1990 Epistle of the Synod of Bishops of the ROCOR
17/30 November 1994
To our faithful flock, beloved in Christ,
by the providence of God scattered like divine wheat
throughout the whole world.
We, the hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, assembling
in council at the Holy Convent of Lesna, under the protection of our three miraculous
icons of the Mother of God—the Kursk-Root Icon of the Sign, our directress; the Lesna
Icon; and the newly-manifest Myrrh-streaming Iveron Icon,—entreat the Lord, through
the intercession of the all-holy Theotokos, to send upon your souls the Grace of the Holy
Spirit, and strength and endurance in the struggle to fulfill the commandment of God,
"Quench not the Spirit," in this our sojourn "by the waters of
Babylon."
We have now assembled for a second time this year in hierarchical council, not only to
deliberate current questions in our ecclesiastical life both in the diaspora and in our
much-suffering homeland, but also to treat of the more basic problems of the further
canonical path of the whole Russian Orthodox Church.
The militantly atheistic powers who seized our country early in the 20th century forced
those who are older among us, or our fathers, to leave their native land against their
will. We did this in the firm hope of a most speedy return. This hope has imbued the
epistles of both the Councils of Bishops abroad, as well as those of individual
archpastors, throughout the entire period of our sojourn beyond the borders of our beloved
Russia. And all these years we have lived by this hope.
So great has been our ardent love for our native Russian Church and our pious people
that this very love has enkindled the hearts of no few non-Russians, who have converted to
the Russian Orthodox Church, becoming Orthodox Christians and even pastors. Yet we have
ever borne responsibility for the fate of our Church even in the homeland. Over the course
of many years and even decades the attainment of this goal was complicated by external
circumstances. To the majority of us the way to the homeland was closed, and we could not
even dream of personal encounters with clergy or faithful from Russia. In the early 1970s,
however, a cry reached us from several priests of the catacomb Russian Church, who had
been left without a canonical bishop. These priests, who bore their pastoral cross under
the exceedingly complex circumstances of Soviet reality and preserved the purity of
Orthodoxy as bequeathed them by true Russian Orthodox hierarchs, and who would not agree
to any compromises whatever with either the godless regime or the "Living
Church" engendered by it and which from its leaven gave rise to the Moscow
Patriarchate, despite all attacks and perils, petitioned us, the free Russian archpastors,
to establish eucharistic fellowship and the commemoration of our First Hierarch during the
divine services. Having established this communion with them, after a certain time we were
able, under difficult conditions, even to consecrate a bishop for Russia.
As soon as more favorable external conditions arose, we began to receive priests and
parishes who could no longer tolerate the uncanonical actions of their bishops and their
apostasy from Orthodoxy in the form of an inordinate passion for ecumenism and a
justification of the Sergianist lie. Despite the fact that Orthodox Russia is being rent
asunder by foreign sects, the leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate to this day actively
participates in services with the heterodox. Despite individual utterances concerning the
historical significance of Sergianism, the falsehood of the necessity of union between the
Church and the godless regime is still being actively propagated.
As we prepared ourselves for the Council of Bishops under these circumstances, we
received appeals directed to us by various persons and groups. In them were set forth
diverse and often completely contradictory opinions; and the various sides seem to be of
approximately the same size. We thank the authors of all these appeals for expressing
their concern for the fate of our native Church. In this we see a sign that our Church is
a living organism in which mature and responsible Christians mingle together conciliarly
as faithful children of the One Orthodox Church.
Conscious of our own responsibility before God and men, we, the hierarchs of the Church
of Russia who are free of all outside interference, propose that the time has come to seek
an active contact with all the parts of the One Russian Orthodox Church, which have been
separated from one another on the strength of historical circumstances. With this there
can be no talk of any unification with or submission to the Moscow Patriarchate on our
part; rather, we patiently await the return of the Moscow Patriarchate to the
thousand-year historical path of the Russian Church, from which, unfortunately, it has
diverged. In honest conversations, initiated without prejudices and mutual reproaches, we
must strive for an understanding and realization of the tradition of our fathers and of
the struggle of the holy New-Martyrs and Confessors of Russia. With all to whom the
treasures of Orthodoxy which we have inherited are dear we are prepared to elucidate the
canonical and dogmatic problems which have created the rift between the various parts of
the Church of Russia as an integral whole. The objective of such conversations cannot be
to arrive at any compromise between truth and falsehood. The immovable Cornerstone of our
hope is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. There cannot be communion between light and
darkness. We all bear responsibility for the seamless robe of the One Church of Russia,
and only from this pure wellspring can we draw forth the strength to carry on the
Christian struggle in the modern world. Our salvation is not advanced by either the lies
of the leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate in company with an atheistic or any other
regime, or a repudiation of the purity of Orthodoxy in a dishonorable communion with the
heterodox, nor by the perversion of the sacraments, especially baptism, permitted in
churches in Russia. We are distressed that wide circles within the Patriarchate have been
following the lead of other Local Churches who have lost a healthy sense of the
understanding of the Traditions of the Holy Fathers. Yet at the same time we rejoice that
within the same Patriarchate there are also healthy elements. These consist of priests and
even laymen who are Orthodox in mind and preach true Orthodoxy despite all obstacles.
Knowing that the Russian people can find spiritual support only in the unadulterated
and pure Orthodox Church of the Holy Fathers, we trust that in fruitful and critical
discussion we may make our own contribution toward the preparatory process for the free
All-Russia Council of which we have spoken in our previous conciliar epistles. Such a
council must, in our opinion, lead to the triumph of pure Orthodoxy and the Truth
committed to us by our fathers over all the dark powers which have been arrayed against
our Church and our much-suffering people in this century. Not with loud declarations, but
with painstaking, patient, and perhaps even lengthy labor, we must prepare the way for the
All-Russia Council, in which only healthy forces, possessed of the capacity to distinguish
truth from falsehood, can take part. Only then, with God's help, will it be able to serve
as the basis for the re-establishment in Russia of true Orthodoxy which is confessed by
all of us "with one mouth and with one heart."
Lesna Convent,
17/30 November 1994
+ Metropolitan Vitaly
+ Archbishop Anthony of San Francisco
+ Archbishop Alypy
+ Archbishop Laurus
+ Archbishop Lazarus
+ Bishop Benjamin
+ Bishop Seraphim
+ Bishop Cyril
+ Bishop Ambrose
+ Bishop Metrophanes
+ Bishop Hilarion
+ Bishop Eutychius
+ Bishop Valentine
+ Bishop Daniel
From Orthodox Life, Vol. 44, No. 6, pp. 7-10.
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