The Bishop Council of the Russian Church Abroad responded on this day in 1933 to the requirement of Metropolitan Sergii (Stragorodskii) to Russian bishops and clergy abroad to submit pledges of allegiance to the Soviet authorities. This epistle dedicated a lot of argument to the topical issue: when the state is associated with one’s homeland. The epistle is the lengthiest ever written by our Council of Bishops, contains more than thirty pages, and is available here. It is an indispensable reference for canon law and political philosophy. The rebuttal of Metropolitan Sergius's directive is expressed in the epistle in the following points: 1) The bishops abroad, not only on their own initiative but, as we have seen above, with the consent and approval of the present deputy locum tenens of the Patriarchal Throne himself [Metropolitan Sergius Stragorodsky], have become temporarily independent (in the administrative sense) of the Moscow Patriarchate; and if they are not under his administration, they obviously also cannot submit to be tried by it. How important Metropolitan Sergius himself considers this condition of the voluntary submission or non-submission of the hierarchs abroad to his authority is evident from the case of Metropolitan Evlogy. In the directive in which he sets forth the latter’s suspension from serving for separation from the Moscow Patriarchate and transferring to the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, he considers as an aggravating circumstance the fact that Metropolitan Evlogy, and the hierarchs dependent upon him, had by their own free decision declared themselves to be members of the clergy canonically subject to the Moscow Patriarchate, recognizing the deputy locum tenens of the Patriarchal Throne and the Temporary Holy Synod as the Supreme Ecclesiastical Authority of All Russia and their “direct canonical leadership.” 2) Under the present circumstances of Russian life as a whole, a lawful juridical investigation for the bishops abroad, as it is established in the canons of the Church, would be impossible even from a purely procedural point of view. On the strength of the canons, an accused bishop must be personally hailed to trial by the other bishops through a thrice-repeated summons transmitted by two bishops sent to him by the Council; and only should he stubbornly refuse to appear for the investigation of his case “let the Council decide the matter against him [in absentia], in whatever way it deems best, so that it may not seem that he is getting the benefit by evading a trial” (Canon 74 of the Holy Apostles). If Metropolitan Sergius and his Synod would now like to condemn the bishops abroad, they must obviously maintain this necessary guarantee of canonical jurisprudence. But here the prescribed summons to trial of the accused bishops, much less the actual presence of them at the juridical examination of their case, is almost equally unrealizable. We are certain that the deputy locum tenens of the Patriarchal Throne himself would not insist that they now present themselves in Russia, where in addition to a church trial the vengeance of the Bolsheviks also awaits them; and if he does not, then he and the Synod have no basis for handing down in absentia any decision concerning them or imposing upon them any canonical penalty prior to their trial, especially one so heavy as suspension from serving. The canons of the Councils recognize a similar measure of warning in view of “deprivation of communion,” but it is not lawfully imposed until the accused bishop, over the course of two months, intentionally ignores two summonses to appear before the court of the first instance; but after this he retains for himself the right to appeal to “the great, general Council” to justify himself. If he also does not avail himself of this latter possibility to justify himself, “let him be judged to have pronounced sentence upon himself” (Canon 37 of Carthage). To impose upon the bishops abroad suspension from serving under the circumstances indicated above is even more incongruous, and even cruel, since the Council to which they might appeal for the defense of their case cannot convene for many years, and for them this heavy punishment might drag on for an indefinite number of years, which is of course permissible neither from the juridical, nor even more from the canonical point of view. 3) One ought not to forget that behind the activities of the current organs of central ecclesiastical administration in Russia one may always suspect the hidden hand of the Soviets, and even the so-called Cheka, which is trying in every way to annihilate, or at least neutralize, its enemies abroad, and under such conditions a trial of the bishops abroad would be not only unjust, but blatantly criminal, inasmuch as it can serve as a weapon in the hands of the enemies of the Church for its disintegration and weakening. 4) On all of these bases, and also because the bishops abroad are administering their flock abroad on conciliar principles, forming of themselves a little council as a supreme organ of ecclesiastical administration abroad, they can be subject only to judgment by a canonical Pan-Russia Church Council, to which they are also prepared to give an account of their activities side by side with Metropolitan Sergius, the deputy locum tenens of the Patriarchal Throne, who is likewise subject to the judgment of that Council. |
