|
Last
Updated on
March 18, 2007
The
Orthodox Church: A Visual Journey
Ancient Faith
Radio
Other Parish
Websites
St. Paul the Apostle Orthodox Church
in Las Vegas
Ancient
Faith Radio to go!
Learn
about software that allows you to record Ancient Faith Radio and take it with
you! Click
HERE for details.
| |
|
The Russian Orthodox Church is more than one thousand years old.
According to tradition, St. Andrew the First Called, while preaching the
gospel, stopped at the Kievan hills to bless the future city of Kiev.
The fact that Russia had among her neighbors a powerful Christian state,
the Byzantine Empire, very much contributed to the spread
of Christianity in it. The south of Russia was blessed with the work of
Sts Cyril and Methodius Equal to the Apostles, the Illuminators of
the Slavs. In 954 Princess Olga of Kiev was baptized. All this
paved the way for the greatest events in the history of the Russian
people, namely, the baptism of Prince Vladimir and the Baptism of Russia
in 988. In the
pre-Tartar period of its history The Russian Church was one of the
metropolitanates of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The metropolitan
at the head of the Church was appointed by the Patriarchate of
Constantinople from among the Greeks, but in 1051 Russian-born
Metropolitan Illarion, one of the most educated men of his time, was
installed to the primatial see.
Majestic churches began to
be built in the 10th century. Monasteries began to develop in the 11th
century. St. Anthony of the Caves brought the traditions of
Athonian Monasticism to Russia in 1051. He founded the famous
Monastery of the
Caves in Kiev which was to become the center of religious life in Old
Russia. Monasteries played a tremendous role in Russia. The greatest
service they did to the Russian people, apart from their purely
spiritual work, was that they were major centers of education. In
particular, monasteries recorded in their chronicles all the major
historical events in the life of the Russian people. Flourishing in
monasteries were icon-painting and literary art. They were also those
who translated into Russian various theological, historical and literary
works.
In the 12th century, the
period of feudal divisions, the Russian Church remained the only bearer
of the idea of unity of the Russian people, resisting the centrifugal
aspirations and feudal strife among Russian princes. Even the Tartar
invasion, this greatest ever misfortune that struck Russia in the 13th
century, failed to break the Russian Church. The Church managed to
survive as a real force and was the comforter of the people in their
plight. It made a great spiritual, material and moral contribution to
the restoration of the political unity of Russia as a guarantee of its
future victory over the invaders.
Divided Russian
principalities began to unite around Moscow in the 14th century. The
Russian Orthodox Church continued to play an important role in the
revival of unified Russia. Outstanding Russian bishops acted as
spiritual guides and assistants to the Princes of Moscow. St.
Metropolitan Alexis (1354-1378) educated Prince Dimitry Donskoy. He,
just as St. Metropolitan Jonas (1448-1471) later, by the power of his
authority helped the Prince of Moscow to put an end to the feudal
discords and preserve the unity of the state. St. Sergius of Radonezh, a
great ascetic of the Russian Church, gave his blessing to Prince Dimitry
Donskoy to fight the Kulikovo Battle which made the beginning of the
liberation of Russia from the invaders.
Monasteries made a great
contribution to the preservation of the Russian national
self-consciousness and identity during the Tatar yoke and in the times
of Western influences. The 13th century saw the foundation of the
Pochayev Laura. This monastery and its holy abbot Ioann (Zhelezo) did
much to assert Orthodoxy in western Russian lands. Some 180 new
monasteries were founded in the period from the 14th to the mid-15th
century in Russia. Among major events in the history of old Russian
monasticism was the foundation of the Trinity Monastery by St. Sergius
of Radonezh (c. 1334). It is in this glorious monastery that St. Andrew
Rublev developed his marvelous talent at icon-painting.
Liberating itself from the
invaders, the Russian state gathered strength and so did the Russian
Orthodox Church. In 1448, not long before the Byzantine Empire
collapsed, the Russian Church became independent from the Patriarchate
of Constantinople. Metropolitan Jonas, installed by the Council of
Russian bishops in 1448, was given the title of Metropolitan of Moscow
and All Russia.
