Archbishop Leonty of Chile
CONFESSOR OF HEARTFELT ORTHODOXY
Despite the apparent fading away of the power of Christianity
from our civilization and the noticeable absence of Christian heroes in our midst
today, God has not abandoned His persecuted Church in this century and has raised
up remarkable Orthodox hierarchs whose heroic stature only increases with time
into historic proportions. These heroes, unfortunately, largely escape the attention
of most people in the Church.
One such hierarch, who died just ten years ago, almost in oblivion,
was Archbishop Leonty of Chile, a fearless propagator of Orthodox Christianity
at first in Russia and later outside of it. His historic place is that of a true
confessor of the Christianity of the heart.
When he died on June 19/July 2, 1971—precisely the
fifth anniversary of the repose of his beloved Archbishop John Maximovitch, another
outstanding hierarch of the 20th century—Archimandrite Constantine of Jordanville
stated:
"There are people whose death fills with light the spot
which they have in people's hearts. These people in all their contacts lived by
their great heart. What does this mean? It means that for them every person with
whom they had contact, even if only for a moment, was a personalit of a spiritual
nature… One can say that although he has left us, he has come close to us,
but not in an earthly way."
Archbishop Leonty was born on August 7, 1907, in a pious Russian
family (Filipovich). His distant relative was St. Athanasius of Brest, who suffered
a martyr's death at the hands of Roman Catholics in the 17th century.
From early childhood he revealed strong leanings towards the
Church and longed to dedicate his life to it. His early education took place in
a private school, where his immense musical talent made him a leading boy-soloist
in choir. He remembered with great emotion how Emperor Nicholas II visited his
town and he saw the unearthly glance of the future Tsar-martyr. When the Revolution
struck Kiev he was already spiritually close to the Kiev Caves Lavra, and he was
arrested: but when it was discovered that he came from a "proletariat"
family, he was released, and because of his great tenor voice the Soviet government
offered him a free education and training for the opera. Thus a great musical
career was open before him, but he turned it down in order to serve the Holy Orthodox
Church.
And what a sorrowful path he took upon himself!—a path
of perpetual deprivation, suffering, and the witnessing of endless personal tragedies
during the Soviet years down to the coming of the Germans in 1941. He became a
novice at the Lavra at the very time when it was being ruthlessly liquidated.
Its monks were tormented and given over to various deprivations, and many were
killed.
Out of his sufferings he became a comforter of banished clergymen:
he washed the wounds of the hierarchs who had been released and sought refuge
in the Lavra. He saved the life of Bishop Parthenius by pulling him out of a gutter
and away from a pack of ravenous dogs, and then brining him to an old woman who
was able to nurse him back to life again.
After the final liquidation of the Kiev Caves Lavra, he went
to Moscow, where under terrible conditions he was able to go through the theological
course in the Academy; the academy sessions at that time were conducted in the
private apartments of the professors. Here again he met many bishops and served
as a source of contact between them and other clergymen.
Possessing a document declaring him a genuine member of the
"proletariat," he took advantage of this opportunity and traveled to
many holy places and monasteries in Russia just prior to their liquidation, or
shortly afterwards. Thus, he visited Sarov, Diveyevo, many monasteries in the
Novgorod area as well as in other regions. He saw the great Rostov vandalized,
its relics desecrated, and the clergy humiliated. All that he saw he recorded
in his diaries, a portion of which has been preserved in manuscript form.
He witnessed the death pangs of Holy Russia. He heard the voices
of holy hierarchs lamenting, holy fools prophesying, and mothers weeping; but
all this did not throw him into despair, but on the contrary filled his heart
with holy zeal, for he understood that he lived in a new age of martyrs.
Because of his close association with very many church figures,
he was able to be a living witness to their confessing stand for Christ, which
enabled him later in the free world to testify tot heir innocent sufferings, inflicted
with beastly atrocity by the Soviet government. Much of the work of Father Michael
Polsky in his three volumes on the New Martyrs of Russia is based on material
sent him by Archbishop Leonty.
