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Epistles and Statements, 1918–1923

St Tikhon of Moscow, The Christian East, 1920–23; Emhardt, 1929

Chapter 7

By the Grace of God, we, the humble Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and of all Russia, to the most reverend archpriests, reverend priests, honorable friars, and to all faithful children of the Orthodox Russian Church, peace and God’s blessing.

For over a year, because of circumstances known to all, we were barred from our pastoral duty and were unable to stand personally at the helm of (Church) government in order to preserve the traditions of the Church, hallowed by the centuries. Therefore, as soon as these circumstances arose, and in strict accordance with the decision of the Sobor (Church Council) which established the order of the Patriarch’s administration in the Russian Church, and in accordance with the decree of the Holy Synod which met in our presence on 7th November, 1920, we deemed advisable for the time of our withdrawal from the conduct of affairs to convey the fullness of spiritual power to our substitute appointed by us, Agathangel, Metropolitan of Yaroslav, with the understanding that he was to convoke a second local Sobor (Church Council) of the Russian Church for the purpose of considering the supreme administration of the Church and other Church business to which, we had been told, the civil authorities did not object. The Metropolitan Agathangel agreed to undertake the commission with which we charged him. But for the reasons beyond his control he was unable to assume charge of his duties. Of this some ambitious and willful men took advantage in order to enter ‘the fold not by the door but otherwise’ (St. John 10: 1) and to usurp the highest clerical power of the Orthodox Russian Church which did not belong to them.

On 18th May of last year there came to us who were then imprisoned in the Troitzkoye Podvorye (Conventual Church and House of the Holy Trinity) the priests: Vvedensky, Belkoff, and Kalinovsky (who recently unfrocked himself) and under the pretense of concern with the welfare of the Church presented to us a written application in which, complaining that because of circumstances Church affairs remained immobile, they asked us to entrust to them our offices for the purpose of putting in order the incoming correspondence. Believing this to be useful, we yielded to their importunities and wrote down the following directions upon their applications:

‘The persons named below, i.e., the priests who signed the application, are commissioned to receive and hand over to the Most Eminent Agathangel upon his arrival in Moscow the Synod’s business papers, Secretary Nomeroff concurring.’

On the strength of this direction, they were commissioned only to receive the documents and hand them over to the Metropolitan Agathangel as soon as he should arrive in Moscow. As to what they should do with the files received in case the Metropolitan Agathangel were not to come to Moscow at all, we had not given any directions, because we could not then even foresee such a possibility, but that they should in such a case substitute themselves for the Metropolitan and take their place at the head of the Church administration—for this there could be no blessing in the directions, because the authority vested in the rank of a bishop cannot be transferred to priests. Nevertheless, they declared this our order to be an act transferring to them the Church power (government) and, having made an agreement with the Bishops Antonin and Leonid, constituted themselves as the so-called Supreme Church Board. In order to justify this self-willed action, they have repeatedly, both in press and at public meetings, affirmed that they took charge of the Church administration in agreement with the Patriarch (Pravda, May 21, 1922), that they are members of the Supreme Church Board ‘in accordance with a resolution of the Most Holy Patriarch Tikhon’ (Vvedensky, The Revolution and the Church, page 28), and that they ‘received from the hands of the Patriarch himself the Supreme Administration of the Church’ (The Living Church, No. 4-5, page 9). At a meeting held on 12th June, 1922, upon motion made by a priest that no Church reforms should be carried out, unless with the blessing of the Patriarch, the chairman of this meeting, the Bishop Antonin, declared: ‘As the Patriarch has transferred his power without reservation to the Supreme Church Board, we have no need of running after him in order to obtain from him what is not his any longer’ (Izviestia, April 16, 1922, No. 132).

Now, then, we solemnly and in everybody’s hearing from this hallowed rostrum bear witness that these statements of theirs regarding an agreement with us and the transfer by us of the powers and duties of a Patriarch of the Russian Church to a Supreme Church Board consisting of the Bishops Antonin and Leonid, the priests Vvedensky, Krasnitzky, Kalinovsky, and Belkoff, are nothing but lies and deception and that the persons mentioned seized the Church power by way of usurpation, willfully, without any lawful authority as established by the rules of our Church.

To such as they the Holy Church metes out severe punishments. By the 16th rule of the Council of Antioch, a bishop who has departed from the lawful order, and has infringed on somebody else’s diocese, even when asked to do so by the whole people, is ejected from his rank for the sin of breaking the Church canons. The persons who constituted the self-appointed Supreme Church Board in Moscow and are guilty of it before the Church have made their position even worse by consecrating bishops into unlawfully seized districts, as by so doing they brought themselves into the scope of the 35th rule of the Holy Apostles, which threatens deprival of rank to both those consecrating into somebody else’s diocese and those consecrated by them.

And how did they use the power unlawfully seized? They used it not for upbuilding the Church, but for sowing in it the seeds of destruction, for depriving of their sees the Orthodox bishops who remained true to their duty and refused them obedience, for persecuting faithful priests who in accordance with Church canons refused to obey them, for establishing everywhere the so-called Living Church, which spurned the authority of the Ecumenical Church and strove to weaken the Church discipline in order to help their own party to triumph and forcibly, without taking into account the joint voice of all the faithful, put into execution their desires. By all this they separated themselves from the only body of the Ecumenical Church and deprived themselves of the Grace of God which has its seat solely in Christ’s Church. And because of this all rulings lacking the canonical succession and lawful power which ruled the Church in our absence are null and void, and all acts and sacraments performed by bishops and priests who seceded from the Church are void of (God’s) Grace and not binding, and those believing with them in prayer and sacraments not only are not hallowed, but receive blame for taking part in their sin.

Deeply was our heart affected when confused rumors reached us of clerical disagreements, which began in the Church after our removal, of violations by the self-constituted and self-appointed Church government, of the appearance and struggles of parties, of a spirit of evil and division where a spirit of love and brotherly union (accord) should pervade. But we were unable to contribute anything but a prayer in my cell towards peace in the Church and the destruction in it of this destructive strife, until we received our liberty.

Now then, having issued forth from the walls of imprisonment, and having acquainted ourselves in details with the situation of Church affairs, we once again invest ourselves with our Primate’s authority temporarily transferred by us to our substitute, the Metropolitan Agathangel, but by reasons beyond his control not used by him, and are taking charge of our pastoral duties, fervently praying to the Master of the Church, our Lord Jesus Christ, that He should give us strength and understanding for putting in order His Church and establishing in it the spirit of peace, love, and humility. Simultaneously we call on all bishops, priests, and faithful children of the Church who, conscious of their duty, have courageously stood up for the God-established order of Church life, and ask them to give us their coöperation in the work of pacifying the Church with their advices and deeds and most of all with prayers to God the Creator of all and Provider. And those who voluntarily or involuntarily have succumbed to temptation in the present age of evil, and acknowledging the illegal authority, have seceded from religious (ecumenical) unity and from God’s Grace, we beg to recognize their sin, to purify themselves by repentance, and to return into the saving bosom of the one Ecumenical Church.

The Lord’s blessing be with you all, through the prayers of God’s Mother, the Holy Virgin Mary, of our Holy Fathers Peter, Alexis, Iona, Philip Hermogen, of Moscow Holy-men and miracle-workers, and of all the Saints of the Russian land, God-fearing through the ages. Amen.

The humble TIKHON, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russians.

Moscow, Don Monastery, Year 1923, July 15th.¹

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