Russia's Catacomb
Saints
9
Bishop Victor of Glazov
AND HIS TEACHING ON THE FREEDOM OF THE CHURCH
Commemorated July 19 (†1934)
Know ye not that the friendship
of the world is enmity with God
St. James 4:4
ISHOP VICTOR (OSTROVIDOV) was the son of a church chanter. He entered a monastery
early in life and spent many years there. Nonetheless, he acquired also a good
theological education and in 1912 published a detailed study on "The New
Theologians," criticizing a new theological trend that had found expression
particularly in the book of Metropolitan (later "Patriarch") Sergius,
The Doctrine of Salvation (Kazan, 1898).
After the Revolution of 1917 he was a vicar bishop of the Vyatka
diocese, with the title of Glazov and Votkinsk, with his headquarters in Vyatka.
In 1922 he was arrested and was in prison until 1925. When the "Declaration"
of 1927 come out his was the first voice of protest, and his flock joined him
in separating from Metr. Sergius, which led to his arrest and incarceration in
the concentration camp of Solovki, where he was from 1928 to 1930, working as
a bookkeeper at the rope factory a mile from the main kremlin of the former monastery
of Solovki. The little house where he lived and worked was located in a clearing
of the forest; deep within this forest he celebrated secret church services with
other members of the Catacomb Church.
In Solovki, despite the tragic state of Soviet Russia, Bishop
Victor preserved an optimistic view of the future and even tried to infect with
this the more realistic Bishop Maxim of Serpukhov. But within a few years this
optimism apparently vanished, for a witness who saw him in the spring of 1931
at the concentration camp of Mai Guba in the Far North heard him say: "Ahead
there is nothing but suffering." In the summer of the same year he was released
from this camp and exiled for three years to the bank of the Onega River in the
Archangelsk region, where, according to some reports, he was in contact with the
catacomb hierarchs, Metropolitan Joseph and Bishop Damaskin. Late in 1933 he was
sent to an even more remote exile in Siberia, and after this nothing more was
ever heard of him.
But if little is known of the life and sufferings of this new
confessor, his courageous and uncompromising spirit is set forth in the documents
which he has left behind, which accuse Sergianism as a profound error that denies
the very nature of the Church of Christ. (Source: Polsky, Russia's New Martyrs,
Vol. II; the "15 Questions" are from a manuscript copy.)
THE EPISTLES OF BISHOP VICTOR
LETTER TO METROPOLITAN SERGIUS
Document of December 16, 1927
Your Eminence, Merciful Archpastor, Most Revered and Dear Vladika.
N OCTOBER, with the love of a son, I had the boldness to express to Your Eminence
my sorrow over the ruinous destruction of the Orthodox Church which had been begun
"as a principle of administration."
Such a destruction of the Church of God is the entirely natural
and inevitable consequence of the path on which your "Declaration of July
16" has placed you, a "Declaration" which for us humble and God
fearing and for all Christ-loving people is completely unacceptable.
From beginning to end it is filled with painful untruth, and
it is a mockery, deeply disturbing the soul of the faithful, against the Holy
Orthodox Church and against our standing in confession for God's truth. And through
a betrayal of the Church of Christ to the derision of the "profane,"
it is a most painful renunciation of one's own salvation, a renunciation of our
Lord and Saviour Himself.
This sin, as the Word of God testifies, is not less than any
heresy or schism, but is rather incomparably greater, for it plunges a man immediately
into the abyss of destruction, according to the Unlying Word: Whosoever shall
deny Me before men… (St. Matthew 10:33).
In so far as it has been in our power, we have guarded ourselves
and our flock, that we may not be participants in this sin, and for this reason
we sent back the "Declaration" itself. Acceptance of the Declaration
would have been testimony before God of our disinterest and indifference with
regard to the Most Holy Church of God, the Bride of Christ.
Out of fear of God I now find unacceptable also your decree
concerning my transference: "I fear"—as one hierarch writes me—"lest
an expression of obedience on our part be considered by 'them' (the Synod) as
an approval of what 'they' have done." And therefore, if I were presented
complete freedom of movement—which I do not have, being administratively
banished—I would then ask myself: will I not have to answer before God for
this obedience, for in essence it joins me to people who have separated themselves
from God. And that the "Declaration" in fact is worthy of many tears,
and that it separates man from God—concerning this I have set forth my thoughts
separately in the form of a letter to friends, which is here enclosed.