Archbishop Leonty himself did not escape severe persecution
in the years before the outbreak of the Second World War. He was imprisoned three
times and after recalled how, when several bishops and priests had been incarcerated
with him under the close supervision of the inhuman guards, they had managed to
celebrate the Divine Liturgy while pretending to play cards around a table. The
prison conditions in the 1930's were so bad that most inmates were prepared to
die in the most inhuman conditions. Some performed the Eucharist on the body of
a dying sufferer, recognized as a martyr, since the Divine Liturgy is always performed
over the relics of martyrs.
Somehow Vladika managed to get out of prison and for some time
was forced to hide in an attic, suspended in a sack-like hammock so as not to
reveal his presence by footsteps; the only time he could exercise was in the dead
of night when the tenants below were asleep. Such living conditions of the persecuted
Christians in the USSR seem incredible to us in the free world only because of
the lukewarmness of our own Orthodox faith. But if we would live by the Orthodox
calendar, where every day there are Scripture readings and the commemoration of
saints and martyrs, we would understand.
When the Germans arrived into Western Russia in 1941, freedom
of religion was restored and a tremendous field of activity opened for the surviving
clergy. At this time Archimandrite Leonty found himself in Belo-Russia, where
he was soon consecrated bishop in the renowned Pochaev Lavra, which up to then
had been Polish territory and so had escaped destruction at Soviet hands. Between
1941, when he was consecrated, and November of 1943, when he left for the West,
he was bishop of Zhitomir and consecrated over 300 priests and several bishops,
and opened hundreds of churches. His enthusiasm and deeply-felt attitude towards
people made him an outstanding archpastor who, when celebrating the Divine services,
was transported into another world. His high tenor voice seemed to soar above
earthly tumult, but his keen mind was never detached from human reality. He continued
his church activity in the same spirit in Austria and Western Germany after the
war, when he was appointed bishop of Paraguay and Chile in South America (Argentina
became part of his diocese just before his death).
In Chile he founded a monastic community, one of whose members
was the later Bishop Savva of Edmonton, Canada. Vladika brought him into his monastic
brotherhood, inspired him towards the monastic ideal, tonsured him and placed
him as an independent pastor who later, as a zealous bishop, started a movement
of spiritual renewal in the Russian Church and is now known as the chronicler
of the miraculous life of Blessed Archbishop John Maximovitch.
During his travels in the free world Archbishop Leonty made
a study of the sorrowful state of his Orthodox brethren in Greece, who were languishing
under the modernistic influences on Orthodox life, symbolized by the new papal
calendar which had been forced upon them in the 1920's. In his martyric zeal he
went to Greece and consecrated bishops for the believers who followed the Old
Calendar, thus establishing a close contact between them and the Russian Church
Abroad.
Soon he was made an archbishop and founded the Dormition Convent
from nuns he brought from the Holy Land; this convent now operates an orphanage
and a parish school in the name of St. John of Kronstadt. These nuns, headed by
the righteous Abbess Alexia, were originally blessed in their ascetic life by
the Optina Elder Nektary, now a glorified saint, whose traditions they firmly
adhered to in the monastic training of novices.
Archbishop Leonty was a flaming defender of truth and rose
fearlessly in all his spiritual stature to put down any manifestation of unrighteousness.
From his first acquaintance with Archbishop John Maximovitch in Paris, he immediately
recognized in him a living saint, just like the ones he had seen and lived with
in much-suffering Russia. With all his loving heart he bowed down before the spiritual
authority of Blessed John and supported him whenever he was slandered by those
who lacked his experience of living contact with God's genuine saints. When these
slanders took a serious form and Archbishop John was put on trial in San Francisco
in the 1960's (accused of covering up dishonesty in church finances), Archbishop
Leonty immediately flew to defend him and sat with him, together with Bishops
Nektary and Savva, on the bench of the accused. Archbishop John, of course, was
proven innocent, and the monument of his victory today is the magnificent cathedral,
"The Joy of All Who Sorrow," in San Francisco, under which Blessed John's
own remains lie.
