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| The Moscow Patriarchate: "The defenders of Sergius say that the canons allow one to separate from a bishop only for a heresy which has been condemned by a council. Against this one may reply that the deeds of Metropolitan Sergius may be sufficiently placed in this category as well, if one has in view such an open violation by him of the freedom and dignity of the Church, One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic."
- St. Joseph, Metropolitan of Petrograd (d. 1938), "If you are helpless to defend the Church, step aside; clear the space for someone stronger than you." - St. Peter, Metropolitan of Krutitsk (d. 1936) "... You are nothing other than a continuation of the so-called 'Renovationist' (Living Church) movement, only in a more refined and very dangerous form ... "All this imperatively compels us to boldly raise our voice and cease our now already criminal silence over Your mistakes and incorrect actions and, with the blessing of Dimitry, Bishop of Gdov, to disassociate ourselves from You and those who surround You. Leaving You, we do not depart from the lawful Locum Tenens, Metropolitan Peter, and we shall give ourselves over to the judgement of a future council." - Letter of the Clergy and Laity of Serpukhov to Metropolitan Sergei, 1927 "As for me, acknowledging my responsibility before God for the flock entrusted to me, I have declared on January 10/23 of this year to Bishop Sophronius, who has been assigned to the See of Great Ustiug by [Sergius'] Synod, that my flock and the clergy of Nikolsk -- except for the cathedral clergy, who have been rejected by the people -- cannot accept him because we have separated from Sergius and his Synod. And on the other hand I have informed Metropolitan Joseph that I canonically join to him the clergy and laity of the Diocese of Great Ustiug, in accordance with the blessing of Vladika Irinarch, whose lawful Substitute I am at the present time for the whole Diocese of Great Ustiug. ... "... I propose that my epistle be read and considered at assemblies of the faithful, so that all might know the way the matter stands and freely enter into unity with me, remaining faithful to the Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal See, Metropolitan Peter, and to the entire Orthodox Russian Church; concerning which I request you to send me a written statement. Only the clergy of the Cathedral of the Lord's Meeting in Nikolsk ... are in a state of excommunication from me until they shall show sincere repentance in the form established for Renovationists, or until a complete council of bishops shall judge the case of Metropolitan Sergius and those who are with him (10th Canon of the Holy Apostles)." I place before you these hirelings, who see the wolf approach and flee; do not follow them, my brethren and children ..." - St. Hierotheus, Bishop of Nikolsk (d. 1928) "After the historic Petrograd Delegation Metropolitan Joseph, then already banished, raised Bp. Dimitry to the rank of Archbishop and temporary head of the Petrograd Diocese. Metropolitan Sergius thereupon placed Archbishop Dimitry under interdict ... "Archbishop Dimitry, fearlessly following in the footsteps of Metropolitan Joseph, refused to accept this or any other decrees coming from Metropolitan Sergius, recognizing that by his 'adaptation to atheism' he had placed himself in schism from the Russian Church." - I.M. Andreyev on St. Dmitri, Archbishop of Gdov (d. 1938) "... I accept you into communion in prayer with myself and under my archpastoral leadership .. until such time as a complete Local Council of the Russian Church, at which there will be represented the entire active episcopate -- i.e., the present exiles-confessors -- shall justify by its conciliar authority our way of acting, or until such time as Metropolitan Sergius will come to himself and repent of his sins not only against the canonical order of the Church, but also dogmatically against her person ... " - St. Dmitri, Archbishop of Gdov (d. 1938) "But if the temporary substitute of the Patriarchal Locum Tenens will stubbornly continue in his scheme, and will not free his post, we will depart from him as a whole Church, for the episcopate has the right and the foundation to deprive him of the authorty in which it clothed him for building up and not destroying (II Co. 10:8) the life of the Church. ... "But if Metropolitan Sergius disobeys the voice of the Church and will stubbornly continue in his policy and pretend to the authority of the chief hierarch, then he of course will turn out to be a church rebel and schismatic." - St. Pachomius, Archbishop of Chernigov (d. 1937) "We, the bishops of the Yaroslav church region, acknowledging the responsibility which lies on us before God for those things which have been entrusted to our pastoral guidance -- the purity of the Holy Orthodox Faith, and the freedom for the ordering of the inward church-religious life which Christ has given us as a testament -- in order to calm the disturbed conscience of the faithful, having no other way out of the fatal situation which has been created for the Church, from this time onwards separate from you and refuse to acknowledge for you and your Synod the right to the higher administration of the Church." - St. Agafangel, Metropolitan of Yaroslav (d. 1928) "Let the whole visible 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." - St. Victor, Bishop of Glazov (d. 1934), "With what joy I gave over to you my own rights as Substitute of the Locum Tenens, believing that your wisdom and experience would cooperate with you in the governance of the Church. "But what happened? Can this fatal act really not be corrected? Will you really not find the courage to acknowledge your error, your fatal mistake, the issuance by you of the Declaration of July 16/29, 1927?" - St. Seraphim, Archbishop of Uglich (d. ca. 1935) "Concerning the modernized church or concerning Sergian 'Orthodoxy', I, a sinner, believe that, as regards such church activists, we must call them not only heretics and schismatics, but as those who have apostasised from God. After all, Metropolitan Sergius brings into the church service a heresy unheard of in the history of the Church, the heresy of modernized apostasye from God, - of which the natural consequence has been confusion and schism in the Church. Can one, after this, affirm that the declaration and activity of Metropolitan Sergius concerns only the external life of the Church, and do not touch in any way the essence of the Church's Orthodoxy? In no way can this be said. Metropolitan Sergius, by his self-wise and evil-worshipping declaration and the anti-Church work which followed it, has created a new renovationist schism or Sergian renovation, which while preserving for the 'little ones' a fiction of Orthodoxy and canonicity is even more criminal than the first two renovationisms of 1922 and 1925. And so Metropolitan Sergius has trampled on not only the external, but the very inner essence of the Orthodoxy of the Church, since his 'hosanna' to Christ and Antichrist, which is now being performed in Christian churches, touches the very essence of Christian Faith and presents by itself clear apostasy, falling away from the Faith, and departure from God." - St. Paul, Bishop of Starobela "By his actions against the spirit of Orthodoxy, Metropolitan Sergius has torn himself away from unity with the Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, and has forfeited the right of presidency in the Russian Church." - St. Alexei, Bishop of Kozlov (administering the Diocese of Voronezh) (d. 1936) ". . . it is essential for an Orthodox Bishop or priest to refrain from communion with Sergianists in prayer." - St. Cyril, Metropolitan of Kazan (d. 1937?) "If looking from afar I still supposed that there were some circumstances justifying his behavior, I have completely lost this belief." - St. Damascene, Bishop of Glukhov (d. ca. 1935) |
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