Introduction: In October, 2002 Patriarch Alexis (Ridiger) of Moscow had a frightening vision, news of which the MP immediately tried to suppress. St. Theodosius of the Kiev Caves (+1054) appeared to him and said: "You have fallen away from God - you and many of your brothers - and have prostrated yourself before the devil. And the rulers of Russia are not real rulers, but crooks [there is a pun here: "ne praviteli, a kriviteli"]. And the church is pandering to them. And you will not stand at the right hand of Christ. And there await you the torments of gehenna, the gnashing of teeth, endless sufferings, if you accursed ones do not come to your senses. The mercy of our Lord is boundless, but your path to salvation through the redemption of your countless sins is too long for you, the hour of reckoning is near." Then he disappeared. The patriarch was in shock, he had never experienced anything of the sort before, and always responded with scepticism to such miracles. Shortly after this he felt ill. Those who gave him first aid affirm that the sick man was whispering, scarcely audibly: "It can't be, it can't be!"
The author of the text below is A. V. Krivolutsky, the son of the well-known Catacomb Confessor Fr. Vladimir Krivolutsky. In it he comments on this frightful appearance of St. Theodosius:
“Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against the Lord your God, and have scattered your ways to the strangers under every green tree, and you have not obeyed My voice, said the Lord. Turn O backsliding children” (Jeremiah 3:13).
For those dwellers on earth, who were given from God - “eyes to see” and “ears to hear”, it has been no secret for a long time that many MP hierarchs have concordantly turned away from Christ, and “with all your heart, and with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30) loved not their Lord God but someone else – let the reader understand this. At the same time, these fortunate possessors of “eyes to see” also know something else: that any attempts to directly address questions for the current MP master [Patriarch] regarding – to put it mildly – unseemly or, as they say today, the negative phenomena that have become more frequent within the MP of late - those daring to question are undoubtedly labeled as seditious. Meanwhile, the authors of such inquiries, whether they are secular or monastics, are soon put in their place by the MP which utilizes her rich experience - experience accumulated during the period of their zealous cooperation with the various departments of State Security during the Soviet times. Often the monastics, who dare to question anything, are simply ejected from their monasteries. However, even here they are not left alone by the bloated finger of him [Patriarch Alexis], who during the time of the Soviet regime collaborated with the State Departments of Security [i.e. the KGB]. We are referring to Agent “Drozdov” who now appears as the Patriarch of the MP.
But here, our Lord, being a long-suffering and ever merciful Shepherd, having said: “I don’t desire the death of a sinner, but that he should be converted and live”, was willing to send to the Moscow “patriarch” His good warrior, the heaven-dweller Saint Theodosius, Abbott of Kiev-Pechersk monastery. This event is manifestly extraordinary, because the Lord doesn’t send His chosen ones except in rare cases. Additionally, the “patriarch’s” solid experience of communing and collaborating with the departments of security, whose competency is strictly limited by a partite world, makes this occurrence all the more astonishing.
A Messenger from Heaven cannot be shaken, to be riled and pushed out the door. Even to the “rulers of this age” (1 Cor. 2:6) he cannot be given up, to be sent to psychiatric institutes, or somewhere far away, as often happened with the like-minded faithful who are still dwellers within our sinful world…
According to the words of one of the specialists - doctors who was close to Alexis II, and who were near him when the unexpected visit of the heavenly guest occurred: “His holiness was visibly confounded, apparently seeing before him for the first time in his life, one of the heaven’s dwellers in whose existence he didn’t believe very strongly”. After the Saint had disappeared, he was unrecognizable: where did his inherent optimism go, which at this serious moment revealed that its foundation was erected on shaky grounds, which were established either premeditatedly or by mistake - and not on rock but on poor quality sand. The Lord spoke about this to His Disciples: “Therefore, whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on a rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on the house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on the house; and it fell. And great was its fall” (Mat.7:24-27).
During his triumphant travels over many years in his native land and far past her borders, our greatly solicitous and zealot of Ecumenism met a wide range of personages: with heads of governments, political and social activists, their “Holiness”, their “Blessedness”, Rabbis, Muftis, heretics of all persuasions and even with sportsmen-Olympians. And everything was going as “smooth as silk”… until the fatal incident in Astrakhan. But suddenly, the lengthy, very successful marathon run suddenly came to an end, and not without God’s will - to be sure. Akin to the house built on sand, the house fell “and great was its fall”, just like the man that didn’t listen to Christ’s words and didn’t fulfill them.
