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~Two excerpts from the letters of Fr. Seraphim Rose along with other vital insights concerning the Anti-Christianity of yesterday and today~
Excerpt 1: "There is no communion whatever between the Russian Church Abroad and any of the other [Russian] groups, and for very good reasons. The Moscow Patriarchate is subject to the anathema laid against the Soviet government and all who cooperate with it, laid upon it by Patriarch Tikhon; obviously there can be no “essential communion” with those who are subject to the Church’s anathema.
As for the Paris jurisdiction, it appealed to Constantinople not only to escape Soviet influences, but even more (since its spirit, after all, is close to that of the Soviet Church) to escape the traditional Orthodoxy upheld by the Synod of Bishops Abroad*. Its apostasy is not accidental but quite deliberate, as is that of the American Metropolia [now called the OCA - editor]. And the differences have nothing to do with “legalistic concepts” but with the upholding of Orthodox Truth and tradition.
[*Fr. Seraphim was obviously speaking about the Orthodoxy of the Church Abroad in his day - editor.]
I believe the author is deceived in regarding Communism as purely a political phenomenon that wears no “masks.” Perhaps he is thinking of it in terms of the Turkish Yoke — an external yoke whose intent was to enslave a nation and allow the conquerors to live well.
But Communism applies an internal yoke, since it is essentially a spiritual movement (in an inverted sense). Its aim is not to conquer the world and enslave the nations, but to fight God, primarily by destroying faith in the hearts of men. There is no comparison in previous history with such a system. Communism’s whole aim is to prepare the world for Antichrist, and its most subtle work is to gain control of the Church and make it over into a new Church for Antichrist**.
This it is very successfully doing with the Patriarch of Moscow and is now attempting to do with the whole Orthodox Church through its representatives at Rhodes. To believe that Communism is satisfied with political influence is, I believe, completely to misunderstand its nature."
(Excerpted from a non-dated Letter. This letter was written during the lifetime of St. John Maximovitch, before January of 1966.)
[**Contemporary signs of the Apostasy that resulted from the Soviet control of the "Moscow Patriarchate" include: 1) participating in the pan-heresy of Ecumenism (the "MP" entered the Ecumenical movement because her Soviet leaders demanded this), 2) the praising of Sergianism (i.e. by Patriarch Kirill on May, 15, 2020), 3) the so-called "social mission" of the Church which places the Church, actively speaking, in the "service of humanity" instead of (anti-) Christ, 4) the joint co-operation of Orthodox with heretics, Jews, pagans, and Muslims for the "benefit" of the State and society, and 5) the recognition of the anathematized Soviet Beast as having been a lawful government to which loyalty was rightly offered and to which praise is currently due.
All of these, which currently condition their followers to accept the coming Antichrist, resulted from the subjection of the Sergianists to the Soviet state. Thus, sadly it must be acknowledged that although the Church survived the Soviet yoke, not all of the Church emerged unchanged - editor.]
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Excerpt 2: "Your question on the difference between the Turkish and the Communist Yoke is a very important one, but the answer is not entirely simple, and those who think only in terms of “canonical-uncanonical” will probably find it much too complicated.
I think it’s important, first of all, to realize that the question of the Moscow Patriarchate is not primarily one of “canonicity” — that question ultimately will be resolved only by a free Russian Church Council*** (after the Soviet Yoke is overthrown). At that Council doubtless much will be forgiven owing to the unprecedented difficulties of these times, and those who will be justified then are not necessarily those who regarded themselves as “canonically correct,” but rather those who kept alive the spirit of the Church, which is after all above the canons and inspires them.
[***This Council has yet to occur despite the fact that so many of our New Martyrs and Confessors, not only strove for it, but revealed it as a necessity - editor.]
But in the meantime we have to live with the situation that exists, and choose whether to have contact and communion with Moscow or not; and therefore we have to somehow penetrate to the spirit of this question and make our decision on this basis.
A very great help in this is the “Documents of the Catacomb Church” which we are now printing, because in them the bishops who were present at the very outbreak of “Sergianism” give their judgements on what was then the central question of the day, and most of those who opposed Sergius did so because they believed he had placed himself outside the Church, and they had to speak out in order to remain within the Church themselves...
To answer the question, one can say that first of all, in so far as the political situation is concerned, the situation of Moscow under the Soviets and Constantinople under the Turks is exactly the same. But those who are satisfied with this argument do not realize how Greeks outside of the Turkish boundaries reacted in the 19th century. (I’m paraphrasing now an article on the “Russian Church Abroad” by our Archbishop [Saint] John [Maximovitch], which we hope to print soon).
When the Patriarchate of Constantinople obeyed the Turkish political demands and excommunicated the Greek rebels, the latter in their turn, while not doubting the Patriarch’s Orthodoxy and remaining with him in spirit, nonetheless declared his decrees invalid and governed themselves in complete independence from him — and when an independent Greek state was formed, this independence took the form of the autocephalous Church of Athens.
A similar situation prevailed under the Serbian Patriarchs Arsenius III and IV, who went into exile with their flocks and refused to submit to the new Patriarchs elected inside the Turkish boundaries. Thus, from the political point of view, the existence of the Russian Church Abroad is fully justified by Orthodox history, while the Metropolia is chiefly to be criticized for being insensitive to the whole situation of the Russian Church and for helping, even if ever so little, the political schemes of the Soviet State.
But there is a deeper dimension to the question. The Turks persecuted the Church and, when possible, used it for political purposes. But their worst intention did not go beyond making Christians slaves and, in some cases, forcibly converting them to Islam. The Christian thus might be a slave or martyr, but on the spiritual side he was free; the Turkish Yoke was external.
But with the Soviets, the aim is much deeper: ultimately, to destroy the Church entirely, using the Church’s hierarchs themselves (when possible) as the agents of this scheme; and, on the way to this end, getting the Church to defend Communism abroad and to preach a “Communist Christianity” that prepares the way ideologically for the coming triumph of world Communism, not only as a universal political regime, but as an ideological and pseudo-religious tyranny as well.
In order to appreciate this one has to realize what Communism is: not merely a power-mad political regime, but an ideological-religious system whose aim is to overthrow and supplant all other systems, most of all Christianity. Communism is actually a very powerful heresy whose central thesis, if I’m not mistaken is chiliasm or millennialism: history is to reach its culmination in an indefinite state of earthly blessedness, a perfected mankind living in perfect peace and harmony.
Examine the printed sermons of the Moscow hierarchs: again and again one finds the same theme of the coming of the “Kingdom of God on earth” through the spread of Communism. This is outright heresy, or perhaps something even worse: the turning aside of the Church from its very purpose — the saving of souls for eternal life — and giving them over to the devil’s kingdom, promising a false blessedness on earth**** and condemning them to everlasting damnation.
[****Here we see the historical roots of the so-called "social doctrine" which has been "synodally" embraced both by the Moscow Patriarchate (2000, 2017) and the hierarchs of those Local Churches who accept the "Mission" document of the "synod" of Crete (2016). Fr. Seraphim elsewhere refers to these types of social humanistic missions as "the profoundest and most ingenious substitute for Christianity ever devised", an anti-Christianity - editor.]
The whole of modern Western Christianity is permeated already with this worldly, basically chiliastic orientation, and the more “liberal,” more worldly Orthodox Churches (such as the Metropolia) have been infected from this source..."
(Excerpted from a Letter dated: 25 March/ 7 April 1971)
Holy Father Seraphim pray unto God for us!!!