ROCA Position on Cyprianism

Our ROCA Position on Cyprianism        • English •

Our ROCA'S Position on Metropolitan Cyprian and his Synod in Resistance 

by Priest Victor Dobroff

http://remnantrocor.blogspot.com/2013/02/our-roca-position-on-cyprianism-english.html

Our ROCA'S Position on Metropolitan Cyprian and his Synod in Resistance, by Priest Victor Dobroff

Condemnation by the ROAC Council over Metropolitan Cyprian’s doctrine and those who share this doctrine is wrong because it is canonically unjustified.

[November 2008]

On the Eve [Threshold] of the Vth All-Diaspora Council:

On the Orthodoxy of the Doctrine
on the Church by Metropolitan
Cyprian of Oropos and Fili
and on the Fallacy of the
Council anathema of ROAC

Priest Victor Dobroff

kindly translated by Vladimir Djambov

“He that hath an ear, let him hear
what the Spirit saith unto the churches.”
(Rev. 3:22)

Condemned on February 17^th, 2007, through a resolution by the Council of the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church (ROAC), was the Orthodox doctrine of Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos and Fili as being unorthodox. Condemned also along with the doctrine were those who share it, [all they] being recognized as coming under the Anathema of the [Russian] Church Abroad on Ecumenism, of 1983:

“We recognize the doctrine of the Greek Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos as hapless philosophizing, secretly introducing into the minds of the faithful [the] ecumenical ill-faith, and we condemn it. All those who share the doctrine of Cyprian are under the same anathema on this ecumenical heresy, issued in 1983 by the Council of Bishops under the chairmanship of the First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, St. Philaret (Voznesensky).”

This frightful determination was issued by the ROAC Council on the basis of a study of the report of Bishop Andrew ['Maklakov'] of Pavlovo, which is cited in full below.

Inasmuch as the [Russian] Church Abroad, under the leadership of the  Higher Church Authority of Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, under our Metropolitan Agafangel,    just as before, is in full communion with Metropolitan Cyprian’s Synod in Resistance of the True Orthodox Christians in Greece, according to the wording of the Determination, though it has its completely independent traditionalist ecclesiology which differs from Met. Cyprian's ecclesiology, according to certain people, however, is subject of its own anathema of 1983, [so] we need to review and consider the report of the Most Reverend Andrew, is that which has been stated in the ROAC conciliar determination: the question:  is this anathema-pronouncement  truly  Orthodox?... and does it correspond to the Truth?

The report to the ROAC Council by its member,  Bishop Andrew of Pavlovo is cited in full below with parallel commentaries by the author of this article, Fr. Victor Dobroff, highlighted in the text in bold:

On the Hapless Doctrine of Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos and Fili

Bishop Andrew of Pavlovo

“[The prince of this world, Satan – as from the very start – waged a fight against God, so now, too, he does not cease – through people subordinate to him, his servants, – to wage a fight against the Almighty God and His elect appanage – [namely] the Church of the Saints [saintly] and the town of the beloved. [A misquote of: Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.] (Rev. 20:8). He [Satan] seeks to distort the Divine Truth, the Revelation of God to mankind, the faith – once delivered to the saints, through invention and distribution of various false teachings and heresies, insomuch that, if it werepossible, they shall deceive the very elect (Matt. 24:24) and detach them from the salvific body of the Church of Christ, and take them into eternal perdition. Even within the small flock of the true-Orthodox Christians the enemy erects temptations and separations. In our irreligious time, a time of a cooling off  of faith, he has introduced the pernicious heresy of ecumenism, which has flooded and detached from the Church, all the historical patriarchates..

A more palatable and covert form of this heresy is the new doctrine of the Greek Old-Calendar [traditionalist] “Synod in Resistance”, headed by Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos and Fili.– A very early statement by Bp. Andrew in the beginning of his report to the Council, not yet proven by anything and canonically not justified by it [in the report].

Walled- off in 1985 from their bishops, Met. Cyprian of Oropos and Metropolitan Giovanni of Sardinia founded their own Synod and formed their own ecclesiology, which they consider the only true one, calling the other True-Orthodox faithful “extremists”. Decades of experience have shown that Met. Cyprian was right when on the basis of the 15th Rule of the Double Council, professing the original, (laid out as early as in 1935,) Orthodox ecclesiology of the Old Calendar Greek Synod, he seceded from the “extremists”, what extreme condition, in actual deed his opponents [have] revealed themselves to be.