The cold-blooded and fearless (in the sense of not fearing God) “Holiness”, “having a form of godliness but denying its power” (2 Tim. 3:5), suddenly finds himself in a very difficult situation, being totally impotent and unarmed. Why unarmed? Because as it has been stated - he stepped away from the truth: “His truth shall be your shield” (Psalm 91).
We shall now attempt, O pious reader, to juxtapose this with an event in the Old Testament, concerning Saul’s visit to the sorceress. Both here and there, there was a stepping away from God and this is the principal similarity of both mentioned events. The only difference between the two is that in the Old Testament, the Lord departed from Saul; while here – in the depths of the MP, the “patriarch” in company with his brothers, departed from God, as disclosed by the Lord through the mouth of Saint Theodosius.
Now let us mentally transport ourselves from the dwelling of the sorceress to Astrakhan, where Saint Theodosius suddenly appeared to the current MP master. According to the available information, Ridiger neither fell to the ground nor bowed to the Saint: although sometimes the current archpastors do fall – more about this later, but in any case, not before God’s Saints, because they are made of coarse Soviet dough.
Having appeared to Saul, Prophet Samuel said: “The Lord is departed from you, and has become your enemy. And the Lord has done to him as he spoke by me” (1 Kings 28:16-17). Saul fell to the ground when he recognized the appeared Prophet Samuel, and bowing to him, exclaimed: “God has departed from me…”.
However, the Lord forced Ridiger to accept the uninvited heavenly guest and hear His accusatory words, to which the pampered ears of the vain and self-righteous Primate of Moscow are not accustomed - being rather, only accustomed to perceive only the "perishable praise" which caresses the ear.
More than that, the Lord said: “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (Gen, 18:14), and He arranged everything so that after the short visit by the heavenly dweller, a stupefied Ridiger in seeking some sort of support from those present at that time, confessed to them what had occurred, and narrated to them verbatim what the Saint had announced to him:
“You have fallen away from God - you and many of your brothers and fell in with the devil. And the rulers of Russia are not Her backbone but are distorters. And the Church indulges them. You do not stand on Christ’s right hand. And a fiery agony awaits you: grinding of teeth and eternal torment unless you come to your senses, ungodly ones. Our Lord’s mercy is limitless, but the path to salvation through redemption of your countless sins is too distant, yet the hour of reckoning is near”.
Thus, something extraordinary occurred in Astrakhan: our Lord the Chief Shepherd impelled Alexis II – being in an extremely crushed mood – to disclose the genuine truth, which rarely came from the mouth of this enemy of God’s truth. And if the Lord didn’t compel him to do this, then presumably not one of earth’s dwellers – up to the sounding of the “Angel’s trumpet”, would be aware of what happened in Astrakhan. The future behavior of the MP and Patriarch Alexis stubbornly testifies to this.
Even so, how did Alexis II react to the true good warrior of Christ? He reacted exactly as an unbelieving hierarch would to such an event. Let us recall the Lord’s words: “How can you believe, who receive honor from one another, and do not seek the honor that comes from the only God?” (John 5:44). Having lost their usual cold-bloodedness, Ridger’s trembling lips could only whisper: “It can’t be so, it can’t be so…”, thus confirming the just words, uttered by Abraham to the rich man that was in Hades: “If they do not hear Moses and his prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead” (Luke 16:31).
But the situation would have been completely different, had there been an appearance before Ridiger, not of the humble Abbot of Kiev-Pechersk monastery – sent undoubtedly by the Lord, but some desired earthly guest, close to Ridiger in spirit, from the cluster of current idols of this world e.g. governor Luzhkov, or popular entertainer singer Kobzon, or perhaps Rabbi Arthur Shneier (who in 1993 gave Alexis II a chalice with precious gems), or some other such individual “whose eye has loved the beauty of this world”.