The growing might of the
Russian state contributed also to the growing authority of the
Autocephalous Russian Church. In 1589 Metropolitan Job of Moscow became
the first Russian patriarch. Eastern patriarchs recognized the Russian
patriarch as the fifth in honor.
The beginning of the 17th
century proved to be a hard time for Russia. The Poles and Swedes
invaded Russia from the west. At this time of trouble the Russian Church
fulfilled its patriotic duty before the people with honor, as it did
before. Patriarch Germogen (1606-1612), an ardent patriot of Russia who
was to be tortured to death by the invaders, was the spiritual leaders
of the mass levy led by Minin and Pozharsky. The heroic defense of St.
Sergius' Monastery of the Trinity from the Swedes and Poles between
1608-1610 has been inscribed for ever in the chronicle of the Russian
state and the Russian Church.
In the period after the
invaders were driven away from Russia, the Russian Church was engaged in
one of the most important of its internal tasks, namely, introducing
corrections into its service books and rites. A great contribution to
this was made by Patriarch Nikon, a bright personality and outstanding
church reformer. Some clergymen and lay people did not understand and
did not accept the liturgical reforms introduced by Patriarch Nikon and
refused to obey the church authority. This was how the Old Believers'
schism emerged.
The beginning of the 18th
century in Russia was marked by radical reforms carried out by Peter I.
The reforms did not leave the Russian Church untouched as after the
death of Patriarch Adrian in 1700 Peter I delayed the election of the
new Primate of the Church and established in 1721 a collective supreme
administration in the Church known as the Holy and Governing Synod. The
Synod remained the supreme church body in the Russian Church for almost
two centuries.
In the Synodal period of
its history from 1721 to 1917, the Russian Church paid a special
attention to the development of religious education and mission in
provinces. Old churches were restored and new churches were built. The
beginning of the 19th century was marked by the work of brilliant
theologians. Russian theologians also did much to develop such sciences
as history, linguistics and Oriental studies.
The 20th century produced
the great models of Russian sanctity, such as St. Seraphim of Sarov and
the Starets of the Optina and Glinsky Hermitages.
Early in the 20th century
the Russian Church began preparations for convening an All-Russian
Council. But it was to be convened only after the 1917 Revolution. Among
its major actions was the restoration of the patriarchal office in the
Russian Church. The Council elected Metropolitan Tikhon of Moscow
Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia (1917-1925).
St. Tikhon of Moscow
exerted every effort to calm the destructive passions kindled up by the
revolution. The Message of the Holy Council issued on 11 November 1917
says in particular, "Instead of a new social order promised by the false
teachers we see a bloody strife among the builders, instead of peace and
brotherhood among the peoples - a confusion of languages and a bitter
hatred among brothers. People who have forgotten God are attacking one
another like hungry wolves... Abandon the senseless and godless dream of
the false teachers who call to realize universal brotherhood through
universal strife! Come back to the way of Christ!"
For Bolsheviks who came to
power in 1917 the Russian Orthodox Church was an ideological enemy a
priori, as being an institutional part of tsarist Russia it resolutely
defended the old regime also after the October revolution. This is why
so many bishops, thousands of clergymen, monks and nuns as well as lay
people were subjected to repression up to execution and murder striking
in its brutality.
When in 1921-1922 the
Soviet government demanded that church valuables be given in aid to the
population starving because of the failure of crops in 1921, a fateful
conflict erupted between the Church and the new authorities who decided
to use this situation to demolish the Church to the end. By the
beginning of World War II the church structure was almost completely
destroyed throughout the country. There were only a few bishops who
remained free and who could perform their duties. Some bishops managed
to survive in remote parts or under the disguise of priests. Only a few
hundred churches were opened for services throughout the Soviet Union.
Most of the clergy were either imprisoned in concentration camps where
many of them perished or hid in catacombs, while thousands of priests
changed occupation.
The catastrophic course of
combat in the beginning of World War II forced Stalin to mobilize all
the national resources for defense, including the Russian Orthodox
Church as the people's moral force. Without delay churches were opened
for services, and clergy including bishops were released from prisons.
The Russian Church did not limit itself to giving spiritual and moral
support to the motherland in danger. It also rendered material aid by
providing funds for all kinds of things up to army uniform. Its greatest
contribution, however, was expressed in financing the St. Dimitry
Donskoy Tank Column and the St. Alexander Nevsky Squadron.