This ecclesiology was set out by Met. Cyprian in the work “Ecclesiological Theses or a Statement of the Doctrine on the Church for the Orthodox [who] Oppose the Heresy of Ecumenism”, Fili, Attiki, 1993. At that the Synod in Resistance said that “the conciliary justified ecclesiological foundation of our Holy Synod in Resistance is clearly differing from the ecclesiology of the other Synods of the patristic calendar in Greece” (Epistle to the ROCOR of 24 June / July 7, 1993).

The doctrine of Met. Cyprian was condemned in 1985 by the Synod of the TOC of Greece chaired by Archbishop Chrysostomos II as un-Orthodox.

Archbishop Chrysostomos II was compelled to respond to the separation of Bishops from his Synod for ecclesiological reasons of great importance.

After 1924, the Greek Church adopted the new calendar, and began to participate in the ecumenism movement, the Old Calendar Christians remained without a single bishop and for more than a decade were bereft of episcopal omophorion.

The hierarchy of the Old Calendar Christians in Greece has its origin in the three bishops who in 1935 switched to the side of the old-calendarists of the Synod of the Greek Church, which had at that time abided in the new calendar and in ecumenism for 11 years already.

This is the first canonical untenability of the ecclesiology of the modern-day Chrisostomites which brings any careful observer to a logical paradox: if in the new-style ecumenical synods, by their categorical opinion, there is synonymously no grace, then how is it that three “graceless” bishops could form in 1935 a grace-filled Old-Calendar hierarchy and a grace-filled Old-Calendar Synod?

Does not Christ teach us: «Или признайте древо хорошим и плод его хорошим; или признайте древо плохим и плод его плохим, ибо древо познается по плоду» – You either recognize a tree as good and it's fruits as good; or [you] do recognize a tree as corrupt and its fruits corrupt, for a tree is known by it's  fruit. ["For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. For every tree is known by his own fruit]. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes." – ] Lk. 6:43-44.

In 1935, Met. Chrysostomos I – the first Primate of the Greek Old-Calendar Synod, stated that  the Mysteries of the new-calendarists had grace, for the new-calendarists were only in a potential schism. After this statement two bishops immediately separated themselves from the Old-Calendar “heretical Chrysostomites”, one of whom – Matthew Brestensky, thirteen years later, in 1948, single-handedly ordained the so-called 'Matthewite Synod'.

Fifteen years later, in 1950, the Synod of Met. Chrysostomos I renounced the 1935 ecclesiology and said that the ecumenist new-calendarists were..... graceless!

As you can see, the ecclesiology of the Old-Calendar Greek Synod, currently lead by Chrysostomos II, lacked perseverance and ranged from one extreme to the other, contradicting both itself, common sense, and the traditional ecclesiology of ROCOR, that abstained from any final decisions on the issue of grace in other jurisdictions.

To condemn it, i.e. Metropolitan Cyprian’s doctrine, as a false teaching, and that of the other TOC of Greece – but this is an unmerited condemnation, especially when they came [originated] from synods of dubious canonicity and which are not lawful, and here’s what is really sorrowful –  is the fact that in so thinking in this manner, some of these synods have come to condemn their founding FIRST Old-Calendar hierarchy (!)

Those of the Russian bishops who condemned this communion were only His Grace Bishop Gregory – of all of the ROCOR Council the only one bishop, Bp. Gregory Grabbe expressed his private  opinion on this matter – (Grabbe) in 1994, who gave a brief critical analysis of Met. Cyprian’s ecclesiology and made the conclusion that Cyprian “confesses his own and by no means an Orthodox doctrine on the possibility of grace-filled action of Holy Spirit in churches that have already become clearly heretical." This was a very important conclusion of the famous canonist of the 20th century –of  Bp. Gregory Grabbe. As we can see, Vladyka Cyprian does not  affirm [approbate] that Grace in the Mysteries with the new-calendarists is effective [acting], but simply that he does not deny the possibility of such action.

His Grace Vladyka Gregory (Grabbe) rightly pointed out that, by adopting the doctrine of Cyprian, the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad has fallen under its own anathema against ecumenism of 1983. This statement of Bp. Andrew of Pavlovo is not accurate. The Russian Church Abroad has catholically recognized the Orthodox confession of Vladyka Cyprian’s Synod and – without betraying its own traditional confession – adopted in communion with it,  not a doctrine, but with an ecclesiology not different from its own, but as its Greek sister-church.

