The
Orthodox portal site Serbian True Orthodox (serbiantrueorthodox.blogspot.com)
has been witnessing to True Orthodoxy in Serbian web circles for twelve years
already, publishing for the first time in the Serbian language texts about the
contemporary history of the church concerning the great apostasy and the
resistance against it. This apostasy began to develop in the beginning of the
20th century through Sergianism, the New Calendar schism, and the
pan-heresy of ecumenism. The response to this apostasy consisted of the holy
war against it conducted by zealots of Orthodoxy piety throughout the world.
Our portal also published the lives of contemporary confessors of Orthodoxy,
theological texts on the same subject, and information about the current events
in the True Orthodox Churches and the apostasy of “Orthodox” ecumenists. We
hope that the SerbianTO portal has contributed significantly to affirming True
Orthodoxy as much as possible in all the Serbian-speaking regions, Serbian
lands and the diaspora. In the last few years the work of the SerbianTO editors
has been brought down to the minimum, which nonetheless has not effected a
notable decrease in the popularity of the website. The SerbianTO has quietly
continued to witness to True Orthodoxy with its already-published but always
relevant themes. This portal was founded by Bishop Akakije, who was for a long
time its main editor, and with whom we have already done two exclusive
interviews, one in 2010 when he was a hieromonk, and the next in 2012 as a bishop.
Both interviews had an impressive number of views, about 10,000 views each.
Since
that last interview, many things have happened in the Orthodox world in Serbia,
and thus new questions and new themes arise which will surely be of interest
not only to our readers, but to all those who are interested in the fate of
Orthodoxy in Serbia, and thus indirectly in the fate of Orthodoxy in the entire
world. Therefore we decided, after the
passage of eight years, that it is an opportune time to interview His Grace
Bishop Akakije of Uteshiteljevo once again.
SerbianTO:
Your Grace, we would like to have a
conversation with You on a few current themes, especially concerning the
Serbian True Orthodox Church of whose Holy Hierarchical Council You are the
chairman. We would like to start with the question, what is the status of Your
church in relation to the official Serbian Orthodox Church? Many think that you are some newly-founded
church or even some sort of Serbian branch of a foreign church?
Bp.
Akakije: According to the definition made by
the (for us, historical) Church-laity Council of the Serbian TOC in Novi
Banovci in 2013, we consider our community an organic part of the Serbian
Orthodox Church and Her canonical heir after the hierarchs of the Serbian Orthodox
Church fell into apostasy. When we say they fell into apostasy, we are
referring to their acceptance of the godless communist authorities and
cooperation with them, communion with the new-calendar schismatics and
new-paschalionists, and organic membership in the satanic synagogue of the
World Council of Churches, which are the main features of the
ecumenist-sergianist heresy. In such extraordinary circumstances, the Serbian
Church was left without a right-believing, canonical episcopate, without a head,
i.e. in ecclesiastical widowhood. Therefore
the Russian True Orthodox Church, which received its apostolic
succession from the canonical Russian Church Abroad, renewed the episcopacy for
the widowed Serbian Church - the flock which for the sake of loyalty to holy
Orthodoxy broke communion with false pastors - by ordaining bishops for
her. Therefore, we have not, as some
assert, founded a new, “our” church; on the contrary, as I said, we are an
organic part of the Serbian Church - the monarchist, Barnabian and Nikolaen[1]
Serbian Church - not the Germanist-communist[2]
church. Usually people are confused by the prefix “True” which we had add to
the name of our church, but that is only for the practical reason of making the
difference between those who have remained faithful to Orthodoxy and those who
are in heresy and communion with heretics, while both continue to call
themselves the Serbian Orthodox Church. We were not the ones to come up with
the practice of adding the prefix “True”; the confessors of the Russian
Catacomb Church and the Greek Old Calendar Church introduced this practice in
the first half of the 20th century.
Concerning the question as to whether we are a branch in Serbia of some
foreign church, I can say that we were indeed such a thing for fifteen years
while we were under the omophorion of the Greek Old Calendarist synod, but
since 2011, as I have already mentioned, with the help of the Russian TOC to
ordain two bishops and found the Holy Hierarchical Council of the Serbian TOC,
we acquired an independent church structure which de facto does not have quite all the attributes of autocephaly, but
according to the canonically and historically-acquired dignity of the Serbian
Patriarchy, we de jure have the
potential right to autocephaly, which no other local church can contest or
dissolve.