This process, which can be
described as a rapprochement between Church and state in a "patriotic
union", culminated in Stalin's receiving on September 4, 1943
Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan Sergiy Stragorodsky and
Metropolitan Alexy Simansky and Nikolay Yarushevich.
Since that historic moment
a "thaw" began in relations between church and state. The Church,
however, remained always under state control and any attempts to spread
its work outside its walls were met with a strong rebuff including
administrative sanctions.
The Russian Orthodox Church
was in a hard situation during the so called 'Khrushchev's thaw" as well
when thousands of churches throughout the Soviet Union were closed "for
ideological reasons".
The celebrations devoted to
the Millennium of the Baptism of Russia, which acquired a national
importance, gave a fresh impetus to church-state relations and compelled
the powers that be to begin a dialogue with the Church, building these
relations on the basis of recognition of the great historical role it
had played in the fortunes of the Motherland and its contribution to the
formation of the nation's moral traditions.
The Russian Revolution and the
Soviet period
The Church of Russia was less unprepared
than generally believed to face the revolutionary turmoil. Projects of
necessary reforms had been prepared since 1905, and most clergy did not
feel particularly attached to the fallen regime that had deprived the
church of its freedom for several centuries. During the rule of the
provisional government, in August 1917 a council representing the entire
church met in Moscow, including 265 members of the clergy and 299
laymen. The democratic composition and program of the council had been
planned by the Pre-Conciliar Commission. It adopted a new constitution
of the church that provided for the reestablishment of the patriarchate,
the election of bishops by the dioceses, and the representation of
laymen on all levels of church administration. It was only in the midst
of the new revolutionary turmoil, however, that Tikhon, metropolitan of
Moscow, was elected patriarch (October 31, 1917--six days after the
Bolshevik takeover). The bloody events into which the country was
plunged did not allow all the reforms to be carried out, but the people
elected new bishops in several dioceses.
The Bolshevik government, because
of its Marxist ideology, considered all religion as the "opium of the
people." On January 20, 1918, it published a decree depriving the church
of all legal rights, including that of owning property. The stipulations
of the decree were difficult to enforce immediately, and the church
remained a powerful social force for several years. The patriarch
replied to the decree by excommunicating the "open or disguised enemies
of Christ," without naming the government specifically. He also made
pronouncements on political issues that he considered of moral
importance: in March 1918 he condemned the peace of Brest-Litovsk that
brought an unsatisfactory armistice between Russia and the Central
Powers, and in October he addressed an "admonition" to Lenin, calling on
him to proclaim an amnesty. Tikhon was careful, however, not to appear
as a counterrevolutionary and in September 1919 called the faithful to
refrain from supporting the Whites (anti-Communists) and to obey those
decrees of the Soviet government that were not contrary to their
Christian conscience.
The independence of the church
suffered greatly after 1922. In February of that year, the government
decreed the confiscation of all valuable objects preserved in the
churches. The patriarch would have agreed to that measure if he had had
the means to check on the government contention that all confiscated
church property would be used to help the starving population on the
Volga. The government refused all guarantees but supported a group of
clergy who were ready to cooperate with it and to overthrow the
patriarch. While Tikhon was under house arrest, this group took over his
office and soon claimed the allegiance of a sizable proportion of
bishops and clergy. This became known as the schism of the "Renovated"
or "Living" Church, and it broke the internal unity and resistance of
the church. Numerous bishops and clergy faithful to the patriarch were
tried and executed, including the young and progressive metropolitan
Benjamin of Petrograd. The "Renovated" Church soon broke the universal
discipline of Orthodoxy by admitting married priests to the episcopate
and by permitting widowed priests to remarry.
Upon his release, Tikhon condemned
the schismatics, and many clergy returned to his obedience. But he also
published (presumably against his will) a declaration affirming that he
"was not the enemy of the Soviet government" and dropped any public
opposition to the authorities. Tikhon's attitude of conformism did not
bring immediate results. His designated successors (after he died in
1925) were all arrested. In 1927 the "substitute locum tenens" (holder
of the position) of the patriarchate, Metropolitan Sergius, pledged
loyalty to the Soviet government. Nevertheless, under the rule of Joseph
Stalin in the late 1920s and '30s, the church suffered a bloody
persecution that claimed thousands of victims. By 1939 only three or
four Orthodox bishops and 100 churches could officially function: the
church was practically suppressed. The martyrdom of the Russian Church
during the Soviet period was probably a most intensive and bloodthirsty
persecution of the Church in its whole history.