Obviously, if this had occured he wouldn’t have had any heart attack, no state of depression, or any stupefaction… Instead, there would have been a joyful meeting of genuine one-minded bosom-friends who were disinterestingly concerned, day and night, about the spiritual regeneration of the Russian people! And the lively dialogue between them would undoubtedly have taken place in their close, clearly understood, nearly native language…
Days and years will pass, and where will these current key figures and idols of this world appear, among whom is the ever-busy master of the MP? Far from being the least figure but instead occupying a highly honored position, he is a lively participant in many prosaic socio-political events, and tries to please everybody: “us and them”, often carrying out the pitiful role that had been assigned to him. In looking on his bustling sycophant activities, we are reminded of a story about one Staretz, likewise being a bustling and very paternal individual, who was firmly convinced that the basis of his assiduous activities was his genuine love of his neighbor. This tireless staretz believed in this up to his final days. The townspeople regarded him as a great ascetic for his philanthropic acts and loved him dearly. Countless numbers of people shed tears after his death… However, the Lord said to the Angel of Death: “Take his soul and agonize it for it gave Me no rest for one minute during his lifetime”.
But let us return to the event under examination. There, where in the 17th century, the valiant Saint Joseph suffered for Christ, and now completely unexpected to the Moscow “patriarch”, he is being reminded about God Himself – He who was being slowly forgotten by Ridiger’s cold heart – “Christ is God, Whose Kingdom of all ages and Whose Dominion is over all” – is the genuine Master of the vineyard, which He Himself planted in the Russian land.
Better still let us listen to the vineyard Master Himself: “Many pastors have destroyed My vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot, they have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness. They have made it desolate, and being desolate, it grieves Me” (Jeremiah 12:10-11).
Thus, weeps Christ’s beloved land, which has been turned into a desert by the hierarchy of the Moscow Patriarchate, “Penitent tears do not flow from frigid eyes.”
“What else ought to be done for My vineyard, that I have not done for it? Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, it brought forth wild thorns” (Isaiah 5:4).
“Yet I have planted you a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then did you turn it into the degenerate plant of a strange vine to Me? …your iniquity is marked before Me” said the Lord God (Jeremiah 2:21-22).
"Thus says the Lord, stand you in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and you shall find rest for your souls” (Jeremiah 6:16).
But let us return directly to the event under examination. What happened to Ridiger after he regained his composure? As mentioned above, the Lord compelled him to listen to the words of denunciation, spoken by the heavenly messenger, which he would never listen to if they were pronounced by a mere mortal. Now, the Moscow “patriarch” found himself in the situation of a knight at a cross-roads, before which there were only 2 eternal paths, of which one had to be chosen.
The first path was to listen to what the Saint announced to him - to repent, or as the Saint expressed it, “come to his senses” as soon as possible, because the “hour of reckoning is near”.
The second path was to leave everything as it was, to wave his patriarchal hand at what the Saint said to him, and to call for help upon his old method which had frequently "saved" him - i.e. to resort to lies - for which the Saint stated that Ridiger and his brothers have become conjointly their offspring…
Having forgotten that our God is “God of the penitent” (Prayer of King Manasseh of Israel), and that “there is joy in the presence of the Angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:10), the Moscow “patriarch” chose the second path, thereby confirming once again a long-known truth: “Penitent tears do not flow from frigid eyes.”
As soon as Ridiger came to his senses, his immediate wish was to conceal the true reason for his distress: to hide the true details of what happened, about which he related to some people as he was in a state of shock. At the same time, he didn’t want the true information to leak out to undesired quarters as he rightfully thought that this may compromise not only himself, but the organization of which he was the head. He reacted as he had in the past when circumstances demanded that he extricate himself at any price from an ill-fated history. With practiced ease, he extracts from his stunted spiritual-moral arsenal, that which has saved him more than once: deliberately going for a deception, he declares that during the seizure he had hallucinations… “I have loved strangers, and after them I will go” (Jeremiah 2:25). He acted as he did in the past.
With regard to the Astrakhan occurrence, from the bosom of the MP, as always, a refutation followed, in which, as usual, information which had been leaked (not without the will of God) concerning what had happened was declared to be false and was aimed at causing a division in the reviving church of the MP - which was firmly united around its "infallible" First Hierarch.
This conniving art of getting out of an unpleasant situation, with the help of lies and deception, was inherited by the MP from the Communist theomachist authorities, to whom it has been attached throughout the unforgettable youthful years of its insidious existence – their mutual years of very “emotional” joys and successes. The Soviet authorities lied from the moment of its emergence, right up to the last minute of its existence. Likewise, synchronized and parallel with it, the MP hierarchy lied: at the beginning by the first hierarchs-apostates, followed by their worthy disciples-apostates of the second, and then third generation.
