the diocese headed by the bishop.”25*

Has Khomyakov, in the reflection cited, not lost one of its most important characteristics? The ancient tradition always conceived of the “local Church” as a Eucharistic community having her own Holy Table, her own Eucharist, and her own Primate. If the Primate of a Eucharistic community is understood as the celebrant of the divine Eucharist, surrounded by the whole fullness of the community gathered not piecemeal at different times but simultaneously in one place, then it is difficult to imagine the diocese as a “local Church.” Only speculatively is it possible to bring together into a single assembly hundreds of parishes scattered across the vast territory of each Russian region called a diocese. Such a community can never and nowhere gather for a joint Eucharist. No cathedral can hold it. The bishop cannot preside at the assembly of such a grandiose community, a community that excludes the very possibility of the assembly and of the Holy Table around which it would gather. Formal reasoning leads to a dead end, calling into question the Eucharistic status of the bishop in the community.

This problem cannot be avoided by viewing the bishop as the head of many separate communities, understood as “local Churches.” In that case, the diocese becomes a federation of churches, each of which has its own Altar, its own Eucharist, and its own primate. Such a structure reflects Protestant ecclesiology.

The prospect of regarding a parish as a “local Church” seems tempting. Moreover, it finds experiential confirmation in the practice of parish communities founded by Fr. Alexei Mechev, St. Sebastian of Karaganda, Fr. Sergiy Savelyev, and other pastors without number. Such communities experienced genuine eucharistic unity, gathering day after day at the holy Altar around a visible and tangible primate and celebrant of the Eucharist. By realizing the fullness of liturgical life, their parishes grew from a geographical concept into a eucharistic family. However, by viewing the parish as a “local Church” we lose another ecclesiological mark, pointed out by D.A. Khomyakov: “completeness in the unit that represents a microcosm with a fully empowered completer—in the diocese headed by the bishop.”

A parish headed by a presbyter does not possess the fullness of a “local Church,” because the presbyter does not possess the fullness of sacramental authority. A parish represents a part of the “local Church,” its concrete eucharistic assembly. Because of numerical and spatial growth, the eucharistic community divided into many eucharistic assemblies. By lifting up the bishop’s name, the presbyter becomes a fully empowered celebrant of the Liturgy and presides, day after day, over a concrete eucharistic assembly, partaking together with it of the fullness of the “local Church.”

The lifting up of the primate’s name serves as the canonical sign of the ecclesiological and eucharistic integrity of the diocese.

The mystery of the name reveals the meaning of many sacred actions.

The Name of God is the content and sign of every prayer text. This means that the grace-filled power of prayer is contained in the Name of God. God abides and reveals Himself in His Name.

Through the invocation of the Name of God, the one praying meets and unites with God in His name. The invocation of the saints through their names, the commemoration of the living and the departed, has the same meaning. A name is connected with the personality of the one who bears it. By invoking a name we touch the personality of the one named. The ecclesial act of lifting up the bishop’s name mystically unites all eucharistic assemblies into one Church. Abiding in his name as the unifying principle of the local concrete Church, the bishop is proclaimed the Primate of the “local Church,” even though he is not the celebrant of every Eucharist.

The ecclesiological status of the diocese is grounded in the eucharistic communion of the hierarch with the priests who lift up his name. Losing this grounding, an Orthodox diocese is transformed from a “local Church” into a Protestant “federation of churches.”

The liturgical act of lifting up the bishop’s name resolves the tight knot of ecclesiological problems of the “local church”: the spiritual unity of clergy with the bishop, the validity of the Eucharist celebrated by a presbyter, the ecclesiological status of the diocese, and the mystical unity of eucharistic assemblies. The indisputable importance of lifting up the bishop’s name is grounded in liturgical texts and canonical rules. The texts of every divine service contain repeated liftings up of the bishop’s name.

Starting from the fifth century, Church canons periodically repeat the command “to lift up the bishop’s name and to set up no other Altar” as the primary duty of the presbyter toward the bishop. 26* Thus the Church bears witness to the ecclesiological principle of the single primacy.

Chapter 3. The Primate.

“In the place of God”/42*/.

The person who expresses the Church’s unity and its inner bonds is the bishop. He represents the unity of the eucharistic community gathered around its Primate, who unites all into one family of Christ by bonds of mutual love: “one flock and one shepherd”27*. By gathering around its Primate in eucharistic ministry, the local Church acquires the wholeness of the Body of Christ. The bishop is the ecclesial unit who personifies the local Church: “To the angel of the Church in Ephesus write”28*.

The mystic seer calls the bishop an Angel of the Church.

The unit, which is a multiple of any number, expresses the very idea of number and counting. In its indivisibility it reveals the essence of number, like the atom that reveals the substratum of matter in its indivisibility. Clergy and laity without the Primate have no ecclesial significance. In numerical terms they are likened to zeros. The zero acquires meaning in calculation only together with the unit. The unit is the smallest of all whole numbers. Yet together with zeros the unit can form a number as large as you like among all possible numbers. The zero expresses the absence of numerical value, and it also expresses the completion of the previous and the beginning of a new numerical order. No significant digit completes the fullness of a given place-value. The zero completes the fullness: 10, 100, 1000 and so on. The magnitude that arises from non-being clothes something significant in fullness.

This numerical image expresses the significance of the bishop, the clergy, and the laity in the community, and their mutual need for one another.

The liturgical dignity of the bishop’s charism is revealed with utmost clarity in the divine service. The exclusivity of his charism conditions the absolute respect for the bishop’s ministry and governance. Through the liturgical ritual, divine worship is rendered to the hierarch as a living icon of God. The hierarch manifests Christ the Savior Himself, coming forth from the “local” icon and tangibly abiding among us. We call him by the name of God: “holy Master,” we pray “through the prayers of our holy Master.” We lift up his name repeatedly in all his titles and magnify him in the many-years: “Lord, preserve our archiereus; eis polla eti, Despota.” The hierarch’s mitre is placed on the holy Altar next to the holy Gifts and the Gospel. Like angels, subdeacons serve him.

In the center of the church at the cathedra they strip him and dress him in sacred vestments, wash him in a silver laver and wipe him with a towel, lead him by the arms. “He is preceded by the angelic faces” of candle-bearers, and before him is carried the staff — a symbol of hierarchical dignity and authority.

Clergy and laity kiss his hands. Every liturgical action and address to the bishop is accompanied by his blessing and the kissing of his hands. The eagle rugs underscore his abiding at a heavenly height. The omophorion depicts the lost sheep that the Good Shepherd once sought in the mountains, found, and carried upon His shoulders. It is an image of the sinner found and saved through the sacrificial ministry of the bishop. The bishop’s miter depicts the crown of thorns that sprinkled the Savior’s brow with blood. “The bishop… having received from God authority to bind and loose, is the living image of God on earth and… an abundant source of all the sacraments of the universal Church, by which salvation is obtained. The bishop is as necessary for the Church as breath is for the one who breathes and the sun for the world.” — thus define the Fathers of the Council of Jerusalem of 1672, and the same is repeated in the 10th article of the “Encyclical of the Eastern Patriarchs” of 1728. 29*.

Ritual life differs from real life. However, the ritual life of the community does not imply “falseness” or “daydreaming.”

It is a path to acquiring life “in the Spirit.” In ritual, the real world meets the ideal. Nothing defiled, nothing not transfigured by the Holy Spirit, will enter the Kingdom of God.

On the one hand, transfigured existence takes part in church ritual: under the form of bread and wine we partake of the Body and Blood of Christ, ordinary water bears the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit.

On the other hand, we take part in the ritual — sinners thirsting for repentance, seeking transfiguration. The heavenly world responds to our call. Remaining as we are, we experience ourselves as we ought to be, as we desire to become — worthy of meeting the heavenly world. Through church ritual, fallen existence discerns its own primordial image in transfigured existence.

This is what the soul yearning for transfiguration longs for. Poetry, painting, music recreate it. It reveals its authenticity in angelic appearances, prophetic revelations, Gospel miracles. Through ritual we become aware of the content of our own repentance: from what we are changing into what. “As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ” 30*. Having experienced the reality of what ought to be in ritual, we acquire the determination to attain it. Man can influence reality and change it. From this, repentance originates: the moral struggle to overcome one’s selfhood and genuine transfiguration. Yet this struggle awaits ascetics. “Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” 31*.

The bishop is the point of reference, the origin of the coordinate axis of ritual, a living icon of Christ the Savior. The bishop is not the God-man. He manifests a living image of the God-man. If the bishop ceases to distinguish himself from Christ the Savior, there arises the consciousness of the donkey on which Christ rode into Jerusalem, had that donkey ascribed to its own dignity the cloaks and branches spread before its hooves. In such a case, theanthropy is supplanted by man-godhood. The shadow of the superman falls upon all the bishop’s relations with clergy and laity. The shadow of the Antichrist.

What profound humility and sobriety are necessary for a hierarch to experience his liturgical divinity as belonging not to his person but to his charism. For centuries, the speeches typically delivered by nominees at their nomination as bishop have reflected the sacred dread that overwhelms a man before the responsibility of hierarchical service. The greatest holy hierarchs shunned this calling, literally fleeing from ordination, like the prophet Jonah. Their sacred dread before the responsibility of hierarchical service was not false humility. They feared to appropriate for themselves the glory that belongs only to God. They dared not eclipse the Face of God with their own person.

The magnificence and grandeur of hierarchical liturgy do not originate in the simplicity of the Eucharistic gatherings of the post-Apostolic period. The upper room of early Christian agape meals and the Roman catacombs with the tombs of martyrs could not have accommodated their sumptuous pageantry.

Much more evident is the ritual’s continuity with the imperial splendor of the Byzantine court. The gold of vestments, the symbolism of the utensils, the pomp of the ritual awakened in the consciousness of those praying an image of heaven on earth, astounding them with the external brilliance of theophany.

“Among us, as in none of the other Orthodox churches, the bishop’s ministry and the whole life of a bishop were surrounded with a particular greatness, pomp, and solemnity. In this, undoubtedly, lay a serious purpose — to elevate the prestige of the bishop and his ministry. It is also beyond doubt that the pomp of the entire episcopal setting was often taken to absurdity, to a complete distortion of the very idea of the bishop’s ministry, both by unwise zealots for the grandeur of the hierarch’s rank — on the one hand — and by the ambitious and vainglorious hierarchs themselves — on the other. They made our hierarchs resemble pampered and spoiled ladies who love to sleep on soft beds, eat delicate and sweet foods, dress in silken and sumptuous garments, and travel without fail in carriages… External brilliance and grandeur often concealed the spiritual wretchedness of the bearer of the highest sacred rank, but could not compensate for it. The forgery was exposed, if not by people, then by deeds — the fetish could not replace the wonder-working icon.” — Protopresbyter G. Shavelsky recalls the Synodal era. 32*

The Protestant consciousness finds the bishop’s ceremonial scandalous and calls it “idolatry.” It opposes “hierarch-service” to “divine-service.” The atheistic consciousness sees in the hierarchical ritual a primitive groveling raised to a cult. Both notions sound blasphemous to the Orthodox ear. However, they find grounding in church practice. With a lack of liturgical culture, aesthetic measure, and modesty, the sumptuous magnificence of the ritual easily slips into the grotesque, revealing deficiencies, which are, however, inevitable in any practice.

The Church accepts this challenge. The Orthodox consciousness refuses to see the hierarchical service as a game of playing God and takes seriously the idea of a living icon. Christ said to His disciples: “He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me.”32**. Holy Scripture reveals the incomprehensible and undoubted reality of the Incarnation: “God with us.”33*. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”34*. God became man in order to abide with His creation. The ways of God’s dwelling are various:

God dwells in the holy Mysteries of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.
God dwells in the words of Revelation.
God dwells in the holy icons.
God dwells in His name.
God dwells in spirit-bearing human beings.
God dwells in the bishop, who personifies Him during the Divine Liturgy. Thus His promise is fulfilled: “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”35*. Hierarchical worship emphasizes the veneration of Christ’s humanity and satisfies the thirst to touch the concrete holiness of His deified humanity: “a woman who had suffered from a flow of blood for twelve years came up behind Him and touched the fringe of His garment; for she said to herself, ‘If I only touch His garment, I shall be made well.’”36*.

For the ancient Jews, it was a stumbling block to see God in a man:
“We want to stone You… because You, being a man, make Yourself God.”37*. Answering the Jews, Christ quotes a verse from the Psalms: “I said, you are gods”38*, emphasizing that Divine Revelation allows one to see God in man long before the Incarnation. “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him”40*.

Moses saw a bush in the wilderness that burned with fire and was not consumed. And God called to Moses out of the midst of the bush: “I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry; come, I will send you to bring forth my people”41*. Moses was afraid: had not Pharaoh recently sought to kill him? Despite human fear, a weak spirit trembling before the call, God raises Moses to a height before which reason stands still and the tongue falls silent: “Aaron shall be your mouth, and you shall be to him as God”42*. Sending Moses to this struggle, God promises him: “I will be with you”43*. God sets Moses as a mediator between Himself and the people. Moses realizes himself as an intercessor for the people: “forgive their sin—and if not, blot me out of Your book which You have written.”44*. God acknowledged Moses’ intercession and had mercy on the people through his prayer.

From the lips of the bishop, we expect to hear the voice of Christ the Savior—the true Shepherd, who “calls his own sheep by name… and goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.”45*.

The iconoclasts saw in the icon a substitution of God by His image.
The name-worshippers’ opponents saw in the name of God a fetish. These stumbling blocks prove how difficult it is for the human mind to accept the mystery of the Incarnation. For modern consciousness, such a trial and stumbling block is hierarchical worship. Here veneration is rendered to the most precious of all icons—the living image of the incarnate God. Veneration is due to the bishop as the bearer of the image, the mediator, and intercessor for the people before God. Should the flock honor and confess the bishop as God outside the Divine Liturgy, in everyday life, in fellowship, in business relations?

Chapter 4. The Limits of the Bishop’s Divinity

From an earthly god, Lord, save us.
Scripture strictly commands us
To acknowledge only the heavenly God.46*.
“You shall have no other gods before Me”46**.

While expressing the liturgical dignity of the bishop through the charism of being “in place of God,” the Church by no means equates the person of the bishop with God. The Church limits the deification of the bishop to the time of the Eucharistic service, the sanctity “according to the order of Aaron,” and the measure of authority. The bestowal of the charism through ordination does not deify the person of the bishop. The grace-given gift of transfiguration and deification is not connected with episcopal ordination. Raising the bishop to the sacred rank “according to the order of Aaron,” ordination does not impart personal holiness or infallibility to him. Receiving the gift to sanctify others, the bishop himself can remain untouched by sanctification. Proclaiming God’s will to others, he may not hear it within his own heart. Many priests did what was displeasing to God, for example, the sons of Eli, the high priests Annas and Caiaphas. God accepted sacrifice from them, and Israel received sanctification from their hands. The bishop receives his rank as a pledge, “for which he will be called to account on the day of judgment.”47*.

Those who partake of the light of Tabor become “priests forever according to the order of Melchizedek”: Moses, Elijah, the hosts of the saints, whom the grace of God touched and transformed into a new creation according to the fervency of their repentance and the strength of their personal struggle. “The Spirit blows where it wills”48*. Miracle-working and prophecy are likewise gifts of grace which God has promised to all who believe in Him: “he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do.”49*.

The charism of apostleship has an objective difference from the charism of episcopacy—the gift of miracle-working. All the apostles received this gift—the “priests according to the order of Melchizedek”—as a commandment: “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons.”50* Each of the apostles fulfilled this commandment as his own charismatic ministry in repentance, patience, and humility, even unto martyrdom.

The charism of the bishop—“a priest according to the order of Aaron”—unlike the apostolic charism, is not tied to the gift of miracle-working, to personal struggle, or to personal holiness. In his ordination, the bishop does not receive, as the apostles did, the commandment to work miracles. The deification of the bishop’s person by virtue of his ordination has occurred in Church history. Ordination to the episcopate was viewed as a second baptism for the remission of sins. This was an obvious heresy against the Nicene Creed: “I confess one baptism.”

According to M.E. Posnov, “the system of diocesan papism found its full consolidation in the Didascalia, a third-century document corrupted by interpolations: ‘The bishop is a powerful king for you; he, governing in the place of God, must be honored by you as God, for…’”

The bishop presides among you in the place of God…revere him and pay him all kinds of honor…The one who wears the diadem, that is, the king, rules only over the body,..the bishop, however, rules over soul and body” 51*.

The Quinisext Council in 691 condemned such a view of the bishop as a distortion of church doctrine, rejecting the decrees transmitted through Clement: “These Clementine constitutions they prudently set aside, by no means admitting the offspring of heretical evil-speaking, and not mingling them with the pure and perfect apostolic teaching” 52*.

The idea of deifying the person of the bishop proved to be in contradiction with apostolic experience. When the Apostle Paul healed a lame man in Lystra,

the people “lifted up their voice: gods in human form have come down to us. And they called Barnabas, Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the chief speaker. Then the priest of the idol of Zeus, which was before their city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates and wanted to offer sacrifice with the people. But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their clothes and rushed into the crowd, crying out loudly: Men! Why are you doing this? We too are men of like nature with you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn

from these vain things to the living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. They scarcely restrained the people from offering sacrifice to them” 53*. Possessing the evident charism of miracle-working, the apostles declined divine honors. They feared to seize for themselves the glory that belongs only to God. If a bishop experiences his divinity as something that belongs to him personally, this indicates a loss of sobriety.

Chapter 5. “The Church in the Bishop and the Bishop in the Church ”.

This saying of St. Cyprian of Carthage is quoted only in part, distorting the meaning of the text. Whether consciously or not, the text is cut off with the words “The Church in the bishop,” and this fragment is professed as the tradition of the Church, defining the bishop’s position and authority in worship and daily life. The bishop is identified with the fullness of the Church; his desires express the will of the Church. The bishop’s teaching and preaching express the dogmatic, liturgical, moral, and canonical self-awareness of the Church. The bishop’s faith and prayer determine the religious experience of the Church. A strange teaching emerges about the infallibility of the diocesan bishop’s judgments, decisions, and experience at all times and on every matter. “And I no longer consider my opinion to be only my own, but the opinion of the diocese /i.e. the local Church/,” says the bishop, unjustifiably passing off his personal opinion as the consciousness of the local Church.54* With these words the bishop expresses the superstitious tradition of seeing in any hierarch’s opinion a rule of faith. “A rule of faith and a model of meekness, a teacher of self-mastery, you have shown yourself to your flock, even the truth of things. Therefore you have gained by humility exalted things, by poverty riches…” The troparion describes the ideal image of a shepherd, realized by St. Nicholas, whom the Church glorified after his death, preserving a grateful memory of his love and mercy. The troparion grounds his holiness in his personal ascetic struggle, through which the saint acquired the virtues and glory of a true shepherd. This image is not self-enclosed. It is turned toward God and the flock, for whom he serves as intercessor and intercessor: “I am among you as one who serves” 55*. By distorting the thought of St. Cyprian, the bishop identifies himself with the Church, compelling clergy and laity to accept his self-deification not as the fruit of personal ascetic effort, but as a consequence of ordination. By asserting his own self-sufficiency in the Church, the bishop pushes clergy and laity into an ecclesiological void. Having lost their canonical place in the church, they vacate it for the “One and Only”—necessary and sufficient.

The distortion of St. Cyprian’s thought takes to its logical extreme the shortcomings of a clerical ecclesiology that circumscribes the boundaries of the Church within the limits of the episcopate.

In reality, St. Cyprian’s words mean that the bishop personifies the unity of the Church, abiding with her and in her without confusion and without separation, yet he does not exhaust her fullness by his own person in either mystical or empirical reality, since he himself does not exist outside the church community at all, but only within it. The bishop performs all sacred rites and prayers not in his own name,

Individually, a bishop holds the same significance as each of the faithful sons and daughters of the Church, who do not lose the uniqueness of their own countenance amidst the multitude of hypostases.

The Church does not manifest a faceless mass, nor a crowd driven by animal instincts, but the unity of many hypostases. Each of them preserves the features of the image of God, imprinted in its unique countenance.

Chapter 6. The Unity of the Church

Of the four marks by which the Creed defines the Church, only the concept of unity contains a qualitative ambiguity. Therefore, “sobornost” not only expresses the dogmatic mark of the Church, but also determines the quality of its unity. In the categories of unity and plurality, one can consider the most diverse forms of physical, social, and personal being. Unity can have different qualities. It can have relative or absolute value, for example, the consubstantiality of the Holy Trinity. Unity can have a negative value in the kingdom of dark power: “If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself: how then shall his kingdom stand?” 57*.

Within these broad value boundaries, there exist various forms of unity with positive and negative value.

A pile of stones represents an accidental unity. An example of mechanical unity is an aggregate, such as a meat grinder. All its parts are necessary, but replaceable. The significance of any part for the aggregate is exhausted by its function. The most perfect unity of the impersonal world is represented by the organism. Its branches and roots, flowers and fruits are connected by the unity of the organic life of the Whole – the Body. All the named types of impersonal unity exclude freedom.

Human society is fundamentally different from impersonal unity. It is a discrete unity that preserves freedom for the person. Freedom is a quality inherently belonging to the person. Outside of freedom, the person does not exist at all. Creating man in His own image, God granted him freedom in the primordial design for man, which destined him for godlikeness. In the creation and salvation of fallen man, God takes human freedom seriously. Salvation is accomplished exclusively in the synergy of divine grace and human freedom. Sacred Scripture commands moral freedom as a divine right and sacred duty of the person: “Stand fast in the freedom with which Christ has made you free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.” 58*/. This commandment of the Apostle is always relevant for man, for in the experience of graceless existence, human society can acquire the features of depersonalized unity.

The accidental unity of a pile of stones is realized by the crowd, absorbing the individual with its mass, suppressing with herd-like unanimity. Feeding on human energy, it is at times possessed by fury, at times by exultation, at times paralyzed by fear. The Gospel recounts how a whole herd of swine, possessed by dark power, rushed down a steep cliff into the sea and drowned. 59*. The Gospel recounts the crowd thirsting for blood: “Crucify him, crucify him.” The elemental force of the crowd becomes a devastating power: inhuman, senseless, merciless.

The mechanical unity of an aggregate is realized by human society in barrack systems, penitentiary institutions, which suppress the person in man, depriving him of human dignity, creative self-expression, turning a living person into a mechanical function subordinated to another’s will.

The depersonalized unity of the vegetative world is revealed in bureaucratic systems. The anthill survives at the cost of the lives of its ants. When human unity excludes personal freedom, it inevitably degenerates into one of these depersonalized systems.

The idea of unity is expressed not only by the Church of Christ. The army, the mafia, a concentration camp, or a diocese all acquire their structural unity in the community. In the army, the expression of unity is the general. In the mafia – the godfather, and in the Church – its bishop. The hierarchical order expresses the quality of unity and is therefore ambiguous. It can be conciliar or democratic, authoritarian or totalitarian, depending on the spirit that lives in a given community. The order of the community becomes conciliar when “the Spirit, which breathes where it wills,” abides in the community, quickening it with a grace-filled breath. The norm of church life is expressed by the balance of the hierarchical, personal, and communal principles.

When hierarchical power relies on human self-will—whether the democratic power of the majority, or the authoritarian power of a usurper, or the totalitarian power of an ideology—it limits the freedom of the Spirit, prescribing limits to His “breathing.” All the excesses of democracy and totalitarianism fully manifest themselves in the authoritarian power of a diocesan hierarch.

When a bishop presents his own desires as the will of the Church instead of subjecting them to her will— “nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will” 60*. – instead of the Theanthropic organism of Christ’s life, a man-god structure of episcopal cult arises. The concept of “sobornost” is replaced by “clericalism.”

This is not about the fullness and unconditionality of episcopal authority in the Church. It is indisputable. In the fullness of the Church, there cannot be a corner of life separated from the bishop. Just as the bishop cannot be separated from the Church, so the Church cannot be separated from the bishop.

One should not idealize equality. This idea is alien to the divine world order, “for one star differs from another star in glory.” 61*. The invisible world also has a hierarchical structure. However, the angels are blessed and do not suffer from their inequality. The higher look upon the lower with love and care, benefiting them, pouring forth the uncreated light of the Holy Trinity through their transparency. The lower contemplate the higher with reverence and gratitude and hearken to them.

We sorrow over our inequality, for in human society, as in a chicken coop, everyone strives to sit higher, to peck their neighbor, and defecate on the one below. By inequality, we justify our dissatisfaction: contempt for the lower and envy for the higher, which breed rebellions and revolutions.