SerbianTO:
We are fairly familiar with the
disagreements between the Serbian and Greek TOCs. In 2011, the Greeks declared
you schismatics. What is Your opinion about the Greek position?
Bp.
Akakije: When, after many unsuccessful
discussions over a decade-long period with the Greek synod (which, I might add,
over that decade never deemed us worthy of a single clerical, much less
episcopal visit), we finally decided to suspend their temporary administration over
us, on the basis of the 74th canon of the Carthaginian Council which
limits the period that a bishop of another local church can administer a
widowed church, we had no intention to incur any kind of enmity with the
Greeks. On the contrary, in our official declaration of our departure from
their temporary administration which we sent to the Synod of the Greek GOC, we
expressed our hope that we would preserve unity with the Greek GOC in a spirit of peace, brotherhood and love.
What followed was an arrogant response that Serbia is a part of the Greek
Church and that we have no right to separate from them, and that they declare
us schismatics because of our action.
From then until now, nothing of their resolution has changed, even if
from our side we extended several humble, brotherly petitions and initiatives
to establish communion between our two churches. The last petition was sent to
them quite recently. However, we have always gotten the same response from
them: they will only consider communion with us if we recognize their authority
over Serbia. Of course, despite all of our love, respect and gratitude towards
our Hellenic sister Church, the terms which they offer were and still are
absolutely unacceptable. Both sides still have not changed their positions to
this day. As far as we are concerned, we have not lost hope that this
Phanariot-minded stance of the Greek GOC hierarchy towards the Serbian Church
may change. And despite these problems that we have mentioned, there is still
some sort of unofficial cooperation between us. When it is necessary, when our
believers in the diaspora do not have a Serbian TO church to go to, we send
them to parishes of the Greek GOC as to a canonical sister church. The opposite
is also true: their believers can commune in our parishes without any problem.
SerbianTO:
How did the cessation of communion
with the Russian TOC, from whom You received apostolic succession, come about?
Could You please tell us about how that happened?
Bp.
Akakije: That was a very difficult case and
an overly-wide subject for this interview. Furthermore, I consider that some of
the reasons for the break in communion should not be mentioned in public, even
if that open explanation might be to our benefit, because much of our public
quarrels and finger-pointing which are intended to discredit our opponent
simply ruin the reputation of (True) Orthodoxy in the world. Of course, those
reasons, which for the above reason we will not release to the public, are not
questions of confession of faith or of a moral nature, and therefore it is no
sin to remain silent about them. Changes began in 2014, when under very
suspicious circumstances the secretary
of the RTOC Vitaly Shumilov was replaced by Protopriest Victor Melehov, whose
arrival in the RTOC heralded a noticeable change in ecclesiastical direction,
from a healthy, Philaret (Vosnesensky)-pastoral stance to a sort of church
fanaticism of the Matthewite-Boston spirit, a sickly, “zealous” exclusivist and
isolationist spirit. Thus, in 2014, the RTOC, led by Fr. Victor Melehov,
condemned the joyous event of union between the Greek GOC and the Synod in
Resistance or “Cyprianites,” and declared that the Greek GOC had fallen into
the heresy of Cyprianism. This stance of the RTOC bishops under the powerful influence
of the new synod secretary towards events in the Greek Church led to the first
serious disagreements between our two churches. After this slight cooling of
relations came a new unpleasant surprise which led to an even deeper divide
between the Serbian and Russian TOCs. To be precise, the Synod of the RTOC
received into communion several Greek clerics (February, 2016) whom the Greek
TOC had defrocked on a canonical basis, and that during the Archbishopric of
Chrysostom (Kiousis) of Athens, of blessed memory, that is, during the time
when the RTOC still considered the Greek GOC to be a canonical Orthodox Church.
