Introduction: Before addressing this question - some may wonder: what is a Sergianist? What is a Tikhonite? Fr. Seraphim Rose provides such answers as follows:
"After the schism of 1927, the followers of Metropolitan Sergius, who accepted his Declaration [of subservience to the Soviet regime - ed.], began to be called 'Sergianists,' while those who remained faithful to the Orthodox Church, who did not accept the Declaration and separated from Metropolitan Sergius, began to be called 'Josephites' (after Metropolitan Joseph of Petrograd).
This latter name, given by the 'Sergianists,' did not define the position, either in essence or formally, of those who protested. Apart from Metropolitan Joseph, other hierarchs, the most outstanding ones, together with their flocks, departed from communion with Metropolitan Sergius. The religious-moral authority of those who protested and separated was so high, and their qualitative superiority was so clear, that for the future historian of the Church there can be no doubt whatever of the correctness of the opponents of Metropolitan Sergius.
These latter could more correctly be called faithful 'Tikhonites.' And the activities of Metropolitan Sergius and those with him must be characterized as a neo-renovationist schism... The spiritual father who gave birth to the very idea of the Catacomb Church was Patriarch Tikhon."
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Part 1: In the video "Sergianism is now global! What is it?", [Sergianism is now global! What is it? - YouTube] a synodally accepted document of "Moscow Patriarchate" was cited which claimed that Metropolitan Sergius, by his 1927 declaration, was following the path previously adopted by the holy Patriarch Tikhon. Such a claim is also based upon the so-called "Testament" [a soviet forgery] of St. Tikhon.
This post will examine these claims.
Initially, let us remember that St. Tikhon anathematized the Bolsheviks and all who would collaborate with them. This anathema was upheld by the All-Russian Synod of 1917-18.
However, in 1923, the Patriarch "repented" of declaring this anathema. How are we to understand this? Was Patriarch Tikhon really now professing friendship and cooperation with the regime of the Red Antichrist? Was he laying the ground work for the future apostatic activity of the Sergianists?
Let us, before directly addressing this "repentance" of the Patriarch, consider the general position he was in as related by Professor I.M. Andreyev:
"Just as every single individual believer had to solve this tragic dilemma for himself alone, or at most for his family and friends, so the Head of the Orthodox Church had to solve it for the whole Church. There is plenty of documentary evidence to show that often the lives of many people and sometimes the kind of tortures inflicted on them depended on a single word of the Patriarch.
In order to alleviate the unbearable sufferings of the clergy and laity persecuted by the godless authorities, Patriarch Tikhon made a series of concessions and compromises. But the Soviet government was not satisfied with these concessions and demanded the full spiritual subjection of the Church to the State and intensified the persecutions. At the sight of these cruel persecutions which were becoming more and more outrageous and the moral and physical tests and tortures that were systematically exterminating the clergy and the faithful, and seeing how even "the elect" were falling and apostatizing, Patriarch Tikhon devoted all the powers of his mind and heart to the alleviation of the fate of his flock. He made such further concessions to the godless government as were possible to the religious conscience of an Orthodox Christian. But there was a limit that he never exceeded; he did not surrender the spiritual freedom of the Church to the servants of satan.
Patriarch Tikhon was the greatest martyr of that period. He was indeed a martyr crucified in spirit. His heart was torn by the moral sufferings and the fate of Russian Orthodoxy from whom the Soviet government was demanding treason to Christ, and he was heartbroken by the plight of his flock whose sufferings were exceeding all bounds."
Such was the general plight of the Patriarch.
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Part 2: The year is now 1923. The Renovationist heretics have risen to power with the aid of the Soviet "authorities"; and "the pressures on the Patriarch were mounting inexorably, with daily visits from the GPU agent Tuchkov, who made blackmail threats to force him to make concessions to the State. (Tikhon called him "an angel of Satan".) In April, the government announced that the Patriarch was about to go on trial on charges arising from the trials of the 54 in Moscow and of Metropolitan Benjamin in Petrograd the previous year...
At the beginning of June, the Patriarch fell ill and was transferred from the Donskoy monastery to the Taganka prison. There he was able to receive only official Soviet newspaper accounts of the Church struggle, which greatly exaggerated the successes of the renovationists. Feeling that his presence at the helm of the Church was absolutely necessary, and that of his two enemies, the renovationists and the communists, the renovationists were the more dangerous, the Patriarch decided to make concessions to the government in order to be released.