Of course, the private opinion of an outstanding canonist, as Bp.  Gregory,  leads us to reflection, but do not the words of another outstanding bishop – a pillar of Orthodoxy, a 'foreign' [exiled] Abba, then an Archbishop, and later ROCOR Primate Metropolitan Vitaly (Ustinov) make us think as well – the words which  he spoke in his Nativity epistle in 1987:

"At this time, most of the Local Churches are shocked to  their entire body by a terrible double blow: the new-style calendar and ecumenism. However, even in such a sorry plight of theirs we dare not, and God forbid us from this,... say that they have lost the Grace of God. We have proclaimed an anathema against ecumenism for the children of our Church alone, but with this [having done so] we very modestly, but firmly – gently, but decisively, are as if inviting the Local Churches to ponder it as well. "

But for us, the Orthodox, what are  crucial are not the private opinions of hierarchs, even of the most respected ones, but the voice of the Catholic ['Sobornost'] fulness: The Council of Bishops of the ROCOR in 1994 Determined that the ecclesiology of the Synod of Metropolitan Cyprian is Orthodox, that it complies, and that it does not conflict with the traditional ecclesiology of the [Russian] Church Abroad, refraining from a Conciliar Determination as to the presence, or absence of God’s Grace in the Mysteries of other local churches, [it, i.e., ROCOR], as not being endowed with the power of either a Local or an Ecumenical Council.

Taking into consideration all this, “anathemizations” sound surprisingly strange from the mouth of [former] ROCOR bishops and clergy, [i.e., ROAC bishops/priests of today], who back in their time tearfully asked for, and  were received, and even chirotonized [consecrated] in the (ROCOR) Church, which church was abiding in fullcommunion with the Synod of Metropolitan Cyprian(!) Are they not, in this manner, [as if] anathematizing themselves?

The main provisions of this doctrine are as follows:

1. The Mysteries performed by heretics and schismatics are valid as long as these are not condemned by an all-church Orthodox Council, and the decisions of formerly held Councils are insufficient. This is exactly so, for only within the power of an Ecumenical Council there lies the power to determine which Local Church, or independent Synod, has fallen into heresy and is bereft of Grace. Vladyka Cyprian does not affirm that in the Mysteries of the new-calendarists and ecumenists that they are valid, but speaks about the fact that until the [church] trial over them by an Ecumenical Council, their Mysteries may be considered as such. Hence the conclusion is drawn that the heretics and schismatics are in actual fact not such, but are only “members of the Church who are ailing in [their] faith, not yet brought to court” (Ch. 1).

2. The Orthodox Church is not really one, but has split into those  who are ailing in their faith and into those who are opposing  heresy. The ecumenist heretics who are members of the body of the Church are called “Orthodox ecumenists”. Vladyka Cyprian in his Orthodox doctrine does notsay that the Orthodox Church is 'not one', but – confessing Her unity, calls the Local new-style ecumenical churches, ailing members of that same one Church Body.

In this way Met. Cyprian considers all the churches of the “world Orthodoxy” [to be] as [the] one church with the True-Orthodox Christians, in which [one church] acting [valid] is one and the same salvific Grace of the Holy Spirit. It is absolutely clear that in the doctrine of Vladyka Cyprian, all of “world Orthodoxy” – this is the aggregation [totality] of the ailing – from the spiritual infirmity of ecumenism and other [similar] innovations – members of the One Church. Met. Cyprian dares not say that in the ailing members of the Church there operates [acts] that same  salvific Grace as that [acting] in the healthy members, but it is exactly his doctrine that leads to the conclusion that the saving fullness of Grace acts exceptionally in the healthy [sound] parts of the Church body, [while] at the same time, in according to the degree of falling away from Orthodoxy, the Grace of God diminishes in the ailing member.

Cyprian compares ecumenists with iconoclasts and claims that prior to the VII^th  Ecumenical Council, that the iconoclasts allegedly were not heretics and that their sacraments were valid. Cyprian utters a blasphemy saying that the Holy Fathers received the iconoclasts not into the Catholic [Universal] Church, but “into Orthodoxy”, separating with this [exactly] the Church from Orthodoxy. In this as well it is again seen how deeply wise Metropolitan Cyprian is. It was exactly from Orthodoxy, that those children of the Church who had strayed into the iconoclastic heresy, were being returned to, for the very form of accepting them [back] into communion testified to this.