(See the Holy New Martyrs of Russia Home Page)
A spectacular reversal of Stalin's
policies occurred, however, during World War II. Sergius was elected
patriarch in 1943 and the "Renovated" schism was ended. Under Sergius'
successor, Patriarch Alexis (1945-70), the church was able to open
25,000 churches and the number of priests reached 33,000. But a new
antireligious move was initiated by Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev in
1959-64, reducing the number of open churches to less than 10,000.
Patriarch Pimen was elected in 1971 following Alexis' death, and,
although the church still commanded the loyalty of millions, its future
remained uncertain.
After 70 years of repression and
antireligious propaganda, however, the church experienced greater
religious freedom in the late 1980s, culminating with the dissolution of
the Soviet Union in 1991.
The Balkans and eastern Europe
In bringing about the fall of the
Turkish, Austrian, and Russian empires, World War I provoked significant
changes in the structures of the Orthodox Church. On the western borders
of what was then the Soviet Union, in the newly born republics of
Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, the Orthodox minorities
established themselves as autonomous churches. The first three joined
the jurisdiction of Constantinople, and the Lithuanian diocese remained
nominally under Moscow. In Poland, which then included several million
Belorussians and Ukrainians, the ecumenical patriarch established an
autocephalous church (1924) over the protests of Patriarch Tikhon. After
World War II the Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian autonomies were again
suppressed, and in Poland the Orthodox Church was first reintegrated to
the jurisdiction of Moscow and later was declared autocephalous again
(1948).
In the Balkans, changes were even
more significant. The five groups of Serbian dioceses (Montenegro,
patriarchate of Karlovci, Dalmatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Old Serbia) were
united (1920-22) under one Serbian patriarch, residing in Belgrade, the
capital of the new Yugoslavia. Similarly, the Romanian dioceses of
Moldavia-Walachia, Transylvania, Bukovina, and Bessarabia formed the new
patriarchate of Romania (1925), the largest autocephalous church in the
Balkans. Finally, in 1937, after some tension and a temporary schism,
the patriarchate of Constantinople recognized the autocephaly of the
Church of Albania.
After World War II, Communist
regimes were established in the Balkan states. There were no attempts,
however, at liquidating the churches entirely, similar to the
persecutions that took place in Russia in the 1920s and '30s. In both
Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, church and state were legally separated. In
Romania, paradoxically, the Orthodox Church remained legally linked to
the Communist state. With its solid record of resistance to the Germans,
the Serbian Church was able to preserve more independence from the
government than its sister churches of Bulgaria and Romania. Generally
speaking, however, all the Balkan churches adopted an attitude of
loyalty to the new regime, according to the pattern given by the
patriarchate of Moscow. At that price, they could keep some theological
schools, some publications, and the possibility to worship. This is also
the case of the Orthodox minority in Czechoslovakia, which was united
and organized into an autocephalous church by the patriarchate of Moscow
in 1951. Only in Albania did a Communist government announce the total
liquidation of organized religion, following the Cultural Revolution of
1966-68.
Among the national Orthodox
churches, the Church of Greece is the only one that preserved the legal
status it acquired in the 19th century as the national state church. As
such, it was supported by the successive political regimes of Greece. It
could also develop an impressive internal mission. The Brotherhood Zoe
("Life"), organized according to the pattern of Western religious
orders, was successful in creating a large system of church schools.
The Communist governments
throughout eastern Europe collapsed during the late 1980s and early
1990s, effectively dissolving state control over churches and bringing
new political and religious freedoms into the region.
