The confession of Saints: Voices must be weighed, not counted!


"Perhaps I do not dispute that 'there are more of you presently than of us'. And let it be that 'the great mass is not for me', as you say. But I will never consider myself a schismatic, even if I were to remain absolutely alone, as one of the holy confessors once was. The matter is not at all one of quantity, do not forget that for a minute: 'The Son of God when He cometh shall He find faith on the earth?' (Luke 18.8). And perhaps the last 'rebels' against the betrayers of the Church and the accomplices of her ruin will be not only not bishops and not archpriests, but the simplest mortals, just as at the Cross of Christ His last gasp of suffering was heard by a few simple souls who were close to Him."

"Let us firmly remember that the Truth Himself was crucified by a majority (an overwhelming majority) of votes, and let those who now refer in their own justification to the majority rather read in this a terrible reproach and rebuke for themselves, that in their 'majority' Christ the Truth is again crucified!"

(St. Joseph, Metropolitan of Petrograd - pictured on the left)

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"...every soul is to be tried and every place sifted, so that the grain may be separated from the straw, even if in small quantity, since there are few chosen, as said the Lord... "

(St. Victor, Bishop of Glazov - pictured 2nd from left)

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"Voices must be weighed, not counted..."

"Truth does not cease to be truth, because even some 'chosen' renounce her and perhaps even almost all will renounce her..."

(I.M. Andreyev - pictured in the center)

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"Truth is not always where the majority is otherwise the Saviour would not have spoken of the 'little flock.' And the head of a Church has not always turned out to be on the side of Truth."

(St. Victorin Dobronravov - pictured 2nd from right)

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"He would do well to remember the words of the Savior about whether the Son of Man shall find faith on earth (Luke 18:8)! He would do well to remember the many apostolic predictions about the impoverishment of faith and the multiplication of all wickedness in the end times! He would do well to remember what the Seer said about the Church in Sardis, in which only “a few people” “did not defile their garments,” and the glorious Church in Philadelphia, “not having much power,” but retaining the word of the Lord and not denying Christ’s name (Revelation 3:4,8)!

A “plurality” and a “majority” are necessary in parliaments and political parties, but not in the Church of God, which is the pillar and affirmation of Truth, independent of such categories and even in opposition to them as the Church is a witness unto itself."

 (St. Theodore, Archbishop of Volokolamsk - pictured on the right)