We made our stance about this known immediately in an official letter to the
Synod of the RTOC, condemning this unlawful act, while this decision was still
under consideration. After our written intervention was disparaged, I, in the
name of the Hierarchical Council of the STOC, with the hope that we would be
able to prevent the coming disaster , went urgently to Moscow (Dmitrov), to the
session of their synod, in order to express to the Russian bishops our firm
disagreement with this rough, lawless interference in the canonical
jurisdiction of another local church,.
As a response to our stance, not only were our concerns completely
ignored, but the RTOC even consecrated one of the defrocked priests as a
bishop. Our shock now had no bounds. This was an act of a sister church which
we could no longer tolerate, because to be in communion with them would
indicate that we agreed with their open lawlessness in which the Russian Church
ordained a bishop for the canonical territory of the Greek True Orthodox Church
which already has over ten bishops! Even
if the break in communion with the RTOC has never been officially declared on
our side, our friendly relations with them had nearly completely ceased, except
in the case of Bishop Stephan of Trenton (USA), who did not agree with this
change of course and uncanonical behavior in the Synod of the RTOC. This same
bishop’s own North American eparchy was constantly threatened by frequent
canonical incidents caused by the new RTOC synod secretary. For this reason, Bishop Stephan, like many
clerics of the RTOC, fell into disfavor with the RTOC Synod. Any clerics or
monastics, including the well-known Lesna convent and her western European
missions, and Bishop Stephan himself, who opposed the new course of the Synod,
were constantly met with administrative aggression from the new synod
secretary, inappropriate public attacks, punishments, and in the end defrocking.
We could not turn a blind eye to all of this blatant injustice. We openly took
the side of Bishop Stephan, many upset clergymen from Russian and the Ukraine,
and the Lesna convent. The official break in communion with the RTOC was
inevitable. It should be emphasized that on the basis of a petition from Bishop
Stephan before his repose, we were obliged to accept temporarily under our
omophorion all the Russian clerics (including Lesna convent and her Western
European mission) who opposed the new course of the RTOC. The RTOC to this day,
instead of reconsidering her new course and making peace with those she has
scandalized, bringing them back into communion, has on the contrary, with her
continued inconsiderate actions and declarations only deepened this great
divide in the Russian TOC and in True Orthodoxy in general.
SerbianTO: You began a dialogue
with the part of the Russian Church Abroad under Archbishop Andronik. How far
has this gone? Might communion between your two churches be established?
Bp.
Akakije: Yes, in my opinion, our dialogue in
Paris with this part of the Russian Church Abroad had positive results, but its
continuation depends on Archbishop Andronik’s group, that is, when they fulfill
some of our agreed-upon requests. In principle, we are waiting for them to take
the next step.
SerbianTO:
What is your attitude towards Bishop
Artemije and other anti-ecumenist groups in Serbia? Is there any chance that there could be a
union of all the anti-ecumenists who have broken off communion with the
Belgrade patriarchate?
Bp.
Akakije: The anti-ecumenist front of the
battle for Orthodoxy in Serbia is fairly narrow and weak, and has few
participants. The variety of ecclesiologies, disagreement, and thus division
are much at fault for this state of affairs. Mutual accusations and affirmations
by each group that only they are in the right, while all the others are wrong,
also contribute to the division. Despite
our ecclesiological disagreement with Bishop Artemije, who leads the largest
group of anti-ecumenists in Serbia, we tried several times to establish a
friendly relationship with them, but none of this came to life because of the
explicitly unfriendly stance of Bishop Artemije himself and his closest people
towards True Orthodoxy. We faced the same animosity towards True Orthodoxy in two
other small groups who have gathered around Fr. Nikodim Bogosavljevic and Fr.
