Archbishop Germogen (Golubev) of Kaluga was forced to retire on this day in 1965. Last weekend, I was at the Russian Orthodox church of the Presentation in the Temple of the Lord in Stratford, CT. I learned there that the previous rector of the parish, Fr. Andrei Semyanko (d. 2016), had become a close associate of Archbishop Veniamin (Novitskii) of Poltava during World War II. Before the war, Archbishop Veniamin had served in Poland. He did not leave Russia with the retreating German troops. He was arrested, and upon release served in Irkutsk. While a ROCOR hierarch in Chile, his former peer bishop of the Ukrainian autonomous church, Archbishop Leonty (Filipovich), arranged for Archbishop Veniamin to ordain Theodore Zhurbenko, a member of the “Catacomb Church,” as a deacon and a priest. Later, he became Bishop Lazarus of the ROCOR inside of Russia, and it was with his blessing that I went to study in Jordanville. Archbishop Germogen belonged to the same “non-conformist” circle of the Russian churchmen. Aleksei Golubev (his secular name) was born in 1896 into the family of a professor of Kiev Theological Academy. He wrote his thesis at Moscow Theological Academy under Fr. Pavel Florensky. In 1919, in Moscow, Archbishop Theodore (Pozdeevskii) tonsured Aleksei a monk. In 1921, Patriarch St. Tikhon ordained him a priestmonk and sent him to the Kiev Caves Lavra. In 1923, Vasilii Filipovich (the future Archbishop Leonty) entered the Lavra and the next year became a cell attendant for Archimandrite Germogen. In 1926, Fr. Germogen became abbot of the Lavra. Together with Novice Vasilii, Fr. Germogen undertook a pilgrimage to Sarov. Through the Polish Consul-General in Kiev, Fr. Germogen smuggled information about the persecution of the church abroad. In 1931, Fr. Germogen was arrested. He was released in 1939. After that, Fr. Germogen lived in Transcaucasia and in Uzbekistan. In 1953, he was consecrated Bishop of Tashkent and Central Asia in Moscow. In Tashkent, Vladyka Germogen constantly resisted to “ghettoization” of the Church, to the point of building a new cathedral. At the same time, he looked after the clergy, providing all of them with regular salaries. As a result, the Council on the Russian Orthodox Church (an agency of the Soviet government) forced the church authorities to remove Archbishop Germogen from his see. At the Council of Bishops of 1961, Archbishop Germogen refused to endorse a revision of the Bylaws of the Russian Orthodox Church that would reduce the role of a parish rector to that of a hireling. From 1963, he was Archbishop of Kaluga. There, Vladyka Germogen was actively engaged in charitable works, and consequently, the local Soviet authorities reported him to the Council on the Russian Orthodox Church. As a result, on this day in 1965, he was forcibly retired to Zhirovichi Monastery in Belarus. Archbishop Germogen actively circulated his writings criticizing abuses by the Soviet authorities of their own laws concerning religion. Since Archbishop Germogen’s writings were published abroad, damaging the image of the USSR, a 1968 meeting of the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church qualified the activity of Archbishop Germogen as harmful for the Russian Church. He passed away ten years later on the Feast of the Annunciation in 1978, the same day as Patriarch Tikhon in 1925. I have written more than once in these daily reports that the Orthodox Church (including the ROCOR) operates through a system of “checks and balances” between the parties represented by so-called “zealots” (a conventional designation, not to be confused with Greek Old Calendarists) and “diplomats” within the episcopate. For some contemporary bishops, who also meant well for the church, Archbishop Germogen might have come across as a whistleblower who “rocked the boat.” However, with hindsight, one may see that Archbishop Germogen’s raising of his voice invalidates the claim that the entire hierarchy of the Moscow Patriarchate during the Soviet era was silent, compromised and subservient to the powers that be. And one more thing to say in Vladyka Germogen’s favor. The head of the Office of the Moscow Patriarchate was Metropolitan Aleksei (Rediger) of Talinn. He was the one tasked with calling Archbishop Germogen to his senses so that he would stop his activity. Nevertheless, around 1992, already as Patriarch Aleksei II, he asked for forgiveness from all whom he scandalized during these difficult years. |