During the frightening Soviet years, when many clergy and laity on the wide expanses of our land were found in various places of imprisonment, camps and in exile, suffering for Christ and His Church, one of the Synodal high-priests from the first generation of apostates, traveled overseas many times and attempted to hide from the faithful in the West, the existence of the new Russian martyrs and confessors who were being held in gloomy confinements. With a frothing mouth, he tried to convince them that these were all “criminals”. O! What “criminals”! If only our merciful Lord granted us at least a fraction of the limitless love for Christ, which these sufferers possessed for their faith behind barb wires and which we witnessed with our own eyes…
Likewise, the contemporary First Hierarch and his heretical brethren, meticulously conceal from the All-Russian flock, the details of their voyages and crafty deeds carried out in the West. Apparently, it is this fact that the Saint had in mind when he said: “the path to salvation through redemption of your countless sins is too distant, yet the hour of reckoning is near”...
The series of examples of lies, deceit and concealment of dark anti-Church acts that are committed by the leaders of MP under the guise of the Orthodox banner, can be continued in a long list. The outlined event at Astrakhan - concealed and denied by the MP, is undoubtedly from this series.
There is no need to be amazed about both the Saint’s declaration to Ridiger, or the reaction which followed initially from him, and subsequently the official denial from the firm he headed. One can and must only be delighted and revere the immeasurable ever-patient Lord, watching silently from the heavens, the multi-faceted trans-national performance staged by the High Priests, Pharisees and Scribes from the bosom of the MP. These are concerned purely with earthly priorities, and achieving success in their selfish tasks, which have the devious appearance of spirituality. The crux of the deep meaning of these gravely accusatory words that resonated from the lips of Saint Theodosius, lies in the fact that the all-seeing eyes of our forbearing Lord, which at one time “saw a den of thieves” (Mat, 21:13) before the magnificent façade of the Jerusalem Temple, has now easily recognized the devil’s cleverly created decorations – the contemporary variation of the “den” – created by the new apostates.
After the Saint’s appearance, it became quite obvious that the unrepentant spectacle, pompously designed performance, which has nothing to do with genuine spiritual rebirth, failed miserably, because “glasnost” became the substance of the final act of this loudly advertised MP show. From the words of the Saint, it appears that the Lord has prepared a miserable fate for the "patriarch" of Moscow and “without flattery” for the brethren devoted to him, let us emphasize again, - devoted to him – but not to Christ. These are far from being the same! Ridiger and his followers boldly stride along the wide path that leads to destruction (Mat.7:13), gracefully corresponding their conniving actions “with this world” (Romans 12:2), and relying totally on the government and support from the powerful leaders of this world. The Lord excludes the tallied “of like mind” that have stepped away from Him – from the sheep of His flock and include them among the goats that will be placed to His left, so that they may realize their damning situation (Mat. 25:33)…
“O brothers, with the departure of our soul” says Saint John of the Ladder, “we will not be accused for not having created miracles, did not preach, that we didn’t achieve the power of seeing: but without any doubt, we will have to give God an account as to why we didn’t continuously weep over our sins”. (Seventh Word).
According to Tradition, the Apostle Peter’s eyes were always red from tears, because he cried all of his life remembering his threefold renouncement of Christ, and the Lord’s thrice expressed words after His Resurrection: “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?...” (John 21:15-17).
Let us remember the words of blind Iolantha: “Eyes were given so as to weep”.
Unfortunately, of different thought are those of clerical rank and situation, who are not only obliged before God to know and understand this, but to continually teach their flock. But sadly, being involved in more "important" matters that are on the list of their priorities (and which deal with the temporal life of the world and the MP - being also confirmed by his "Holiness" personally) they acquired for themselves in an indiscernible manner: “Frigid eyes, from which no tears of repentance are flowing”.
But one might ask: where did they get their frigid eyes? We will attempt to answer this question.
Let us remember who the past teachers and preceptors were that headed the MP and in what “manner” they served in the lives of their students. The great majority of these “teachers”, from the first generation of “apostates”, in addition to the two names given o them at baptism and tonsure, managed to acquire additional [KGB] "agent" nicknames for themselves, which gave witness to their stubborn “sins of youth and ignorance” that they committed during the time of tight collaboration with the Departments of Security (recall: the late Metropolitan Pitirim had the impressive agent name of “Abbot”, while the current “Patriarch” has the rather modest agent name of "Drozdov”, etc.
