St. Metropolitan Philip of Moscow is commemorated on this day. When I was in Ladomirová last December at the site of St. Job of Pochaev Monastery, I realized how this monastery, which existed for twenty years – only a small part of the duration of a single human life – made an impact that would last into the future: Jordanville is nothing less than Ladomirová transplanted to the New World! Now we are dealing with an even smaller time span. St. Philip was the metropolitan of the Russian Church from 1566 to 1568. It is not common for a Russian Church leader to stand up before the head of the state. However, it was much more common for the Byzantine Empire, which integrated the Roman republican traditions, than for the Russian Church. Such daring intercession was known in Byzantium as parrhesia (boldness, freedom of speech) and in the Russian tradition received the name of pechalovanie (airing of grievances). In his first epistle to Prince Andrei Kurbskii (1528–1583), a Russian “dissident” who “relocated” to Lithuania, Tsar Ivan IV (1530–1584) expressed his self-understanding as an “abbot” of the Russian land, through obedience to whom his subjects may receive eternal salvation or perdition from the “Tsar of tsars.” Ivan IV was the one who would be accountable to Him for the souls of his subjects. This obedience found expression in the aforementioned epistle as follows: “But for the sake of the body you have destroyed the soul, you have despised imperishable glory for the sake of fleeting glory, and being enraged at man, you have rebelled against God. […]. “But it is the Lord’s will if you have to suffer for doing good. If you are righteous and pious, why did you not wish to suffer from me, a headstrong ruler, and earn the crown of eternal life?” This letter was written in 1564. When St. Philip confronted the first Russian tsar a few years later, he was talking about something that directly pertained to his realm: the quasi-monasticism of Ivan the Terrible. The next year, after this letter to Kurbskii, Tsar Ivan IV established the oprichnina (direct rule for selected areas of Muscovy) and acted as the head of a crusader-style monastic order. Having completed military or punitive expeditions, the oprichniki (Ivan’s guardsmen), along with their “abbot,” would return to the base in Aleksandrovskaia Sloboda, not far from Holy Trinity St. Sergius Lavra, fasting and praying for atonement with God through lengthy liturgical services. St. Philip confronted this lifestyle while Ivan IV was uprooting treason among the noble “friends” of Kurbskii. In 1568, a council of bishops defrocked the saint under false pretexts, and on December 23, 1569, Metropolitan Philip was killed by one of the oprichniki in Otrochʹ Monastery in Tverʹ region. Thus “the earthly tsar sent him to the heavenly one”. This Byzantine scenario continued to play out on Russian soil when Patriarch Nikon (r. 1652–1666), in his attempt to prove that the Church was greater than the Tsardom, solemnly brought St. Philip’s remains from Solovki to Moscow. Nikon instructed Tsar Aleksei to read a penitential prayer before St. Philip’s relics. During Patriarch Nikon’s reign, the memory of St. Metropolitan Philip was assigned to this day. The events of Metropolitan Philip’s short reign attracted attention after the Russian revolution when the Church in Soviet Russia had to stand up against a newfound tyranny. In 1928, Georgii Fedotov, a Russian historian and professor at Saint Serge Theological Institute in Paris, published his study Mitropolit Filip Moskovskii [Metropolitan Philip of Moscow]. St. Philip served as a reference point and inspiration for Anastassy (Gribanovsky), one of the more keen observers and analysts among the ROCOR’s first hierarchs. In his letter sent to Prof. Fedotov from Jerusalem in 1928, then-Archbishop Anastassy wrote: “The image of St. Filipp has been particularly close to me from my early youth. – While still a boy, I could not read without trepidation the staggering dialogue that had taken place at one point between him and Ivan the Terrible in the Dormition Cathedral. Already then, I could plainly comprehend this victory that overcomes the world. It is the eternal triumph of the Church over any external power resisting it, no matter how mighty it might appear to be.” The image of Saint Philip of Moscow remains topical now, especially when there is no room for political dissent in the Russian state and military-style discipline is promoted as a virtue within the Russian Church. Sources: Perepiska Andreia Kurbskogo s Ivanom Groznym [Correspondence Between Andrei Kurbskii and Ivan the Terrible], Biblioteka literatury drevnei Rusi [The Collection of the Ancient Russian Literature Monuments] vol. 11. Azbuka.ru.
For the dating of the Grozny’s first epistle: “Pervoe poslanie Ivana Groznogo Kurbskomu” [The First Epistle of Kurbsky to Ivan the Terrible] Pushkinskii dom.
Sviatietl’ Filip Mitropolit Moskovskii [Holy Hierarch Philip Metropolitan of Moscow] pravoslavie.ru.
Archbishop Anastassy (Gribanovskii), “Letters to G. N. Troubetskoy and to G. P. Fedotov,” Historical Studies of the Russian Church Abroad.
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