The Orthodox Church in the Middle
East
As a result of the Greco-Turkish
War, the entire Greek population of Asia Minor was transferred to Greece
(1922); the Orthodox under the immediate jurisdiction of the ecumenical
patriarchate of Constantinople were thus reduced to the Greek population
of Constantinople (Istanbul) and its vicinity. This population, rapidly
shrinking in recent years, is now reduced to a few thousand. Still
recognized as holding an honorary primacy among the Orthodox churches,
the ecumenical patriarchate also exercises jurisdiction over several
dioceses of the "diaspora" and, by consent of the Greek government, over
the Greek islands. The ecumenical patriarchate convened pan-Orthodox
conferences in Rhodes, Belgrade, Geneva, and other cities and began
preparations for a "Great Council" of the Orthodox Church.
Together with the ecumenical
patriarchate, the ancient sees of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem are
remnants of the Byzantine imperial past, but under the present
conditions they still possess many opportunities of development:
Alexandria, as the centre of emerging African communities (see below The
Orthodox diaspora and missions); Antioch, as the largest Arab Christian
group, with dioceses in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq; and Jerusalem, as the
main custodian of the Christian holy places in that city.
The two ancient churches of Cyprus
and Georgia, with their quite peculiar history, continue to play
important roles among the Orthodox sister churches. Autocephalous since
431, the Church of Cyprus survived the successive occupations, and often
oppressions, by the Arabs, the Crusaders, the Venetians, the Turks, and
the English. Following the pattern of all areas where Islam was
predominant, the archbishop is traditionally seen as the ethnarch of the
Greek Christian Cypriots. Archbishop Makarios also became the first
president of the independent Republic of Cyprus in 1960. The Church of
Georgia, isolated in the Caucasus in a country that became part of the
Russian Empire in 1801, is the witness of one of the most ancient
Christian traditions. It received autocephaly from its mother Church of
Antioch as early as the 6th century and developed a literary and
artistic civilization in its own language. Its head bears the
traditional title of "Catholicos-Patriarch." When the Russians annexed
the country in 1801, they suppressed Georgia's autocephaly and the
church was governed by a Russian "exarch" until 1917 when
the Georgians reestablished their ecclesiastical independence. Fiercely
persecuted during the 1920s, the Georgian Church survives to the present
day as an autocephalous patriarchate.
Orthodoxy in the United States
The first Orthodox communities in
what is today the continental United States were established in Alaska
and on the West Coast, as the extreme end of the Russian missionary
expansion through Siberia (see above The church in imperial Russia).
Russian monks settled on Kodiak Island in 1794. Among them was St.
Herman (died 1837, canonized 1970), an ascetic and a defender of the
natives' rights against their exploitation by ruthless Russian traders.
After the sale of Alaska to the United States, a separate diocese "of
the Aleutian Islands and Alaska" was created by the Holy Synod (1870).
After the transfer of the diocesan centre to San Francisco and its
renaming as the diocese "of the Aleutian Islands and North America"
(1900), the original church establishment exercised its jurisdiction on
the entire North American continent. In the 1880s, it accepted back into
Orthodoxy hundreds of "Uniate" parishes of immigrants from Galicia and
Carpatho-Russia, particularly numerous in the northern industrial states
and in Canada. It also served the needs of immigrants from Serbia,
Greece, Syria, Albania, and other countries. Some Greek and Romanian
communities, however, invited priests directly from the mother country
without official contact with the American bishop. In 1905 the American
archbishop Tikhon (future patriarch of Moscow) presented to the Russian
synod the project of an autonomous, or autocephalous, church of America,
whose structure would reflect the ethnic pluralism of its membership. He
also foresaw the inevitable Americanization of his flock and encouraged
the translation of the liturgy into English.
These projects, however, were
hampered by the tragedies that befell the Russian Church following the
Russian Revolution. The administrative system of the Russian Church
collapsed. The non-Russian groups of immigrants sought and obtained
their affiliation with mother churches abroad. In 1921 a "Greek
Archdiocese of North and South America" was established by the
ecumenical patriarch Meletios IV Metaxakis. Further divisions within
each national group occurred repeatedly, and several independent
jurisdictions added to the confusion.