Thus on June 3/16 and again on June 18 / July 1 he issued his famous "confession", in which he repented of all his anti-Soviet acts (including the anathema against the Bolsheviks), and "finally and decisively" set himself apart "from both the foreign and the internal monarchist White-guard counter-revolutionaries".
This “confession” was undoubtedly a compromise, a concession in favor of the Bolsheviks, which sowed no little confusion and perplexity in the ranks of the Orthodox.
However, as Archbishop Nicon (Rklitsky) points out: 1) it did not annul the anathema in the name of the Russian Orthodox Church on Soviet power, 2) he did not declare himself a friend of Soviet power and its co-worker, 3) it did not invoke God’s blessing on it, 4) it did not call on the Russian people to obey this power as God-established, 5) it did not condemn the movement for the re-establishment of the monarchy in Russia, and 6) it did not condemn the Whites’ struggle to overthrow Soviet power. By his declaration Patriarch Tikhon only pointed to the way of acting which he had chosen [at least for a time] for the further defense and preservation of the Russian Orthodox Church. How expedient this way of acting was is another question, but in any case Patriarch Tikhon did not cross that boundary which had to separate him, as head of the Russian Orthodox Church, from the godless power.
Moreover, as reported in Izvestia on June 12, 1924, the Patriarch managed to write to Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky), as it were replying to the perplexities elicited by his words on “walling himself off” from the “counter-revolution” of the Church Abroad: “I wrote this for the authorities, but you sit and work”…
Tikhon was released on June 27, 1923, and his appearance in public – he had aged terribly in prison – was enough to send the Living Church into a sharp and irreversible decline. They remained dangerous as long as they retained the favor of the authorities; but by 1926 the authorities were already turning to others (the Gregorians, then Metropolitan Sergius) as better suited for the task of destroying the Church. And by the end of the Second World War the last remaining renovationists had been absorbed into the neo renovationist Soviet Moscow Patriarchate.
Additionally, "the Patriarch bitterly repented of his “repentance”; he said that if he had known how weak the Living Church really was, he would not have signed the “confession” and would have stayed in prison. And when he was sadly asked why he had said that he was no longer an enemy of the Soviet government, he replied: “But I did not say that I was its (i.e. the Soviet government’s) friend...”
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Part 3: Regarding the death and so-called "Testament" of St. Tikhon we learn the following from the ROCOR bishop Gregory Grabbe:
"On the day of the Annunciation in 1925, the Patriarch's health deteriorated. Shortly before, 2 of his teeth were pulled out, which caused a swelling of the gums that spread to his throat. Doctors, however, have not yet found anything life threatening. Despite his painful condition, the Patriarch had to go to the meeting of the Synod that day. The fact is that Tuchkov persistently and urgently demanded the publication of a message that would change the previous position of the Patriarch. Tuchkov was not satisfied with his position as "not an enemy" of Soviet power. He demanded a declaration of complete loyalty and cooperation, similar to what Metropolitan Sergius later made. The project developed at the meeting of the Synod was to be taken by Metropolitan Peter to Tuchkov for approval.
Nobody knows for sure now, but, apparently, Metropolitan Peter returned to the Patriarch at the clinic with a response or Tuchkov's demands in connection with the project. Presumably, these demands were traditionally accompanied by threats. Nobody knows the content of the conversation between the Metropolitan and the Patriarch. It is only known that the conversation with Metropolitan Peter was very heated, and the doctor went to stop him. Indeed, the Patriarch was exhausted. He soon developed a seizure. He was injected with morphine, and he went to bed.
At about 12 o'clock in the morning, the attendant noticed a worsening and called the doctor, but nothing could be done. At a quarter to 12, the Patriarch opened his eyes and asked: "What time is it?" They answered him. Then he crossed himself three times, saying "Glory to Thee, God," and gave up the ghost.
The Patriarch died during his last battle with the enemies of the Church. The current Moscow Patriarchate presents the document published after his death, which it calls his "Testament", as a genuine expression of his will. But is it? Did he really die at the moment of defeat, having made the last concession demanded by his enemies? Did he give up before dying?
We can safely say that this is not the case, that the Patriarch could not physically withstand the stress, but he died without yielding to the enemies of the Church.