The point is only that the bishop’s authority in the Church should not be authoritarian. Autocratic power excludes conciliarity. By his human will, the bishop must not hinder the Holy Spirit from acting in the conciliar Church. Practice shows that diocesan life is essentially no different from bureaucratic structures that live by the rule “the boss is always right,” and his servants “should not dare to have their own opinion.” The bishop’s authority does not always and in everything have a charismatic nature. It often relies on the formal authority of the bishop in the diocese, demanding submission without the right to object and monologue instead of communion. A formal unity arises, in which there is no freedom, unanimity, or like-mindedness. The hierarch suppresses everyone by his sole will, and the church body meekly submits to violence, recognizing the legality of the power. Having a legitimate origin, power can have an illegitimate application. A cleric who claims independent judgment either renounces human dignity and prostrates himself before the bishop’s arbitrariness, or is forced out of the clergy and the Church.

The conciliar unity of the Church manifests an icon of divine life in human history, just as the human person is an icon of God. Every icon can be placed in a shrine. A lampada can be lit before it and flowers placed. An icon can be surrounded by reverence, or it can be damaged and desecrated, forsaken in neglect and oblivion.

The unity of the Church cannot be coercive. It must be preserved conciliarly. Otherwise the assembly of the faithful will not be transformed into the conciliar Church. It will remain one of many human organizations with all their shortcomings and imperfections. The conciliar unity of the Church means the co-participation of all its members in the life of the Church. The assembled multitude of persons constitutes the conciliar unity of the Church. Having freely self-determined through the sacrament of Baptism and united at the Eucharistic assembly into the Body of Christ, human persons, without confusion and without division, realize the unity of the Church: without confusion, for each of the assembled multitude preserves the freedom of self-determination; without division, for “The bread which we break, is it not a communion of the Body of Christ? One bread, and we many are one Body; for we all partake of that one Bread.” 62*. Our unity is held together by a living inner bond: “today the grace of the Holy Spirit has gathered us” 63*. The unity of the Church is founded on the free union of persons by the Holy Spirit in the image of the Holy Trinity: “May they all be one, as We are one” 64*. Each hypostasis of the Holy Trinity abides in free union with the other two: “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” 65*. Here there can be no external necessity, no violence or compulsion to unity: “there is no fear in love, for love casts out fear.” 66*.

Only love and freedom, like roots, nourish church unity: “K to freedom you were called, brethren… by love serve one another.” 67*. Each person in conciliar unity can express himself, flourish in the multiplicity of grace-filled gifts, without breaking the unity of love. This is the firstfruits of the Kingdom of God already on earth: “there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Kingdom of God come with power” 68*.

“Within the framework of church dogmas and canons, the freedom of the Church is the fundamental element, the voice of God sounding in her: can it be bound, stifled? External constraint and suppression of this voice leads to spiritual slavery. In church life there arises a fear of freedom of speech, thought, spiritual creativity; a leaning towards pharisaic legalism, a cult of form and letter—all these are signs of faded church freedom, of slavery, while the Church of Christ is a Being full of life, eternally young, flourishing, fruitful… The most persistent struggle of my whole life has been for the freedom of the Church. A bright idea, dear to my soul… Church creativity is the highest indicator of church life, of its development, flourishing. I have become accustomed to receiving the truth of Christ broadly, in all its diversity, multifacetedness. Narrow fanaticism is incomprehensible to me and unpleasant. Outside of church freedom there is neither living church life nor good pastorship. I would like the words about Christ’s freedom to sink into the hearts of my spiritual children, and that they would guard and defend it from encroachment, from whatever side the threat may come, remembering firmly that spiritual freedom is a great sacred treasure of the Holy Church” 68**.

Conciliar unity transforms the moral boundaries of freedom into bonds of love. Can freedom be limited? I myself limit my freedom when I make a choice, binding myself by the relationships I seek. Thus I limit my freedom by the bonds of marriage, because I love and want to be bound to my chosen one. The Church, like the family, binds persons while preserving their freedom. Unity has the task of securing persons with “mutually strengthening bonds,” so that each may fit into the order of conciliar life. The unity of the conciliar Body requires from each member self-limitation for the sake of communion in love and brotherhood. The limits of freedom are determined by the voice of conscience and reason. Only where love has grown scarce, where reason is darkened and conscience slumbers, does the necessity for external limitation by law arise: by law, discipline, code of honor, commandment. Social bonds have different qualities. Some arise from an inner need for love and friendship. Such bonds have a positive character of serving God, an idea, one another, when all are “of one accord,” and each can express his independent judgment. In such a society, the person becomes aware of himself through the joy of mutual recognition. Each person feels needed and significant for another, irreplaceable, bound to them by inner ties: trust, mutual understanding, gratitude—in a word, love, which contains all the riches of the soul.

The external limitation of freedom by law and discipline is called to restrain human passions: intolerance, greed, envy, lust for power, etc., which expose the fallen nature of man, tearing unity apart, opposing

personalities to one another. The seventy-year experience of totalitarian state illustrates a unity based on external violence and lies. Ideological enslavement, punitive, financial, and social suppression of the individual, like a steel hoop, shackled spiritual freedom, turning people into aggregates and anthills: concentration camps, armies, collective farms—transforming people into numbers, functional units, interchangeable like bolts and nuts.

The final outcome of forced unity will be Hell. The underworld will depersonalize and corrupt the Image of God, standardizing personalities on the Procrustean bed of a standard. Hell is discipline raised to an absolute, where the voice of conscience falls silent forever, turning into unquenchable fire; the voice of reason grows still, turning into an undying worm; feelings and desires are suppressed, enslaved by the autocratic will of the one Sovereign—Satan. “Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” 69*.

Discipline does not seek obedience. It demands formal submission. Herein lies the danger of substituting spiritual life with the formal rules of the Pharisees and scribes, from whose leaven Christ warned His disciples to beware. 70*. Discipline in the Church must be a result of inner connections. A formal principle cannot be laid as the foundation of organic unity. The living organism of the Church is built on the living Stone, which the builders rejected, not understanding God’s plan. This precious stone became the head of the corner. “And that rock was Christ” 71*.

Conciliarity without unity turns into a chaotic crowd. Unity without conciliarity finds its apocalyptic culmination in Hell. The Church without conciliarity will not be Christ’s. The loss of the correlation of both marks of the Church leads to an ecclesiological void. The pressure of the totalitarian state, which the Russian Orthodox Church endured for seventy years, must have deformed church life on all levels. Restoring conciliar principles in church life is no less important than preserving its unity.

Society is the only possible way of human life. In the ontological order of existence, society is secondary. God created man. Man forms social life himself according to the commandment: “It is not good that man should be alone” 72*. Under any social order, it is difficult to realize conciliar unity. Envy, greed, lust for power substitute genuine conciliar unity with an accidental, mechanical—alas! depersonalized, barrack-like unity. There is always Someone who encroaches on the personal freedom of the rest with his authoritarian will. His claims to power are always justified by “the common good.”

Is it possible to reasonably combine both values in human society, not opposing but complementing them with mutual beauty: obedience, without which unity crumbles, and freedom, outside of which personal being dies? How does the Church, in its grace-filled life, combine unity and conciliarity? The Church cannot compromise on either of the two antinomic marks that express its grace-filled nature. Having defined human nature as personal, fundamentally other than all impersonal unities, we used the expression “free unity,” which is a logical contradictio in adjecto. On the one hand, the element of freedom destroys social bonds; on the other, the loss of personal freedom turns human society into a mob with herd instincts.

The antinomy of unity and freedom is overcome only through the miracle of love. In un-transfigured being, we know only one example of conciliar unity in the image of the Church, in which this miracle is accomplished—the sacrament of marriage. The Apostle Paul points to marital love as an image of the Church of Christ.

The Church is fulfilled when
We gaze into each other’s eyes
And the inner day shines forth
From our falling-silent eyes.

Whether by a star’s seven rays,
Or by the Seraphim’s flashing eyes,
The middle shadow melts
And a diamond sparkles in the heart.

A name is written upon it,
In each other we read this sign,
We whisper a mutual “amen,”
And the Third embraces the two.

Disquieted, we withdraw into darkness.
How star-filled and blue the spirit is,
How full-sounding and quiet the world. 73*.

Like an electric arc, love welds together two souls that seek each other. They were strangers. Everything in them is different: blood, upbringing, even sex, which defines two opposing psychologies. Love united the ununitable and became the content of their unity according to God’s commandment: “the two shall become one flesh” 74*. We have forgotten how to perceive marriage as a miracle because of its obviousness and our habituation to this miracle. It reveals to us the secret of overcoming the antinomy of unity and conciliarity of the Church: “the two shall become one flesh” 75*. This mystery is profound; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the Church.” 76*.

The artificial instruments of social life—law and discipline—do not overcome the contradiction between unity and freedom. They only restrict the freedom of the majority, granting it to a few, thereby creating an unfree unity of the state and other social institutions.

Chapter 7. The Problem of Authority

“Fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor” /76**/.

Authority is a will that can actualize itself in another’s freedom by means of coercion and violence against that freedom. If authority rests on the law or on God’s commandment, on the popular will, it is legitimate and has moral value. If it merely manifests personal pretensions, it is called arbitrariness, usurpation, tyranny.

Authority is always represented and exercised by a concrete person with all his merits and shortcomings. The sacral consciousness saw in this person a god or his anointed one. The tsar stood above the law and acknowledged his responsibility only before God. His authority was organic. It united the people into one family. Possession realizes the authentic nature of authority, uniting all in a common dependence on one Sovereign.

Sacred consciousness faded, carrying with it into the unrepeatable past theocracies and monarchies. It was replaced by a pragmatic consciousness of power, as a rational system of governance. Lenin called it an “apparatus of violence.” However, only brigand power rests on fear and violence. It is always ephemeral. “You can come to power with bayonets, but you cannot sit on bayonets.” Illegally seized power, in its further exercise, always strives for legitimacy. “Do not ask by what path I gained the kingdom. You will reign by right,” — Godunov says to his son.

As a legitimate foundation of power, the pragmatic consciousness of the new age perceives the will of the people. The democratic principle sees this will in the majority of votes cast by electors. The depravity of such a principle is obvious, but an alternative principle has not yet been devised. The majority consists of people of average abilities. Talents and geniuses always remain in the minority. The majority chooses its like: understandable and predictable. Ordinary people of average abilities come to rule, not outstanding in personal qualities. The wisdom and holiness of rulers were replaced by the professionalism of a team and the might of the state apparatus. Sacred power rested originally on divine authority. Democratic power is forced to win authority and popularity among its subjects. They do not come for free. Democratic power recognizes the law and maintains its rating. The Apostle Paul commands to respect authority, pray for it, and obey it “not only from fear, but also for conscience’ sake” 77*. We pray “for our God-protected country, its authorities and army,” resigning ourselves to bureaucratic, economic, and police oppression because we recognize the social value of power: public order, civil rights, and freedoms. Organizing social forms of life, democratic power cannot ensure the spiritual unity of society, as was the case in the sacred era. Democratic power does not unite but divides. For its foundation is equality. Law implements the principle of division and separation, ensuring personal independence of everyone from everyone else, equality of all before the law, freedom, and solitude. Gaining equality and freedom in democracy, we lose unity.

Like the anointed ones of the sacred era, democratic rulers experience their election as a national recognition of their own exceptionalism. In universal adulation, admiration, and fawning, they find confirmation of their right to power, dominion, and personal privileges. With the act of election, the “power of the people” is exhausted. Having taken power into his hands, the elected one escapes the control of the electors and may not keep his promises, since there is no turning back. Power given “for a time” is taken “for good.” A coup occurs: the elected one becomes a usurper. His accountability is declared but not exercised. The instruments of public oversight and protest prove illusory. The recall mechanism does not work. For the ruler’s mistakes and abuses, “scapegoats” are judged. Rulers do not pay their debts. The rigid vertical of power works only in one direction — from top to bottom. Democracy sheds its skin, giving rise to a caste of bureaucracy, known as the “nomenclature.”

The Gospel Understanding of Power

Christ did not bequeath to anyone dominion over a person, his personality, his life and destiny, his conscience and freedom. Such dominion leads to oppression and violence. God did not reserve such power even for Himself, granting man absolute freedom of choice: freedom of moral choice, freedom to live or die.

“I swore, yes, I swore to acknowledge the power of the highest will over my heart. Now… here is your crown, I need it no more. Take it and let me fall.” / Schiller/.

Christ bequeathed to the disciples “power and authority over all demons and to heal diseases” 78*, to bind and loose sins. He valued human freedom and forbade His disciples the authority of dominion: “The princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant” 79*. Christ enjoined a different nature of power: not formal power exalting the greater over the lesser, but real power, humbling itself in sacrificial service to the lesser with love and responsibility for the one you love: “For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? is not he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as he that serveth” 80*. Christ commanded to receive power as service and in Himself showed the image of true greatness of power: “The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many” 81*. “The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep” 82* “Feed the flock of God… not lording it over God’s heritage, but being ensamples to the flock” 83*. Thus God commanded to exercise the principle of power in the Church.

Deifying the Caesars, Rome asserted the indisputability and unlimitedness of dominion. Honor demands that subjects serve it. The Apostle Paul did not recognize the divinity of the Caesars. He indicates the religious and moral justification of power not in the divinity of power, but in its service: “Archontes – servants of God” 84*. This understanding of power became established in the terminology of Christian statehood. The Tsar – God’s anointed, minister – servant, deputy – sent one, etc. Such an understanding of power, alien to pre-Christian Rome, was perceived by the consciousness of the Church: “I entreat the elders among you… feed the flock of God… not lording it over God’s heritage, but being ensamples to the flock” 85*. Origen continues the Apostle’s thought: “He who is called a bishop in the Church must be the servant of all in his ministry, in order to be useful to all in the work of salvation.” 86*. The Apostle Paul understood his task in the same way: “in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God… I made myself servant unto all… that I might by all means save some” 87*. Archpriest N. Afanasyev writes: “To lord it over or command the flock of God means to use power that has no foundation in love.” 88*

The scribes and Pharisees asked Christ: “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” 89*. Christ did not hide the source of His authority and its absolute fullness: “The Father…has given authority” 90*. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me” 91*. Such words could only be uttered by the God-man. “All authority” implies fullness of authority. “In heaven and on earth” means the visible and invisible world, the cosmos and the angels. Such unique authority belongs only to God: all-encompassing, undisputed, eternal. Sending the apostles to preach the Kingdom of God, Christ gave them authority over unclean spirits, over diseases, to forgive and bind sins, to teach and baptize, assisting Providence in the destiny and salvation of man, in the transfiguration of the Cosmos. The pastoral authority of love and care unites: “there will be one flock and one Shepherd” 92*. Christ indicates the motive of pastoral ministry in love for Him: “if you love Me, feed My sheep” 93*. Pastoral authority is exercised in the sacrificial love of the shepherd: “the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” 94*. Church tradition assigns this pastoral authority to the bishop, as the successor of the apostles. As a sign of authority, he is given a staff “to shepherd the Church of the Lord and God, which He purchased with His own blood.” 95*.

The bishop’s staff, now adorned with silver and diamonds, symbolizes the wooden staff with which the Gospel shepherd walks ahead of the flock, calling his sheep: “When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice” 96*.

Chapter 8. Diocesan Authority of the Bishop

The Statute of the Russian Orthodox Church delineates the limits of a bishop’s authority by three functions: “Bishops enjoy the fullness of hierarchical authority in matters of sacred rites, doctrine, and pastoral care.” 97* The first of these has as its sole source the divine grace of ordination. The ministry of teaching also has its source in the charism of ordination. However, church practice supplements the divine gift with compulsory education at a Theological Academy. 98*.

The ministry of governance 99* also has two sources of authority. The first of them is charismatic. The other source of episcopal authority is called canon law. Historically, it arose very early in church practice and received the authority of Holy Tradition. The juridical authority of the Church is expressed in the canons adopted by Councils and recorded in the monuments of church history.

The juridical authority of the bishop in the Church cannot be questioned. The two-thousand-year tradition of legal practice in the Church is an obvious fact and admits no change. It is justified by its own antiquity and therefore inevitable. One may reflect not on the existence of law in the Church, but only on its extra-ecclesiastical nature.

Law is the highest achievement in organizing social relations of non-transfigured being on the principles of justice and equality: natural law, the value of the person, his dignity and freedom… The task of law is to safeguard order and structure from anarchy and chaos. The law protects physical existence and the essential rights of the individual from suppression by the majority. The law limits the individual’s power claims on another’s freedom. Law is capable of fulfilling its tasks only in part, since man is mortal and the law is imperfect. Law is necessary where love has grown scarce.

As long as people love one another, they have no need to fence their mutual relations with law. The cooling of love and mistrust separate them, causing the need for legal protection from one another. The grace-filled life of the Church needs no supplementation by law, as long as the imperfection of our fallen nature is overcome through renewal. The need for law calls into question the full value of grace-filled life in the Church. “I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain” 100*.

“The ministry of primacy based on juridical authority is a historical temptation resulting from the penetration of law into the Church. Beginning with the Constantinian era, the authority of bishops was built on a juridical principle. Simultaneously, also all church governance. Having renounced the Eucharistic source of the bishop’s authority, ecclesiastical consciousness borrowed from empirical life the principle of law to ground the authority of the bishop. The idea of juridical authority led to the establishment of legal relations between bishop, clergy, and laity. Law penetrated the Church and established itself in it as a way of relations of the church hierarchy with its clergy and people. As a result of a long historical process, the hierarchical ministry, flowing from the very essence of the Church, received a justification that is not at all contained in the Church.” 101*.

The Catholic idea of the two swords has been bizarrely interwoven into the diocesan practice of the Orthodox diocese, mixing under the tiara of the diocesan pope two mutually exclusive principles, since it is impossible in the actions and decisions of the individual will of the bishop to distinguish where his juridical authority ends and the inspiration of divine grace begins. The mingling of grace-filled and juridical principles in diocesan practice has led to the deification of the formal authority of the bishop. He combines in his hands four powers of incompatible nature.

8.1. Juridical Authority

The bishop unites two branches of juridical power: 1. executive and 2. judicial.

8. 1.1 Executive Authority of the Diocesan Bishop

The formal authority of the bishop, which exercises “the governance of the diocese within the limits defined by the canons and this Statute” /102*/, may be called by the familiar term “executive authority”. This authority is expressed and served by the apparatus called the “Diocesan Administration” or “Consistory”, from which come the Decrees, orders, and resolutions of the Right Reverend administrator. Theoretically, the Statute of the ROC allows in diocesan governance “the conciliar cooperation of clergy and laity” 103*. In practice, the bishop rules single-handedly. “Without the consent of the diocesan bishop, no decision of the diocesan governing bodies can be put into effect.” 104*. Decisions are made by the bishop. Clergy and laity provide technical assistance in implementing his decisions: they carry them out unquestioningly. Authority over the flock is granted to the diocesan bishop unconditionally and is not bound by reasonable limitations:

‘Bishops exercise the fullness of hierarchical authority in matters of doctrine, sacred rites, and pastoral ministry’105*. The bishop’s disciplinary authority over clergy and laity is limited solely by the canonical prohibition against corporal punishment: ‘We command that a bishop … who beats the faithful … and through this seeks to intimidate, be deposed from the sacred rank’106*. ‘For it is fitting for a priest of God to admonish … with instructions and exhortations … and not to rush upon human bodies with whips and blows’107*. According to Ap. 27, a bishop, presbyter, and deacon shall not ‘beat the faithful who sin or the unbelievers who have done wrong.’ The canon suggests that a bishop likewise may not beat clergy: presbyters, deacons, and subdeacons.

If the verb ‘dosaditi’ is understood in its Old Slavonic meaning of ‘to beat’ — 108*‘having beaten him and insulted him, they sent him away empty-handed’ / 109*/. ‘Seizing his servants, they treated them spitefully and killed them’110*. ‘Enduring the insult of blows on the cheeks’/ — then in Ap. 55 and Ap. 56 one may see a prohibition symmetrical to Canon 27: clergy shall not beat a bishop, and the lower clergy shall not beat clerics. Under such a reading, the canonical rules form a unified legal space, placing all the people of God on an equal footing before the law: no one among God’s people may strike another, regardless of their hierarchical position in the Church.

By assigning the Slavonic verb ‘dosaditi’ the modern Russian meaning of ‘to offend’ or ‘to grieve,’ Bishop Nikodim Milosh destroys this legal symmetry. If the bishop is only prohibited from using physical violence against his flock, then clergy and laity must not ‘grieve’ the bishop. Bishop Nikodim’s interpretation replaces objective law with a subjective evaluation that eludes legal analysis. A legal concept is substituted by a moral feeling. The experience of ‘grieving,’ devoid of qualifying criteria, tolerates any defect of will and creates an unequal position for the people of God before the law within the Church’s unified canonical space. Neither the canons nor the Statute of the Russian Orthodox Church protect clergy and laity from abuses of the bishop’s executive power: exceeding authority, unjustified penalties and undeserved grievances, humiliation of their honor and dignity. The current Statute of the ROC imposes no limitations on the bishop’s disciplinary authority and provides no oversight of the severity of the penalties he imposes, apart from Ap. 27. The Statute of the Russian Orthodox Church of 2000:

does not limit the duration of the bishop’s disciplinary penalties. The indefinite concept of ‘temporary’ suspension and excommunication, without a permissible time limit, in practice becomes ‘lifelong’ suspension and excommunication. The highest measure of punishment is applied without trial.
does not limit the bishop’s administrative authority by listing specific offenses for which a cleric may be subjected to administrative penalties.
Does not specify formal criteria distinguishing a cleric’s act from an offense. Any act that causes him grief the bishop is free to condemn as a crime.
does not indicate a criterion for evaluating a strict correspondence between the gravity of the fault and the measure of censure.

Lacking these points of reference and disregarding the letter of the ROC Statute (examples of such disregard are given below), the bishop punishes ‘whomever he wants,’ ‘for whatever he wants,’ ‘as he wants,’ ‘whenever he wants,’ since the current Statute of the ROC makes no provision for oversight or liability for exceeding executive authority.

These principles correspond fully to the list of cruel and degrading treatment by authorities that international law condemns. The ‘Practical Guide for the Effective Application of International Prison Rules’ explains when treatment of a subordinate and his punishment constitute torture, cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. This occurs when the punishment is:

Disproportionate to the act committed or to the goals of maintaining discipline and regime.
Unreasonable.
Unnecessary.
Arbitrary.
Causes unjustifiable pain or suffering.’111*.

If international law considers such principles inadmissible with regard to criminals in penitentiary institutions, how can the Statute of the Russian Orthodox Church apply them to laity and clergy in the Church of Christ?

In resolving legal questions, the Church relies on the holy canons formed during the first millennium. The Councils did not set out to build a system of church law. The definitions of the canons resolved the pressing issues of their time.

In one era they thwarted a bishop’s desire to leave a poor or insignificant see for a more prestigious and wealthy one. In another era they forbade the unauthorized transfer of clergy from one diocese to another. The canons determined the times for kneeling, the relations between husband and wife, the legality of a master freeing his slaves, and the list of books of Holy Scripture. They forbade ordination to holy orders for gold, bathing in the same bath as a Jew, or receiving medical treatment from a Jewish physician. Some canons retain their unchanging significance in the Church; others had a temporary meaning and have lost their relevance today. When a bishop grounds his decisions on canonical foundations, he is forced to apply canons by analogy, to give them a broad or restrictive interpretation, to reinterpret their content. Such operations call into question the canonical objectivity of even the most conscientious administrator’s decisions. “No matter how much you emphasize the strictness of the canons’ judgment to which you appeal in rebuking those disobedient to you, your interpretations make little impression upon either the disobedient or the entire church community, which has entirely ceased to trust the dialectical canonics that have developed to horrifying proportions among us since the rise of Renovationism. Recall how, on the basis of canonical literalism, the Council of 1923 condemned the Patriarch not only to deprivation of rank but also of monastic status. Therefore, Master, do not abuse the letter of canonical norms, lest the holy canons become mere canons. Church life in recent years has taken shape and proceeds not according to the literal sense of the canons. The very transfer of patriarchal rights and duties to Metropolitan Peter occurred in an order unprecedented and unknown to the canons, but the church’s consciousness perceived this unprecedented order as a means of preserving the integrity of the patriarchal structure, considering the latter to be the chief guarantee of our Orthodox existence,” writes St. Metropolitan Kirill (Smirnov) of Kazan and Sviyazhsk. 112*.