And what of the future? For the future I would pray the Lord—and
not only I, but the whole Orthodox Church as well—that He may not harden
your heart, as once He did the heart of Pharaoh, but may give you the grace to
acknowledge the sin you have committed and to repent for life. Then all the faithful
with joy and tears of thanksgiving to God would again come to you as to a father,
pastors as to a chief pastor, and the entire Russian Church as to her sacred head.
The enemy lured and seduced you a second time*
with the idea of an organization of the Church. But if this organization is bought
for such a price that the Church of Christ herself no longer remains as the house
of grace-giving salvation for men, and he who received the organization ceases
to be what he was—for it is written, Let his habitation be made desolate,
and his bishopric let another take (Acts 1:20)—then it were better for
us never to have any kind of organization.
What is the benefit if we, having become by God's grace temples
of the Holy Spirit, become ourselves suddenly worthless, while at the same time
receiving an organization for ourselves? No. Let the whole visible material world
perish; let there be more important in our eyes the certain perdition of the soul
to which he will be subjected who presents such outward pretexts for sin.
But if the hardness of your heart has gone far, and there remains
no hope for repentance, even for this outcome we have a text to enlighten us:
Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and
touch not their uncleanness; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto
you and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty (II Corinthians
6:17-18).
The Brother in Christ of Your Eminence, Most
Revered Archpastor, the sincerely devoted
Bishop Victor
A LETTER TO FRIENDS
Document of December, 1927
Take heed, that ye be not deceived.
St. Luke 21:8
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all!
Y BELOVED FRIENDS! With great sorrow of heart I tell you of a new deceit, through
which our enemy the devil wishes to entice away the souls of Christians on to
the path of perdition, depriving them of the grace of eternal salvation. And this
deceit—woe to us sinners—is much more bitter than the first three: those
of the Living Church, the Renovationists, and the Gregorians, whose madness was
apparent to all without difficulty, whereas not everyone can see through the ruinousness
of the latest deceit, and this is especially difficult for those whose mind and
heart are turned toward earthly things, for the sake of which people become accustomed
to renouncing the Lord. But let everyone know that the latest Declaration of July
16|29 of this year of Metropolitan Sergius—is a clear betrayal of the Truth
(St. John 14:6).
Whom have the signers of the "Declaration" betrayed,
and whom have they renounced? They have renounced the Most Holy Orthodox Church,
which is always and in everything pure and holy, having herself not spot, or
wrinkle, or any such thing (Ephesians 5:27). They have brought forth against
her an open judgement before the entire world; they have bound her and given her
over to the derision of the "profane," like an evil-doer, like a criminal,
like a betrayer of her Most Holy Bridegroom, Christ—Eternal Truth, Eternal
Justice. What a horrible thing…
The Holy Church, which the Lord hath purchased with His
own blood (Acts 20:28) from out of this world, and which is His Body (Colossians
1:24), and for all of us is the house of eternal grace-given salvation from this
life of perdition—now this Divine Holy Church of Christ is adapted to the
service of interests not only foreign to her, but even completely incompatible
with her Divinity and spiritual freedom. Many Christians step forth as enemies
of the cross of Christ, says the Apostle; they mind earthly things (politics),
forgetting that our dwelling is in heaven (Philippians 3:18-20)—for
here have we not continuing city, but we seek one to come (Hebrews 13:14).
And what kind of unification can there be of the Church of God with the civil
authority, whatever kind it may be, when the aims of the latter's activity are
exclusively in a material-economic direction, and while externally these aims
might be moral but are foreign to faith in God or even hostile to God. At the
same time, the aims of the Church's activity are exclusively spiritual and moral,
and through faith in God they bring a man beyond the bounds of earthly life for
the acquiring of God's grace of eternal heavenly goods. Know ye not that the
friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend
of the world is the enemy of God (St. James 4:4).