Against this assertion, we are presented with an appeal published in Izvestia called a "will." They say that it was delivered to the editorial office by two Metropolitans.
By the grace of God, we have very strong evidence that refutes this statement.
This question, in itself, deserves a special study. I devoted many pages to him in my book The Truth about the Russian Church at Home and Abroad. The main, but very important witness is the already mentioned Protopresbyter Vasily Vinogradov.
Independently of him, we know that on the day of the Patriarch's death, the question of the message demanded by Tuchkov was discussed. Apparently, it was about him that the last conversation between the Patriarch and Metropolitan Peter was. The room in which the Patriarch died was immediately sealed by Tuchkov. Only a few days later Tuchkov gives the alleged will of His Holiness to two Metropolitans to take to the newspaper.
But Fr. V. Vinogradov, from the words of a person who was near the room of His Holiness the Patriarch, reports that during a conversation with Metropolitan Peter the words of the Patriarch were heard: "I cannot do this." Then, it is very important to pay attention to the fact that at the meeting of the assembled bishops, the notorious "will" was NOT read out. Fr. Vinogradov is right in emphasizing that Tuchkov, who authorized the Conference, would certainly have demanded that it be announced if it had actually been signed by the Patriarch. Moreover, Metropolitan Peter, in his first letter as Locum Tenens, not only did not mention the will, but wrote in a completely different spirit.
Attention is drawn to the fact that the so-called "will" begins with a statement, written supposedly by the Patriarch, "after recovering from his illness", but we know that, on the contrary, the Patriarch's state of health in recent days was very poor, and on the very day of the alleged signing of the document it was especially bad, there was a consultation of doctorsand the Patriarch died. The name of the letter as a will does not in any way correspond to the content of this document, which speaks of the return of therecovered author to active work. Here are just a few considerations.
Protopresbyter V. Vinogradov, comparing a lot of data, comes to a logical conclusion: there was no signature of the Patriarch under the text of the message offered to him. “But,” he writes, “Tuchkov was a man capable of not stopping before deceiving to achieve his goal; how he dealt with the already canceled message about the new style, it should be added that the original of this "will" has not been found in the archives to this day, which is the best proof of its forgery.
So, in his last battle with the enemies of the Church, the Patriarch remained undefeated. He did not darken his appearance as a fighter for the purity of the Church. Having won a spiritual victory, the Patriarch gave God his tormented soul."
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In closing, I.M. Andreyev writes concerning the apostatic declaration of Metropolitan Sergius:
"Patriarch Tikhon, in his time, had categorically refused to sign a similar declaration. After the death of the Patriarch, Metropolitan [Saint] Peter also refused to sign a declaration of that kind. For that he was arrested in December 1925, deported and tortured in exile: he died eleven years later. After the arrest of Metropolitan Peter, Metropolitan Sergius Starogorodsky succeeded him. Metropolitan Peter had not only refused to act as the locum tenens of the Patriarch but asked that in the event of his death being known he should be remembered in the church services as the Head of the Russian Orthodox Church - as a symbol of unity and fidelity to that Church. The martyr bishop [Saint] Damascene was witness to that. According to his own words, he actually had in his hands this last order of the locum tenens.
Metropolitan [Saint] Cyril, the senior hierarch and the first candidate actually designated to the position of locum tenens by Patriarch Tikhon, also refused to sign the "Tuchkov Declaration." Father Elias Pirozhenko and Father P. Novosiltsev, who visited him in his exile, wrote: "He told us how all that had been carried out by Metropolitan Sergius Starogorodsky had been offered to him and that he was glad to have remained on the straight way." Metropolitan Cyril [later] died in exile...
Similar offers to sign a declaration had been made to Metropolitan [Saint] Agafangel, Metropolitan [Saint] Joseph and Archbishop [Saint] Seraphim of Uglitch, that is, to all the most outstanding hierarchs from the spiritual point of view and the greatest sticklers for canonical integrity. At last a Judas was found among the bishops who was canonically correct."
But this Judas [Sergius] was not a follower of St. Tikhon; but rather was the initiator of a neo-renovationist schism - the father of the Sergianists alone. The true disciples of St. Tikhon, as Fr. Seraphim Rose pointed out, were the Tikhonites who fled from before the Red Antichrist into the wildernesses - into the catacombs!