Do agree with us, pious reader, that not every local church can boast of such cadres of clergy with such documented evidence. Of course, it is possible not to mention this at all, but, the names of archpastors from Eastern Europe who have repented publicly after the fall of Communism are known to all; from the many hierarchs in the MP collective, there hasn’t been one that has publicly repented, which gives undisputable witness to the fact that “From the frigid eyes of such “archpastors”, there are no flowing tears of repentance”.
Frigid eyes – as we were able to establish – are in those that have cold hearts and are far away from the Lord. A long, long time ago, when the grandparents and great-grandparents of the current hierarchy were in the "loins of their fathers" this was already known to the Great Russian Saint – Seraphim of Sarov.
“The Lord has revealed to me” – said the Saint, - “that there will be a time, when the Bishops and other spiritual figures of Russia will turn away from preserving Orthodoxy in all its purity, but the wrath of God will strike them down”. “I stood for three days, asking the Lord to pardon them, and instead deny me, wretched Seraphim, the Kingdom of Heaven, rather than punishing them. But the Lord didn't accept the plea of poor Seraphim and said that He will not pardon them as they will be teaching “the teachings and commandments of men, and their hearts will be far away from Me…”
In relating his unsuccessful three-day prayerful request to the Lord for the pardon of the hierarchs-apostates, the Saint was crying, while those for whom he was praying with such ardent love, contrived to secure for themselves “frigid eyes that do not shed repentant tears”.
It’s worthy to note that the grave condemnatory words uttered in Astrakhan by Saint Theodosius of Kiev-Pechersk, are fully concordant to that which was revealed by the Lord to Saint Seraphim in the dense forests of Sarov.
The Lord said: “Do not fear those that kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Mat.10:28; Luke 12:4-5). Who should we definitively fear? It’s doubtful that there is another person that could answer this question better than one of the Ecumenical teachers and Hierarchs:
“Don’t be afraid of the lion, or the noble leopard: you can even chase the snake away. Believe me, there is only thing that is fearsome – bad bishops. Don’t quaver before their highness of office, because many are endowed with dignity, but not all have grace…” (Saint Gregory the Theologian).
Everything that is occurring in the core of the MP, can be described far deeper and more definitively than us by the true and unwavering adherent - Martyr Bishop Mark (Michael Novoselov). We will now quote short excerpts from his letters.
“Let us not be disconcerted by the unfaithfulness of the many pastors and archpastors and as if this is an unexpected phenomenon! This is not new to God’s Church because the moral convulsions always emanated from the hierarchs and not from the faithful…”
“Let us not be bewildered because quite often, simple monks and everyday laity reveal not only more fervency in God’s work and spiritual sense than archpastors: and before – according to Saint Hilary, Bishop of Picktavii, ‘The ears of the people are more sanctified than the hearts of the hierarchs’. (Tenth Letter).
The over-whelming majority of the false archpastors of the MP – not excluding the “patriarch” himself, have simply forgotten that the Christ’s True Church, is not only and not so much earthly, as She is Heavenly; is not only and not so much visible, as She is invisible. Having fixed all their concentration and far from selfless attention on that which can be seen with their carnivorous, frigid eyes: what can be assessed, weighed, felt, converted, privatized, seized, or at least “tied up” according the laws of Klondike, they in essence, ignored in the past and are ignoring currently the richness of the Russian Church in that She was always bright, grace-filled and miraculous.
Speaking with self-assurance about the so-called “regeneration” and pointing with a prevaricator’s finger to the gilded walls, “golden cupolas, a sea of lit candles” and such similar purely external attributes, the MP heads are stubbornly following their “own reasoning, their own opinions”, and they do not fathom what the true Russian Church is.
“To the Lord God, purity of soul and body is the Cherubim’s Altar, and not walls embellished with gold” – this is what was taught by pious ascetic Theophanes, Abbott of Kirill-Novozersk monastery.
And it’s bitter and frightening to currently behold that even that one who calls himself "the holy Archimandrite of the Holy Trinity-St.Sergius Lavra”, whose non-Russian heart is far distant from the Lord, was not given by the Lord to know and understand what a true Russian Church is in its bright, grace-filled purity, without any addition of alien and extraneous components – societal, political, cultural, educational, social, commercial, and others, under each of which, upon close examination, one can easily detect self-interest [motives of profit].