Anthony Davidovic. To make this tragedy worse, these three groups who are
united in anti-ecumenism but also in non-recognition of True Orthodoxy are
divided among themselves. Do you know why there is so much division between
Serbian anti-ecumenists? It is because there is no fundamental humility and
respect towards an already-existing church tradition. We do not need the
discernment of Artemije, Akakije, Nikodim nor Anthony. The ecumenist-serganist
heresy did not appear with Patriarch Irinej Gavrilovic, with the exile of
Bishop Artemije, nor with the Cretan Council about which so much scandal was
raised, as if nothing of importance in the betrayal of Orthodoxy happened
before it. The ecumenist-sergianist apostasy has already devastated the
Orthodoxy for 100 years. Let me describe this apostasy briefly. It began with
the encyclical of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, “To All the Churches of Christ,”
in 1920. Then Sergius, the founder of the modern Moscow Patriarchate in the
USSR signed his declaration of loyalty to the god-fighting Bolshevik
government. In Greece and Constantinople the New (Papist) Calendar was
introduced. Then in 1948 (the same year that the state of Israel was created),
the World Council of Churches was founded, a satanic union of which all the
official Orthodox churches are members. Afterwards, in 1964, the Ecumenical
Patriarchate lawlessly lifted the anathemas from the unrepentant papist
heretics. Then, in Chambesy in 1990 a union between the Orthodox ecumenists and
the Monophysites was made, and quickly after that with the papists in Balamand
in 1993, in which the churches recognized each other’s holy mysteries, etc. You
see then that this terrible apostasy from Orthodoxy has been going on already
for a century. At the same time, the
battle against apostasy, for the defense of Orthodoxy, has been waged by the
confessors of the Russian Catacomb Church, the Russian Church Abroad, and the
Romanian and Greek Old Calendarists over the last century. All these confessors
have already blazed the trail of battle for Orthodox zealots all over the
world. These confessors, independently of one another, were already calling
themselves the True Orthodox, and crystallized the ecclesiology of militant
Orthodoxy in opposition to the ecumenical-serganist apostasy. They are the new holy fathers, and we should
follow in their footsteps. We ought to humble ourselves before them and to
submit our own discernment to the judgment of the living, apostolic, patristic
tradition of the Church. We should not ignore or reject the confessors, true
fighters for Orthodoxy, the protagonists of this holy battle, and instead trust
in our minds and our own judgment, thinking up some kind of new, made-up ecclesiology,
founding some kind new church communities. We must realize that the
ecumenist-serganist part of the episcopacy has already long ago fallen away
from Orthodoxy. On the other hand, stalwartly standing on the ramparts for the
defense of Orthodoxy are the True Orthodox Christians, who, if few in number,
weak and divided, are nonetheless connected and unwavering in the Truth of
Christ. A clear division already long existed between the church of antichrist
and the Church of Christ, the True Orthodox Church. No one has the right to think up a third
option, as is now popular, a so-called “royal way.” That very middle,
“moderate” way of those who follow it, and boast in it, exposes their lukewarm
spirit. We know that the Lord will spit the lukewarm out of His mouth.
SerbianTO: In Your account of the anti-ecumenists in Serbia You
confined Yourself to those who broke communion with the Belgrade Patriarchate.
Does that mean that You do not recognize the so-called battle from within as
part of the anti-ecumenist fight?
Bishop
Akakije: I respect all those who have
perceived the apostasy in the official church and have contributed their part
in the battle against it, despite the fact that they remain in communion with
the apostates. Even if I do not support and do not recommend this kind of
fight, because an overwhelming fire on a house should be extinguished from the
outside, and not from inside, I have the habit of saying that we will all, if
we are truly honest fighters for Orthodoxy, find ourselves in the same place,
outside the ecumenist church of antichrist. I come to this conclusion from the
fact that evil is advancing and becoming all the more obvious, and the pious
soul of an Orthodox Christian cannot bear communion with obvious evil. There
are a good number of sincere Orthodox Christians in the official church, both
among the clergy and the faithful, who are not heretics, but, alas, they remain
in communion with heretics, which in Orthodox ecclesiology ends up being the
same thing. I’m against attacking anyone. We True Orthodox Christians publicly
confess our faith, making it accessible to everyone. But we don’t judge any of
our compatriots who try to make peace with their Orthodox conscience outside of
True Orthodoxy. Let everyone decide according to their conscience what kind of
battle they are going to wage against the ecumenist-serganist heresy. However,
there is a danger that he who remains longer in communion with evil will begin,
if unwillingly, to tolerate it. Making this compromise with one’s conscience,
with time a person will become cold and become all the more amenable to evil,
until finally, alas, he will voluntarily accept it. For the holy fathers say, he who looks upon
evil without disgust, will soon look at it with satisfaction. Fighters from
within hope that the official church will turn away from the way of
apostasy. God grant that this be so. If
this happens, we will accept them with joy as our Orthodox fathers and
brothers. Nonetheless, if we look at things realistically, from all that we
have observed, these kind of hopes are without foundation. Is it not obvious what a state the official
ecumenist-orthodox church is in and in what direction it is going? Furthermore,
among the “fighters from within” there is the evil, apostasy of those
beaten-down apologists of the ecumenist-serganist Belgrade Patriarchate, who with their
supposed “fight from within” are wolves in sheep’s clothing, like false
opposition parties in democracy, who consciously or unconsciously are working
for the same government. By defending the ecumenists, these “fighters from
within” relativize the soul-destroying essence of heresy, and with their
demonic advocacy make the heresy of ecumenism attractive for their naïve
audience.