Meanwhile, the general tradition of the Orthodox Church affirms that Orthodoxy and the Church are inseparable, one may not be in the Church without the true [Ortho-] faith. Divine Maximus the Confessor said: “God has in all [possible] ways declared the Catholic  [Universal] Church as the right and salvific confession of the faith in Him (την ορθην και σωτήριον ομολογίαν)”. St. Cyprian of Carthage also speaks of this: “The same as, that the devil is not Christ, although he deceives in His name, evenso  the one who does not abide in the truth of His gospel and faith cannot be honored as a Christian” (On the Unity of the Church, 14). It seems that Bishop Andrew is mistaken in his interpretations. What is the Orthodox Faith? A Faith affirmed in one of the newly formed synods, or a Faith, affirmed by the Holy Ecumenical Councils? Who is now admiring the canonical authority of the Ecumenical Council and makes his own judgment [court], branding the local churches as heretics and schismatics?

St. Gregory the Theologian teaches: “Turn away from those who hold to a different doctrine and who honor those alien to God and [to] the Ecumenical Church” (Epistle 2 Versus Apollinaris). St. Gregory Palamas: “Those who are of the Church of Christ, those are also of the truth; while those who are not of the truth, they are not of the Church of Christ ... for we must distinguish Christianity not by  outward appearance [looks of it], but by the truth and its accuracy to the faith”.

The Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs on the Orthodox faith says: “We believe that the members of the Catholic Church are all those who are the only real faithful, that is who certainly are professing the pure faith of Christ the Saviour” (par. 11). The Orthodox testify to this Faith by proclaiming the Orthodox Creed [Symbol of Faith]. In this way, outside of Orthodoxy, outside the Orthodox Creed [Symbol of Faith], there is no Church, and he who distorts Orthodoxy, falls away from the Church.

The Holy Fathers of the Councils received penitent heretics exactly into the Church. Thus, the holy VII^th Ecumenical Council said: “let them read their renunciations, those of  the forthcoming bishops, as the ones who now turn to the Catholic Church”.

The Lord Jesus Christ Himself said in the Gospel: “He that believeth on him is not condemned” [Not He that believeth on the Son is already condemned !!!] (Jn. 3:18). St. Peter also teaches: “there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.” (2 Pet.2:1). St. Ap. Paul in his epistle to Titus, says: “A man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition reject; Knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself.” (Tit. 3:10-11).

Every year on the Sunday of [the Triumph of] Orthodoxy the Church proclaims anathema on the heretics whose teaching has ever been condemned by a council, so that it would be obvious to all that all decisions of the Church Fathers accepted by Church at Councils do remain in force [even] to this day, and excommunicating from itself all those who disagree with this right [Ortho-] and salvific confession.

The Byzantine canonist Zonaras in his interpretation of rule 6 of the II^nd Ecumenical Council says, “Heretics are all who think in disagreement with the Orthodox faith, no matter if it was it a long time ago or recently that they were excommunicated from the Church, they were excommunicated, according to the wise words of Zonaras, by an Ecumenical Council, no matter if they kept to an ancient or to a new heresy”.

According to this, the Eastern Patriarchs also, in their Encyclical Letter of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church announced that the Orthodox faith, “being already fully revealed and captured [imprinted], admits no subtraction nor addition, nor any other changes, and the one who dares either do or advise or contemplate these things, has already been rejected by the Faith of Christ, has already subjected himself voluntarily to eternal anathema for blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

St. Philaret of New York echoed [repeated] the voice of the Holy Fathers: “The Anathema, proclaimed by the Church, is an excommunication from her of him who has actually already stopped abiding in it” (Sermons, Volume 1, p. 115).

Thus, the propositions of the Holy Fathers and [of] the Councils are eternal determinations and fall onto the head of anyone who distorts the faith of the Church. Rule 15 of the Double Council called the bishop preaching heresy, and over whom there had been no ecclesiastical trial [court], a “pseudo-bishop”, because he apparently had fallen under the court of the previous HolyEcumenical Councils and had been condemned by them.