Today, when an eminent administrator makes decisions unilaterally, he finds in the holy canons a churchly justification for his own volitional impulses. Simple casuistry allows any canonical norm to be transformed into the desired format. In the hands of the executive authority, canonical norms now retain, now lose their objective meaning and are replaced by arbitrary interpretation. In the legal sphere of the Church, the concept and principle of law are being eroded. “Law is freedom granted and limited by a norm” only as long as the norm itself has universal and indisputable meaning. When the executive authority acquires the freedom to change norms at its own discretion, it arrogates to itself legislative functions that belong in the Church only to a Council. Two obvious dangers arise.

First, damage to the Orthodox faith. The Councils that assembled to define the rule of faith adopted the holy canons in parallel with the dogmas. The canons implemented and consolidated the accepted dogma in church practice and in divine worship. Before the adoption of a dogma, church ordinances and texts could have variants and contradict one another. For example, in some churches icons were venerated, while from others they were removed.

When the Council adopted the dogma of the veneration of icons, it became necessary to bring church rites and hymns into conformity with the dogma, to decide the fate of the iconoclastic “Bakchevmat” 113*, to place holy relics in consecrated churches, “for as they took away the sight of the venerable icons from the church, so they also abandoned certain other customs, which it is fitting to restore and so to maintain.” 114*. The holy canons thus prove to be legal norms having dogmatic grounding. They were those diamond facets whose surface reflected the radiance of the dogma.

A canonical document must correctly reflect the faith of the Church. The 2000 Statute of the Russian Orthodox Church is a canonical document grounded on the authority of a Council. Its task is to shape church life in such a way that its foundations preserve and highlight the dogmatic content of Universal Orthodoxy, and above all the unharmed Symbol of Faith. The bishop, “placed by the Holy Spirit to shepherd the Church of the Lord and God,” must bear not a notional but a real responsibility for preserving the conciliar unity of the Church, so as not to appropriate the flock of Christ as his own property.

Second, the danger of losing the authenticity of the canons themselves. Depriving the canons of their original meaning in the name of “the evil of the day,” the eminent gardener transplants them from their historical soil and cultivates on the barren fallow of casuistry the thorns and thistles of punitive theology. Characteristic examples of such abuse of the canons are Decree No. 880 of November 28, 1996, by Archbishop Evsevy, forbidding Archimandrite Zinon Theodor from priestly service; the similar Decree No. 952 of March 17, 1997, forbidding Priest Vladimir Andreev; and others. 115*.

The holy canons are turned into a means of extrajudicial reprisal against initiatives of clergy and laity that are inconvenient to the bishop.

It should be taken into account: first, “clergy and laity may not appeal to state authorities or to a civil court on matters pertaining to internal church life, including canonical governance, church order, liturgical and pastoral activity” 115**; second, the church court exists only on paper. It does not function and cannot function in principle, because the normative acts have not been drafted and published. The Statute of 1988 called them the “procedure of the church court”; the Statute of 2000 called them the “statute on the church court.” However, these acts neither existed then nor exist now under either name.

An appeal to the Highest Church Authority, which the Ecumenical Council (IV.9) recommends, is practically impossible. Perhaps the Highest Church Authority itself does not suspect how inaccessible it is for clergy and laity. A complaint against a bishop will be returned to him for on-the-spot reprisal. Who would envy the fate of Kochubey?

Is it any wonder that a cleric would never dare say “no” to a bishop? Obliged to take part in discussion, the cleric is compelled to “endorse, share, and support” every opinion of the bishop, whether in accordance with conscience or against it. The voicelessness of clerics is conditioned by the disciplinary authority of the hierarch, founded on two new and untraditional canonical norms embedded in the ROC Statute.

A. Transfer and Dismissal of Clerics.

“Members of the clergy may be transferred or dismissed from their posts by the diocesan bishop upon personal petition, by ecclesiastical court, or on the grounds of ecclesiastical expediency.” 116*.

Expressing the canonical tradition of the ancient Church, the Parish Statute of 1918 permitted two reasons for the “transfer and dismissal of members of the clergy from their posts: only by court decision or by their own volition” 116**. The word “only” restricts transfer and dismissal to two conditions, excluding administrative arbitrariness and violence against the priest and his flock. If a priest carries out his ministry worthily of his calling, the “Damoclean sword” of dismissal or transfer does not hang over him. The replacement of the restrictive “only” with the boundless “expediency” compels a priest not so much to serve God as to “curry favor” with the bishop, since it is not moral qualities and professionalism, but the personal disposition of the hierarch that guarantees him a stable position and career advancement. “The system, practiced solely in the Russian Church and strictly condemned by church canons 116***, of the ceaseless reshuffling of hierarchs from poorer cathedras to richer ones – as a reward, and vice versa – as a punishment, has bred within the episcopate careerism and toadyism completely unknown in other Orthodox churches.” 134*.

The practice of forcibly transferring and dismissing clergy of the ROC against their own will and contrary to the will of the flock, without guilt or trial, solely “on grounds of ecclesiastical expediency,” took shape during the extreme era of church turmoil following the death of St. Patriarch Tikhon. Under pressure from punitive organs of the Soviet regime, mass transfers and dismissals of bishops and priests occurred. This non-canonical practice provoked condemnation and numerous protests from authoritative hierarchs, clergy, and laity.

“In place of the intra-church freedom exalted by Christ, you practice administrative arbitrariness, from which the Church suffered much even before. At your own personal discretion, you practice pointless and unjustified transfer of bishops, often contrary to the desire of themselves and their flocks, the appointment of vicars without the knowledge of diocesan bishops, the suspension of bishops displeasing to you from priestly service, etc.” 117*.

Responding to one such protest, Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) wrote: “The transfer of bishops is a temporary phenomenon…often a blow, but not against the Church, rather against the personal feelings of the bishop himself and the flock. Yet, taking into account the state of emergency and the efforts of many to tear apart the Church body in one way or another, both the bishop and the flock must sacrifice their personal feelings in the name of the common good of the Church” 117**. Metropolitan Sergius’ promise was partially fulfilled. Unjustified transfers of bishops ceased. With regard to presbyters, the “state of emergency” proved to be “ecclesiasticized.” The ROC Statute, adopted on June 8, 1988, elevated to canonical norm the transfer and dismissal of clerics “on grounds of ecclesiastical expediency.” This non-canonical norm was entrenched by the current ROC Statute 118*. Any presbyter can be separated from his flock and forcibly removed from his parish by a Bishop’s Decree without specifying the motives for dismissal, without guilt, solely “on grounds of ecclesiastical expediency.” As Metropolitan Sergius justly observed, “this is a blow.” But not only “to the personal feelings of the priest and his flock.” The priest has a family, often with many children, which he is obliged to feed. By accepting holy orders, the priest binds himself by oath and becomes a hostage of his ministry. This is his vocation, dictating his destiny until his very death. Having taken orders at the age of twenty, the priest has not managed to acquire another profession. Subsequently, the possibilities for non-ecclesiastical work and education are physically and canonically limited for him. Years have been spent studying in seminary and academy. Tens of years have been devoted to studying Holy Scripture and the Holy Fathers. Liturgical service and preaching have become the creative content of his life. They have shaped the way of life, worldview, and psychology of both himself and his family. Where can an exile go? How is he to feed his family? A few samples of administrative flippancy allow one to see how “ecclesiastical expediency,” stripped of rational motives, irresponsibly and senselessly decides a human destiny.

“Ref. No. 22 January 27, 1981, to Archpriest Pavel A.

“In view of repeated requests from parishioners and confirmation from the Church Council, the clergyman Fr. Pavel A. is released from service at the Dmitrov Church in the city of Pskov. Signature.”

“Ref. No. 50 February 2, 1981, to Archpriest Pavel A.

“Taking into consideration the requests of parishioners of the Holy Dmitrov Church in the city of Pskov, by Our directive you are retained at your previous place of service. Signature.”

“Decree. No. 201 March 18, 1981, to Archpriest Fr. Pavel A.

stating that, for the benefit of the Church’s work, he is released from service at the Church of the Holy Great Martyr Demetrius in the city of Pskov and appointed as a clergyman at the Matthew Church in the village of Piskovichi, Pskov district and region. Signature.“

“Decree No. 30 April 18, 1989, to Archpriest Pavel A.

By My determination, you are appointed concurrently to the position of rector of the Church of the Myrrh-Bearing Women in the city of Pskov. Signature.“

“Ref. No. 2 January 3, 1990, to Archpriest Pavel A.

By My determination, you are released from the position of rector of the Church of the Holy Myrrh-Bearing Women in the city of Pskov. Hand over your registration to the representative of the Council for Religious Affairs. Signature.“

Ten years later, January 3, ’90. “Decree No. 2 to Archpriest Pavel Adelgeim.

“Decree No. 9 January 17, ’90, to Archpriest Pavel A.

By My determination, you are appointed as a staff priest at the Church of the Holy Myrrh-Bearing Women in the city of Pskov. Obtain registration from the representative of the Council for Religious Affairs. Signature.“

“Decree No. 31, April 23, 1991, to Archpriest Pavel A. By my determination, you are released from the position of staff priest of the Church of the Holy Myrrhbearing Women in Pskov and are concurrently appointed to the position of rector of the same church… Signature.”

“Resolution No. 41, 06.04.00, to the Pedagogical Collective
of the Orthodox School of Regents.
From the side of the ruling bishop, there are no complaints whatsoever against the rector
of the Church of the Holy Myrrhbearing Women, Archpriest Pavel A. Signature.”

“Letter to Parents of Pupils No. 42, 10.03.00
Your concern about the removal from office of Fr. Rector – Fr. Pavel A. – is also pure fabrication. On my part, not a single sign was given that would give rise to such guileful conjectures on your part.
The ruling bishop has no complaints whatsoever against Fr. Pavel. Signature.”

“Decree No. 398, December 26, 2001, to Archpriest Pavel A.
Hereby you are released from the duties of rector of the Church of the Apostle Matthew in the village of Piskovichi and are appointed rector of the Church of the Holy Myrrhbearing Women in Pskov. Signature.”

No reasons, no motives. A new era has arrived: the Most Reverend Administrator no longer finds himself in humiliating dependence on “plenipotentiaries for religious affairs.” No one prevents the revival in diocesan practice of the ancient traditions of conciliar life, carefully identified in the decrees of the Holy Council of 1917, which seemed so longed for and unattainable in the totalitarian era of Russia’s state life. Alas, everything remains as before: church bureaucracy does not acquire a human face. For 20 years the priest pours his soul and heart into his parish. The grave of his mother remains under the wall of this church, and he learns from the decree that he was a temporary hireling, and his time is up. The priest humbles himself, but his hands fall and perspective is lost. From the above decrees, the inconsistency of the decision is obvious, its sudden reversal to the opposite on the same previous ground. It is astonishing that the priest is appointed four times to the same church, where he has continuously served for 13 years from its opening to this day. Is this “expediency” or “nonsense”?

B. Suspension and Excommunication of Clergy and Laity

The statute of the ROC grants the diocesan bishop the right, by his sole authority, to sanction “temporary suspension from priestly ministry” and “temporary excommunication from church communion.” The continuation of the text prescribes “serious offenses are to be referred for consideration by an ecclesiastical court.”119* The text of the statute allows the unambiguous conclusion that the bishop imposes “temporary suspension and excommunication” for minor offenses. It is surprising that the statute prescribes the application of the extreme measure for minor offenses. The statute does not define the meaning of the concept “serious offenses,” leaving the distinction between “serious” and “minor” offenses to the bishop’s discretion.

The statute does not limit the undefined concept “temporary” by any specific term within which the time of suspension and excommunication expires. The concept “temporary” can have two opposite meanings.

Firstly, “for a short term until a lawful court.” The canonical rules command that a priest be tried, “so that he not remain long under accusation”/119**./ “Let not the accused be shut out from communion, unless he fail to appear in court… at the appointed time, that is, within a month from the day on which, after investigation, the summons was delivered to him” / 120*./ In this rule, the undefined concept “temporarily” first acquires the canonical scale of “one month.” However, from the text of the 2000 statute it unambiguously follows that “temporarily” does not mean “until the court.” We have already established that “temporary” suspension and excommunication is imposed for minor offenses, which are not referred to the ecclesiastical court at all.
Secondly, “temporarily” can mean “without a definite 2. term,” “indefinitely.” Without specifying permissible limits that restrict the time of suspension and excommunication by a term or event, “temporary” suspension becomes lifelong, since human life is objectively limited in time by death. This reflection is confirmed by the specific decrees of the Right Reverends, imposing “temporary” suspensions and excommunications for life. In all these decrees, the term “temporarily” is entirely absent, as if the bishops do not wish to know the limits of their power prescribed by the ROC statute. Some even dare to write “for life” directly in the text of the decree, contrary to the letter of the statute:

Decree of Archbishop Evsevy of Pskov and Velikiye Luki No. 880 of 28.11.96 on the suspension of Archimandrite Zinon and the excommunication of monks John and Paul.

Decree of Archbishop Evsevy of Pskov and Velikiye Luki No. 952 of 17.03.97 On the suspension of Priest Vladimir Andreev.

Decree of Bishop Arkady of Tomsk No. 200 of 18.12.97 on the suspension of Deacon Roman Shtaudinger

Decree of Bishop Arkady of Tomsk No. 9 of 04.01.98 on the suspension of Priest Alexander Klassen

Decree of Bishop Nikon of Ekaterinburg No. 197 of 06.05.98 on the “lifelong” suspension of Priest Oleg Vokhmyanin.

In none of these decrees is the concept “temporary suspension” used; none of the decrees limits the duration of the suspension.

From the texts of the cited decrees, it is obvious that the sanctions are applied to principled priests who are unwilling to compromise their conscience for personal well-being. Bishop Nikon forced priests to curse the “heresies” of well-known Orthodox theologians: Archpriest Nikolai Afanasiev, Archpriest John Meyendorff, Archpriest Alexander Schmemann, sealing the curse with an oath on the Bible.

Priest Oleg Vokhmyanin was “forbidden for life” for refusing to submit to the blasphemous demand of the bishop. The decree reads: “for persistent unwillingness to assist in the debunking of dangerous and heretical errors.”120**

Priest Vladimir Andreev was suspended because of his disagreement with the suspension of Archimandrite Zinon. V. Andreev sets forth his position in a respectful petition addressed to the archbishop. 121*

Having received the petition through his secretary, the bishop did not invite the priest Vladimir Andreev for a personal conversation and responded in absentia with a Decree of “prohibition from priestly service, in connection with public reproach directed at the Ruling Bishop.”122* What did the “public reproach” consist of? The petition had a single addressee and was not published. The prohibition has lasted into its sixth year, and no end is in sight. For Archimandrite Zinon, the prohibition has already been lifted, but the priest Vladimir Andreev remains prohibited as before, deprived of the Church’s prayer, stricken from the diptychs—that is, expelled from the clergy of the Pskov diocese without a letter of release.

Such an act is called “excommunication from the Church.” Is the highest measure of punishment proportionate to the priest Vladimir Andreev’s act?

What is the alternative? To remain silent? To lie out of fear of hierarchical ban? Fear breeds pretense—not only before others. A complex psychological phenomenon arises: a person pretends to himself. An unfree person is forced to idealize his lack of freedom. Striving to preserve self-respect in the depths of a crippled soul, he readily accepts arguments that justify his own unprincipled submission.

The image of Fr. Zinon, full of dignity and profound meaning, evokes respect and sympathy. His many years of excommunication from the Church trouble the Christian conscience of many, but fear of His Eminence the Despot seals their lips.

In the times of Soviet atheism, a priest was not humiliated by animal fear before a bishop. Then we looked danger in the eye together and were ready for martyrdom, should God call. We were of one mind. The Council for Religious Affairs, the Communist Party, the NKVD were our common adversaries. Subjected to persecution, losing registration, going to prison, the priest knew he could lean on the compassion and prayer of the Church.

Having returned from imprisonment in 1971, this priest came to an appointment with Archbishop Bartholomew of Tashkent and Central Asia. We were not acquainted. When I entered the office on a birchwood leg, without a cross and in someone else’s cassock, Vladyka was moved, placed the archpriest’s cross on me, blessed and embraced me. I keep this award as a dear memory of past mutual understanding with a bishop. On account of this award to the persecuted priest, Archbishop Bartholomew endured great afflictions before the Council for Religious Affairs.

The new conditions have elevated Bishop Akakiy of Uryupinsk and Angorsk to the rank of a dignitary in the regional administration. Surrounded by the gods of the local Olympus, he basks in the rays of worldly glory, separated by his new position from the needs and concerns of his flock.

The Statute of the Russian Orthodox Church entrusts the bishop with responsibility for the observance of the norms of church law: “the diocesan bishop bears responsibility for the implementation of the provisions of this Statute, the decrees of Councils and the Holy Synod.”123* This formal responsibility cannot be realized due to the absence of an organ that exercises control over the executive power. The very nature of executive power requires oversight of its lawful use. Without such oversight, executive power becomes autocratic: “The Russian land rests on God’s blessing, the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos, and on us, our sovereigns, not on judges, voevodas, and strategists. And we are free to reward our serfs, and also free to punish them.”124*

In exercising arbitrariness, authoritarian power expresses the triumph of individualism, which knows only its own rights, over the person, who accepts responsibility for his actions and becomes a hostage of his own conscientiousness and fidelity.

The Patriarchate exercises oversight over the enforcement only of certain provisions of the Statute of the Russian Orthodox Church that affect its corporate interests.

8.1.2. The Judicial Power

The Department of the Holy Council of 1917–18 “On the Structure and Principles of Church Courts” pointed out the unsatisfactory nature of the Consistory judicial process. The Pre-Council Presence in 1906 recognized and positively evaluated the principles of secular courts and recommended incorporating them into church judicial organization and procedure. These principles are: 1. Separation of judicial power from executive power. 2. Public and open court proceedings. 3. Equality and adversariality of the parties.

In contrast to the democratic approach of categorically separating the executive and judicial powers, church practice has developed a tradition of the bishop heading both branches of power: executive and judicial. A portion of the bishops at the Holy Council of 1917–18 defended this historically established practice, because it preserves for the bishop the fullness of diocesan power.

On the other hand, judicial power makes sense only if the judges are independent: “judges are independent and submit only to the law.” Whenever judges are in material, administrative, political, or any other dependence, their decisions lose objectivity and legal substance. They cannot make independent decisions guided by law and conscience. Court decisions are evaluated not as “just,” but as “expedient,” “positive,” “advantageous”… the era of “telephone justice” begins. The court turns into a punitive organ of the executive power.

How, then, can both values be preserved—how to combine the independence of judges with the fullness of the bishop’s hierarchical power in his own diocese? The task seems insoluble. It is an attempt to preserve ice in a flame. Church tradition offers two solutions to the problem.

The first solution is offered by an ancient church canon:

“If presbyters or deacons are accused: then, having convened the lawful number of bishops chosen from nearby places, whom the accused shall request, that is, for a charge against a presbyter six, and for a deacon three, together with them the accused’s own bishop shall examine the charges brought against them, observing the same rules concerning days and deadlines, and the investigation, and the persons of the accuser and the accused.” /Carthage 29/. This canon solves the problem of judicial independence, since the judges are of the same rank as the ruling bishop, and he cannot exert pressure on them. On the other hand, the participation of six bishops does not deprive the ruling hierarch of his dignity and fullness of authority in his diocese; they remain merely guarantors of impartiality and justice toward the specific person of the accused presbyter.

Bishop Nikodim Miloš, in his commentary on two analogous canons—19 (28) and 20 (29)—accepts the composition of the court for a bishop but rejects the composition prescribed by the canon for a presbyter and a deacon. This opinion may be convenient for contemporary diocesan practice, yet it distorts the canon’s plain meaning.

The second solution to the problem of an independent court was proposed by the Holy Council of 1917–18. The Department “On the Church Court” took as its basis that church judicial cases should be initiated and concluded with the bishop’s knowledge, but judges in their decisions must be independent of the executive authority. The bishop may have only a supervisory and merciful authority, but he does not interfere in decisions on the merits of the case and does not predetermine its outcome.

Unfortunately, the Holy Council did not manage to complete the judicial reform. We do not know the mechanism by which the Council fathers intended to guarantee the independence of judicial decisions. Yet we remember that the Local Council of 1917–18 established a supervisory authority in the Church, which was abolished by later councils of the ROC. In contemporary diocesan practice, there is no one to complain to about the partiality of a bishop’s unilateral decisions.

The letter of the current edition of the ROC Statute does not grant the bishop the right to judge. However, the Statute’s provisions create objective conditions under which the bishop effectively becomes the sole judge of all clerics and laity in his diocese. By constituting the diocesan court in Chapter VII, Articles 1–17, the 2000 Statute paralyzes the judges’ freedom, placing them in such rigid dependence on the executive authority that the court’s decisions can express only the will of the ruling bishop. By his own authority, the bishop:

Invests the judges of the diocesan court with authority. /VII, 11/
Appoints the Chairman of the diocesan court. /VII, 12/
Prematurely recalls the chairman and members of the diocesan court. /VII, 13/

The motives for recalling judges the Statute leaves to the bishop’s discretion.

“Decrees of the diocesan court are subject to execution after they have been confirmed by the diocesan bishop. In case the diocesan bishop does not agree with the decision of the diocesan court, he acts at his own discretion. His decisions take effect immediately…” /VII, 16/
“The examination of cases in all church courts is closed” /VII, 9/.
“Church court decrees that have entered into legal force… are binding on all clerics and laity without exception” /VII, 8/.

By excluding bishops from the circle of persons for whom church court decrees are binding, the Statute either removes bishops beyond the legal space of the Church, or the legal space itself becomes heterogeneous: certain members of the Church turn out to be “more equal” than others. In both cases, the fundamental principle of law is rejected: a unified legal space in which everyone is granted freedom limited by a norm.

The entire history of canon law over 2000 years knows no status of legal immunity for a bishop. On the contrary, every canon, when establishing a prohibition and imposing a measure of responsibility, begins punishment with the bishop: “If anyone, a bishop, or a presbyter, or a deacon…”

The ROC Statute introduced an entirely new principle, unknown in the history of canon law: the non-liability of a bishop to judgment.

Art. VII, 3 (b) “recognizes the binding force of judicial decrees for all members of the ROC” as a principle “ensuring the unity of the judicial system of the ROC.” Hence it logically follows one of two things: either the ROC Statute does not regard bishops as “members of the Church”—the Statute nowhere calls them “members of the Church”—or the Statute recognizes a practice of double standards and admits two mutually exclusive laws on judicial responsibility. Tertium non datur.

The 2000 ROC Statute /art. VII, 2/ declares that “the judicial system in the ROC is established by the sacred canons, the present Statute, and the ‘Regulation on the Church Court.’” While declaring the priority of the “sacred canons,” the Statute does not reflect their content, which guarantees the protection of the accused’s rights:

a. The right to choose judges, “whom the accused shall request”125*
b. The right to challenge judges “on suspicion of their partiality”125**
c. The canonical conditions for preliminary investigation, the canonical grounds for initiating a case, the canonical and moral qualities of witnesses and accusers that secure their rights.
Г. The previous Statute of 1988 transferred the right of church court to the Diocesan Council. That Statute granted the right to challenge judges /VII, 46/; defined the court’s competence /VII, 50/; and provided for cassation /VII, 48/.

These provisions of the Statute defined the legal norms that express continuity with the ancient church tradition and should form the foundation of the “Procedure of Church Judicial Proceedings,” by which the 1988 Statute promised to supplement its judicial conception.126* Twelve years later, the 1988 Statute “gave up the ghost” without ever giving birth to the “Procedure.” The judicial conception of the 1988 Statute died stillborn.

The 2000 Statute’s wording forms the composition of the court while leaving the norms of judicial procedure outside the scope of its concern. It may be presumed that the “Regulation on the Church Court,” adopted by the 2000 Statute but as yet unborn, will remedy the shortcomings of the new conception. For now, one can speak only of the principles for forming the court’s composition…

“Members of the court must be persons in the presbyteral rank” /Statute; VII, 11/

All clergy are unconditionally dependent on the bishop: administratively, judicially, morally, economically, canonically, liturgically… Such judges clearly cannot hold independent opinions, nor does the law require them to. Under the legislative norm of the 2000 Statute, the judges’ authority derives not from law but personally from the bishop, who invests them “with authority to administer justice in the diocese entrusted to him” /UP, 11/. The judges are accountable not to the law but to the bishop, who appoints and removes them at his own discretion. The judges’ decisions have no legal force unless approved by the executive authority. Judicial decisions are accountable not to law but to a person. The bishop either approves or rejects the judges’ decision and single‑handedly issues a new one, which immediately takes effect and becomes final. While granting the bishop the right to alter a judicial decision, the Statute does not bind him to provide a rationale. The judicial power has its source in the will of the person exercising executive authority and cannot fulfil its nature when it is directly subordinated to executive authority. Such a court expresses neither conciliarity nor justice. It expresses the autocratic will of the bishop.