When Archbishop Leonty learned of the sudden death of Archbishop
John, he, together with another righteous and persecuted hierarch, Archbishop
Averky of Jordanville, drove all the way across the United States to be at his
funeral. There he shed bitter tears over the body of Archbishop John, whom he
loved so much that his wish was to be closer to his grave, perhaps as Archbishop
of San Francisco. God, however, did not grant this, and exactly on the fifth anniversary
of Archbishop John's death, after having prayed for the repose of his soul in
his own cathedral in Buenos Aires, he gave his soul over to God, joining his beloved
Abba.
The sudden death of Archbishop Leonty, who had been recovering
from a heart ailment, was a great sorrow for his flock. They buried him in the
cemetery which he himself had established. The sick, dying child of a local Chilean
woman was placed on his grave and was miraculously healed. There were other cases
of similar heavenly intervention through the prayers of Archbishop Leonty. But
the most touching account of him comes from a venerator of his memory, who was
granted a series of visions of him, a portion of which we offer here:
"This vision took place exactly on the day of the decision
of the Council of Bishops in 1971 concerning the beginning of preparations for
the canonization of the New Martyrs of Russia. It was on a Saturday. During a
light sleep my spiritual father (who is still alive in Buenos Aires) appeared
to me in spirit, confessed me, and released my sins.
"At the beginning of this dream I saw myself in a huge
temple not built by human hands. On the right kliros for quite a distance was
a huge crowd of people dressed in white: I could not make out their faces. Around
me there was a quiet, heart-rending singing, although I couldn't see anyone there.
Then both side doors of the altar swung open and from them began to come out holy
hierarchs and monks, fully vested in gentle blue vestments; among them I could
recognize only St. Nicholas the Wonderworker of Myra in Lycia. From the door near
me, among the passing bishops, Vladika Leonty passed by and stopped near me, saying:
'You, brother Basil, were called and you did come. You know we have a great
celebration here today!' 'What kind of celebration, Vladika?' I asked. And he
continued: 'The heavenly glorification of the Tsar-martyr!' And having bowed to
me slightly he continued on his way to the kathedra (in the center of the church).
"Finally, the holy doors of the altar opened, and out
of them came the Tsar-martyr, looking just as he appears on his official portraits
during the first years of his reign—that is, very young. He was dressed in
the Tsar's royal mantle, as during his coronation, and he wore the emperor's crown
on his head. In his hands he held a large cross, and on his pale face I noticed
a slight wound, either from a bullet or some blow. He passed by me at an even
pace, descended the step of the ambo, and went into the center of the church.
As he neared the kathedra the singing increased in volume, and when his foot touched
the step of the kathedra it became so loud that it seemed that a whole world of
people had gathered and were singing with one breath.
"Here I came to my senses on my bed, immediately shaken,
with a little wound on my right eye. It was about four o'clock in the morning.
For a long time I was under the deep impression of what I had experienced."
The same man saw Archbishop Leonty in a dream just before the
fortieth day after his repose: "On the 37th day after the repose of Archbishop
Leonty I had a vision in a dream. I saw him in church vestments and a mitre heading
a solemn pontifical church service. When he saw me he quickly got up and hastened
to greet me. He embraced and kissed me and said, 'How happy I am to see you, brother
Basil. I am now quite well. I feel no pain, and here I am very happy. In a few
days I will receive new quarters with all comforts, as they say on earth; it has
already been promised me.'
"A month after this I saw another dream, which indicated
to me that he had been granted a heavenly abode. I heard beautiful music and saw
millions of sparkling stars, and I was already on a boat which was to bring me
to the other shore where he was. This is what God prepared for his faithful servant
of the catacomb hierarchy, and later of our Church Outside of Russia" (Orthodox
Life, 1971, December, pp. 18-20).
Through the prayers of the righteous Archbishop Leonty, confessor
of the Orthodoxy of the heart, may our Lord have mercy on all of us. Amen.
F.H.
Reprinted from The Orthodox Word
Vol. 17, No. 4 (99) July—August, 1981