Therefore the Church of Christ by her very nature can never
be any kind of political organization, or else it ceases to be the Church of Christ,
the Church of God, the Church of eternal salvation. And if now through the "Declaration"
the Church is united to the civil regime, this is no simple external maneuver,
but, together with a terrible outrage, a destruction of the Orthodox Church, there
is also committed here the monstrous sin of renouncing the Truth of the Church,
a sin which no attainments of earthly goods for the Church can justify. Do not
tell me that in this way a Central Administration has been formed and local administrations
are being formed, and the appearance of external calm for the Church is obtained,
or, as the Declaration says, "a legal existence of the Church"—all
those who earlier were caught by our enemy the devil and fell away from the Orthodox
Church also love to say these and similar things. But what is the benefit if we
ourselves, having been made and being called temples of God (II Corinthians 4:16),
have become worthless and abominable in the eyes of God, while receiving an external
administration for ourselves? Rather, may we never have any kind of administration,
may we wander, even having nowhere to lay our head, after the fashion of those
of whom it was once said: They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins,
being destitute, afflicted, tormented; of whom the world was not worthy; they
wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth
(Hebrews 11:37, 38). But by means of such suffering may Orthodox souls be preserved
in the grace of salvation, of which all they are deprived who are caught by the
devil with such external pretexts. Woe unto the world because of offences,
for it must needs be that offences come; every soul is to be tried and every
place sifted, so that the grain may be separated from the straw, even if in small
quantity, since there are few chosen, said the Lord; but woe to that
man by whom the offence cometh! (St. Matthew 18:7). But let us, my friends,
give no offence to the Church of God, that we may not be condemned at the Lord's
Judgment.
Take heed that ye be not deceived; for many shall come in
My name… and shall deceive many, warns the Lord (St. Luke 21:8). And
the holy Apostle, showing care for us, says: See then that ye walk circumspectly,
not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil (Ephesians
5:15, 16).
May the Lord not harden the hearts of those who signed the
Declaration, but may the repent and turn and may their sins be washed away. But
if it be not so, then let us guard ourselves from communion with them, knowing
that communion with those who have fallen away is our own renunciation of Christ
the Lord.
My friends, if we truly believe that outside the Orthodox Church
a man has no salvation, then when her truth is perverted we cannot remain her
indifferent worshippers in the dark, but we must confess before everyone the truth
of the Church. And if others, even in an innumerable multitude, even chief hierarchs,
remain indifferent and can even use their interdictions against us, there is nothing
surprising in this. After all, this has happened not infrequently in the past,
and thus it was four years ago that those who had fallen away from the truth composed
councils and called themselves the Church of God and, pretending to be concerned
over canons, made interdictions against those who did not submit to their senselessness;
but they did all this to their shame and to their eternal perdition.
But the Lord is faithful, Who shall stablish you, and keep
you from the evil one… And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God,
and into the patient waiting for Christ (II Thessalonians 3:3, 5).
Bishop Victor
THE REPLIES OF BISHOP VICTOR TO 15 QUESTIONS OF
THE GPU ON THE "DECLARATION" OF METR. SERGIUS
Document of January 18, 1928
The questions themselves have survived only in the form of brief
indications, if at all. Some of the replies, containing duplications
or relating to the political aspect, have been omitted or shortened.
1. "How would you interpret, from the
civil and ecclesiastical points of view, the appearance of the new church tendency—the
platform of the Declaration of July 29, 1927?"
From the ecclesiastical point of view: as an incorrect teaching
on the Church and on the matter of salvation in Jesus Christ—an error of
principle by Metropolitan Sergius…
2. "How do you look at the 'Declaration?'
etc."
The "Declaration" is a separation from the truth
of salvation. It looks on salvation as on a natural moral perfection of man; it
is a pagan philosophical doctrine of salvation, and for its realization an external
organization is absolutely essential. In my opinion, this is the same error of
which, as early as 1912, I accused Metropolitan Sergius…
I myself grew up among simple people, the son of a church reader,
and I have spent my whole life among simple people, in monasteries. As the people
believes, so believe I, namely: We believe that we are saved in Christ Jesus by
the Grace of God; this Grace of God is present only in the Orthodox Church and
is given to us through the Holy Sacraments, and that the Church herself is the
house of grace-given salvation from this life of perdition, not some kind of political
organization. As a grace-giving union of believers, the Church can be without,
and it should not have, any political organization among its members; the Roman
Catholic Church teaches otherwise. The Church's members, as citizens, have a political
civil organization common for everyone, where they are in dependence on the civil
authority.