The church court established by the 1988 Statute remained a stillborn product of the Statute, because the “Procedure of the Church Court” it promised was never drawn up until the Statute was abolished. If the “Statute on the Church Court” is ever written and the church court begins to function, the non‑canonical principles embedded in its foundation by the 2000 Statute will create a parallel structure of executive power, clothing the hierarch’s individual will with the authority of a church court.

8.2. Informal Authority

8.2.1. Charismatic Authority

The bishop’s charismatic authority is meant to testify to the will of God in the Church through God’s vicar. Orthodoxy requires qualifications for such an assertion. In practice, however, that is exactly how it looks.

In the practice of the monarchical episcopate, the will of the ruling bishop is identified with the will of the Church. The bishop’s opinion is always final and infallible, because it expresses the opinion of the entire local Church: “I no longer consider my opinion only mine, but the opinion of the diocese…” — says Archbishop Evseviy. 54*. By categorically imposing his will on the Church, the bishop issues an ultimatum to the Holy Spirit acting in the Church. He does not listen to His gentle breathing, but boldly binds it by the decision of his authoritarian will. The story of “anaxios” at St. Petersburg Theological Academy illustrates the bishop’s disregard for the voice of clergy and laity. “The state—it is me,” said Louis. “The Church—it is me,” says Bishop Akakiy of Uryupinsk and Angorsk.

Every day in church we hear “a reading from the holy Apostle Paul.” At the call “Let us attend!” we hear: “Brethren!” The church sermon opens with the same word. Does His Grace Akakiy regard clergy and laity as his brethren? Laity—his dumb sheep—and clergy—his slaves—obey God in the person of the bishop as long as the bishop’s will coincides with God’s will. And if it does not coincide, the bishop himself becomes the god whose will they are obliged to obey.

Words that had figurative meaning—sheep, slaves, master—became confused with words that have a direct meaning—brothers, little children, beloved. The figurative meanings came to be understood literally, while the concrete text of the Gospel, which has an intimate meaning, came to be understood figuratively, the objective sign of disciples given by the Saviour being forgotten: “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” 126** Where there is no love, dead symbols remain. Christ calls His disciples “sons of God” and “friends”: “I have loved you; abide in My love” 127*. And what does the bishop think about his clergy?

A servile conjuncture has invested obedience to the bishop with a sacral meaning. Such mysticism does not flow from the living experience of communion with God, nor does it find justification in Sacred Scripture, in the dogmas of the Church, or in the ancient tradition. This innovation springs from rational speculation that has dubious foundations and bitter consequences. By elevating a disciplinary principle into a mystery of obedience, Bishop Akakiy blasphemously places responsibility for his demands and actions on God.

8.2.2. Pastoral Authority

The Statute of the Russian Orthodox Church limits the scope of pastoral authority only geographically. The canons forbid encroaching on another diocese. Each hierarch defines the content of the concept at his own discretion. No sphere of the private life of those under his care can be excluded from the bishop’s pastoral solicitude. The authority of a father, based on personal responsibility, gives the bishop freedom of pastoral economy. In practice this means that the bishop may follow the letter of the church canons or may depart from them.

Divine Revelation by no means absolutizes the law:

“Through the law I died to the law, that I might live to God… I do not nullify the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.” 127** Divine Revelation, church tradition, and common sense justify pastoral economy just as they justify parental love. Informal authority can possess high dignity—though not every kind: we exclude slaveholding or serfdom.

Parental authority grows out of sacrificial love. Parents often sacrifice their own interests, preferring the interests of their children. In the ancient Church, pastoral authority was adequate to fatherly authority.

Adequacy was lost along with love. The title of “father,” stripped of fatherly love, turns into a pompous pretension.

Once I arrive at the Diocesan Administration; a young celibate who lives in seclusion somewhere in the backwoods comes out to meet me and says, either to me or to himself: “You come here to a father, and what you find is an evil stepfather looking at you with a stranger’s eyes.”

The lives of St. Nicholas, St. Ambrose, and other saints recount that the community chose the most worthy from its midst and testified “Axios!” The current Statute of the Russian Orthodox Church defines a different practice of “election”. “The diocesan bishop is elected by the Holy Synod, receiving the Patriarch’s decree to that effect” 128*. When appointing a bishop, the Synod does not take into account the opinion of the clergy and laity of his future diocese. They are obliged to submit to the will of the Synod and accept a stranger, a person completely unknown to them, as a father, bestowing filial trust upon him. The new bishop might prove to be a gift to the diocese. Sometimes, on the contrary, the sorrows that a bishop causes his clergy bring forth no beneficial fruit. At times they prove irreparable. The value of parental authority is indisputable, yet even it depends on the human qualities of the parents. To a certain extent, natural law and maternal instinct guarantee parental love in the family.

Who guarantees the unconditional value of the bishop’s informal authority in the Church? Divine Revelation? — By no means. Church tradition? — Not at all. Common sense, grounded in everyday experience, can offer many kind words about the informal authority of a bishop, and even more skeptical remarks. The value of the bishop’s informal authority has no formal justification. It is sustained by the trust of the flock. But if love and responsibility do not dwell in the heart of the Vladyka, his “paternal” authority places his subjects in the tragic position of those destined for ruin. Into the life of the Church has imperceptibly crept a pragmatic principle upon which all loveless relationships are built.

A bishop may justify his actions sometimes by law, sometimes by charisma, sometimes by economy — whichever is more convenient in a given case. Therefore, the bishop is always right. The clergy and laity cannot appeal against the actions of the hierarch, whose nature is elusive and heterogeneous to the point of incompatibility. Moreover, there is no one to complain to about patrimonial authority. The deification of formal authority reduces the rights of subjects to zero. When the law acts or does not act at the will of the administrator, the subjects are rightless and defenseless. Church canons cannot operate by themselves. They are activated by the authority of the Vladyka. In his hands they may safeguard church law, and they may lose their legal significance, turning into instruments of disciplinary suppression..

Instead of the conciliarity that characterizes the Eucharistic ecclesiology of the Eastern Church, diocesan authority copies the scheme of governance adopted in the Catholic tradition of the West, where the church order is grounded in the will of the Roman Pontiff.

The practice of diocesan administration implements the same vertical of power, rigidly directed from the top down, that expresses the shortcomings of bureaucracy in the state, when citizens‑sheep lose the status of persons in its eyes and turn into a faceless crowd, into a herd of individuals whose fates are determined by the opinion, mood, and staff of the ruling hierarch.

Chapter 9. The New Lord of the Diocese

“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” (Mk 11:9).

Where does a bishop come from and how does he arrive in a diocese? Who chooses him?

Early Christian sources definitely indicate that the election of bishops and deacons was performed by the local church, and the entire church people took part in it. The earliest evidence is found in the First Epistle of St. Clement of Rome 44:3, “?????????????? ??? ?????????” (with the good will of the whole church).

The Didache emphasizes that bishops and deacons are elected by the local church (Didache 12:1‑5). According to the Apostolic Tradition of St. Hippolytus of Rome, “the election of a bishop is carried out by the local church without the participation of other bishops” (11:1‑2).

The Apostolic Constitutions instruct: “Ordain as bishop him who is blameless in all things, chosen by all the people as the best” 129*. As in the Apostolic Tradition, the election is carried out by the local church without the participation of other bishops.

In St. Cyprian we find a number of instructions on the election of a bishop by the local church 130*. With him we also first find the directive: “all the bishops of the province gather for the election and let them choose a bishop in the presence of the people, who know each one well individually” 131*. St. Cyprian testifies to the participation of other bishops in the election as a practice that is observed “in almost all provinces.” The new practice had not yet become universally established. Thus, the tradition changes: At first, the bishop is elected by the local church with the whole people. Later, the bishop is elected in the presence of the people. Still later, the participation of the people begins to be restricted. Excluded from the election is “??? ??????” — the mob, the crowd, the gathering. Only “notable citizens” are admitted to participate. The integrity of the church Body is destroyed, dividing the community according to non‑ecclesial criteria: origin, property and social status, etc., introducing into the Church “the pride of worldly authority.” “The local church, as an integral whole, lost the opportunity to participate in the election of bishops. The integrity of the local church is violated. In it, a division into separate parts occurs. The concept of the people acquires a juridical character, and therefore social distinctions are introduced into it” 132*.

The 123rd Novella of Justinian established a two‑stage election. The local church proposes three candidates, from whom the council chooses the bishop. The Novella was included in the Basilika and remained in effect until the end of Byzantium. In practice, it was not observed. The “Encyclical of the Eastern Patriarchs” of 1723 supported the idea of the popular election of a bishop. This idea remained declarative. The tradition of appointing bishops by the highest church authority not only prevailed and completely abolished the original practice of the election of bishops by the local church, it also acquired the authority of an apostolic institution. “As usually happens, a new custom that has gained citizenship is accepted as a genuinely apostolic institution, while the ancient one, gradually disappearing, is regarded as a deviation from the norm” 133*.

The election of bishops by the local church was practiced in Russia. For example, in Novgorod until 1478, bishops were elected at the veche. After election, they were appointed by the Metropolitan of Kiev, and later of Moscow. In the synodal period, the appointment of bishops was determined by the will of the tsar: “The honorable father archimandrite /name of the tsar/ most serene and most autocratic great sovereign autocrat of all Russia, by a personal decree of his majesty, commands and the Most Holy Governing Synod blesses Your Holiness to be bishop of the blessed cities.” 133**. The synodal practice of appointments did not at all guarantee the quality of the episcopate.

Protopresbyter G. Shavelsky relates that “episcopal dignity was attained not by those distinguished by their gifts and ability for church administration and creativity, but only by one category of church servants—‘learned’ monks. A student of the Theological Academy had to take monastic vows, and by this act he was assured of a bishopric. Only exceptional failures or absolutely worthless specimens—and even then not always!—could suffer a fiasco in their calculations. Exceptions were rare. Intoxicated by the importance of his person, looking down on his comrades, the ‘learned’ monk rushed up the hierarchical ladder with such speed that he had no time to come to his senses, to look around, to learn anything. After all that has been said, one question drills into my brain: was it really impossible from the 150-million-strong believing, talented Russian people to choose a hundred men who, upon ascending the episcopal cathedras, would shine with the brightest rays of both Christian life and archpastoral wisdom? All the more clearly do those astonishing, incomprehensible, criminal carelessness, negligence, and frivolity become apparent, with which the selection and preparation of the pilots of the Church were treated among us. Those who know the actual ills of the Church will agree with me that the very first church reform must touch our episcopate” 134*.

The attempt of the Local Council of 1917–18 to restore the ancient practice of electing a bishop by the local church was not realized.

134**.The 1988 and 2000 Statutes of the Russian Orthodox Church consolidated the practice of centralized appointments. The local church did not receive the right to participate in deciding its own fate. The local church has no right of election, no right of recusal, no right of evaluation: “The diocesan bishop is elected by the Holy Synod, receiving a Decree to that effect from the Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus’” 135*.

The appointment of a new bishop and the departure of the previous one occurs unexpectedly and secretly for the local church. The secret is kept until the last minute. In the evening a bishop who had ruled the diocese for seven years left for Moscow by train, without saying goodbye. The next morning a new hierarch arrived on the Moscow train. The Statute does not grant the local church the possibility, nor the right, to express its opinion. In the diocesan structure there is no body that could express an opinion of the community independent of the ruling hierarch. Only the bishop expresses the meaningful opinion of the diocese. Since the local church cannot have an independent voice or opinion, the diocese does not exist as a subject of law at all. The unity of the local church is founded neither on love nor on law. It is founded on the authority of the bishop.

Chapter 10. The Catholicity of the Church

The foundation of the Catholicity of the Church is the spirit of free communion. “where two or three are gathered in My name, there am I in the midst of them” 136*. The Greek word Ecclesia means “assembly.” The Greek Katholikē in the Slavonic text of the Creed is translated by the word “sobornost” (catholicity). In both cases the Slavonic text underlines the communal character of church life, reflecting the early Christian experience: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer… All the believers were together and had everything in common… Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts, and breaking bread from house to house, they received their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people.” 137*. The spirit of conciliar communion unites Christians with tasks and problems that require joint discussion, participation in common prayer, repentance, thanksgiving, and love during the divine Eucharist, and common consent in decision-making: “it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us.” 138*.

Communion brings not only joy. It requires an ascetic effort, even to the point of self-denial and self-sacrifice. Healthy communion demands self-limitation and abstinence, patience and humility, attention to oneself and to the other—to one’s neighbor, mutual respect, forgiveness, and trust. The highest and perfect form of communion that grows out of these ascetic efforts we call “love.”

“He who abides in love abides in God, and God in him” 139*.

Such is the task set by God’s commandment: “love your neighbor.” The call to abide in love for one’s neighbors is repeated many times in the Old and New Testaments. The Church is called to realize the communion of love in the practice of its life, making it like the inner-divine being of the Holy Trinity.

The call to peace and mutual love constantly resounds during the Divine Liturgy: “Let us love one another, that with one mind we may confess the Holy Trinity.” There can be no oneness of mind where there is no love. Witnessing the realization of love around the holy Table, the bishop and clergy kiss one another with the words “Christ is in our midst, and ever shall be.” This intimate expression of love in church practice is rarely warmed by genuine feeling. Touching each other with our beards, we demonstrate a kiss, while maintaining mutual indifference, or even hostility. The kiss is a dangerous gesture. Judas chose it as the sign of betrayal. “This people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me.” 140*- Christ warns against self-deception. It is difficult to acquire love, the foundation of conciliar communion. It is much easier to substitute it with formal words and signs, which we do in practice. Love means the attainment of the ideal, the realization of the unrealizable call “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” 141* Love introduces us into the realm of Divine life. It must blossom in every Eucharistic community in order to be realized in the universal fullness of the Church. Alas! In the practice of diocesan life, love has not blossomed. It has been lost and dissolved in words of mutual instruction and rebuke. The unity of the local, concrete church remains a task which is resolved in each diocese to the extent that it is capable of realizing love.

Sobornost testifies to the fullness of grace and the integrity of truth manifested in the Church. Sobornost is a quality that expresses the content of Christian truth and a way of bearing witness to the truth, the fullness of which is always open to the Church, for “the Church is the pillar and ground of the truth” /1 Tim. 3:15/. In the confession of truth the “????????“ of the Church is revealed, the fullness of her hypostatic gatheredness, which the Creed calls sobornost (catholicity). “The word ‘catholic’ in the understanding of the two great servants of the Word of God, sent by Greece to the Slavs, derived from ‘kata’ and ‘olon’ …” writes A. Khomyakov. It literally denotes the concept “through the whole.” However, Sts. Cyril and Methodius translated ‘catholic’ not with the vague word ‘general,’ but with the concrete word ‘soborny’ (conciliar), which includes the concepts of ‘general’ and ‘universal’ but is not limited to these concepts.

“I consider it necessary to note the etymological sense of the word ‘sobornost.’ The Slavonic text of the Creed very aptly renders the adjective of the Greek original ‘catholic’ with the word ‘soborny.’ Khomyakov derived from it the neologism ‘sobornost,’ which perfectly corresponds to the idea of catholicity that he developed in his work on the Church. But since the Slavonic root ‘sobor’ means ‘assembly’ and, in particular, ‘council,’ ‘synod,’ the derivatives ‘soborny,’ ‘sobornost’ have acquired a new nuance for the Russian ear, which by no means signifies that they have thereby lost their direct meaning, the meaning of ‘catholic,’ ‘catholicity.’ /V. Lossky.

“On the Third Property of the Church”, ZhMP No. 8, p. 72, 1968./

The terms “catholic” and “ecumenical” do not express identical concepts. To designate “universality,” the Greeks, according to V. Lossky, originally used another word—“oikoumene.” “The adjective oikoumenikos (universal) became the definition of the Byzantine Empire, the ‘universal empire.’ The Church often used the term ‘oikoumenikos.’ It was given as an honorary title to the bishops of the two capitals of the empire—Rome and later ‘new Rome’—Constantinople.” /V. Lossky, Ibid./ “Katholikos” is not identical to “oikoumenikos,” although later it was used in that sense. These are different concepts that can be used with the same meaning. It is necessary to properly correlate not so much the words, but the concepts they denote. Inevitably, a certain transformation of concepts occurs. A literal translation often proves unsuccessful. We see the clumsiness of literal translation in liturgical texts. The Slavic calque of Greek canons loses clarity, becoming almost inaccessible to understanding. “The sun at times journeyed over the dry land that gives birth to the deep…” /Irmos of the canon for the Meeting of the Lord/. Literal translation does not ensure clarity of thought, nor guarantee its accuracy. The compatibility of two languages, even ones as closely related as Greek and Slavic, requires not only linguistic knowledge but also theological penetration into the depth of concepts, each of which in its own language possesses clarity, precision, and poetic quality, all of which fade and disappear in translation. The problem of translation lies precisely in the fact that the calque turns out not to be authentic. In a new language, a concept acquires a new accent, enriching the word with an unexpected meaning. If “katholikē” emphasized the universality of the Church, encompassing the earth in breadth, revealing the width and length of the Church, then “sobornost” communicates to the Church a new dimension—depth and height, “so that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:18-19). Sobornost defines the inner essential being of the Church—the fullness of grace and the integrity of truth revealed in her. “Sobornost is the quality of divinely revealed truth granted to the Church. It is the mode of knowing truth proper to the Church, thanks to which truth becomes certain for the entire Church, and for the Church as a whole and for each of its smallest particles. That is why the duty to defend the truth rests on every member of the Church, on the bishop as well as on the layperson, although bishops are primarily responsible for it by virtue of the authority belonging to them. The layperson is even charged with the duty to resist a bishop who betrays the truth and does not preserve fidelity to Christian Tradition. For sobornost is not an abstract universalism of doctrine prescribed by the hierarchy, but a living Tradition, always preserved everywhere and by all. To affirm the contrary would mean confusing sobornost with apostolicity, with the authority given to the apostles and their successors to bind and loose, to judge and determine, but then the inner certainty of truth loses its force. Tradition, guarded by each, is replaced by submission to an external principle.” /Vl. Lossky, Ibid./

From “sobornost” comes “the Council”—the organ of the Body of Christ, expressing its self-awareness. Not only the bishop, but every clergyman and layperson shares in the life and self-awareness of the Church. They express them each in their own measure in their service.

The first Council gathered in the year 51 in Jerusalem. This was the Apostolic Council. The Church found a remarkable way to resolve her problems in living interpersonal communion. All perplexities can be resolved by looking into each other’s eyes. Reverent memory preserves the apostles’ concern “to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things” for their flock and the formula of their theanthropic consensus: “it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us” /138*/, which became the basis for subsequent councils.

The era of the councils began three hundred years later. It blossomed with the precision of theological thought and the ascetic endeavor of the contemplative life.

The Ecumenical and Local Councils gathered the riches of theology and liturgy, and formed the canonical norms of Christian life, family, and asceticism. Each Local Church brought forth the national and cultural peculiarities of its existence and correlated them at the councils with the traditions of Ecumenical Orthodoxy, witnessing to its unity and harmony.

In the eighth century, the era of the Ecumenical Councils came to an end. Since then, the most authoritative organ of ecclesial self-awareness has become the councils of the Local Churches.

In the 17th century, the Orthodox Russian Church was beheaded. For three hundred years it was deprived of legitimate headship. The Local Council, the supreme organ of church governance, did not convene. No Patriarch was elected, who would bear personal responsibility for church life. In 1917-18, the long-awaited and superbly prepared Sacred Council gathered. Over the course of a year, it carried out profound reforms of church governance and diocesan practice. The Council discussed and reformed canonical and liturgical practice, revived forgotten traditions of the ancient Church, and restored the foundations of its conciliar structure. The reforms of the Sacred Council introduced no innovations into church life. The Council cleansed church traditions from antiquated errors and other excesses of the synodal period. The Council’s reforms returned the Church to its ancient norms. These reforms are all the more authoritative because all participants of the Council bore witness to their fidelity to Orthodoxy through their confessing lives and martyric deaths. The mass glorification of these martyrs and confessors by the Local Councils held at the end of the 20th century should be regarded as the Church’s reception of the conciliar decisions of 1917-18.

After the Second World War, four more Local Councils of the Russian Orthodox Church were held. They dealt with current affairs and pressing problems. In their composition and acts, they did not acquire an authority comparable to the Sacred Council of 1917-18:

The Local Council of 1945 elected His Holiness Patriarch Alexius, issued the “Statute on the Administration of the Russian Orthodox Church.”
The Local Council of 1971 elected His Holiness Patriarch Pimen and approved the decisions of the 1961 Bishops’ Council concerning the episcopate’s renunciation of property rights and the transfer to the laity of the right to manage church property.
The Local Council of 1988 marked the 1000th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus’ and adopted the “Statute on the Governance of the Russian Orthodox Church” of 1988.
The Local Council of 1990 elected His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II to succeed the deceased patriarch and canonized confessors, martyrs, and righteous ones of the 20th century.

The Church Statute, which defines the foundations of her organizational structure, the principles of governance, and the mutual relations of bishop, clergy, and laity, was repeatedly revised by the Russian Orthodox Church between 1917 and 2000. To date we have four editions of the Statute: 1917; 1945; 1988; and 2000. It has become possible to compare these Statutes with one another in order to see what paths and tendencies in the development of church life the Russian Orthodox Church is choosing.

10. 1. The Highest Church Authority

«In the Orthodox Russian Church the highest authority — legislative, administrative, judicial, and supervisory — belongs to the Local Council, periodically convened at appointed times, consisting of bishops, clergy, and laity.» /Decision of the Local Council of 4/11-1917/ 142*

«In the Russian Orthodox Church the highest authority in the areas of doctrine, church administration, and church court — legislative, administrative, judicial — belongs to the Local Council, periodically convened and consisting of bishops, clergy, and laity.» /Statute on the Governance of the Russian Orthodox Church, preamble./ 142**

«In the Russian Orthodox Church the highest authority in the areas of doctrine, church administration, and church court — legislative, executive, and judicial — belongs to the Local Council» /1988 Statute, II, 1/.

«In the Russian Orthodox Church the highest authority in the areas of doctrine and canonical order belongs to the Local Council» /2000 Statute, II, 1/.

The frequency of convocation of the Local Council. The 1988 Statute placed the 2. highest body of church authority in a position independent of the lower executive bodies by establishing specific and mandatory intervals for convocation and the composition of the Local Council: “no less than once every five years, consisting of bishops, clergy, monastics, and laity” /1988 Statute, II, 2/. This decision corresponds to the above-mentioned Decision of the Holy Council of 1917.
The competence of the Local Council. It is interesting that the Local 4. Council of 1917–18 retains for itself the fullness of church authority: legislative, administrative, judicial, and supervisory. The 1945 Statute and the 1988 Statute exclude “supervisory” authority from the competence of the Local Council and transfer it to no one.

The 2000 Statute excludes from the competence of the Local Council “legislative,” “supervisory,” “administrative,” and “judicial” authority. 143*. The competence of the “highest authority,” which “belongs to the Local Council,” in point 1 is vague and declarative. The 2000 Statute transfers the highest “legislative and judicial” authority to the Bishops’ Council, and “executive” authority to the Patriarch and Synod. 144*. As for “supervisory” authority, it has “departed this life.” It simply does not exist in the Church, neither de jure nor de facto, despite the warning: «that servant will say in his heart, ‘My master is delayed in coming,’ and begins to beat the menservants and maidservants, to eat and drink and be drunk» 145*. The lack of supervisory and judicial authority is keenly felt in contemporary diocesan life.

In terms of the frequency of convocation and composition, the current 2000 Statute placed the Local Council in dependence on decisions of the lower levels of church authority: the Bishops’ Council, the Patriarch, and the Synod. /Ch. II, 2/. The deplorable result of such dependence is obvious: the Local Council took place neither in 1995 nor in 2000.

Members of the Local Council. For the Local Council of 1917–18, the diocesan “assembly elects by closed ballot five Members of the Council, namely: a. Two clerics, of whom one is in the rank of presbyter, and the other in the rank of bishop, presbyter, deacon, or from among the psalm-readers, and b. Three laypersons” 146*.

“The Council consists of Members by election, by office, and by invitation of the Most Holy Synod and of the Council itself.” / 147*.

“Each Member of the Council receives, bearing the signature of the President and the countersignature of the Secretary with the affixing of the Council seal, a charter confirming his dignity.” 148*.

“Each Member of the Council enjoys all the rights granted to him” 149*.

