V. Moss: Open Letter to RTOC Synod on Ukraine War
Holy Archpastors of the Church of Christ!
Bless! and Christ is Risen!
On March 13, 2023, you issued an ukaz in which you said: “Now there has begun a passionate polemic between our Ukrainian parishes and several Russian parishes, who have created their own information links without the control of the Synod, with mutual accusations of a sinful attitude to participation in military actions on both the warring sides [in the war in Ukraine]. In connection with the harsh experiences to which a part of the parishes of RTOC and our flock that are living on the territory of Ukraine have been subjected, and continue to be subjected, we consider it necessary to ban self-willed utterances and publications of argumentative articles that have not been agreed by the ruling Bishop and Bishops of the Synod, which do not reflect the opinion of the Synod and are provoking the quarrel that has arisen up to a division in our flock…
(Сейчас между нашими украинскими приходами и несколькими российскими, создавших свои информационные сети без контроля от Синода, началась страстная полемика с взаимными обвинениями в греховном отношении к участию в военных действиях на обеих противоборствующих сторонах.
В связи с тяжелыми испытаниями, которым подверглись и продолжают подвергаться часть приходов РИПЦ и наша паства, проживающая на территории Украины, считаем необходимым запретить не согласованные с Правящим Архиереем и Архиереями Синода, самовольные высказывания и публикации спорных статей, не отражающие мнение Синода и провоцирующих возникший раздор, вплоть до разделения в среде нашей паствы на фоне возможных и «добросовестных заблуждений».)
Let me say first of all that I have been waiting for months, if not years, for the Synod to give clear moral advice to us on what attitude we should take to this war and the rule of V.V. Putin in general. In 2004, when Archbishop Lazar (Zhurbenko) was still alive and head of the Synod, you courageously and correctly called the actions of Putin ”antichristian”. That was years before the invasion of Georgia in 2008, of Crimea in 2014 and of the whole of Ukraine in 2022, which were far more antichristian actions. But Archbishop Lazar is now dead – and you keep silent…
In 2014 Bishop Germogen issued his advice that Putin was the “restrainer” (uderzhivaiushchij) of the Antichrist (II Thessalonians 2)! Shocked, I wrote to him and the Synod protesting this anti-Orthodox statement. After all, how can a man whose actions, in your words, are “antichristian”, be at the same time the “restrainer” of the Antichrist? Do we not consider all Russian leaders since Lenin to be under anathema? However, as far as I know, Germogen neither repented of his words, nor did the Synod call him to order. And now we see the fruits of this shameful inactivity. The most evil and immoral acts of any Russian leader since Stalin are ignored, even condoned on the basis that it is all the West’s fault anyway (see your recent “Obrashchenie”, which for some reason you do not permit to be published on the RTOC website).
Secondly, since when is free speech forbidden in our Church, with threats even to laymen? Since my baptism in ROCOR in 1976, I have been in several Synods, both Russian and Greek, and have always spoken my mind freely, often against bishops and priests. And nobody has told me I do not have the right to do that, even when he disagrees with me. In fact, Archbishop Andrew of Rockland (+1978) said that my writing would help the Church… We are not free to preach heresy or schism. But we have both the right and the obligation to criticise our spiritual leaders if they make mistakes. If that right is denied, then the Church quite quickly ceases to be truly Orthodox, “the pillar and ground of the truth” (I Timothy 3.15).
Thirdly, can you please discourage the practice of allowing people who disagree with you to be called “russophobes” (as for example Valentina Sologub has called me). I am not Russian, it is true. But if I am a Russophobe, why did I adopt a Russian name in baptism, marry a Russian wife, and buy a house in Russia? It is possible to love Russia and at the same time hate what the present Russian government is doing to Russia. In fact, I believe that the real Russophobes are the supporters of that truly anti-Russian and anti-Orthodox tyrant, V.V. Putin.
Holy Fathers, what has happened to your catacomb spirituality? How can you not see that the actions of Putin and his Red Army are dictated by the same God-fighting spirit as motivated Lenin and Stalin? How can you not see that? Even if the KGB propaganda about western malicious involvement were all true, what can possibly justify, from a Christian point of view, the mass slaughter of so many thousands of innocents and the razing of Ukraine’s cities and infrastructure to the ground? You cannot justify that… Can you destroy the heretical spirit of the West by bombs and torture? You cannot… For, as the Lord said, and the holy tsar-martyr repeated, you cannot defeat evil by evil, but only by good…
Finally, Why do you not send at least a word of support and consolation to the Ukrainian members of our Church? Why, instead of attacking Bishop Savvaty of Ukraine and his priests, do you not allow their voice to be heard? Why do you not at least ban, not free speech, but the joining of the Red Army by the members of our Church?
With love in Christ,
Vladimir Moss
April 7/20, 2023.
Holy Pascha.