When the present Rabbis, Elders of Israel and other descendants of those who once shouted with one accord to Pilate: “Crucify, crucify Him!”, sensing within themselves “conscience’s call” and abandoning their personal pressing matters, conceived a selfless and ardent concern about the regeneration of the Russian people - hand in hand with the First Hierarch of Moscow; then for the current descendants of Orthodox Christians, in possession of “eyes to see”, it became clear that such types of joint efforts, can only produce devastating results. And it was about these sensational results that the heavenly messenger in Astrakhan related: “You have fallen away from God - you and many of your brothers and fell in with the devil”.
Today’s MP Church, headed by hierarchs-apostates, has internally fallen away from Christ and concluded a monstrous barter, having received in return the priceless love of everything that the world promises to its loved ones: covered them with glory and honor, gave them gold, crowned them with praises, and all in the name of their covetousness…
Let us recollect the Apostle’s warning: “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15). “WE are unable to fit into the procrustean box of contemporary life: but if their measurements can accommodate us, it means we are not real Christians… It means we are of this world and not God’s”. (Hieromonk Seraphim Rose).
The treacherous deal, mentioned above, marked the beginning of a ruinous symphony, whose full spiritual deformity is now exposed with all its diabolical power. The vile meaning of what is happening in the depths of the MP was unable to be concealed from the All-Seeing God, Who said through the mouth of the Saint: “You have fallen away from God - you and many of your brothers and fell in with the devil”.
And if earlier someone from the high priests and scribes of the MP attempted – just as these attempts are made today – to justify the existence of this deal, having adopted crafty arguments, despite the Lord moving His little finger, and sending the seemingly indestructible Soviet-Communist system into non-existence and affording them a unique and miraculous opportunity to defer to Him and dissolve the shameful deals – these deals from all the current hierarchs-apostates of the second and third generation; they not only didn’t take this golden opportunity – presented by God to reform, but on the contrary, increased the tempo of their deviating steps along the path of Judas, hiding and masquerading their deviation from Christ by staging a hypocrital spectacle. Thus the Saint stated: “You do not stand on Christ’s right hand”.
Now the center of gravity in the struggle against Orthodoxy has shifted: if once it was outside of the Church, then in our crafty time this nominated center of the grave struggle, finds itself in a comfortable nest, swaddled under the “super-efficient” (as it appears to the “errant faithful”) roof of an “unsinkable” (according to them) saving ark of the MP, which calls itself a Church…
At the same time, you cannot battle against Orthodoxy without entering into hostilities with God Himself. And to battle against God requires – as Hieromonk Seraphim Rose at one time noted - definitive blindness and illusory strength. Those who had to come into contact with MP hierarchs could not but see these noted qualities in them - i.e. spiritual blindness and illusory strength possessed by them in sufficient measure.
“You can struggle against God, and it is the essence of the contemporary epoch: but it is impossible to defeat or hide from Him anywhere. His Kingdom will continue eternally, and those who reject His call to His Kingdom, will burn forever in the flames of Hell”. (Hieromonk Seraphim Rose – “Man against God”.
This was detailed in Astrakhan to the First Hierarch of the MP by Saint Theodosius of Kiev-Pechersk: “a fiery agony awaits you: grinding of teeth and eternal torment unless you come to your senses, ungodly ones…”
That, which was known to the smug MP heads, was also known and understood by Saint Pelagia Ivanovna of Diveyevo, who commented on Sergius’s act in 1927, just before the dispersal of her monastery:
“We will have to wait and see what action will occur here, and walk away to the side while the horns are not fully grown… You cannot reconcile the Devil with God… it’s a mindless intention… Fortunate is that person who walks away from sin. How can you save such a Church with politics? Is it possible to take satan by the hand and lead him toward serving God?”
The miraculous event that occurred at Astrakhan, is a marvelous page in our Church’s history. One can keep quiet about the details of this event as to what truly happened: one can conceal or deny it, as have the true witnesses to this happening - some clothed in clerical vestments, but: “Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did He in heaven, and in the earth, in the seas, and all deep places” (Psalm 135).