The 1988 Statute and the 2000 Statute indicate that “the members of the council are the diocesan and vicar hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church by virtue of their office” 149**. The Statute nowhere calls the other delegates “members of the council.” The council status and rights of “delegates from the clergy, monastics, and laity elected to the Council” are not defined by the Statute of the Russian Orthodox Church. From the text of the Statute it is not possible to understand whether the delegates are full-fledged members of the Council on a par with “the diocesan and vicar hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church” or have a different status on a par with “invited theologians, specialists, observers, and guests, whose degree of participation is determined by rules of procedure /non-existent/, but in any case they do not have the right to participate in voting.” /2000 Statute, II, 16/. The vagueness and ambiguity of the pivotal provisions of the 2000 Statute leaves their practical application to the discretion of the executive authority.

The Decision of the Holy Council of 1917–18 “On the Supreme Governance of the Orthodox Russian Church” of 04.11.1917 designates “the highest authority of the ORC — the Local Council.” The Council established two permanent bodies of church authority, governing jointly with the Patriarch in the inter-council period:

The Holy Synod, represented by hierarchs.
The Supreme Church Council, represented by three hierarchs from the Synod and twelve clergy and laypersons elected at the Local Council.

The Council of Bishops was not an independent organ of authority. It existed as the Bishops’ Conference at the Local Council. It was the hierarchical part of the highest organ of church authority, complemented by clergy and laity to the fullness of the Local Council. The new entity, which branched off from the Local Council, owes its emergence to the extraordinary circumstances of post-war Russian history. The Soviet authorities permitted the Local Council of 1945 for the purpose of electing the Patriarch. The Council adopted the “Statute on the Administration of the Russian Orthodox Church” on 31/1-45 and established a new organ of authority: “The Patriarch, for the resolution of pressing matters, convokes, with the permission of the Government, a Council of the Most Reverend Bishops and presides over the Council, and when it is necessary to hear the voice of the clergy and laity and there is an external possibility to convene a regular Local Council, he convokes such and presides over it.” / “Statute” 1,7/.

A comparison of the four Statutes reveals a tendency, which reached its mature form in the Statute of 2000, to push the Local Council away from decision-making, preserving for it two functions: representation and the election of the Patriarch. The Council of Bishops gradually concentrates the fullness of church authority in the hands of the episcopal corporation.

The “Statute” of 1945 and the Statute of 1988 recognize for the Local Council the highest legislative, executive and judicial authority: “In the Russian Orthodox Church the highest authority in the sphere of doctrine, church administration and church court – legislative, executive and judicial – belongs to the Local Council.” 150*

The Statute of 1988 assigns to the competence of the Local Council:

“elects the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia and establishes the procedure for such election.” /II,5 “d”/.

“approves the decisions of the Council of Bishops” /II,5 “e”/.

“establishes the procedure for all church courts” /II,5 “i”/.

“is the final instance empowered to examine dogmatic and canonical deviations in the activity of the Patriarch” /II,6/.

“judges in the final instance all cases previously examined by the Council of Bishops and transmitted by this Council

for final decision.” /II,7/.

The Statute of 2000 limits the highest authority of the Local Council, excluding from its competence legislative, executive and judicial authority: “In the Russian Orthodox Church the highest authority in the sphere of doctrine and canonical arrangement belongs to the Local Council.” /Statute 2000.II,1/. The Local Council:

“elects the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia and establishes the procedure for such election” /II,5 “e”/.

“approves the decisions of the Council of Bishops relating to doctrine and canonical order” /II,5 “g”/ only.

The remaining competence of the Local Council is either duplicated by the Council of Bishops, or transferred to its jurisdiction.

The Statute of 1988 limits the authority of the Council of Bishops by three essential principles: “The Council of Bishops possesses the fullness of legislative authority, executive and judicial activity in the period between Local Councils.” /III,2/.

“The Council of Bishops is accountable to the Local Council” /III,4/.

“The decisions of the Council of Bishops enter into force immediately after their adoption. The final approval of these decisions, as well as their abrogation or modification, is carried out exclusively by the Local Council” /III,17/.

All these limitations are excluded from the text of the Statute of 2000.

The Statute of 2000 calls “the Council of Bishops the highest organ of hierarchical administration of the Russian Orthodox Church”, reserves to it the right to adopt and amend the Statute of the Russian Orthodox Church, to judge the Patriarch in the first and final instance, and designates it as the highest instance of the church court.150**. If the Statute of 1988 recognizes for the Local Council the right to take final decisions on matters which the Council of Bishops has prepared and transmitted to it for final decision, then the Statute of 2000 accepted that “The decisions of the Council of Bishops enter into force immediately after their adoption” and full stop. 151*.

According to the Statute of 1917-18, “The Patriarch, the Holy Synod and the Supreme Church Council are accountable to the All-Russian Local Council and present to it a report on their activity during the inter-council period.” 152*.

According to the Statute of 1988, “The Council of Bishops possesses the fullness of legislative authority, executive and judicial activity in the period between Local Councils.” 153*.

The Statute of 2000 does not limit the authority of the Council of Bishops to the confines of inter-council periods and does not bind it with accountability to the Local Council. According to the Statute of 2000, the Council of Bishops duplicates the rights and powers of the Local Council and is endowed with a greater volume of authority.

The new status of the Council of Bishops renders the Local Council a superfluous organ of authority. “The Council of Bishops of the year 2000 focused attention on this canonical question and called the Church to return to the practice of apostolic times, that is, to regard the Council of Bishops as the highest organ of church authority.” /Bp. Sergiy Sokolov/. 154*. How simple, it turns out, to return to the “practice of apostolic times”: one need only drive the clergy and laity out of the Local Council!

Clerical ecclesiology poses two questions.

If the Church is identified with the episcopal corporation, where do the clergy and people fall out of the Body of Christ? Where is their place? But if the Body of Christ includes clergy and people, one must recognize that the episcopal corporation constitutes not the whole Church, but a part of it. Then the corporate interests of the bishops may not coincide with the interests of the Church as a whole. The particular does not always adequately express the general. The particular can deform the general by virtue of its limitedness.
The Apostle Paul testifies: “we have the mind of Christ.” 155*. Who is this “We” today? Who is the custodian and expresser of Christ’s truth in the Church? The episcopal college? The clergy and people? Perhaps their conciliar unity? Then where is the organ in which their voice can resound?

If the “mind of Christ” belongs to the episcopal corporation, the Holy Spirit who abides in the Church is limited by its boundaries. How then does the Holy Spirit speak through St. Maximus, who alone stands against the episcopal corporation of the Monothelites? The Patriarchs

Together with the whole host of hierarchs they persecuted him, cut out his tongue, severed his right hand, banished and imprisoned him, so that he would submit to hierarchical authority and acknowledge a single will. The Ecumenical Council of 680, together with Saint Maximus, confessed two wills in Christ: the divine and the human, in everything obedient to his divine will. The Monothelite corporation of hierarchs was condemned.

The voices questioning the expediency of Local Councils in the Russian Orthodox Church have weighty grounds.

Firstly, the hierarchical conference of a Local Council is, in its composition, identical to a Council of Bishops. It possesses indisputable authority and makes final decisions on all questions. At both, only bishops vote.

Secondly, ancient councils were not always held with the participation of clergy and laity. A Local Council, unencumbered by the participation of clergy and laity, narrows its composition to that of a Hierarchical Conference and coincides in composition with a Council of Bishops. While preserving the authority of its decrees, it requires fewer organizational resources. If the final decision always rests with the episcopate, is it worth the expense of supplementing the Council’s composition with clergy and laity? In answering this question, three essential circumstances must be considered.

The abolition of the Local Council from the structure of the Russian Orthodox Church fundamentally alters the basis of its canonical order and returns the Church to the Synodal era. Such a decision can only be made by the last Local Council. Deprived of its support, the Patriarch, elected in a closed session by the hierarchs alone and accountable to them, would be preserved as a symbolic figure and would occupy the place of First President in the hierarchs’ synclite.
The position of a contemporary bishop at a Council fundamentally differs from the position of a bishop at the ancient councils. According to ancient tradition, a bishop was elected by the local church. At the council, he represented his diocese not only by virtue of his administrative position, but as the chosen representative of the local church. The Local Council of 1917-18 [/134**/] restored the practice of the ancient church: to elect the diocesan hierarch by all the people and clergy of the local church. The precedents proved successful. Thus were Saints Benjamin (of Kazan) and Tikhon (Bellavin) elected to their cathedras.

Conciliar election should not be confused with the democratic principle of majority vote. Conciliarity does not rely on the majority. It testifies to the revelation of God’s will: “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you.” [155**].

The Statute of 2000 restored the Synodal practice of appointing diocesan bishops by decisions of the Synod. A bishop appointed by the Synod represents the diocese not as its elected representative, but solely by virtue of his administrative appointment.

Moreover, in a note to Chapter II, Article 16, the Statute emphasized that “the election of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia is conducted in a closed session.” The clergy and people of the Russian Orthodox Church cannot participate in the election of the Patriarch. Such a practice abolishes the principle of nationwide election of the patriarch, established by the Local Council of 1917-18, and significantly diminishes the Patriarch’s authority among the bishops. The new practice of “white smoke” testifies that the conclave of cardinals, behind closed doors, has reached agreement on the candidacy of the First Hierarch. An identical practice existed in the elections of the general secretary in the Politburo.

In the ancient Church, there existed the reception of church decisions. Bishops made decisions at Councils, and the church body could agree with them or reject them. The Robber Council of 449 in Ephesus was not received by the church people, and its decisions did not acquire the force of church decrees. The conciliar consciousness of the Church demands the indispensable participation of clerics and laity in every decision. A Council of Bishops is represented only by the hierarchical corporation.

By excluding the participation of clergy and laity, by excluding the reception of the church body, a Council of Bishops cannot express the consciousness of the Local Church. It expresses the corporate consensus of the episcopate. Clergy and laity do not necessarily have to sit in session or participate in decision-making. The Local Council opens the possibility for each of them to voice a judgment: their agreement or disagreement. It is enough for the Church to hear that judgment. A word is born when it is spoken. A spoken word finds its destiny. A word can be born in the Church not only through a bishop, for the Spirit gives birth to the word through whomever He pleases. Decisions always remain with the bishops. Through their participation in the Council, clergy and laity express the “Amen” of the church’s fullness. This fullness is named by the Symbol of Faith as the conciliarity of the Church.

The decisions of a Council of Bishops express only the unity of the Church. The decisions of a Local Council express both symmetrical marks of the Holy Church: unity and conciliarity. The reception of conciliar fullness imparts the highest canonical authority to the decisions of a Local Council.

Contemporary church practice has deprived clergy and people of their voice.

In the Church, “a spider-like deafness descends.” The clergy have fallen mute, “the people remain silent,” because the current Statute does not guarantee, and diocesan practice excludes, an organ capable of bringing to the Church’s hearing the judgments of clergy and laity that are independent of the executive authority. It is dangerous to identify the conciliar unity of the Church with the corporate consensus of bishops and to substitute the conciliar mind of the Church with the opinion of the hierarchical college. The Parish Assembly and the Parish Council are fictitious structures. They have neither voice, nor significance, nor tasks. Diocesan assemblies have been replaced by gatherings of the diocesan clergy. Laity are physically not admitted there, and clergy remain silent in fear of the bishop, since the clergy “must not dare to have their own judgment.” Clergy and people cannot influence church life. The forced silence of the people of God prevents the Holy Spirit from “breathing where He wills.” In the Church’s history, He has testified not only through bishops, but through the mouth of a simple monk, Maximus, or of a deacon, Athanasius of Alexandria.

Chapter 11. The People of God

to the parishioner his canonical rights, according to the Statute: “the right to participate in the Parish Assembly with a decisive vote belongs to all members of the clergy and parishioners of both sexes who have reached 25 years of age and are entered in the parish register.” 170*. The Parish Statute of 1917–18 guarantees to every Christian the canonical status of “parishioner” in the parish community he has chosen. Each parishioner acquires the right to participate in deciding questions of parish life on an equal basis with all parishioners and the clergy of the church. The concept of the “Parish Assembly” coincides with the concept of the “Parish community” of the church. The canonical status of “parishioner” of a given church is determined by two qualifying characteristics:

A permanent member of the parish.
Registration in the Parish Register.

11. 2. Statute on the Governance of the Russian Orthodox Church, adopted by the Local Council on June 8, 1988

The 1988 Statute introduces into the parish life of the Church a canonical division of the community into “parishioners” and “laity.” Both terms fit comfortably into church usage. They were always used synonymously, because they denoted the same person. The term “layperson” expressed his distinction from a clergyman. The term “parishioner” expressed his connection to a specific church. It is precisely in this sense that the Parish Statute of 1918 uses both terms.

The 1988 Statute fills these familiar concepts with different canonical content and uses them as terms defining legal differences in the status of community members.

“Parishioners” constitute the most numerous part 2. of the parish: tens, hundreds, thousands of Christians. The 1988 Statute devotes to them a tiny section, consisting of three articles, ch. 8, 22–24.
Art. 22 defines the term: “parishioners are persons of Orthodox confession who maintain a living connection with their parish church.”
Art. 23 lists the religious, moral, and disciplinary duties of parishioners.
Art. 24 emphasizes that “it is the duty of parishioners to take care of the material support of the clergy and the church.”
The text of the 1988 Statute provides no rights at all for parishioners. Only duties. The rightless position of parishioners in the parish shapes their consumerist attitude toward the church. Parish practice ironically twists their name into “passers-by,” “drop-ins,” “out-of-towners”… The irony pointedly indicates the random nature of the parishioners’ connection with the church and calls into question the very meaning of the term “parishioner,” as defined by the 1988 Statute. Irregular and short-term visits to the church, a primitive understanding of church life, are dictated not so much by religious motives as by a magical consciousness. Some parishioners limit their link to the church to lighting candles. Passing by a church, they drop in, buy candles, place them before the icons, and continue on their business. Many come to have a cross or icon blessed, to consecrate an apartment or a car, to hold a memorial service at the grave of relatives.
The Eucharist, the content of Christian doctrine, remain incomprehensible and find no response in their souls. In the rituals they do not seek the Kingdom of God and regeneration. They seek protection from sorcery, the evil eye, and other misfortunes. For them the ritual has a magical significance.
A small portion of parishioners participates in the Eucharist, goes to confession and communion, observes fasts and prayer rules. Very few parishioners are interested in the meaning of the services and dogmas, or ponder the sermon. It is said that Christian enlightenment depends on the zeal of the pastor. He must catechize the parishioners. This is partly true. Catechesis must be a response to inquiries and cannot be forced. Experience suggests that the problem lies deeper. In economics there is a principle: demand creates supply. This principle does not work in reverse. Supply does not create demand. The priest’s monologue gains perspective only when it turns into dialogue.
The parish community is torn apart by the mutual lack of demand between parish and parishioners. On the one hand, church life remains undemanded by most potential parishioners. Not relating their way of life to the community, not finding in it sympathy for their everyday needs, they perceive it as something exotic.
On the other hand, parishioners remain undemanded by church life, since it is self-sufficient and can get along without them. In many churches the services are sparsely attended or even empty. Leskov called such services “inhuman.” Outside of the services, parishioners are demanded even less. They have no part in the administration of the parish, are deprived of participation in discussing problems of parish life and practice, are excluded from church initiative and creativity… the personal qualities, skills, and capacities of parishioners are not engaged in parish and diocesan practice. The church and the clergy see in them only a source of their material support. 171* Parishioners in the parish serve as passive material, like clay in the hands of a potter. Having borrowed the concept of “parishioners” from the Parish Statute of 1917–1918, the 1988 Statute lost the chief canonical value of this concept—the contractual basis in which the 1917–1918 Parish Statute rooted the canonical status of the “parishioner.” By leaving the status of the “parishioner” canonically unsubstantiated, the 1988 Statute deprived the concept of meaning. According to the 1988 Statute, parishioners do not sign a contract with the community, are not registered in the Parish Book, and cannot be participants in the Parish Assembly. The 1988 Statute allows only one token of the parish community’s attention to parishioners: “decisions of the Parish Assembly may be announced to parishioners in the church.” 172* “Parishioners,” “parish community,” “parish assembly”—three identical-sounding terms express three completely different concepts. By a simple mechanism, the 1988 Statute deprives the entire church people of canonical status. The laos tou Theou falls out of the canonical space of the parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Although the people of God formally do not belong to any specific parish, the clergy admits them to the church sacraments in any parish. How could it be otherwise? These people have received holy Baptism and obtained the right to full participation in the Eucharistic life of the Church. Could formal registration in the Parish Book really have serious consequences for the parish and parishioners? One hears the same naïve question from young people: “we love each other, why register marriage? A mere formality.” No, it is not empty; it ensures legal protection for the family: husband, wife, and child.
A Christian does not exist on his own. He abides in the Church by belonging to a concrete parish. “In the ancient Church the entering of Christians’ names in the diptychs indicated that Christians belonged to the Church, and exclusion from the diptychs signified that they had been excommunicated from it.” 173* Registration in the Parish Book bound a Christian to a specific parish, and through it to the local church. In our time parishioners are not entered in the diptychs of a specific parish, except perhaps in “health” or “requiem” synodicons for a fee and for a time. If a Christian does not belong to a specific community, he dwells outside the bounds of the local Church. Christians of the Russian Orthodox Church belong to all parishes equally, since their connection with any one parish is in no way sealed: neither formally nor really. They are not “parishioners” but “visitors,” as in a café or a shop. There are no “foreign” parishes. In any one can be baptized, communed, married. Having performed a sacrament over parishioners, the Church cannot certify this fact. “Certificate of Baptism,” “Certificate of Marriage”—these cannot have legal force, since the act is not confirmed by registration in the Parish Book. The clergy is forced to trust the testimony of a person it sees for the first time and to admit him to any sacrament of the Church. In such a situation unbaptized bishops and priests, marriage by the seventh rites, and other abuses are possible. Exclaiming “The doors! The doors!…” the deacon calls for the doors to be shut against the uninitiated, while the priest, as if not understanding the meaning of his call, opens the curtain of the royal doors. All who happen to be present in the church become co-participants in the Holy Eucharist: the unbaptized, Muslims, Jews… Is the clergy not called to guard the holy Mysteries?
After this, the demand not to allow Catholics into the church sounds strange. I enter the Snetogorsky Monastery with a group of Englishmen.
The nun anxiously asks:

They aren’t Catholics, are they? The bishop hasn’t blessed letting Catholics in. –
— No, they’re Protestants. –
— Well, then let them enter, — the nun calms down. –
A woman comes to confession:
I’m a sinner, I have a husband, two children, and a lover. What should I do? –
— Leave the lover, live with your husband and children. –
— I can’t! –
— Why? –
— My husband and I only had a civil registration, but with my lover we had a church wedding. –
— Is it possible to break the marriage crown?
A girl goes with her fiancé to Greece. There they want to have a church wedding and ask for a certificate that they are not already married in church. The Greeks take the Sacraments seriously. It is impossible there to have a wedding in a foreign parish. Every Christian belongs to a specific parish, in which he is baptized, communed, married, and buried. A Greek’s mind cannot grasp that in Russia one can have a church wedding in any of 20,000 parishes. To fulfill the requirement honestly, the girl would have to bring 20,000 certificates to Greece.
Only permanent membership in a specific parish actualizes
the abiding of a Christian in the Church.

Laity. Statute 88 confers canonical status on 4. a random group of ten persons who, together with the clergy of the church, constitute the Parish Assembly: “members of the parish assembly… are clergy and laity.” 174*.
The Parish Council consists of… morally irreproachable and active… clergy and laity.” 175*. Statute 88 introduces the concept of “laity” without defining it in any way. Statute 88 devotes three large sections in ch. 8, articles 25-52 to the categories of “laity” who make up the Parish Assembly, their rights and duties. According to Statute 88, “laity” are registered as founders of the parish, sign the Parish Statute, and receive the canonical status that the Parish Statute of 1917-18 conferred on all its parishioners. The category of “parishioners” differs substantially from the category of “laity.” The category of “parishioners” consists of thousands of Orthodox Christians who have fallen out of the canonical space of the parish. The number of “laity” forming the Parish Assembly does not exceed ten persons, chosen by no one, not appointed, representing not the community but only themselves.
The source of the exclusivity of these “chosen ones” is not explained by Statute 88. This group of “clergy and laity” represents the parish community legalized by Statute 88. It is granted the right to elect the Parish Council and the Audit Commission, to make decisions on all questions of current church life. 176*. “Laity” are granted the right to participate in the Diocesan Assembly, and also to represent the diocese at the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church. 176**. Parishioners represent the real community, deprived of canonical status and rights. Laity represent a fictitious community, endowed with canonical status and rights. Naturally, a fictitious community has fictitious status and fictitious rights. The bishop counts the rights of the community as nothing and takes no interest in its opinion. I will give a characteristic example from personal life. The bishop assigns a priest to a multi-staff parish, instructs him to organize a conflict in the parish, compromise the rector and take his place. The peaceable parish began to seethe. A confrontation between priests breaks out. The clergy and parishioners join the struggle. To quench the raging flame, the bishop orders the rector to immediately convene the Parish Assembly and decide which of the two will remain: the old rector or the new clergyman will take his place. To strengthen the authority of the decision, the bishop blessed the participation in the Parish Assembly of two deans, several rectors of the city’s largest churches and the diocesan confessor. The Parish Assembly resolved “to request the bishop to exclude the newly appointed priest from the clergy of the church.” Having read the minutes of the assembly, the bishop tore it up before the eyes of those present, threw it into the wastebasket, and left everything unchanged. The fire in the parish continued for another three years. The Parish Assembly was deemed “as if it had never been.” The archpastor’s decisive gesture expresses the rating of the Parish Assembly and its real rights in the Church. 177*.
Because of the vagueness of the concept of “parishioners,” no one knows how many parishioners there are in a parish, where and how they live, what they need, how they believe. The number of parishioners has an approximate and statistical value. The large number of parishioners, the opening of monasteries and churches are the main arguments confirming the revival of Orthodoxy in Russia.
Pre-revolutionary Russia seemed Orthodox. It was called “Holy Rus’.” 75 thousand churches, monasteries and chapels, half a million clergy, universal baptism and annual fasting seemed undoubted signs of the churching of the entire Russian people. Who, then, committed the Revolution, blew up churches, burned icons and books, executed the tsar and clergy? Genghis Khan, Masons, Jews, fascists? The Revolution swept away in the blink of an eye the pious illusions about “Holy Rus’.” Religiosity turned out to be a thin film of oil covering an ocean. The blow of a wave left only small drops of oil, which the Church again collects on the surface of the waters.
In recent years, many new churches have been opened. They can be visited without hindrance. Divine services from Moscow and Petersburg are shown on television. There we see churches full of worshipers. Once more there is talk of the revival of spiritual life and the churching of the people, talk based on architectural, publishing and economic achievements that rest not only on religious reasons.
The church “revival” is initiated “from above.” A priest receives an order: “to create an Orthodox youth movement at the local level and to report on the work done. Signature of the bishop.” On that very day the priest gathered a few people, called this event a “constituent conference” and reported: the Orthodox youth movement has been created and consigned to the archives.
To the village parishes of N-rayon, an archpastoral circular arrives: “organize nationwide repentance for the murder of the royal family”… Some are no more, and those are far away… And five old women repent of another’s villainy. In the 1930s they were Young Pioneers. In the Soviet school they were told about the tsar and the landowners. That is all that their memory has preserved, “for years and centuries have passed, and for grief, for torment, for shame — late, too late! — no one will answer, and the soul will forgive no one.” 177**
The bishop reports in a newspaper interview: “We have a great many believers. Look at the line for holy water on Theophany!”
The bishop orders that a monastery be founded. There is no experienced guide, no monastic community, no funds, sometimes not even walls… An unfounded initiative “from above.”
The reverse situation: A small parish in the backwoods and impassable roads is nourished by a hegumen. A monastic community gathers around him. A huge church has been repaired, cells have been built, the monks care for the sick and the homeless.