3. They Synod appeared without the blessing of Metr. Peter
who is the temporary head of the Russian Orthodox Church. Metr. Sergius, in convening
it, exceeded his authority; he was entrusted only with a temporary guardiancy
of the Church, a satisfaction of the pressing spiritual needs of the faithful;
but he began a complete overhaul of the Church. He is not the master of the House
of God, but only a guardian of the House; therefore my relationship to the Synod
and to its whole platform is negative.
4. The question of the Synod's membership does not have a great
significance as far as its unacceptability is concerned. Its very platform is
unacceptable, for it sees the Church as an external political organization, which
it unites with the civil organization of the regime of the USSR, and conformably
with this it sees a political activity for the Orthodox Church, and in this way
it pushes the Church on the path toward more shocks and unexpected happenings,
and together with this it perverts the very nature of the Church. By her
inner nature the Church should be not of this world, and precisely by virtue of
those spiritual interests which she satisfies for her faithful members. She is
a grace giving union for the grace-given salvation of believing citizens.
5. I propose to keep myself separate from the Synod until a
part shall be taken in Church life by Metropolitan Peter or Metropolitan Cyril,
in whose Orthodoxy I have no grounds to doubt.
6. "On further development of the battle against the new
tendency."
I personally, both up to this time and in the future, have
no intention of waging any kind of battle, and I only defend myself and my flock
so that we will not be partakers of the sins of others, of the "Synod."
To those near to me who appeal to me concerning the new tendency of Church life,
I explain it as I myself understand it. Father than this the matter has not gone
and, I think, will not go, in view of the fact that I am too insignificant a person
in comparison with Metropolitan Sergius and the Synod. And besides, I do not consider
myself capable of any kind of administrative, organizational activity, since I
have never had any experience of it.
7. "On the aims…"
Solely the salvation of one's soul, since I believe that they,
the "Synodalists," are destroying Orthodoxy, making it worldly, making
it earthly and completely perverting the nature of the Orthodox Church.
8. "On the methods and manners of battle, etc."
I have not had any definite method and manner of battle at
all. I, together with several, not all, priests and laymen, have declared to Metropolitan
Sergius that we reject his spiritual guidance, unless he acknowledges his mistake
of dragging the Church into worldly tasks not proper to her, and thus renounces
his "Declaration" of July 29.
9. "How has the battle been waged?…"
Up to the present time there has been no battle in the precise
meaning of this word. We have only separated ourselves from those who declare
to us: "We are your superiors, and therefore we put you under interdict for
disobedience," and the like. However, as concerns the pastors and laymen
subject to me, and all the more anyone else, I have not undertaken any kind of
interdictions, threats, curses, deprivations, or the manifestation of any kind
of malice, and I will never do so, because the matter of faith, of salvation,
is a matter of freedom, of conscience, of choice, and not coercion.
12. I am a servant of salvation, and those who seek their eternal
spiritual salvation can always find in me help in clarifying the truth. But as
it seems to me, the simple people who fear to fall away from Orthodoxy are more
interested in this, while the pastors, unfortunately, remain more indifferent
and disinterested, even though they are theologically educated.
13. "On watchwords, etc."
The Orthodox Church is the sole grace-giving Church, in which
by God's grace our salvation from this life of perdition is accomplished. The
falling away from Orthodoxy of the "Renovationists," as well as the
perversion of the nature of the Church by the "Synodalists," deprive
a man of the grace of salvation.
14. "On the unity of the Church and its relation to the
Government."
The unity of the Church can be only one of grace, and not of
the civil sphere; for us, according to the word of God, place, nationality, etc.,
make no difference. An Orthodox Japanese is just as dear to me as an Orthodox
Russian.
A purely political civil organization of the faithful is possible
only as an auxiliary tool of the civil authority, as was the case before the Revolution.
The government alone knows the whole external life of a man, while the Church
knows only the exclusively spiritual needs of the faithful as well as everything
pertaining to prayer. We do not protest against the decree on the separation of
Church and State, but unfortunately the Government does not believe the sincerity
of our declarations of this.