In examining the event, one finds it remarkable that by God’s will, there was a meeting between two completely diverse and spiritually polar worlds: the quiet and humble messenger of Christ, “mentor to the monks and interlocutor with Angels”, who hated assiduously, during his earthly sojourn, the existing world with all of his being - this one appeared to the constantly self-lauding and very much attached to and in love with the earth’s resplendent offerings – the smug and vain Moscow “patriarch”. It was in this way that they met one another face to face: Holiness and impiety, if not to say ungodliness; Orthodoxy and pseudo-Christianity, if not to say anti-Christianity; Humility and vanity, if not to say pride; Truth and hypocrisy, if not to say lies; Light and duskiness, if not to say darkness, etc…
As the primary Apostle affirms there is nothing in common or in accord between the above listed heterogenic and mutually excluding understandings – there isn’t and cannot be: “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols?” (2 Cor. 6:14-16).
However, the leaders of MP have a different opinion, and their speeches and actions appear as attempts to refute the above Apostle’s epistle.
A question may arise in the pious reader’s mind: why is it that among the vast host of Saints of Russia, the Lord – in this instance – selected specifically Saint Theodosius of Kiev-Pechersk and not another Saint?
His life compiled by chronicler Saint Nestor of Pechersk, reveals a number of known instances of Saint Theodosius’s appearance to monks and laity. The Saints homilies and epistles issued by Saint Theodosius, are written very plainly, without any rhetorics or oratory and with great feeling.
In his conversation with prince Sviatoslav, the Saint told him the following: “There is nothing more satisfying to me than to be driven out for the truth; for that I am ready to be incarcerated and even unto death…”
In his “Will” to the Grand Prince Izyaslav of Kiev, who the Papists attempted to convert to Catholicism, the Saint instructed them thus: “Beware, children, of those who are crooked in faith, and beware of all of their conversations [sermons] because our land has been filled with them. And if someone does save his soul, it will be because he lived in the Orthodox Faith… If someone praises his own faith and a foreign one, he becomes a binary-believer, close to heresy… If someone says: your faith and ours is from God: then you, child, answer thus: ‘Who are you, you heretic? Do you think that God has two faiths? Don’t you hear what the Gospel states: ‘One Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Ephes. 4:5).
In delving into the Saint’s above-mentioned homily, it becomes perfectly clear why to God’s enemy of the truth – Alexis II, who is “profligating with strangers under every green tree” (Jeremiah 3:13) – to this great grand master of compromise, assiduously and methodically seeking and apparently finding, a certain spiritual consensus between Belial and Christ (2 Cor. 6:15); this ardent devotee of fraternization and kisser of various heretics; this inveterate lover of the pseudo-Christian game of “sister-Churches”, and organizer of entertaining ecumenical gatherings, the Lord had sent especially Saint Theodosius, Abbot of Kiev-Pechersk.
One should not be surprised by the reaction to the appearance of Saint Theodosius: this reaction [in the form of lies] came first from the master of the MP, and then from his organization, in the form of a denial of what really happened. Naturally, nothing else could have followed from the depths of the MP.
Therefore, let’s not be confused as to why our God-bearing father, Saint Theodosius appeared to the new Russian clique of “mercenaries”, who care not about the sheep (John 10:12-13), as a kind of “persona non gratis”.
This indeed evoked an ardent desire by the MP “to apply all brakes” on the whole history of the Saint’s appearance, and conceal the details of this happening that compromised the First Hierarch with his brethren, which placed under doubt their ostensible, hypocritical and in essence, their soulless “piety”. This explains why there is the drive to convince the faithful that nothing special occurred at Astrakhan.
Summarizing the above, we come to the following conclusion: if here in the world, Saint Theodosius became a “persona non gratis” to that whole multitude of “warped MP believers", then without a doubt, for the inhabitants in the radiant land from which he came and about which it was said: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Cor. 2:9), all of those tightly united and like-minded brethren from the MP, who in the words of the Saint have fallen away from God, are in turn also “persona non gratis” on the path to the Heavenly Kingdom…
To those warped believers, who are still doubtful about the event, there remains only one option: in unison with their “blind leaders of the blind” (Mat. 15:14) - to stubbornly repeat those words, which were whispered in Astrakhan, after the disappearance of the Saint and upon the administering of first aid to their master: “It can’t be so, it can’t be so…”
[The text above has been kindly translated by Seraphim Larin.]