SerbianTO:
May we ask why You have not
mentioned the groups of Greek Old Calendarists who are at work in Serbian
territory? Do You consider that their contribution to the anti-ecumenist fight
is too insignificant, and for that reason You have passed over them, or do You
think that their existence in Serbia is counterproductive?
Bp.
Akakije: We know all of those people very
well. There are very few of them in Serbia. At one period they joined us, but
afterwards, for various reasons, they went to various Greek Old Calendar
factions which are promoted here in Serbia over the Internet. The first group is led by Hieromonk Sava
(Mikic) from Batajnica who is the pastor of the only Greek parish in Serbia and
at the same time the only clergyman of the “Kallinikite” Greek Old Calendar
Synod, who, as we mentioned earlier, consider that Serbia is a missionary
territory which they first “discovered” and “conquered” and on that basis
acquired “canonical” rights to administer Serbia, for those who would accept
that. It is interesting to bring up the fact that the Kallinikites granted
themselves the right to bring the Serbian Church, which already for centuries
had the dignity of a patriarchate, back down to the rank of metropolis, and
that in submission to the archiepiscopate of Athens. I will not even comment on
this stance.
Then in Serbia there is the group
who represent the “Stephanite” Old Calendarists. This faction, like the
Kallinikites, has only one priest in Serbia, Fr. Simeon from Indjija, but its
real leader is radiologist Boris Petrovich from Novi Sad. In search of the
“truest” synod, he ended up choosing one of the many, divided, super-zealot
Greek Matthewite groups. Mr. Petrovic was accepted into their church, and though
he was a married man, was quickly tonsured into no more or less than the Great
Schema with the name Gregory. However,
with the blessing of the “Stephanites”, he continues to live under the same
roof with his spouse raising their children. He just recently published on the
Internet a crude invective of the lowest and most malicious slander against a
canonical bishop of the Russian Church, Archbishop Lazarus (Zhurbenko) of
blessed memory, with the aim of discrediting the apostolic succession of the STOC.
In Serbia there are other
representatives of a few other Greek Old Calendar synods, who do not recognize
each other as legitimate, but nonetheless agree about the following things:
they do not recognize us, the Serbian TOC, and do not recognize the Serbian
Church of St. Patriarch Barnabas - just
to emphasize, not the Serbian Church under German, which we also declare
communist – but even the Serbian Church from the time of Patriarch Barnabas.
They also do not recognize St. Bishop Nikolai (Velimirovic) of Ochrid as a
saint. They consider Fr. Justin Popovic a heretic. These Matthewites whose zeal
verges into eccentricity go even further, not recognizing the Russian Church
Abroad, the Russian Catacomb Church, or anyone else who does not recognize
their Matthewite, sectarian dogmas and mentality. Furthermore, even if they are
True Orthodox Christians, these Greek factions in Serbia do more harm than
good, as they associate the fight for Orthodoxy, and even the very existence of
Orthodoxy on earth, exclusively with some zealot factions in Greece, asserting
that there is no Church, and thus no salvation, outside the Greek Old Calendar,
which is simply ludicrous. Besides the fact that they attack the STOC, as if
that were their job, which is of course harmful for the Orthodox witness and
useful for the ecumenist-sergianists, I consider that their presence in Serbia,
both in numbers and in accomplishments in the fight against apostasy, is at
best, meaningless, and at worst counterproductive.
