"And then many shall be made to stumble, and shall deliver up one another..." (Matt. 24:10)
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Fr. Seraphim Rose writes concerning Princess Natalia Urusova (†1963):
"...in her book she offers a first-hand account of how Metropolitan Sergius personally, without pressure from the authorities, suggested which churches should be closed or blown up, and which clergy should be arrested. Hence it is not strange that her book has never been published."
And again Fr. Seraphim writes concerning Nun Veronica Kotlarevsky (†1952):
"...her testimony of how [the future] Patriarch Alexis had direct responsibility for the outcome of Holy Night*, was omitted due to the spirit of Sergianism in the free world..."
*Concerning this 'Holy Night': The date was February 18, 1932 (new style). It is a radiant and yet a terrible date, the Passion Friday of Russian monasticism - ignored by all and almost unknown to the whole world - when all of Russian monasticism in a single night disappeared into the concentration camps. It was all done in the dead of night and with the full knowledge of Metropolitan Alexis (who later became Patriarch) - about which there is sufficient evidence."
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The future Archbishop of Chile (ROCOR), but then Archimandrite Leontius Fillipovich (†1971), recalls his time in the Catacomb Church:
“Living in an illegal position and serving a very small number of my faithful parishioners, I didn’t always have an opportunity to go and secretly visit my nearest fellow priest. If I did this - having failed to sustain my loneliness – and engaged in conversation with someone like me, just to strengthen myself, I prompted an unpleasant anxiety in him: Has the neighbour noticed the arrival of an unfamiliar face or, has some secret agent noted my arrival under a secret surveillance of the house? Etc…
I too had a similar outlook. I tried to avoid meetings with the clergy at large or their friends. Through others, news reached me that there was somewhere a priest that was conducting church services secretly: but I had no wish to know who he is and from where, in what house he holds church services, because I didn’t know whether I could withstand the interrogation and not betray him should I be caught”.
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From the writings of S.V. Shumilo:
"In order to successfully expose the illegal communities of the Catacomb Church, the Soviet Patriarchate was drawn into the struggle - cooperating with the Soviet secret police. This was the so-called 'struggle against sectarianism'.
There are many known cases when monks or priests of the Moscow Patriarchate – being enlisted by the MVD, were sent into Catacomb communities in order to inform on their members. The most active catacombniks were then arrested.
This "informing system" soon got the results which the Soviet regime had hoped: in the ‘50s, more than 50% of the Catacomb communities and monasteries were “dissolved” in the USSR, thereby not only halting the increase of Catacomb Church members, but also curbing the influence of the Catacomb Church on the population.
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The catacomb Archbishop Lazar Zhurbenko reveals:
"The catacomb believers feared the Moscow Patriarchate priests even more than the police. Whenever a priest came for some reason or other, he was met by a feeling of dread. The catacomb people would say, 'A red detective has come.' He was sent deliberately, and he was obliged to report everything to the authorities.
Not infrequently, hierarchs and priests told the people outright, directly from the ambo, 'Look around, Orthodox people. There are those who do not come to church. Find out who they are and report to us; these are enemies of the Soviet regime who stand in the way of the building of socialism.' We were very much afraid of these Sergianist-oriented priests."
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From the life of St. Sergius Mechev (†1941):
Fr. Sergius Mechev firmly adhered to his previous convictions and sought communion with some like-minded true Orthodox bishop. There were many of them, but all of them were either in distant exile or
in the camps. Once at the advice of his spiritual son, Fr. Sergius met with Bishop Manuel (Lemeshevsky), who allegedly rejected Sergianism. They spoke about church affairs in a sense consonant with the Orthodox position of Fr. Sergius.
Fr. Sergius, in his desire to have an archpastoral veil, trusted him, revealed to him his soul, position and spoke concerning the illegal status of his catacomb community, about which his heart ached so much. However, soon Bishop Manuel was arrested. He then betrayed Fr. Sergius, by telling at the trial what was revealed to him in spirit as a bishop.
Later it turned out that Bishop Manuel was a convinced Sergianist, who recognized Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) and his unauthorized "church government".
As the Sergianist Metropolitan John Snychev (†1995) later recalled about his teacher: "... thanks to Bishop Manuel, a crushing blow was dealt to the main forces of the schism ... and the Josephite** movement began to rapidly fall."
**The Josephites were the catacomb followers of St. Joseph the Metropolitan of Petrograd.
As soon as Fr. Sergius found out that he was betrayed and that they were going to arrest him, he left the place where he lived, and for about a year wandered without being registered in the cities and villages, hiding with the true catacomb Orthodox Christians. He was advised to hide in Central Asia, but that meant breaking away, leaving his spiritual children - he could not do this and lived secretly here and there, constantly hiding and moving from place to place.
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From the life of Elder Seraphim Shevtsov (†1955):
Then once a new woman came with a group of Christians. When batyushka [Elder Seraphim] saw her, he said to his (spiritual) children: “Whom have you brought? Quickly get ready, let us leave this place.”
Early in the morning, before dawn, all the believers who were there, with icons in their hands, left the cave with Fr. Seraphim leading them. They went through the kitchen gardens (at that time the sunflowers were flowering, and the maize was as tall as a man) and through the woods to escape the organs of the KGB, who at that time had surrounded the house. Fortunately, they did not find any of those escaping.
The woman who had brought them to batyushka was the wife of a priest who served the sergianists. She shared information with him, and he informed the (Soviet) organs.
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Abbess Margarita (Chebotareva), recalls:
"In 1933 we still had our parishes in places, non-sergianist parishes: Priest Panteleimon served at Kolodez station. He was strong, even as a psalm-reader he had not accepted renovationism, and he did not accept sergianism. Fr. Emelian served in Malysheva, and Fr. John Sklyarov in Ulyanovsk, while Fr. Jerome [who in 1933 made me a ryasofor-nun and blessed me with his prayer-rope] served in the village of Ivanovka.
And then on one night [in 1935] all the priests were arrested. And there was a fifth with them, an old man, who was exiled. They were betrayed by a woman who was considered a nun. She came to sing with us. They said of her that she was a traitor, and we were so afraid of her, we were trembling. She was called Helen. She used to say that she was driving everyone into the Kingdom of Heaven. And it seems that they paid her for it."
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From the life of St. Damascene of Glukhov:
On November 29, 1929, Bishop Damascene was again arrested, cast into prison in Smolensk and accused of “counter-revolutionary opposition to Metropolitan Sergius and leading a church counter-revolutionary grouping”.
He had been betrayed by a member of the sergianist church, Protopriest N., who denounced Bishop Damascene before the GPU, declaring that he had given counter-revolutionary sermons.
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From the life of Fr. Alexander Orlov (†1977):
But his daughter said to him [Fr. Alexander]: “Father! I give you my room. I will hang it with icons. You pray in it as much as you want, but stay with the family!”
Fr. Alexander replied: “My daughter, I’ll do everything you suggest, but only on the condition that you leave your work for the KGB”.
His daughter replied that she could not do that. Then Fr. Alexander said: “Well then, my daughter, you cannot leave your work at the KGB, and I cannot leave my service to God and the people who have been entrusted to me. My life belongs to the Church of Christ.”
At this they parted. Fr. Alexander and his novice Maria left for Omsk, not suspecting that at the order of his daughter he had been placed under constant surveillance. By the will of God, however, Fr. Alexander*** did not fall into the hands of the KGB.
***Fr. Alexander zealously served the Catacomb Church until his death, at the age of 99 years old, in
1977. He was known to have cast demons out of people and was seen, with the Holy Angels when
serving in the Altar.