11.3. Charter of the Russian Orthodox Church, Adopted by the Council of Bishops on August 16, 2000

The 2000 Charter of the ROC abandoned the use of the words “prikhozhane” (parishioners) and “miryane” (laity) in a terminological sense that differentiated the canonical status of the two. The Parish Charter of 1999 also returned to using these words as synonyms. However, the new usage changed nothing in the canonical status of parishioners. The community continues to live divided into two unequal parts. Ten canonically significant parishioners and all the rest—those not included in the Parish Assembly, deprived of status and rights. The 2000 Charter retained the elective principle of the previous Charter: “decisions of the Parish Assembly may be announced to the parishioners in the church” 180*. The 2000 Charter added only a new right for the diocesan bishop to partially or completely, at his discretion, disperse the Parish community. 181*
“The duty of the Parish Assembly to preserve the internal unity of the parish” 182*.cannot be fulfilled by any verbal trickery as long as the principle of dividing the community into significant and insignificant members is laid as a statutory norm in the foundation of the parish’s organization. Only a return to the principles of the Parish Charter of 1917-18 promises the revival of parish life in the ROC.
Laos tou Theou fell out of the “royal priesthood.” The ROC Charter
deprived it of legal status, pushing it into an ecclesiological and canonical void. The reason for the mass falling away of the laity from the Church lies in their canonical and practical alienation from parish activity over many years.
One can be horrified by the multitude of divisions tearing the seamless robe of the Orthodox Church. About a dozen Orthodox churches coexist, having broken eucharistic communion with one another. In the Eucharistic prayer we ask “to quell the dissensions of the churches.”183*. Sin is always the cause of division. However, it is not only love of power and self-interest that destroy church unity. The sinful undergrowth has theological and canonical roots. One can only regret that the wind of change of the twentieth century introduced its own corrections into the reform of church law and the development of canonical practice, corrections alien to the spirit of ancient tradition and to the direction of the transformations undertaken by the Holy Council of 1917-18 — the council of confessors and martyrs of the holy Church. The path to revival lies through returning church life to the reforms of the Local Council of 1917-18.

Chapter 12. Conciliar Bodies of Diocesan Governance

The Local Councils in the 20th century adopted three definitions on diocesan governance of the ROC. Initially all three almost in identical words profess the principle of conciliarity: the co-participation of clergy and laity in the governance of the diocese under the aegis of the bishop. “The diocesan bishop, by succession of authority from the holy Apostles, is the primate of the local Church, governing the diocese with the conciliar assistance of clergy and laity.” 184*
Each Charter adopted after “Definition U” introduces changes into the text of its provisions, specifying and expanding the bishop’s power. The influence of clergy and laity gradually fades behind vague formulations, and diocesan practice reduces to nothing the bodies of “conciliar assistance” to diocesan governance. The uncertainty of formation, composition, representation, and structure of these bodies makes it possible to fundamentally change their nature in diocesan practice and to turn “conciliar assistance” into an apparatus of the bishop’s personal power.

12.1. Diocesan Assembly.

The «Definition U» of 1918 calls the Diocesan Assembly 6. the «supreme body, with the assistance of which the bishop governs the diocese.» 185*.
The 1945 «Statute» does not know the Diocesan Assembly at all. It could not exist in those years.
The 1988 Statute literally repeats the words of the «Definition U» of 1918.186*.
The 2000 Statute calls «the Diocesan Assembly, headed by the diocesan bishop, a governing body of the diocese», without emphasizing «conciliar assistance», dropping the definition «supreme body», and lowering the conciliar authority of this body. 187*.
Election, its procedure, composition, representation and term of office are clearly set forth in the 1918 Definition: «Diocesan Assemblies are composed of representatives of the clergy and laity in equal numbers, elected for three years. Representatives to the Diocesan Assemblies are elected by District Assemblies, consisting of all clergy of the district and an equal number of laity elected by the Parish Assemblies.»
«The Diocesan Assembly includes representatives of monasticism and
theological educational institutions.» / 188*/.

According to the «Definition U», the principal features of the Diocesan Assembly are:
7. Equal representation of clergy and laity. 8. 9. The electoral principle of representation. 10. 11. A fixed term of office of three years. 12. 13. The procedure of election is defined by the Statute. 14. The 1988 Statute preserves the principle of electivity, the equal number of clergy and laity, emphasizing gradations: men, women, youth. This is a significant clarification and the sole mention in the 1988 Statute of the participation of women and youth in diocesan and parish life. Regrettably, the procedure for electing members of the Diocesan Assembly is not defined by the 1988 Statute. Who? Where? When? For what term are they elected? The Statute is silent about it.189*.

According to the 2000 Statute, «The Diocesan Assembly…consists of clergy, monastics and laity.»190*. The new edition does not clarify the composition of the «laity». The Statute does not explain whether women, who constitute the overwhelming majority of parishioners, may be elected members of the Diocesan Assembly. The numerical ratio of clergy and laity in the composition of the Diocesan Assembly is not defined. The manner of the Diocesan Assembly’s emergence and its organisation remain unexplained.
The 2000 Statute replaces the «election» of members of the Diocesan Assembly with their «convocation», without explaining on what principle and precisely who is convoked. The problem seems insoluble. However, in setting forth the functions of the Diocesan Council, the 2000 Statute states: «The Diocesan Council, in accordance with the instructions of the diocesan bishop, establishes the procedure for electing members of the Diocesan Assembly.»191*. Such an indication allows one to presuppose the electivity of the Diocesan Assembly.
The Statute of the Russian Orthodox Church, in both editions, similarly appears to shape the structure and process of the Diocesan Assembly, investing it with eight qualifying features:

Annual assembly at the initiative of the ruling bishop. The 2000 Statute introduces alternative initiatives of convocation that are practically unfeasible and theoretically unconvincing. We will leave them without examination. 192*.
The electoral principle /X, 44 “b”/.
The procedure for convoking members of the Diocesan Assembly is established by the Diocesan Council. /X, 28/.
Participation of the laity. /X, 27/.
The Diocesan Assembly elects members of the Diocesan Council and the diocesan court. /X, 29 “b”/.
The chairman of the Diocesan Assembly is the diocesan bishop. The Diocesan Assembly elects a deputy chairman and a secretary. /X, 30/.
The Diocesan Assembly works in accordance with the adopted regulations. /X, 32/.
The minutes of the Diocesan Assembly’s sessions are signed by the chairman, his deputy, the secretary, and two members of the assembly elected for this purpose. /X, 33/.

The cited provisions of the legislative document allow one to see the basic principles of the canonical structure of the diocese. The best criterion for judging the quality of a law is its practical effect on life. Therefore, one ought to become acquainted with the practice of applying the Statute of the Russian Orthodox Church in the diocesan life of the Church. In getting to know diocesan practice, we learn that of the eight listed features of the Diocesan Assembly, only the first is observed: «annual assemblies at the discretion of the diocesan bishop». The remaining features are not fulfilled.
The procedure for convocation and the procedure for electing members of the Diocesan Assembly are not established.
No layperson – neither man nor woman – is physically admitted to the Diocesan Assembly.
The clergy, by which are understood only priests and deacons, are obliged to participate in the assembly in corpora.
The members of the Diocesan Council and the diocesan court are not elected.
Neither a deputy chairman, nor a secretary, nor two members for signing the Minutes of the sessions are elected.
There are no regulations. In the notes to the 1988 Statute, on p. 32, item 3, it says: «‘Regulations for Conducting Official Meetings’ are to be adopted as an appendix to the present Statute.» We waited for them in vain for 12 years. They were never drafted. The 2000 Statute did not promise regulations. Two years after the adoption of the Statute, assemblies are being held, but no regulations have appeared.
The minutes of the sessions are not kept.
In my memory, there has been only one instance when a layperson attempted to take part in the Diocesan Assembly. This was the writer K—v, well-known in Russia. Seeing him among the clergy, the bishop ordered him to leave the assembly immediately. The clergy tried to explain to the bishop that the Statute of the Russian Orthodox Church allows the laity to participate in the Diocesan Assembly.
“He is not a layperson,” the bishop retorted. “ — ! ! ! ? ? ? ! ! ! – In response to the general bewilderment, the bishop explained: «only church employees are called laypeople.» – Without disputing the bishop’s strange assertion, the priests pointed out that K—v is the Chairman of the parish community of the Church of the Nativity of John the Baptist.
“Let him go,” the bishop morosely insisted. “That church is not yet registered.” K—v got up and left. Since then, no layperson has tried to enter the Pskov Diocesan Assembly. – An assembly that is convoked annually at the order of the diocesan bishop but does not meet the qualifying features of the Diocesan Assembly would correctly be called «an assembly of the diocesan clergy». Such an assembly cannot replace the Diocesan Assembly provided for by the Statute of the Russian Orthodox Church for the «conciliar assistance of the clergy and laity in the canonical governance of the local church – the diocese» 193*. The Statute specifies the origin, composition, structure, tasks and rights of the Diocesan Assembly in implementing the conciliar life of the diocese. Deprived of these features, an assembly of clergy cannot express the conciliar voice of the Church for an obvious reason: it has no canonical status, not being legitimised by general church law. Its law has as its sole source the will of the ruling bishop, invariably expresses his personal opinion and unanimously approves his individual decisions. The assembly of the diocesan clergy turns out to be a mirror in which the bishop can see only his own reflection: to read his thoughts, to confirm his assessments, his intentions. Like an echo, it is deprived of independent sound. It returns to the bishop his own voice. At the assembly of clergy under the chairmanship of the ruling bishop, what resounds is not «the voice of church conciliarity» but unanimous silence. It is an assembly of the mute. It is deprived of the chief feature of the conciliar unity of the Church: spiritual freedom. When conciliar unity is replaced by the formal, it ceases to be ecclesial.
The decisions of a non-canonical «Diocesan Assembly» cannot have legal force.

1. The Diocesan Council
  At the Academy of Sciences
  Sits Prince Dunduk.
  They say, it is not fitting
  Dunduk such honor.
  Why then does he sit?
  A. S. Pushkin

The non‑canonicity of the Diocesan Assembly inevitably results in the non‑canonicity of the other conciliar organ of diocesan authority — the Diocesan Council.
The Holy Council of 1918 established this elective body to replace the Consistory. The legislator conceived it as “a permanent, continuously functioning administrative‑executive institution, consisting of elected members, with whose assistance the diocesan bishop administers the diocese.”194*
The five permanent members of the Diocesan Council are elected by the Diocesan Assembly from among clergy and laity for a term of six years and, upon the nomination of the diocesan bishop, are confirmed in office by the highest church authority.195* The Diocesan Council elects a chairman in the presbyteral rank. The bishop confirms the election. The chairman and members may not be deans. The secretary is elected from among clergy and laity by the Diocesan Council and is confirmed by the highest church authority upon the nomination of the diocesan bishop.196* Without taking part in the making of decisions, the secretary provides necessary references from the canons, as well as references and explanations concerning the circumstances of a case.197*
The secretary is in charge of the diocesan chancery and hires its employees.198*
The Diocesan Council in Tashkent was organized according to the scheme outlined above by Archbishop Ermogen Golubev. It functioned as a permanently acting body from 1953 to 1961. “The Diocesan Council is granted the right of initiative in raising general questions of church‑diocesan life.”199* Into the hands of the Diocesan Council is placed the initiative that is so lacking in contemporary diocesan life.
The Statute adopted by the Local Council of 1988 fundamentally changes the structure, composition, status, and tasks of the Diocesan Council, transforming it from a permanently functioning body into one that meets periodically, four times a year. According to the Statute of ’88, this is a partly elective, partly appointed body, whose chairman is the diocesan bishop. Lay persons are excluded from the membership of the Diocesan Council. Of the four persons in presbyteral rank, two are to be elected by the Diocesan Assembly for a term of one year, and two are appointed by the diocesan bishop. Their term of office is not defined. The bishop appoints the secretary of the Diocesan Council. His term of office is not defined. Not one of the members of the Diocesan Council receives confirmation from the highest church authority. Therefore the Diocesan Council is dependent only on the personal authority of the ruling bishop.200*
According to the Statute of 2000, the Diocesan Council has the same composition and partial electivity. The term of office of its members is extended to three years. The bishop is granted the right to remove members of the Diocesan Council from office. The Diocesan Council meets less frequently than in the previous Statute: twice a year.201*
Both versions of the Statute organize the work of the Diocesan Council on the basis of an adopted procedural regulation and an agenda presented by the chairman. The sessions are recorded in minutes signed by all members.202*
In concrete diocesan practice everything looks far more dismal.
The Diocesan Assembly does not elect, and the bishop does not appoint, a single member of the Diocesan Council. A list of its membership does not exist. Not one “participant” of the Diocesan Council receives the lawful status of “member of the Diocesan Council.” They all play the role, only for the present day, of depicting “members.” Since the Diocesan Council convoked by the bishop has no lawful “members,” the hierarch sends out an invitation, addressing it “to all participants of the Diocesan Council.”
By virtue of its unlawful formation and its non‑permanent, accidental composition, the “participants” of the Diocesan Council do not receive the status and authority of lawful “members of the Diocesan Council.” Not one of them knows whether he will be invited the next time. Each of those invited becomes an accidental participant.
From a periodically functioning body, the Diocesan Council turns into exclusive gatherings.
The procedural regulation of the Diocesan Council is no more existent in reality than the procedural regulation of the Diocesan Assembly. The agenda is never announced, and the minutes of the sessions of the Diocesan Council are not signed by its participants. These minutes do not exist at all. The making of decisions is not preceded by voting.
Usually, the bishop states his opinion, and those present unanimously and fervently approve and support it. As was written in Stalin’s time, “stormy applause, turning into ovations.”
The bishop always invites 20‑25 participants to the Diocesan Council: deans, monastery superiors, the diocesan confessor, and 3‑4 rectors of churches. All of them find themselves in the humiliating position of the hierarch’s parrots.
The Diocesan Council does not exist in diocesan practice, just as the Diocesan Assembly does not. Both organs are replaced by the apparatus of the bishop’s personal authority. They have no foundation in the Statute, and are not a church‑wide institution. Their legal source is not the legislative documents of the Russian Orthodox Church, but the personal will of a particular bishop.
Note: the non‑conformity of the Diocesan Assembly and Council with the requirements of the Statute of the Russian Orthodox Church is cited here from the practice of the Pskov diocesan life. The state of affairs in other dioceses is unknown to the author.
The bishop has no need to destroy the lawful organs of “conciliar assistance of clergy and laity,” since the Statute of the Russian Orthodox Church permits the bishop “to create necessary institutions for the satisfaction of church needs,”203* without encroaching on the conciliar structures established by church‑wide authority.
The destruction of the conciliar structure of the Diocesan Assembly and the Diocesan Council deprives them of the possibility of fulfilling their purpose: “to provide conciliar assistance of clergy and laity in the administration of the diocese.”204* Neither of these organs expresses the conciliar spirit in diocesan life.
The bishop strikes at the very heart of the Orthodox faith — at the Niceno‑Constantinopolitan Symbol of Faith. The danger of damaging the Orthodox teaching on conciliarity becomes evident.

Chapter 13. The Tragedy of Initiative

“In the world you will have tribulation:
but be of good cheer.” /Jn. 16,33/.

Ten years of life in unexplained disfavour with the bishop sooner or later raise the question: in what does my fault or error lie? Perhaps no one is to blame: personalities did not match, antipathy arose, different convictions, life attitudes… But in Christian fellowship, is not agreement in what is chief the first place: “I believe in one God..”? Of course not. Orthodox, Catholics, Protestants read the same Holy Scripture, confess a common Creed, but have broken communion. We value the content of faith so fervently that the slightest difference in understanding divides us. Perhaps love has grown cold in us? Some Orthodox churches also do not have eucharistic communion among themselves. Is a univocal understanding possible, independent of culture, epoch, age and experience, circle of fellowship and its interests? And besides – our passions, mistakes, doubts…

Univocality in the understanding of a dogma is easily preserved where there is no need to go deeper into its content, where it unites, keeping the significance of an abstract principle, a formal sign designating an established way of life, fixed traditions and forms of consciousness. Therefore, any disagreement is so acutely felt by us: it encroaches upon ourselves, upon our person, which is refracted in theological, canonical and moral speculations. It is difficult to detach oneself from self-referential talk that has substituted theology. Intolerance proves to be a defensive reaction of intellectual laziness and lukewarmness. The Word of God warns: “neither do men put new wine into old bottles; else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved” 205*.

For the first time in my life I met a hierarch with flowers. All the city priests came to the station. Each one held a flower in his hand – a carnation, it seemed. The bishop stepped out of the carriage and cast a guarded glance over the welcomers. Everyone approached for a blessing and kissed his hand, anointed with fragrances. Then they took him by the arms, seated him in the “Volga”, and he departed for his residence.

The next day a solemn reception took place in the Cathedral. The bishop served a moleben and delivered a sermon. He told about his native village, about his parents, where he studied and which dioceses he had administered. The rector of the cathedral and the priests gave congratulatory speeches.

A few days later my first meeting with the bishop took place. I had an urgent matter. Shortly before his departure, the previous hierarch had entrusted me with organizing a candle factory.

The Diocesan Council considered several options and settled on my parish in P-. There was a basement room there, which proved to be the only suitable place for candle production. The Diocesan Council instructed the sacristan of the Cathedral to prepare the equipment, and me – to prepare the factory premises. The premises were prepared urgently, but there was no equipment. And now the hierarch had changed.

By chance I learned that Germans had donated candle-making equipment to the bishop of a neighboring diocese, and it was lying unused. To travel to another diocese I needed to obtain a blessing, so I went to my first audience.

The conversation did not go well. The bishop showed no interest in the projects for a comprehensive school, an orphanage for disabled orphans, a diocesan candle factory, a city-wide prosphora bakery, or a church for the pastoral care of the regional psychiatric hospital.

– These are not your tasks. A priest’s task is to conduct the divine service in the church. You are undertaking what is not your business. Even before arriving in this diocese, I formed a definite opinion of you. I do not think it will change. –

1. The Parish School

The conversation with the bishop left no room for doubt. It was a catastrophe for all my social work. The most sensible course would have been to go underground at once, immerse myself in parish activity and keep my head down. That is precisely what I would have done. But the Orthodox school already existed. The previous hierarch had given it his blessing. The children were already studying. The community had undertaken obligations towards them, their parents, the school’s teaching staff, and the Evangelical community in Germany, which had promised sponsorship. The home for disabled orphans had also already come into being and bound me with moral commitments. It was impossible to drop everything and hide. I decided to rely on God’s will and continue my work. A week later the bishop visited our church and looked over the school premises. A hope arose in me, and I spoke with him in confidence about possible prospects for the school’s development.

When we began to construct the building for the Orthodox school on the site of the ruined clergy house next to the church, it was not yet possible to state our purpose openly. We called the rooms garages, storerooms and a library. The classrooms had no windows; instead of doors there were gates. After the law “On Education” was published, it became possible to cut windows and wall up the gates. The school occupied three classrooms, a kitchen and a dining room, a tiny staff room, toilets, and a room for the OKF measuring 3 by 2 metres. On this tiny patch we launched a general education school providing a full secondary education.

Nevertheless, we had a hope that was fairly well grounded. Since 1990 I had been petitioning the city administration to hand over to the Orthodox school a building that had belonged to the church-parish school before the revolution. Not long before the bishop’s arrival I received word from the City Administration that my request had been granted. The administration had taken over this building from federal ownership and was transferring it to the Orthodox school.

Our German sponsors visited the new premises and discussed possibilities for its renovation. Hope gave us wings. Now we could count on annual intakes of pupils and graduating classes.

The bishop expressed a wish to inspect the new school building. The two-storey building was situated on the main street, not far from the regional administration. It stood on a hectare plot with garages, storerooms and annexes. After inspecting the building, the bishop said: “Your school will not receive this building. It will belong to the diocese.” To my appeal the governor responded: “The law requires that the building be transferred to your school according to the proper procedure, but it is more important for me to establish good relations with the head of the diocese.” The teaching staff and the parents repeatedly pestered the bishop with petitions in search of a compromise. The bishop remained unyielding.

The negotiations were summed up by a hierarchal resolution without a number: “The building cannot be transferred to a secular school, the so-called ‘Orthodox’ one. 29.04.93. Archbishop.”

I appealed this resolution to the Patriarchate through Bishop Arseny on 12.05.93, ref. no. 10. Forgetting his own resolution, the Archbishop threatens: “you write as though I have cast doubt on the school’s ‘Orthodox character’; for such reproaches — ‘false witness’ — against the ruling bishop, the guilty are excommunicated from the Orthodox Church” / Archbishop. Letter of 10.03.2000 ref. no. 42/.

A little later, at a meeting of the Diocesan Council, the bishop asked me: “What is your school needed for? What can it give us?” What can any school give except a constant headache? A school poses many problems — psychological, pedagogical, financial — and brings no material profit. Yet at the 1917 Local Council all the bishops ardently defended the system of Church-parish schools against Kerensky’s decree transferring them to the Ministry of Education. The hierarchs saw in it the foundation of Orthodox enlightenment and upbringing. The Sacred Council of the Russian Orthodox Church expressed its protest in a constructive Resolution of 23/X/17 [206*].

A church-parish school shapes an Orthodox consciousness in children and gives them practical skills for life in the church community. Every week the children sing the Vigil and the Divine Liturgy themselves; every day they pray before meals and before lessons. They go to confession and receive communion, study Sacred Scripture, Church Slavonic, Church history, the Typikon and the fundamentals of Orthodox doctrine. This experience will remain in their souls, be reflected in their destinies and will provide a worthy justification for the school’s meaning.

The bishop defined his final position with a strange phrase: “Your school in the P. diocese does not exist.” This phrase was etched into my memory like a gravestone inscription on a granite slab, because for a long time I could not grasp its meaning. Only years later did I understand that the bishop had excommunicated the Orthodox school. An interdictum locale spread in the medieval practice of the Catholics. “Certain bishops in the East have arbitrarily … ordered churches to be closed. The present canon speaks against this disorder and condemns the guilty …” 208*. The excommunication was verbal. The bishop did not confirm it by any formal act. But a word has power. The bishop’s anathema seems to me the mystical cause of all the school’s difficulties. The interdict remains in force to this day. In ten years the bishop has never once visited the school, nor met once with the parents or teachers for a conversation about the tasks of a church-parish school, about the Orthodox faith and life. Our invitations for the beginning and end of the school year, for the graduation ceremony, for school festivals remained unanswered. Not once in all these years has the bishop invited the children to the diocesan Christmas party or sent them greetings for the radiant Feast of Christ’s Resurrection. The bishop has isolated the Orthodox school from diocesan life. The only church-parish school in the diocese lives like Cinderella in the house of a wicked stepmother.

Since the hierarch unofficially holds a high position as a member of the regional Administration, his disfavour pushed me into isolation from the public life of the city. Seeing the Church’s pressing task to fill the spiritual and ideological vacuum that had formed after the collapse of socialist ideology, I had been involved in the city’s public life since 1987, responding with speeches, papers and articles to every significant event, visiting prisons, homes for the disabled, psychiatric hospitals, and celebrating the Divine Liturgy in wards, foyers and prison cells. I gave talks and lectures at various forums in Moscow and St Petersburg, in Germany and the Netherlands, in London and Oxford, in search of mutual understanding, contacts and help.

My public work in Pskov came to a halt with the arrival of the new bishop in 1993. He made it conditional on his blessing and approached the regional and city administrations with a demand never to invite the priest Pavel Adelheim to public events and to offer him no assistance or help in his social work.

In May 1993 I was invited on school business to the Kirchenkreis Lennep. Passing through Moscow, I went to the Patriarchate and wrote a complaint against the ruling hierarch. I remember writing: “he will pass through like a tank and will not even turn round to see whom he has crushed.”

It is said that His Holiness the Patriarch wrote a word of admonition to the bishop. It is to the Patriarch’s letter that I owe the fact that I have not been expelled, suspended or excommunicated to this day.

In September of the new school year a schism occurred in the school.

The bishop met with a group of parents and promised to give them support and to obtain suitable premises for a new school from the city administration if they would withdraw their children from the Orthodox school. Some parents obeyed and took their children out of the school.

The Archbishop kept his promise: the city administration allocated a kindergarten to house the new school. It was called the “Classical Gymnasium.” In 1995 the bishop opened the Diocesan Theological School in the building taken from the Orthodox school. The Orthodox school involuntarily gave rise to two new educational institutions. It itself remained mothballed in a single classroom. We cut windows, walled up the gate openings in two “garages” and opened two more classrooms. At that point our spatial resources were exhausted.