SerbianTO:
Your Grace, we would like to finish
this interview with just one more question. Almost 25 years have passed of the
STOC’s fight for the defense of Orthodoxy in Serbia. As a protagonist in that
fight, Your opinion interests us as to how much, and what sort of contribution
has the STOC made and still makes through Her confession of True Orthodoxy and
opposition to the ecumenist-sergianist heresy from which the Serbian church and
people have been suffering for a long time already?
Bp.
Akakije: As I have already said, we consider
ourselves an organic, inseparable part of the Serbian Orthodox Church whose
hierarchy started down the road of apostasy into sergianism and ecumenism. We
do not pretend to consider that our church community has the fullness of an
autocephalous Serbian patriarchate, because of the fact that we are in
difficult, extraordinary circumstances in which the church cannot function
normally. However, in relation to other True Orthodox local churches we defend
our right to autocephaly, a patriarchal rank, and the impunity of territorial
integrity of the Serbian Church’s jurisdiction. Our status could be compared to
the faithful sons of the fatherland, who, because of the subtle occupation of
their homeland by enemies thanks to the betrayal of that country’s own
government, raise the banner of freedom and start a guerrilla war against their
enemies, no longer recognizing the collaborative government. In such underground conditions, by exposing
this betrayal and occupation, we are attempting to wrench as many of our
compatriots out of the chains of enemy propaganda and to bring them to the
knowledge of the truth, for in the words of the Lord Himself, the truth will
set us free.
It is true that we are small, and
like the church of Philadelphia from the book of Revelation, “we have little
strength,” for with two bishops, we have not more than 500 believers, four
monasteries and the same number of parishes who are served by seven priests.
Yet our little flock of Christ with their little strength “hold on to what we
have,” that is, we preserve that which has been passed down to us by the
fathers, patristic tradition, church order and the truth of Orthodoxy. In this sense, in my opinion, we make our
modest contribution to the battle for the holiness of Orthodoxy and the
church’s freedom from the mystery of iniquity. And when that day of freedom
dawns, when in the church true faith and peace are again established, we will,
like Metropolitan Meletius “the Drummer”[3], retire and pass St. Sava’s banner, unsullied, to others
more competent than ourselves.
[1] Varnavian-Nikolaen
Church:
A reference to the Serbian Church under the leadership of Hieromartyr Patriarch
Varnava (Barnabas) (+1937), who died as a martyr, being poisoned for his
resistance to the Concordat, a compromise on the part of the Serbian state with
the Pope, and St. Nikolai Velimirovic (+1956), called the “Serbian Chrysostom,”
because of his great learning and gift of preaching. He is most famous in the
West for his collection of the lives of the saints, The Prologue from Ochrid. Like Patriarch Varnava, he was also
poisoned, though already in exile in the United States, for his firm opposition
to communism in Yugoslavia.
[2] Patriarch
German (+1990): called
“The Red Patriarch” as he was hand-picked by the communist government to take
over the leadership of the Serbian Church, during which he submitted her
completely to the authority of the God-hating regime.
[3] Metropolitan
Meletius “The Drummer”:
The first Metropolitan of Belgrade who was Serbian by birth after 500 years of
Serbian slavery under the Turkish yoke, during which the high-ranking clergymen
in Serbia were Greeks placed by the Phanar. Metropolitan Meletius, though not
highly educated, won the love and respect of his flock due to his great bravery
and patriotism. He got his nickname “the Drummer” from an incident during the
Second Serbian Uprising against the Turks led by Prince Miloš Obrenović. During
the battle, it was clear that the Serbs were losing and had lost morale; the
drummer of the Serbian army had been killed and there was no way to rally the
troops. Then-Archimandrite Meletius was present and knelt down to pray for
heavenly intercession. Prince Miloš Obrenović, who was next to him, grabbed
him, and pulling him up from the ground, said, “Get up and beat that drum!” The
Archimandrite obeyed, beat the drum and rallied the Serbian troops, who secured
a victory against all odds.
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