Revisionist History: The Moscow Patriarchate’s Rejection of the Catacomb Church & Synod Abroad
The October 2023 edition of the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, the official journal of the Russian Orthodox Church – Moscow Patriarchate, recently published an article written by Father Peter Ivanov, entitled “Have a Good Memory: On the 80th Anniversary of the Election of Patriarch Sergius at the Hierarchal Council of 1943” which is an essay dedicated to Sergius, the so-called Patriarch of Moscow, of sorry memory, who for less than thirty-pieces of silver sold the Russian Orthodox Church to the God-hating Soviet authorities in 1927 with his Declaration of subservience to the Soviet regime. That article, which is written in celebration of the 80th anniversary of Sergius’ usurpation as the Patriarchal locum tenens and the Patriarch of Moscow, is filled with a spirit of historical revisionism. At the beginning of the article, the author briefly discusses the events of the 1940’s where Orthodox Christians were subjected to cruel persecutions at the hands of the godless Soviets and were murdered for their faith. However, after this short paragraph he proceeds to describe how Sergius came to power and this is where the revisionism comes about….