1. Parish Library.

Our church had three altars. The central 16th-century church was surrounded by a gallery. In the 19th century, part of the gallery was rebuilt into a side chapel of the Holy Prophet Elijah. In the northern part of the gallery, the Nativity of Christ side chapel was preserved. The monument protection authorities forbade restoring the altar of the Nativity chapel under the pretext of conducting a study. The altar had to be separated off by a curtain. For 10 years, the altar waited in vain for the promised study. In 1992, the remaining part of the church was plastered, whitewashed, and a library was placed in it. The library may be visited not only by students. Parishioners take books home or read them in the library.
The Local Council decreed: «One of the parish’s most important tasks is the enlightenment and education of the Orthodox population in the spirit of the Orthodox faith and the Church of Christ» 208*. To this end, the Council instructs: «At every parish church, there must be, under the priest’s supervision, a church library containing not only liturgical books, but also those needed by the clergy for the broadening and deepening of their theological knowledge, and books beneficial to parishioners, of a religious-moral and church-historical nature. This library should be established and replenished with church funds and donations from parishioners. In addition to spiritual books, a section of books by secular authors should be maintained.» 209*.
«In those rural parishes consisting of several attached villages, it is necessary to acquire so-called “traveling libraries” to supply the villages and hamlets with the reading matter required by the times.» 210*.
In 1999, we decided to plaster and whitewash the altar of the Nativity chapel. On December 28, 1999, following a denunciation by a cleric, the bishop accused me of desecrating the church and demanded that the library be immediately liquidated.
—«But where should the books go, Your Eminence?»
—«Wherever you like.»
I did not carry out the archbishop’s order, and the library still exists to the joy of the parishioners. The parish school cannot do without the library, and the church’s parishioners have grown accustomed to it.

1. Life Goes On

The blow dealt by the bishop was not fatal. The school survived, but continues to exist under extreme conditions. The school provides free education. It is licensed, certified, and accredited, and has a seal bearing state symbols. Graduates maintain a living connection with the parish and the Orthodox school. They confess and receive communion, and attend worship services. Occasionally, youth meetings of graduates are held together with teachers and current students.
The school choir travels to worship services in parishes and monasteries of the region, gives charity concerts, and performs original songs. Students have taken part in a competition for young talents and have been recognized by the Regional Department of Culture for their musical compositions written on a professional level for choral performance. The school choir was a laureate of the “Pskov Spring” choral competition. Orthodox school students won first places in the regional competition “Young Writer 2002.”
The current Constitution of the Russian Federation does not permit raising the question of Christianizing school education on a nationwide scale. Neither the Church nor the state is ready to address such a task.
His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II set the more modest task of developing Sunday schools at churches. The idea of the Sunday school arose in the West and developed there. We first learn of the Sunday school from “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.” That restless boy had no enthusiasm for Sunday school.
Over the past two hundred years, children’s interest in Sunday school in the West has not grown. In the city of P., Sunday schools also do not arouse great enthusiasm either among the clergy or among children. For the 25 city churches, there are several Sunday schools, attended by a few dozen children of various ages who come once a week to hear a lesson on the Law of God. The teachers in these schools are not priests but churchgoing lay teachers. The small attendance at Sunday schools testifies to students’ weak inclination toward religious education and the pedagogical disinterest of the city clergy.
General education school students respond to the teaching of church disciplines in different ways. For some, a sustained interest arises. For such children, a parish school is advisable, where they will receive knowledge within the context of an Orthodox worldview and the practice of church life. Universal introduction to the study of “Fundamentals of Orthodoxy” in general education schools could bring mutual disappointments to both sides.
The creation of a confessional school based on a church community represents the optimal solution for the task of Christian education of children.

1. Church of the Holy Great Martyr Panteleimon

Since the end of the 1980s, when Perestroika legalized the social activity of the Church, St. Matthew’s parish developed a relationship with the children’s ward of the Regional Psychiatric Hospital. The administration allowed the children to be baptized. Most of them were orphans from remedial boarding schools. The opportunity arose to organize celebrations for the children. In the morning we would take a group of ten children to the church. Parishioners prepared a festive meal for them in advance: homemade borsch, meat, fruit, and they would bake pies. The St. Nicholas side-chapel was used as a baptistery. A wood-lined font holding a ton of water was set up in the middle of the church, and the mystery of Baptism was celebrated. In the main church a laid table awaited the children. After the meal and a walk they were taken back to the hospital. Over the summer we managed to baptize about a hundred children. Since the psychiatric hospital is a closed medical institution, further contact with the young people was possible only within the hospital grounds.

A few times the hospital administration allowed me to set up a portable altar and celebrate the Liturgy inside the children’s and other wards. The seriousness with which the children approached confession and Communion forced me to look for ways to continue our communication with them. To this end we undertook the construction of a church dedicated to the Holy Great Martyr Panteleimon on the hospital grounds.

Building the church required the bishop’s blessing, the consent of the health authorities, and money. The bishop blessed the construction, the regional health department formalized the alienation of 25 hundred square meters of land, the head doctor allocated the site, and the Union of Evangelical Congregations of Holland provided the funds for the building. We built the church for four years. We ourselves sawed the timber and hauled it out of nearly impassable swamps. To make the church looked right, we raised an artificial hill. The log-built church with its copper domes and crosses, and the wooden belfry above the refectory, brought the hospital landscape to life. Once, when there was no money to pay the workers, I told the bishop about it. He replied, “Nobody is forcing you; don’t build.”

We had not yet finished the interior work, installed the heating, or cut the window openings when the bishop suggested I hand the church over to another priest. I proposed that the bishop appoint a priest to the St. Matthew’s church. We could have jointly cared for the hospital staff and patients, receiving our support from the church of the Holy Apostle Matthew, and continued building the hospital church with parish funds. The bishop answered:

– No. You will give up the hospital church; I will appoint a priest there, and you will have nothing more to do either with the church or with the hospital. – I had no choice but to obey. My contacts with the young people ceased. The construction of the church came to a halt for lack of funds. To this day the windows are not cut, and the project for central heating, for which only seven meters of pipe are needed, has not been carried out. The church is not legally registered; it appears on no one’s balance sheet and formally remains my private property. But the saddest thing is that the church built on the hospital grounds in order to organize the spiritual life of patients and staff has nothing to do with them. The parish never took root: there are no parishioners. The hospital, with a thousand patients and three hundred staff, is deprived of spiritual care.

To organize divine services for patients and staff you need a choir, a sermon, clear and distinct reading, good icons, and, above all, an interest in fellowship. The church does not fulfill the basic task for which the Union of Evangelical Churches of the Netherlands provided the funds for its construction: there is no fellowship between the church and the hospital.

The head doctor of the psychiatric hospital asks that services for the patients and staff be organized, but finds no support or understanding from the Church. The head doctor complains about the dominance of sectarians who have launched an active effort in the hospital. He has nothing to oppose them with, because the Church stands indifferently on the sidelines. The Union of Evangelical Churches of the Netherlands is disappointed that the church built with their funds stands idle and does not provide spiritual care for the suffering. The fundamental task for which the church was built has remained unfulfilled.

1. St. Matthew’s Shelter. Stony soil where the seed is sown. A hopeless task that God has given For the tiller’s humility, for others a temptation. But the feeble-minded children blissfully drool And laugh without sin, perhaps saving the country From something even more dreadful.

Our minds have been corrupted, and words have lost their salt. New people will grow silently, like grass, No one will be able to shout to them. They will know neither good nor evil. Noah built an ark. So the little animals once were lucky. Everything according to the Book… But have mercy, O God. 210**

The shelter for disabled orphans at St. Matthew’s Church was not my idea, although I responded to it with all my heart. The head of the orphanages and orphans department of the Regional Education Administration asked me to help place two homeless orphan boys in a monastery. The bishop refused my request, and I offered to keep them at my church. They brought me a boy and a girl, then two more boys, and more, and more… I became the guardian for all of them. The little house by the church was decided to be rebuilt into a large house with all amenities. For the summer the children lived with my family, and in the autumn they moved into the new house. Along with the children, Aunt Shura, the church warden, settled into the house. She grew attached to the children. She cooked for them, taught the girls to wash and clean. A craftsman looked after the boys.
My projects required an economic base for their implementation, as I received neither sponsor assistance nor support from the diocese. Parish funds were insufficient. I organized a production facility and used those funds to support the shelter.
I saw my task as solving three problems: to teach a trade, to provide permanent jobs, and to secure housing. Solving each problem was connected with specific difficulties.
Due to the characteristics of my wards, the choice of profession was limited: for girls, sewing and cooking; for boys, construction work. They can work in a normal team provided there is a gentle attitude from those around them: one has to put up with certain peculiarities of their behavior and character. It is impossible to send them to a regular construction crew. In a crew they drink, swear, smoke, and go out carousing. These children are suggestible. They quickly pick up bad habits and easily become dependent. A dishonest person could take advantage of them and set them up. It was necessary to find independent work and supervision for them. For this purpose, I organized the production of church candles. They easily mastered the skills of this simple work and began to produce good products. The bishop blessed the candle production and several times gave us small orders. The production could have been used on a diocesan scale. Lowering the cost could support the economy of parishes. The bishop changed his position several times, not taking into account the financial expenses and difficulties that his mood swings created for his partner, and finally, he refused to cooperate and forbade selling candles to parishes. The production became pointless.
Over the past 10 years, the shelter housed 15 young men and women. They needed to be clothed, shod, and fed. The hardest part was creating decent living conditions for them. At the church there was only a tiny watchman’s hut, sunk into the ground. On the site of the hut we built a spacious 200 sq.m. house with all amenities: a bathroom and toilet, hot and cold water, sewage, gas and steam heating, an outdoor bathhouse, and outbuildings. The young people were cared for by a staff of four. The house is divided into male and female sections, has a dining room, a playroom, and a veranda. I intended to expand the shelter, but my plans did not materialize.
The housing problem in Russia has always been difficult. In recent years it is easily solved if there is money. We had no money. Nevertheless, I decided to begin building a house where they could live independently, but under general supervision providing legal protection. Over five years we built a four-level house of about a thousand square meters. However, few waited for the completion of construction. One got married. A boy and a girl, once sent to a boarding school from the city, were given an apartment. Three girls finished culinary and sewing lyceums and got married. One boy went to study at Holy Trinity Seminary in Jordanville, another finished a theological school, was ordained, and serves as a priest in our diocese. Two brothers received housing in their birthplace and settled there.
While solving the children’s problems, I didn’t immediately understand that my projects were conditional, because they make the decisions themselves. When children make decisions, the decisions turn out to be ‘childish’ and often contradict their interests. But the right to decide remains theirs. One has to accept it.
Another obstacle that destroys a priest’s initiative is the will of the ruling bishop. A priest is obliged to obey discipline. If the bishop considers that the orphan shelter and the parish school should not exist, then the priest will not be able to protect them. There are proven methods for suppressing initiative.
In 1999, the bishop appointed a new priest to the Church of the Holy Myrrh-bearing Women, who from the very first day refused to recognize the rector and submit to the order established in the church. Two parallel branches of authority arose: one legitimate, the other independent, tacitly supported by the bishop. A confrontation arose between the rector and the new cleric. By supporting the cleric against the rector, the bishop created a paralysis of church discipline in the church. 211*. In the community, which had lived peacefully for ten years, disturbances arose. A three-year period of harsh pressure and persecution of the rector began. The question arose of his removal and suspension from priestly service for:

leading parishioners into the heresy of the Judaizers: /he bears a Jewish surname/.
desecration of Orthodox holy things: /a library, a toilet, and a ‘carpentry workshop’ at the church./
pro-Catholic sympathies: /asserted that Catholics can be saved./ 211**.
connection with Protestants: /Dutch evangelicals helped build the church, an evangelical community in Germany supports the Orthodox school, the Anglican community donated a bus for the orphan shelter./
Use of the Russian language in worship. 211***
Banditry: /organized a raid on the apartment of the bishop’s favorite, threatened to burn his car, kill his son, etc./.
And many, many other accusations. The bishop ignored my persistent demands for a church court, for an official recognition of my guilt or a public rehabilitation “…so that I should not remain long under accusation…212* after thorough investigation, and not on a single suspicion arising from whispering and slander. For it is not proper to pay attention to vain accusations” 212** -
The level of the general church problem discussed here does not allow descending to the details of a squabble, equally ugly in a communal kitchen or at the holy Altar.
This sordid story is reflected in several dozen documents: reports, minutes, complaints, explanatory notes, memoranda, and petitions addressed to the bishop. As a result, the Piskovichi church was taken away and handed over to the bishop’s favorite. The last undertaking of my life has failed. Over the past three years, I was forced to urgently settle my young people across the Pskov region, finding housing for each one so that they would not become homeless.
I insured myself in time. First, the bishop forbade selling candles and dealt the first blow to the shelter’s financial situation.
20.12.01, at a meeting of the Diocesan Council, the archbishop suggested that I leave either the Church of the Holy Myrrh-bearing Women or the Church of St. Apostle Matthew. If I left the Myrrh-bearing Women’s Church, the Orthodox School would be liquidated. If I left St. Matthew’s Church, the shelter would be liquidated. I decided to save the school.
On 26 December 2001, I was removed from the rectorship and relieved of service at St. Matthew’s Church in the village of Piskovichi. The church shelter for disabled orphans ceased to exist at the church. The bishop disregarded the Church’s responsibility for the further fate of the young men and women. At the Diocesan Council meeting, a demand was made to vacate the parish house of the disabled orphans registered there. The bishop allowed me to temporarily continue caring for them at my own expense, but they have no other housing, and the problem remains open. Any day now we expect an eviction order. Based on ten years of experience, I believe I will receive no help from the bishop in providing housing for the orphans. I will have to bear the entire burden of this care alone.
The new house that I built to expand the shelter requires significant funds for completion. By destroying my material base, the bishop deprived me of the opportunity to finish the project in order to house the orphans there.
For ten years the bishop has been cutting my roots and, without haste, uprooting me from the Church. When you slaughter a wild boar, you strike it in the heart. If you miss, the boar will become furious. One butcher rode three hundred meters on the back of an unkilled boar. Then they coax the boar, scratch it behind the ear, calm it down, so as not to miss the next time. Therefore, I have not long left to serve in the Myrrh-bearing Women’s Church. Together with me the school will die, and the bishop will breathe a sigh of relief.
The history of my ten years of unsuccessful efforts described above reveals that a clergyman is not free in his service. Therefore, his initiative cannot be fruitful. The main obstacle in any activity of a priest proves to be the active opposition of the ruling bishop.

Chapter 14. Obedience — virtue ? sin? or trouble ?

«Thy will be done».212***

The weapon the bishop uses to suppress the clergy and dominate Christ’s flock is called “obedience.”
What lies behind this great word, which defines, according to God’s commandment, the measure of our love for Him? 213*.
What lies behind the word that expresses one of the virtues of Christian ethics?
What lies behind the word that every child receives from his mother as a commandment?
What lies behind the word that every monk brings to God in his vows and makes the fundamental principle of his life?
The bishop teaches: “the chief virtue of a priest is obedience to his bishop.”
A venerable archpriest, adorned with a mitre, imparts life’s wisdom: “A priest needs to know only two words to live in love with his hierarch: ‘Forgive me, holy Vladyka’ and ‘Bless me, holy Vladyka.’”
A young deacon in the cathedral sanctuary advises an ordinand: “The main thing is to bend more often before Vladyka. Bend, and you will live without cares, and you will have bread and butter. The main thing is to bend at the right moment.” A classic comes to mind. “My father bequeathed to me:
First, to please all people without exception—
The landlord where I chance to live,
The chief with whom I am to serve,
His servant who cleans the clothes,
The doorman, the yard-keeper, to avoid evil,
The yard-keeper’s dog, so that it be affectionate.” 213**
It is obvious that by the word “obedience” human dishonesty calls the sin of man-pleasing.
What lies behind the bitter words: “I would be glad to serve, but it sickens me to fawn”?
Obedience is a virtue, as long as it is not dictated by the sins of man-pleasing, evasion of responsibility for decisions, and hypocrisy. By pointing to obedience as the priest’s chief duty, the bishop unambiguously solves a problem that has many solutions.
In the well-known parable of the two novices planting cabbage, the Elder explains the monk’s life-task: “What is needed in the monastery is not cabbage, but obedience.” The novice who carried out the elder’s command without reasoning proved worthy of the monastic life. The novice who showed personal initiative, it turns out, has no business in the monastery. Can such a principle be raised to a general rule of church life? When ordaining a presbyter, the bishop warns him of his responsibility before God: “Receive this pledge, for which you will have to give an account…” and into the presbyter’ hands he places a portion of the Body of Christ.
This pledge is the Church, the community, the flock. After this, how is one to evaluate the initiative of a presbyter, justified by his responsible service? Is the priest obliged to make decisions himself, or is every decision the prerogative of the bishop? If a priest has no right to initiative and decision-making, he cannot bear responsibility for his parish.
The rector of a church has specific tasks: to build and maintain the church, to organize a choir, to gather a staff so that the servers be of one spirit, accepting and bearing one another. The rector must create a parish community, its moral and liturgical climate. The Typikon enumerates a multitude of duties that the rector must fulfill, making decisions in accordance with the requirements of the Typikon and the bishop’s instructions. If the bishop agrees with such tasks, he will have to encourage the rector’s initiative, rather than persecute and punish it.
He who takes on responsibility must have the freedom to do the work. Freedom and responsibility cannot be separated. They are two sides of one coin. What does the bishop require: cabbage or obedience? A choice must be made, since cabbage planted upside down will not grow. Instead of a garden, thistles will grow.
In the sacred books we find admonitions: “servants… obey your masters” 214*; “wives, obey your husbands” 215*/; “children, obey your parents” 216*; “slaves, obey your masters” 217*. “younger ones, obey the pastors” 218*; “obey your teachers” 219*. Such admonitions are just, if one does not ascribe to them an unconditional significance in the ordering of the Church and spiritual life. Sacred Scripture exhorts us to “obey,” without stressing obedience as the main task of Christian life. Sacred Scripture does not give a categorical commandment about obedience, for it must grow out of oneness of heart and mind as the fruit of love.
In the monastic tradition, the vow of obedience has a foundational significance. The meaning of this vow also should not be primitivized. The monk’s vow of obedience has as its aim the cutting off of his own will, so that God’s will may be done, not the dominance of the abbot: “shepherd the flock of God… not domineering over the inheritance of God, but being examples to the flock.” 220* When preaching obedience, one must not forget the prohibition of the Lord Jesus Christ to exercise authority and to dominate: “it shall not be so among you: but whoever wishes to be great among you, let him be your servant” 221*. And if an emphasis is to be indicated, then according to the word of the apostles, “we must obey God rather than men” /222*. “And all of you, be submissive to one another, and clothe yourselves with humility” 223*. These words are addressed to every Christian, including the bishop.
Replacing my will with the will of a bishop or spiritual father does not solve either my personal destiny or the church problem, if it does not express the will of the Church, the will of God. The moment of renouncing one’s own will preserves the value of personal podvig, yet it does not absolve me of responsibility for my personal destiny, nor the rector for the destiny of the parish. It is not the bishop or the spiritual father who will pay for an erroneous decision, but I myself. Not without reason they joke: one who follows advice makes others’ mistakes instead of his own. In renouncing my will and doing the will of a bishop or spiritual father, I make a free choice and take a responsible decision, for which I am ready to pay, because I trust them more than myself. Trust lies at the foundation of my obedience.
All human relationships rest upon trust. We pray to God because we believe in Him. Whom do we love? Whom we trust. Whom do we choose as a life partner? The one we trust. As a friend I choose the one I trust. Commercial relations cannot be built without trust. No contracts save one from deception. When trust is lost, love grows cold, friendship ceases, business contacts dissolve.
To obey means to trust. Therefore obedience is a podvig. Trust is always linked with the risk of being deceived. When speaking of obedience, conditions are usually laid only on the one who obeys, as if obedience expresses not a mutual, but a one-sided act. The first condition for obedience is the faithfulness of the mentor. He must be worthy of trust. God calls us to obedience to Him, for “God is faithful, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.” 223** The absolute necessity of this condition in church life is not stressed. Therefore the lamentable phenomenon of “young-elderism” becomes possible. A priest arrogates to himself a charism that God has not given him. A narrow circle of “female PR agents,” thirsting for spiritual guidance, creates for him the image of a “starets.” His irresponsible experiments with human destinies often end tragically. 224*. This sin is more often committed by monks and celibates. It is to them that people turn for advice on how to solve their family problems, how to raise their children. The priest wants to be needed. It is a great joy to realize that there is a need for your service. Yet vainglory and loss of sobriety poison the fruits of service.
We trust the one who does not deceive us. Such trust a son renders to his father. Isaac meekly climbs onto the pyre, entrusting his life to his father. Abraham raises the knife over his son, entrusting himself to God. What measureless trust, what sacrifice is expressed in the refusal of one’s own will for the sake of fulfilling another’s! Should one obey one from whom one expects deceit, betrayal, treachery? God gave no such commandment. He who renounces his own will performs a podvig of self-sacrifice, takes a risk. Can a podvig be demanded? It can only be called forth. Consent to podvig must be free. Obedience has moral value and exists in the realm of moral relationships, just as love, hope, gratitude. They cannot be exacted. They are given as a gift. “For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself.” 225*.
Obedience expresses filial relations. It is selfless. “He became obedient even unto death, even death on a cross.” 226* The Gospel calls it “fulfilling the will of the Father.” 227* Both sides can be at fault in disobedience. Obedience must not be confused with submission and subservience. Otherwise we distort the meaning of these concepts and become entangled in them. These three words have different natures and express different social and moral relationships.
Submission can be demanded. The one of higher rank can demand submission from subordinates. This demand expresses neither trust nor love. This civic duty is a condition of social order and discipline. Submission removes us from the realm of moral relationships into the plane of law. The structure of submission is grounded not on the personal qualities of a person, but on the social significance of the official acting within the limits of the law. Submission obliges one to renounce one’s own will in order to carry out the will of the superior. A bureaucrat fulfills the instructions of his chief. However, every instruction must fit within the limits of the law. If the superior demands a violation of the law, the subordinate has the right to refuse. Legal relations are based on contract.
The Gospel calls those who work for pay “hirelings.” The contract imposes duties on both sides and grants rights to each side. In the event of conflict, the parties may terminate the contract and defend their rights in court.
The psychology of hirelingship is constructive. The hireling submits to his master and does the work, expecting the agreed-upon pay: “like a hireling who awaits his wages.” 228* Self-interest is an undoubted stimulus for work, but not for unity, because:
First, the hireling distances himself from the master: “I am no longer worthy to be called your son; take me as one of your hired servants.” 229*.
Second, the hireling is interested in personal gain, not in the success of the common cause. One can expect quality work from a conscientious hireling. One cannot expect “faithfulness unto death.” 230* “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. But a hireling, who is not the shepherd, to whom the sheep do not belong, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches them and scatters the sheep. The hireling flees, because he is a hireling and cares nothing for the sheep.” 231*. Neither self-interest nor fear can be made the foundation of church unity. They breed internal contradictions: “you bite and devour one another, take heed that you be not consumed by one another.” 232* The title “hireling” is insulting for a bishop and a priest. Each of them wants to be a “good shepherd.”
The third area of social relations presents slavish subservience — a system long obsolete, yet having left a deep trace to this day in human psychology.
In the slave system of relations, only the master possessed human dignity. Slaves were his property and possessed neither dignity nor rights. From slave relations the term “subservience” was born: “Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling.” 233*. “Subservience” meant that the slave is by definition guilty and must live in constant fear of punishment: “through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to slavery.” 234* Subservience out of fear has no moral value: “your enemies shall bow in servitude to you, and you shall tread upon their necks.” 235* Subservience does not engender reciprocity, leads not to personal relations, but to confrontation and protest: “by whom a person is overcome, by him also is he brought into slavery.” 236*. Slavish subservience destroys the human dignity of both slave and master. The apostle warns: “do not become slaves of men.” 237*.
The slave’s labor is not based on contract. Its stimulus is hunger and fear, because the law does not protect his rights. The master is always right. The slave is always guilty. Not law, not love, but the master’s will is the norm for the slave. The master’s power over the slave is not limited. It permits a universally recognized arbitrariness. Mr. Legree lays claim to Uncle Tom’s body and soul. He kills Tom for his spiritual independence.
“…I refuse, master,” answered Tom, and wiped with his hand the blood trickling down his face. “I’m ready to work until my last breath, but against my conscience I will not go.”
“Ah, you black beast! His conscience won’t let him carry out the master’s will! You creatures aren’t even allowed to think about that. Your conscience won’t let you flog this witch?”
“It won’t let me, master,” Tom said quietly. “I won’t raise a hand against her. I’d rather die.”
“Ah, you saint! And what is written in the Bible, forgot? ‘Slaves, obey your masters.’ I am your master. I paid for you. You are mine, body and soul,” Legree struck Tom with his boot.
His words awakened a triumphant joy in Tom’s heart. He straightened up and, raising his face, covered with tears and blood, to heaven, exclaimed:
“No, master! My soul you cannot buy. You have no power over it!” 238* — Tom is ready to render subservience to his master, but not obedience.
Obedience, together with his soul and conscience, he reserves for God.
The Grand Inquisitor is certain that, obeying the might of his spiritual authority, the people will raise Christ onto the pyre. He loves Christ, but sees Him as a rival, just as the Jews “betrayed Him out of envy.” 239* The tragic image of the prelate, “who has left his first love” 240* and for the sake of power “accepted the temptations of the great spirit,” testifies that pretensions to possess human conscience can be unholy.
The three qualities of being under authority must be distinguished in order to understand the mutual relations of the bishop and his clergy. “The problem of law for the Church is, mainly, the problem of the church hierarchy and its interrelations with the members of the Church. Here lies the initial point, in which and through which law began to penetrate into the church.” 241*. Christ calls His disciples “friends” and “sons of God.” 127*. And the bishop? As what does he regard the clergy and the people?
Who are we to the bishop: friends and co-workers? Perhaps children? — then our relations have a moral character. They are built on the foundation of love and faithfulness, trust and obedience.
If we are the bishop’s “hirelings,” our relations have a contractual character of law. Then the bishop has rights and duties toward us, and we have rights and duties toward the bishop. A court must regulate our relations on the basis of law.
But there is no court; the bishop’s power is not limited by law, the law does not protect the clergy, norms are defined not by law, but by the will of the Vladyka, who simultaneously acts as judge and executioner. Such dependence must be acknowledged as “slave” dependence.
The Lord rejects unity based on enslavement.
First, as non-constructive: “I no longer call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing.” 242*.
Second, as temporary and incidental: “the slave does not abide in the house forever.” 243*. Church unity cannot be built on enslavement by power, force, fear, hunger.
Slavish subservience and hireling submission acquire a relative meaning only as steps leading up to filial obedience and spiritual oneness. “The heir, as long as he is a child, in no way differs from a slave, though he is master of all: he is under guardians and stewards until the term appointed by the father.” 244* The podvig of filial obedience is laid as the foundation in the Economy of the Son: “He humbled Himself, being obedient even unto death, even death on a cross.” 245*.
Christ indicates the principle of genuine unity in filial love. “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. You have not received the spirit of slavery again to live in fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” 246*. Filial love is free from self-interest and fear. The son accomplishes the work assigned by the father, giving himself to it even to the point of self-sacrifice: “I lay down My life for the sheep. This commandment I received from My Father.” 247*.
A slave is obliged to “subserve” the master, and from a hireling it is natural to demand “submission.” One cannot demand “obedience,” just as one cannot demand love, gratitude, mercy. These are free gifts of the heart.
In Russia’s social life a new concept has appeared: “lawlessness.” It seeped in from the criminal world. This concept capaciously defines the helplessness of law in the face of violence. This criminal concept has imperceptibly stolen into the church and put down roots in diocesan life. The Charter of the ROC and its practice have renounced a mechanism of control capable of limiting the abuses of the bishop’s executive power in his own fiefdom. In place of conciliar life, hierarchal “lawlessness” has entered diocesan existence. Legal “lawlessness,” as a contemporary form of slave dependence, corrupts both the bishop and his clergy in equal measure.
By demanding service to himself and his whims, Bishop Akakiy enslaves the rightless clergy, forcing them to subserve, to flatter, and to fawn. His power has no foundation in love. The bishop does not seek justification for his desires in law. He demands slavish subservience out of fear…
The Charter of the ROC grants no rights and no protection to the clergy and the people of God. The bishop possesses in the Church the rights and the strength to establish his will as the sole principle of the local Church’s being.
Bishop Akakiy emphasizes that at the foundation of the cleric’s subservience lies not a contract defining his rights and duties, but an oath — a one-sided act containing no rights. The oath is received by the bishop, who is bound to nothing by the oath. The bishop fails to understand that the cleric swears fidelity not to one or another bishop, but to the Church. The priestly oath cannot be regarded as a “bill of sale” for the soul and body of the cleric. Swearing fidelity to the Church, the cleric must believe that the Church will protect him from the arbitrariness of bishops.