And so, in spite of Cyprian, the Church has always taught and teaches that it is not the Council but the very heresies that excommunicate their followers from the Orthodox Church and from God; that deprive them of God’s Grace and of salvation. The Church teaches exactly this – that the “pseudo-bishop” is subject to the court [judgement] of the previous holy Councils, [which have] condemned the heresy preached by a heretic, and is condemned by them – by the Ecumenical Councils! The Councils only proclaim loudly the condemnation of heresies and of all who hold to them, but for those who affirm the dogmas of faith, and they thus to save themselves,  a general obligation  to believe in the way they have stipulated as a law.

Cyprian impiously teaches that the one Church of Christ was divided into ones infected in the Faith and those who have resisted [the faith]. Vladyka Cyprian teaches that the ailing and the healthy [sound] members of the Body of the Church were divided among themselves, not being separated from their single [one/united] Church Body. According to Cyprian all the Church is composed of “healthy members” – [the] Orthodox, and “ailing members” – heretics and schismatics, not yet condemned and therefore “not separated [excommunicated]” from the Body of the Church.  It is forbidden to the healthy members to commune with the ailing. But the ailing are one [united] with the healthy potentially (δύναμει), while the condemned are separated [excommunicated] in real terms [!] Met. Cyprian, an issue of the Synod in Resistance, № 1 January 2000, pp. 31-32).

Yet, this doctrine is foreign to the Orthodox tradition, which teaches that the Church as the body of Christ cannot be divided, one can only fall away from it. Just as the Lord Jesus Christ cannot have several bodies, so He cannot have several churches. The Lord said that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church (Matt. 16:18), and “he who has not withstood in the part of the good, he has separated himself from Her [the Church], he who has withstood – has not separated himself’ (Rev. Barsanuphius and John. Question 810). “The Episcopate is inseparable – teaches St. Cyprian of Carthage – and the Church is Catholic, one, indivisible, and unfragmentable but is all over united and fastened together by bonds of the agreement with each other of its pastors.” It is not of a division of the Body of Christ that Metropolitan Cyprian teaches, but of its unity. And in this there is no new doctrine, for this teaching is a repetition of a very old one, for the God- inspired Paul himself – comparing the Church to the human body, consisting of healthy and ailing members, said: “And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.” (1 Cor. 12:26)

Heretics and Orthodox have never been in one Church, in [the] one body of Christ, but the heretics fall away from the Church. Cyprian teaches wrongly about the new-calendarists and ecumenists as [being] members of the Church, but at the same time he recognizes the possibility to separate [fence off] from them in a “resisting to innovations”, “parallel” Church, thus forming an “unwarranted gathering”. Separating from the Church are only those dissenters who themselves fall away from the unity with her. Not to separate oneself from the Church, but to wall oneself off from errors is what Metropolitan Cyprian teaches. It was not an unwarranted gathering, not a church new-formation – divorced [torn off] from the Mother-Church, that Metropolitan Cyprian created, as do some extremists, but he did what the Church Fathers require the Orthodox to do, what the Holy Orthodox Church teaches its children to do – to resist evil, to fence oneself off – until a Conciliar Court condemnation be pronounced – over the heretics and schismatics.

The ecclesiology of Cyprian grossly distorts  Orthodox theology and brings in chaos to the canon law of the Church. It brings down heresy to the concept of a simple sin. Sin potentially separates man from the Church of the faithful, but while the sinner remains Orthodox in faith, he abides in the Church and makes his penance. While heresy, as a mortal sin of the mind, always separates man, in real terms, from the Church”.

And the Lord himself, too, revealing to us the picture of our present time – and to be soon of the world's coming end, mystically confirms the correctness of Metropolitan Cyprian’s doctrine on the healthy and the ailing members of the Church, through the mystery of the seven stars (Rev. 1:20). Indeed, on a par with the God-pleasing with their purity, the  Smyrna and Philadelphia Churches, the Lord called also 'Churches' (Rev. 2 and 3) the other five churches who were infected with the heresies of false teachings and vices. “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.” (Rev. 3:22)

Consideration of the report of Bishop Andrew of Pavlovo to the ROAC Council led us to the fundamental belief that the doctrine of Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos and Fili is Orthodox, and although it differs from the traditional Orthodox ecclesiology of the Russian Church Abroad, it does not contradict it.

Condemnation by the ROAC Council over Metropolitan Cyprian’s doctrine and those who share this doctrine, is wrong (!),  because it is canonically unjustified.

Priest Victor Dobroff