On the Spiritual and Moral Significance of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia

All parts of the Universal Church have one common goal--the preaching of the Word of God, the preparation of people to be members of the Body of Christ, and, becoming such, to more truly and solidly live the Divine Salvific life of the Body of Christ, for therein lies salvation.

In the attainment of this common goal, each Local Church has its own significance. Every nation is given special talents by God's Providence.

Every Church manifests its mission in accordance with these talents. For this reason, every nation, or union of related peoples, has its own Church, and this division of ecclesiastical authority helps achieve the goals of preaching.
For this reason the Orthodox Church allows the establishment of new Local Churches, and so, new centers of preaching. In this way the Russian and other Slavic Churches were formed. Every nation has its own characteristics of spirit and that is the foundation of the establishment of Local Churches. Taken together, they form the One Universal Church and impart those particularities and gifts that the Good Servants earned from the talents given to them by God. That is how the symphony of spiritual sounds and colors that is pleasing to God is created, with which the Church is adorned, which in turn unites all nations in the Glory of God.

This beauty is sent from the earth to heaven like the burning of aromatic incense.
The Russian Church brings its flowers and its sounds to that pageant: let us compare the occasionally somber strictness of the saints of the East with the spiritual warmth of the Russian saints.

Scattered throughout the world, we preserve the characteristics of our soul given to us by God. That beckons us to preserve the unity with the Church with which God entrusts our actions, our spiritual nourishment and upbringing, the continuation of our spiritual fervor, the development of our talents.

For this reason, scattered throughout the globe, we erect our Russian churches and all together form one Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.

The spiritual manifestations of the Church in all the nations are the same, but their forms—their colors and sounds—are different.

The separation of service and gifts was pleasing to the Creator of all, God the Savior. We know and sense the spiritual benefit and we feel the joy, seeing how various peoples, with their differing characters and gifts, glorify the One God. So, for example, guided by a genuine churchly mind and feeling, the Serbian Church joyfully gave succor to the Russian Church, witnessing the spiritual benefit of her presence.

Our Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia is the free part of the Russian Church. Testimony to its unity is the fact that God’s mercy, manifested in our Homeland in the renewal of icons, did not limit itself to the borders of Russia, but occurred even in the Russia Abroad, in Russian churches and in the hands of Russian Orthodox people in the diaspora.

Spiritually, the Russian Church is indivisible: it was always the one and only Russian Church, wherever we happen to be.

Being a part of the Russian Church, we cannot have communion with the church authorities subjected and enslaved by a state hostile to the Church. To be in a state of subjection and enslavement is to be spiritually ailing: it is against the nature of church authority to be subjected to a government which aims to destroy the Church and the very belief in God.

And those who are held in such dependence cannot fail to sense and recognize that sickness: some, whose consciences are living, suffer; others, with a burnt conscience, accept this condition.

The Church authority in Russia is in just such a situation; we cannot separate and comprehend what it does freely, and what actions it is forced to take. The Church authority in Russia is the very image of imprisonment and spiritual powerlessness: there is no free will, there are no free actions.

There is no one with whom to have communion: there is no free Church authority!
The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, for this reason, is not connected administratively with that authority. But we are united in spirit with the Holy Russian Church, for we are part of the Russian Church.

We cannot think that in our Homeland all are spiritually enslaved by the state. We believe the opposite. We do not test hearts, which can only be seen by God; but we know that there is no freedom of conscience or of will, we see that silence has taken root there, that there is no sociability, people there cannot choose their life’s path, cannot follow their hearts; it is a state which was foretold by the prophet Micah: “Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide” and “a man's enemies are the men of his own house.”

The godless state has a crushing effect on people. It subjugates not only bodies, but imprisons the soul, dehumanizes a person and as a result, the genuine Russian soul is distorted.

We, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, preserve our unity, communing with every Church with which we can.

In our diaspora throughout the world, we do not subject ourselves to Local Churches, not because we are hostile to them, but because we preserve the holy Russian Church and the qualities of the Russian soul.
Our Church unity is expressed in the inclusion of all of the diaspora under a single church authority, and this unity preserves the Russian people abroad within loyalty to the podvig [labors] bestowed upon them by God.