A turbulent troika of priests has abandoned the Russian Orthodox Church over its supposedly heretical dealings with earthly powers.
Fraternising with the government is heresy and sin, they claim, and this holy trinity wants no part of it.
Anger over hob-nobbing with officials and making accommodating gestures towards other faiths has prompted the trio to abandon Patriarch Kirill and strike their own path through the wilderness.
Archpriest Sergei Kondakov, Archpriest Mikhail Karpeyev and Priest Alexander Malykh of the Udmurtsky diocese have said there is no place for them in a church and behind a patriarch that are “soiled by the sin of ecumenicalism,” they said in a letter announcing their intentions, Moskovsky Novosty reported.
They are consequently leaving them for the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia[*], the result of another split. They had already voiced their disapproval of Kirill’s relations with Russia’s rulers in March.
Free from heresy
The gesture is reminiscent of the turbulent religious upheaval in Europe through the 16th and 17th centuries, and the faiths that survived or emerged on the other side of the generally bloody reformations provide a poor consort for the church of Holy Russia, the priests claim.
The dissatisfied trinity and their congregations will now “continue their religious life free from the heretical leadership”.
And their move to the Orthodox Church Outside Russia reflects the rift which beset the church in Communist times.
Those clergy who remained in Russia and reached a compromise with the atheist authorities to keep their churches open faced cries of betrayal from their exiled colleagues – a schism which was only officially patched up in 2007 and which still lingers.
Consorting with Catholics
This heresy is embroiling the Russian Orthodox Church in the World Council of Churches, an act ripe with “the sin of ecumenicalism” and friendly relations with Catholics, they say.
Both the Russian Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church have come under fire before for illiberal doctrines that many say are out of touch with modern society, and this blast from the right might take liberal critics aback.
Meddling in affairs of state
The Russian Orthodox Church enjoys a legally defined “special role” in building the Russian nation and enjoys a visibly favoured status with many officials, something the troublesome trio join secular critics in objecting to.
Part of the age old dispute about the church, the state and society is being played out as Fathers Sergei, Mikhail and Alexander reject ties between the secular government and the church.
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9 comments:
May God speed their repentence and bring them back from apostacy.
They joined the "continuation" of the ROCOR formed by Bishop Agathangel of Odessa, which if I'm not mistaken took most of the parishes in the former USSR and South America when the main part of the ROCOR and Moscow were reunited in 2007.
Jon Marc is correct. ROCOR (Vitaly) and its successor churches didn't co-opt any names other than its own. ROCOR (Laurus) joined Moscow. ROCOR-V is now colloquially ROCOR (Agafangel) or officially ROCOR-PSCA.
Judean People's Front. We're the People's Front of Judea. Judean
People's front, caw!
Well you know John, allow me to play Devil's Advocate. They do have alot of valid points. The MP is full of former KGB agents and participating in the WCC means agreeing to its charter.
Let me get this straight: They stayed in the Moscow Patriarchate while it made accommodations with the Soviet regime, but they object to it having close ties to the post-communist regime?
Interesting...
"ROCOR-V is now colloquially ROCOR (Agafangel) or officially ROCOR-PSCA."
Ummm, no.
ROCOR-V was formed in 2001 when Met. Vitaly (already 90+ at the time) suddenly backtracked on his resignation shortly after the election and enthronement of Met. Laurus as head of ROCOR. He reigned (or let others rule in his name) from Mansonville in Canada until his death in 2007 at age 97.
ROCOR-V split into several factions even while Met. Vitaly was alive. Most of these have dwindled into utter insignificance with the notable exception of the "Russian True Orthodox Church" of "Metropolitan" Tikhon (Pasechnik), which -- after the 2007 reconciliation of ROCOR-L and MP -- welcomed several clergy and monastics from ROCOR-L, inluding the Lesna women's monastery.
All attempts to reunite the RTOC with the ROCOR-Agafangel have failed, as have RTOC's attempts to establish communion with the main Greek Old Calendarist body.
It should be kept in mind that ROCOR-A also "inherited" ROCOR-L's pre-2007 communion with the "Cyprianist" Greek Old Calendarists and the main Romanian and Bulgarian Old Calendarists. In contrast, ROCOR-V had repudiated ROCOR's establishment of communion with the Cyprianite Greek, Romanian and Bulgarian Old Calendarists on the basis of their refusal to anathemize "World Orthodoxy" as graceless.
Agreed with anonymous - two different synods. The other main surviving splinter from ROCOR-V is based in Siberia and North America, out of the Mansonville Monastery I believe (under Bishop Vladimir?).
It's a real problem, being too pure to associate with the rest of us.
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