A reaction against this chaotic
pluralism manifested itself in the 1950s. More cooperation between the
jurisdictions and a more systematic theological education contributed to
an increased desire for unity. A Standing Conference of Canonical
Orthodox Bishops in the Americas (SCOBA) was established in 1960. In
1970 the patriarch of Moscow, reviving Tikhon's project of 1905,
formally proclaimed its diocese in America (which had been in conflict
with Moscow since 1931 on the issue of "loyalty" to the Soviet Union) as
the autocephalous Orthodox Church in America OCA, totally independent
from administrative connections abroad. The ecumenical patriarchate of
Constantinople, however, protested this move, turned down a request for
autonomy presented by the Greek archdiocese (the largest single Orthodox
body in the United States), and reiterated its opposition to the use of
English in the liturgy (1970). This latest crisis of American Orthodoxy
involves the very understanding of the Orthodox presence in the Western
world, centring on the question of the utility of preserving the ethnic
ties of the past.
The Orthodox diaspora, the
calendar change and missions
Since World War I, millions of
east Europeans were dispersed in various areas where Orthodox
communities had never existed before. The Russian Revolution provoked a
massive political emigration, predominantly to western Europe and
particularly France. It included eminent churchmen, theologians, and
Christian intellectuals, such as Bulgakov, Berdyayev, and V.V. Zenkovsky,
who were able not only to establish in Paris a theological school of
great repute but also to contribute significantly to the ecumenical
movement. In 1922 Patriarch Tikhon appointed Metropolitan Evlogy to head
the émigré churches, with residence in Paris. The authority of the
metropolitan was challenged, however, by a group of bishops who had left
their sees in Russia, retreating with the White armies, and who had
found refuge in Sremski-Karlovci as guests of the Serbian Church.
Despite several attempts at reconciliation, the "Synod" of Karlovci,
refused to recognize any measure taken by the reestablished patriarchate
of Moscow accusing the Moscow hierarchs of collaboration with the
communists and the betrayal of the Church. This Church transferred its
headquarters to New York and is also known as the "Russian Orthodox
Church outside of Russia." It is very well known for its
missionary work, traditional piety and its firm stand against ecumenism
and modernism. However this Church has no canonical relation with the
official Orthodox patriarchates and churches. Recently ROCA has
gathered certain moderate traditionalist, Old Calendarist Churches
making thus a front against the ecumenism. A "Ukrainian Orthodox Church
in exile" finds itself in a similarly irregular canonical situation.
Other émigré groups found refuge under the canonical auspices of the
ecumenical patriarchate.
The change of traditional Julian
ecclesiastical calendar in 1924 and adoption of the so called "improved
Gregorian calendar" by the ecumenical patriarchate and soon by a number
of other local Orthodox churches has produced very painful schisms in
Greece, Romania and Bulgaria. In the meanwhile the Old Calendarist
groups in Greece were even more divided over the question of the
validity of the official Church sacraments. A rather uncontrolled
reaction of the official Church of Greece only deepened the existing
schism. The Old Calendarist movement which started as an opposition to
the calendar change has gradually grown into a movement which strongly
rejects any kind of ecumenical activity. In their opinion the change of
the calendar only opened the door of the Church for further
modernization and secularization. The radical ecclesiology of certain
extremist Old Calendarists finally isolated their groups from the
communion with other Orthodox Churches. On the other hand the moderate
Old Calendarists while recognizing the validity of the official Church
sacraments still abstain from communion with other Churches waiting for
their return to the traditional course.
After World War II, a very
numerous Greek emigration took place to western Europe, Australia, New
Zealand, and Africa. In East Africa, without much initial effort on
their part, these Greek-speaking emigrants have attracted a sizable
number of black Christians, who have discovered in the Orthodox liturgy
and sacramental worship a form of Christianity more acceptable to them
than the more dogmatic institutions of Western Christianity. Also, in
their eyes, Orthodoxy has the advantage of having no connection with the
colonial regimes of the past. Orthodox communities, with an ever
increasing number of native clergy, are spreading in Uganda, Kenya, and
Tanzania. Less professionally planned than the former Russian missions
in Alaska and Japan, these young churches constitute an interesting
development in African Christianity.
|
Back to 9th Century
Orthodox History
Sts Cyril & Methodius Equal to the Apostles, the Illuminators of
the Slavs.
The Resurrection
of Orthodox Christianity in Russia after 80 years of atheism & pogroms
is one of the strongest indicators of the vitality of the Orthodox
faith. |
|