A LETTER TO PASTORS (EXCERPTS)
Document of February 28, 1928
Whosoever of you are justified by the law, are
left without Christ; ye are fallen from grace.
Galatians 5:4
ND THIS THEIR FALL is not a small one, nor hidden, but very great, and evident
to all who have the mind (of Christ) (I Corinthians 2:16); and it was revealed
in the well-known "Declaration" of July 16|29 and in the brazen destruction
of the Orthodox Church which has followed upon it.
The "Declaration" of those who have fallen into
deception is an abominable barter of the priceless and unbarterable, that is,
our spiritual freedom in Christ (St. John 8:36); it is their attempt, in contradiction
to the Word of God, to unite what cannot be united: the lot of the sinner with
the work of Christ, God and Mammon (St. Matthew 6:24) and light with darkness
(II Corinthians 6:14-18). The apostates have converted the Church of God from
a union of grace-given salvation for man from sin and eternal perdition, into
a political organization, which they have joined to the organization of the
civil authority in the service of this world which lies in evil (I John 5:19).
Quite another thing is the loyalty of individual believers with relation to
the civil authority. In the latter condition the Church preserves her spiritual
freedom in Christ, and believers become confessors when the faith is persecuted;
but in the former condition the Church is only an obedient tool for the realization
of political ideas by the civil authority, and confessors for the faith are
thus manifested as state criminals.
All this we see in the activity of Metropolitan Sergius,
who, by virtue of his new relationship to the civil authority, is compelled
to forget the canon of the Orthodox Church; and in defiance of them he has removed
all bishop-confessors from their sees, considering them state criminals, and
in their places he has arbitrarily assigned other bishops who are not acknowledged
and cannot be acknowledged by the believing people. For Metropolitan Sergius
there now can no longer be the very phenomenon of confessing for the Church,
and therefore he declares in his interview in connection with the Declaration,
that any member of the clergy who shall dare to say anything at all in defense
of the Truth of God against the civil authority is an enemy of the Orthodox
Church. What is this but the madness that has seized one who has fallen into
deception? For, if we reason thus, we shall have to consider as an enemy of
God, for example, St. Philip, who once accused Ivan the Terrible and for this
was strangled; and even more than this, we must number among the enemies of
God the great Forerunner, who accused Herod and for this was beheaded.
… This is why St. Maximus the Confessor, when the attempt
was made to persuade him and to force him by terrible tortures to enter into
communion in prayer with the false opinioned patriarch, exclaimed: "Even
if the whole universe shall enter into communion with the Patriarch, I alone
will not." Why was this? Because he feared to lose his soul through communion
with a patriarch who had been drawn into impiety, even though at that time he
had not been condemned by a council, but on the contrary was defended by a majority
of the bishops. For the administrative authority of the Church, even when assembled
in council in earlier times also, has not always defended the Truth, of which
there is clear testimony in the cases of St. Athanasius the Great, St. John
Chrysostom, St. Basil the Great, St. Theodore the Studite, and others. How then
can I remain in future senselessly indifferent? This cannot be. And this is
why we have set ourselves upon the only possible way out of our present situation—the
path of confessing the Truth of salvation. This path is difficult, it is a path
of struggle; but we do not hope in our own powers, but rather look to Jesus,
the Author and Finisher of our Faith (Hebrews 12:2), and our work is not
a separation from the Church, but a defense of the Truth and a justification
of the Divine commandments, or what is even better, the guarding of the whole
economy of our salvation. This is why a whole array of archpastors has stepped
forth accusing Metropolitan Sergius: Metropolitans (Joseph, Agathangel, Arsenius),
Archbishops, Bishops, and a multitude of individual pastors, who declare to
Metr. Sergius that they can no longer acknowledge him as the guide of the Orthodox
Church, but that for the time being they will govern themselves independently.
See to it, then, my friends and fellow pastors, that you
be not drawn away by the spiritual beasts. The previous fall, not long ago,
is sufficient; now we shall walks circumspectly. May the peace of God, which
passeth all understanding (Philippians 4:7) fill your hearts and minds and
may it direct your path in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
Bishop Victor (seal with initials)
* Metr. Sergius had joined the 'Living Church,' and
then 'repented' (tr. n.).