The Limits of Church Discipline
“Admire me!”
/A. de Saint-Exupéry. “The Little Prince”/

What do a bishop’s demands — to which a clergyman must submit in carrying out his obedience — actually consist of? If these demands concern Church discipline, moral conditions, or professional skills, then submission is a condition of the cleric’s self-respect. A professional who respects his ministry will never give cause for reproach in matters of professional incompetence.

Bishop Akaky does not care about a priest’s professional and moral qualities. Initiative irritates him — especially when it proves productive. It prevents the bishop from asserting himself.

Bishop Akaky’s interests are fixated on personal prestige. When giving his orders, he does not consider what price the cleric will have to pay to carry them out. He admires himself and adores flattery. Again and again, he demands recognition, worship, and admiration of his merits. The bishop’s demands are always random and unpredictable. The art of his courtiers lies in guessing and anticipating the archbishop’s wishes.

However, there are also constant demands, the fulfillment of which Bishop Akaky strictly requires under threat of canonical sanctions. Bishop Akaky requires participation in the numerous celebrations of His Person. These celebrations are organized by his retinue on the days of his birth, his name day, his tonsure, anniversaries, consecrations… etc.

The celebration of the bishop during the days of the Nativity of Christ and Holy Pascha is particularly painful. On these days, Bishop Akaky orders the cancellation of evening services in all the city’s churches. All the city clergy, together with their parishioners, are obliged to appear at the Cathedral. A padlock is ordered placed on all the other churches of the city. The archbishop serves Vespers and a Moleben. The Cathedral rector reads the bishop’s festal epistle. The archbishop delivers a sermon. The cathedral rector opens a folder and reads an Address to the archbishop. The archbishop offers a response. The abbot of the monastery delivers a eulogy to the bishop, then, one after another, the rectors of the city churches and the deans deliver laudatory speeches to the bishop. Akathist-like speeches, each resembling the other, pour forth, and flattery, sweet as honey, drips onto grey beards. Then begins the presentation of flowers and gifts. The Risen or Newborn Christ is pushed into the background. This lavish celebration is not dedicated to Him. Buried under huge bouquets and baskets of roses, the bishop becomes the main hero of the event, as if it were he who became incarnate or rose. ‘How many times have they told the world that flattery is vile, but all for naught!’

One feels ashamed for him, ashamed for the proceeding, and one wants to hide from this apotheosis of flattery. In the same way, during the Soviet era, we used to avoid forced participation in demonstrations and meetings. The archbishop watches carefully to see who avoided the celebration and prepares a ‘clyster’ for him: ‘evasion of participation in the conciliar service of Vespers will be regarded as a violation of Church discipline and insubordination to the sacred hierarchy’… /Circular to the City Clergy/. It is a sin to call humiliating servility, flattery, and groveling ‘obedience,’ which the archbishop demands: ‘I’d be glad to serve, but sickened by fawning.’

The bishop demands the presence of a specific priest at the Diocesan Council. It would seem simple enough to write an Order: ‘So-and-so is appointed a member of the Diocesan Council.’ An official appointment gives status and rights, and imposes responsibility for complicity in the decisions made. Someone not elected and not appointed feels he is there on sufferance, bears no sense of responsibility, signs and confirms ‘whatever is ordered,’ since he is a ‘nobody.’ All 25 participants of the Diocesan Council, holding the substantial positions of deans and rectors, find themselves in the position of the archbishop’s parrots.

— Why must I participate in the Diocesan Council if I am neither elected nor appointed? — The bishop may invite whomever he wishes. I appoint, I invite — what’s the difference? The difference is the same as between lawful marriage and adultery. The Christian conscience protests against the humiliating position of a mistress, who has no answer to the question about her false position in the family.

Hierarchical discipline retains its force as long as not a single link in its constituting chain is damaged. A damaged link breaks the bond of the remaining links with the hierarchical principle. By violating hierarchical discipline, the bishop draws clerics and laity into his sin.

If they disregard his uncanonical demand, they fall under his sanctions as violators of Church discipline, having failed to submit to lawful sacred hierarchy. 248* If they become accomplices in the Church’s unrighteousness together with the bishop, then they fall under the sanctions of the holy canons together with him. The first danger is real and immediate. The second threat is theoretical. It is more advantageous for clerics and laity to participate in Church unrighteousness together with the bishop than to receive a martyr’s crown from him.

By destroying the conciliar structure of the ROC Statute through the illegal formation of the Diocesan council and assembly, the bishop not only sets himself against the Local and Bishops’ Councils. He draws the clerics of the diocese into his unrighteousness. By disobeying the Supreme Church Authority, the bishop creates canonical paradoxes. An example of such a paradox can be the case of Archimandrite Zinon.

By Archbishop’s Decree No. 880 of November 14, 1996, Archimandrite Zinon was suspended from priestly service and expelled from the clergy of the Pskov diocese. The Pskov Church ceased its prayer for him, striking his name from the diptychs* of the diocese. A bishop can release a priest from his diocese in two ways.

First, by releasing him to another diocese at his personal request and with the consent of the receiving bishop. In this case, canonical rules and the currently effective Statute of the Church /11,30; Fourth Ecumenical Council 13/ oblige the bishop to give the priest a letter of release and send his personal file to the bishop who has accepted him. The priest is no longer counted among the clergy of the former diocese, as he is now counted among the clergy of the new diocese.

Second, the bishop can excommunicate the priest from the Church, depriving him of the right to transfer to another diocese. In this case, the bishop does not give him a letter of release, retains his personal file, strikes his name from the diptychs of the diocesan clergy, depriving him of the prayer of the Church. The Apostolic Canons forbid, under threat of excommunication, accepting an excommunicated priest in another diocese or praying together with him. 249*

However, according to the ROC Statute, a bishop may subject someone to excommunication ‘only upon the presentation of a Church court’ /ROC Statute of 2000, Ch. 7, art. 5./. Archbishop Evsevy excommunicated Archimandrite Zinon without a court.

On 09.01.02, ref. no. 55, His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II lifted Archbishop Evsevy’s suspension of Archimandrite Zinon. The archbishop did not obey the Patriarch’s decision: ‘Regarding Archimandrite Zinon — this is a matter solely for His Holiness Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus’ Alexy II, since Archimandrite Zinon is not counted among the clergy of the Pskov Diocese’ /‘Panorama’ No. 23, 11.06.02./

Archimandrite Zinon cannot be counted among the clergy of another diocese, because he was expelled from the Pskov diocese without a letter of release, i.e., was excommunicated in violation of the ROC Statute. /Ch. 7, art. 5/. He has not been restored to the clergy of the Pskov diocese and has not been included in the diptych of prayer commemoration dated 04.03.02.

A canonical paradox arises: His Holiness the Patriarch lifted the suspension from Archimandrite Zinon, yet Archbishop Evsevy left him excommunicated from the Church. A priest can celebrate the Eucharist while being outside the Church. Why does Archbishop Evsevy not comply with the Patriarch’s decision, why does he not wish to repent and rescind the illegally carried out excommunication from the Church?

The excommunication of Archim. Zinon from the Church is a canonical fact, to which Olivier Clément rightly points. Archbishop Evsevy denies the fact of Archimandrite Zinon’s excommunication from the Church. This only means that the Archbishop does not understand the canonical meaning of his own actions and words. 250*.

By disobeying the Patriarch’s decision, the bishop becomes a damaged link in the hierarchical chain and creates canonical paradoxes. Obedience to the archbishop must not draw clerics into violating the ROC Statute. Church discipline must not be a tool for destroying conciliarity. The substitution of conciliar unity with army-style discipline, based on orders, autocracy, and enslavement, is as destructive for the Church as insubordination to hierarchical authority, schism, and self-willed action. Church discipline must have the cleric’s conscience as its boundary. ‘Church discipline is capable of preserving its efficacy only as long as it remains a genuine reflection of the hierarchical conscience of the Conciliar Church; discipline can never, however, replace this conscience. As soon as it makes its demands not by virtue of the promptings of this conscience, but on motives alien to the Church, insincere, the individual hierarchical conscience will inevitably take the side of the conciliar-hierarchical principle of the Church’s being, which is not at all the same thing as external unity at any cost. Then the shattering of Church discipline becomes inevitable, as the consequence of sin. And the only way out of sin is one — repentance and its worthy fruits.’/Metropolitan Kirill Smirnov./ 250**.

This was the thought of the bishop whom the Holy Patriarch Tikhon, on the commission of the Local Council of 1918, appointed as his successor. Holy Metropolitan Kirill lived in an era of fierce persecution, received a martyr’s crown for faithfulness to Christ’s Church, and was glorified by her in the assembly of saints. Hierarchical authority must not degenerate into hierarchical violence against the conscience of fellow brothers in Christ.

Chapter 15. The Meaning of Blessing

Blessing is a mutual act, directed both ways: toward God and toward man. “God created man, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. And God blessed them.” 251*.
“He lifted up His hands and blessed them”252*. The blessing is directed from man to God: “Blessed be God”; “Blessed is the Kingdom”; “Blessed be the name of the Lord”; “Bless the Lord, O my soul.” In these prayers the creature expresses its worship, gratitude, and admiration for the Creator.
We address the bishop with the prayer: “In the name of the Lord, Master, bless!” And he answers: “The blessing of the Lord be upon you.” The traditional “blessing” expresses prayer by word and prayer by action. Blessing is a mystical act.
In modern diocesan practice, “blessing” acquires, in addition to its mystical sense, a formal meaning. This word denotes the bishop’s everyday greeting, “consent,” “directive,” “order,” “clarification,” “instruction,” “decision,” and “sanction.” Two different meanings are expressed by one word and coexist
undifferentiated. An administrative sanction is clothed in the vestments of a sacred rite and passed off as a church ritual. A “blessing” received as a sacred action and prayer is turned into a bureaucratic sanction, which then acquires the significance of a mystical act. By playing on the word “blessing,” the bishop deprives the cleric of the ability to serve the Church according to the dictates of his heart and conscience. The cleric is obliged to obey an order that the bishop gives as “God’s blessing.” This order is above the dictates of conscience, because God’s commandment is the moral norm for the human conscience, damaged by sin. God forgives man’s sins. But conscience, like a roach pulled out of water, trembles in the hands of a particular bishop who has the power to “bind and loose.” Thus the administrative function is deified.
The practical consequences of such a stance are not long in coming. At a Diocesan Assembly, Archbishop Evsevy expresses bewilderment:

When I forbade Zinon, he was deprived of divine grace, and can no longer paint icons. Why is he receiving commissions? - The bishop is certain that the Holy Spirit submits to diocesan discipline and acts in accordance with the decrees of the ruling hierarch. The bishop does not notice that he himself becomes the source of church untruth, in some cases violating church discipline, and in others, losing the Spirit of Christ: “you do not know what manner of spirit you are of; for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.”253*.

Afterword

The thoughts expressed in this article proved unexpected for the author. When the Archbishop set me to write this book, I began the work out of helplessness and hopelessness, never imagining that it would be about the substitution of faith in a “conciliar” Church for faith in an “autocratic” or “clerical” Church. At first I was troubled by the distortion of certain church traditions that arose in the sad era when the Church existed under the ideological pressure of a totalitarian state. The violations of church traditions seemed to me accidental. The regime’s pressure deformed the Church. It was believed that, freed from external coercion, the Church would straighten out like a released spring.
This did not happen. Seventy years of distorted practice deformed the church’s consciousness. The present study reveals that the distortions of church traditions came to be perceived as rules and gradually infiltrated the Church’s normative documents. If the normative decisions of the Local Council of 1917–18 are taken as a point of reference, the tendency toward the destruction of conciliar principles that arose later becomes glaringly obvious when we examine the normative documents of subsequent Local Councils and their implementation in diocesan practice.
God forbid that I consider such a tendency deliberate. It entered the church’s consciousness as contraband, and it must be unmasked as an ecclesiological heresy that destroys all the other dogmatic marks of the Church of Christ. Without conciliarity the Church cannot be apostolic, since in apostolic times the Church lived in genuine conciliar communion. 254*.
Without conciliarity the Church cannot be holy, since the confession of “the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit” must be the fruit of mutual love. /Prayer of the Eucharistic canon/.
Without conciliarity, disciplinary unity would be realized not by the Church but by the underworld, where violence and sin reign.
Without conciliarity, the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed will be damaged. The Creed is a living organ of theological thought. It contains no dead words. Each of them must be filled with meaning and realized in the practice of diocesan life: “the word of God is living and active.”255*.
The deformation of church consciousness expresses our sin and our misfortune. The sin consists in justifying non-ecclesial motives and actions by means of dogmatic and canonical casuistry. Their cunning is exposed by the reply of St. Metropolitan Kirill (Smirnov) to Commissar Tuchkov.
Tuchkov offered Metropolitan Kirill the office of locum tenens in exchange for agreeing to remove hierarchs who were unacceptable to the Soviet government. Metropolitan Kirill acknowledged that such a requirement was lawful; however, he reserved the right to openly tell his brother hierarchs the true reasons for their removal. Tuchkov insisted that each time a canonical basis be found for removing a hierarch, and not to refer to the demands of the Soviet government and its policies. Metropolitan Kirill replied with his famous phrase: “You are not a cannon, and I am not a cannonball, to destroy the Russian Orthodox Church,” and again went into exile.
Our misfortune lies in the separation of the bishop from the clergy and the people of God, which nowadays results from the merging of church authority with the regional nomenklatura and businessmen. A certain level of prosperity, domestic comfort, commercial interests, and political ambitions unite them in a circle of social interaction into which the clergy and laity are not admitted. We now live in two different worlds.
The symphony of the state and the Church seems extremely attractive, yet it conceals dangers that have been exposed many times in the sad experience of history. Alas… “experience has never saved anyone from misfortune.”
I have little hope of being heard. Witnesses are treated differently. Occasionally they are heeded. More often they are killed, as V. Vysotsky once sang: “seers, like eyewitnesses, have been burned at the stake in every age.”

Notes.

1* /John 19:34-35/.
1** /Acts 1:8/
2* Office of Burial. Sticheron.
2** 1 Tim. 2:5.
3* Mark 9:1.
4* Gal. 4:19.
5* Luke 19:10.
6* 1 John 1:1
7* Eph. 4:26
8* Eph. 4:16.
9* /John 18:22-24/.
10* /John 17:21/.
10** Sticheron for Palm Sunday.
11* /Eph. 4:16/.
12* /Gal. 2:20/
13* Eph. 4:12-13
14* 1 Cor. 12:27.
15* 1 Cor. 1:10-13.
16* Matt. 13:33.
17* Eph. 1:22-23.
18* Rom. 12:5.
19* John 15:4.
20* John 6:56.
21* Eph. 1:23.
22* Matt. 16:18
23* /Luke 22:19/.
24* /Rev. 1:20/
25* Khomiakov D.A. “The Conciliar Fulfillment and the Parish Foundation of the Church Order” Moscow, 190

Since You call our relations “brotherly” and consider it possible to continue eucharistic concelebration, I am compelled to submit. I see no point in appealing to the diocesan assembly, as You suggest, because the “voice of conciliarity” will not be heard there. The clergy assembly of the Pskov diocese will express not the conciliar unity of the Church, rooted in the free witness of conscience, but only the authoritarian unity of an assembly based on common submission to the authority of the Ruling Bishop. Not a single clergyman will dare express disagreement with You. Regardless of the number of participants, the assembly can express only one opinion – that of the Ruling Hierarch. Therefore, I prefer to be satisfied with Your sole decision.

211**. In response to my request to explain wherein lies my “non‑Orthodoxy,” the bishop replied: “there are moments in the sermon,” and cited as an example a story of a second‑grader from my school: “The girl said, ‘all Catholics will go to hell.’ I answered the child that it is not for us to decide a person’s eternal fate, and a Christian must not rejoice at anyone’s perdition.” As an Orthodox priest, I do not share the adventist conviction that at the Last Judgment God “will separate the sheep from the goats” (Mt 25:32) according to confessional criteria. The hope of salvation based on confessional affiliation is as naïve as the presumption of the Jews exposed by John the Baptist: “Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father’… for God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham” (Lk 3:8; Mt 3:9). Salvation is accomplished in the Church, and the Orthodox answer to the question “Lord, are there few who are being saved?” must proceed from the boundaries of the Church and the personal struggle: “Strive to enter through the narrow gate” (Lk 13:23‑24). The question “Will Catholics be saved?” arises from the presuppositions of Protestant theology concerning predestination and is resolved within the bounds of sectarian thinking. The Orthodox consciousness cannot accept either a positive or a negative answer. One answer casts doubt on the reality of the Sacraments, the other on the empirical reality of the division of the churches. The Orthodox consciousness rejects not one answer or the other, but the false antinomy itself. The bishop threatened me with suspension from priestly service for freethinking.

211***. I simplify grammatical forms that are incomprehensible to the ear when reading Slavonic texts: the dual number, double negation, compound verbs, aorist. I replace Greek words: ependytēs, katapetasma, esmyrnismenon, alektōr; and obscure or cacophonous Slavonic words: nepshchevati, vertograd, ponos, etc. In some sentences I alter the Greek word order. I do this carefully, without disturbing the rhythm and phonetic perception of the text that is familiar to the ear of worshippers. In acting thus, I follow the call of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II at the 1994 Bishops’ Council “to bring the liturgical culture of Orthodoxy closer to the understanding of our contemporaries” (Bishops’ Council. Documents and Reports. M. 1995, pp. 81‑82).

212* Carth. 12.

212** Theoph. 6.

212*** (Mt 6:10).

213* (Jn 14:23‑24).

213** A.S. Griboedov, Woe from Wit.

214* (1 Pet 2:18).

215* (Eph 5:22).

216* (Eph 6:1).

217* (Eph 6:5).

218* (1 Pet 5:5).

219* (Heb 13:17).

220* (1 Pet 5:2‑3).

221* (Mk 10:42‑43).

222* (Acts 5:29).

223* (1 Pet 5:5).

223** (Deut 32:4).

224* (Letter of Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh to His Holiness Patriarch Alexy and the Bishops’ Council. JMP No. 5, 1997).

225* (Jn 10:17‑18).

226* (Phil 2:8).

227* (Mt 7:21).

228* (Job 7:2).

229* (Lk 15:19).

230* (Acts 2:10). (actually, “Ап.” stands for “Апостол” (apostolos), which is likely “Acts”, but 2:10 is in Acts, so I used Acts 2:10; proper citation might be Acts 2:10).

231* (Jn 10:11‑13).

232* (Gal 5:15).

233* (Eph 5:6).

234* (Heb 13:17).

235* Deut 33:29.

236* (2 Pet 2:19).

237* (1 Cor 7:15).

238* Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Ivanovo Book Publishing House, 1957, pp. 269‑270.

239* (Mt 27:18).

240* (Acts 2:4). (Here “Ап.” could be Acts, so Acts 2:4).

241* Protopresbyter N. Afanasiev, The Church of the Holy Spirit, p. 295.

242* (Jn 15:14).

243* (Jn 8:35).

244* (Gal 4:1‑2).

245* (Phil 2:8).

246* (Rom 8:14‑16).

247* (Jn 10:15;18).

248* (Twice: 13;14;15). (likely canons from the “Second Ecumenical Council” or “Dupliciter” – возможно, “двукратный” refers to the Second Ecumenical Council’s canons; I leave as “Twice: 13;14;15” because the abbreviation “двукр.” stands for “Двукратный,” which is the Council “in Trullo”? Actually, “двукратный” refers to the Quinisext Council, often cited as “Quinisext (Trullo) canons.” Perhaps better: “Trullo canons 13; 14; 15.” But to be safe, I’ll leave as “Twice: 13;14;15”. However, English canonical citations would be “Quinisext canons 13, 14, 15.” I’ll translate as “Quinisext canons 13;14;15.” But I need to check context: “двукр.” is likely “Двукратный собор” – the Second Council or Quinisext? Actually, “Двукратный” is the Trullan Council (692). English Orthodox texts call it “Quinisext Council” or “Council in Trullo.” So I’ll use “Quinisext canons 13, 14, 15.” But I’ll phrase as “Quinisext: 13;14;15”.)

249* (Acts 10, 11, 12, 32, 33; 1 Pet 5). (Since “Ап.” could be Acts (Apostolos), I used Acts for the first numbers, then “1 Pet 5.” Better: “Acts 10;11;12;32;33; 1 Pet 5.”)

250* Archbishop Evseviy denies persecution of Archimandrite Zinon: “there is no persecution at all… I have merely forbidden him to serve. I do not consider it necessary to defrock or anathematize him…” Interview with Archbishop Evseviy in Pskovskaya Pravda, March 21‑22, 1997.

250** (From a letter to Metropolitan Sergius of Starogorodsky. Quoted in L. Regelson, The Tragedy of the Russian Church, YMCA-PRESS, 1977, p. 168.)

251* (Gen 1:27‑28).

252* (Lk 24:50).

253* (Lk 9:55).

254* (Acts 4:32).

255* Heb 4:12.

Print, save, letter .pdf