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Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose)
The Royal Path
True Orthodoxy in the Age of Apostasy
Today, more than at any other time in the 50-year struggle to
preserve the Orthodox tradition in an age of apostasy, the voice
of true and uncompromising Orthodoxy could be heard throughout
the world and have a profound effect on the future course of
the Orthodox Churches. Probably, indeed, it is already too late
to prevent the renovationist "Eighth Ecumenical Council"
and the "ecumenical" Union which lies beyond it; but
perhaps one or more of the Local Churches may yet be persuaded
to step back from this ruinous path which will lead to the final
liquidation (as Orthodox) of those jurisdictions that follow
it to the end; and in any case, individuals and whole communities
can certainly be saved from this path, not to mention those
of the heterodox who may still find their way into the saving
enclosure of the true Church of Christ.
IT IS OF CRITICAL importance, therefore, that this voice be
actually one of true, that is, patristic Orthodoxy. Unfortunately,
it sometimes happens, especially in the heat of controversy,
that basically sound Orthodox positions are exaggerated on one
side, and misunderstood on the other, and thus an entirely misleading
impression is created in some minds that the cause of true Orthodoxy
today is a kind of "extremism," a sort of "right-wing
reaction" to the prevailing "left-wing" course
now being followed by the leaders of the "official"
Orthodox Churches. Such a political view of the struggle for
true Orthodoxy today is entirely false. This struggle, on the
contrary, has taken the form, among its best representatives
today—whether in Russia, Greece, or the Diaspora—of
a return to the patristic path of moderation, a mean between
extremes; this is what the Holy Fathers call the ROYAL PATH.
The teaching of this "royal path" is set forth, for
example, in the tenth of St. Abba Dorotheus' Spiritual lnstructions,
where he quotes especially the Book of Deuteronomy: Ye shall
not turn aside to the right hand or to the left, but go by the
royal path (Deut. 5:32, 17:11), and St. Basil the Great: "Upright
of heart is he whose thought does not turn away either to excess
or to lack, but is directed only to the mean of virtue."
But perhaps this teaching is most clearly expressed by the great
Orthodox Father of the 5th century, St. John Cassian, who was
faced with a task not unlike our own Orthodox task today: to
present the pure teaching of the Eastern Fathers to Western
peoples who were spiritually immature and did not yet understand
the depth and subtlety of the Eastern spiritual doctrine and
were therefore inclined to go to extremes, either of laxness
or over-strictness, in applying it to life. St. Cassian sets
forth the Orthodox doctrine of the royal path in his Conference
on "sober-mindedness" (or "discretion")—the
Conference praised by St. John of the Ladder (Step 4:105) for
its "beautiful and sublime philosophy":
"With all our strength and with all our effort we must
strive by humility to acquire for ourselves the good gift of
sober-mindedness, which can preserve us unharmed by excess from
both sides. For, as the Fathers say, the extremes from both
sides are equally harmful—both excess of fasting and filling
the belly, excess of vigil and excessive sleep, and other excesses."
Sobermindedness "teaches a man to go on the royal path,
avoiding the extremes on both sides: on the right side it does
not allow him to be deceived by excessive abstinence, on the
left side to be drawn into carelessness and relaxation."
And the temptation on the "right side" is even more
dangerous than that on the "left": "Excessive
abstinence is more harmful than satiating oneself; because,
with the cooperation of repentance, one may go over from the
latter to a correct understanding, but from the former one cannot"
(i.e., because pride over one's "virtue" stands in
the way of the repentant humility that could save one). (Conferences,
II, chs. 16, 2, 17.)
Applying this teaching to our own situation, we may say that
the "royal path" of true Orthodoxy today is a mean
that lies between the extremes of ecumenism and reformism on
the one side, and a "zeal not according to knowledge"
(Rom. 10:2) on the other. True Orthodoxy does not go "in
step with the times" on the one hand, nor does it make
"strictness" or "correctness" or "canonicity"
(good in themselves) an excuse for pharisaic self-satisfaction,
exclusivism, and distrust, on the other. This true Orthodox
moderation is not to be confused with mere luke-warmness or
indifference, or with any kind of compromise between political
extremes.
The spirit of "reform" is so much in the air today
that anyone whose views are molded by the "spirit of the
times" will regard true Orthodox moderation as dose to
"fanaticism," but anyone who looks at the question
more deeply and applies the patristic standard will find the
royal path to be far from any kind of extremism. Perhaps no
Orthodox teacher in our own days provides such an example of
sound and fervent Orthodox moderation as the late Archbishop
Averky of Jordanville; his numerous articles and sermons breathe
the refreshing spirit of true Orthodox zealotry, without any
deviation either to the "right" or to the "left,"
and with emphasis constantly on the spiritual side of true Orthodoxy.
(See especially his article, "Holy Zeal," in The Orthodox
Word, May-June, 1975.)
THE RUSSIAN CHURCH Outside of Russia has been placed, by God's
Providence, in a very favorable position for preserving the
"royal path" amidst the confusion of so much of 20th-century
Orthodoxy. Living in exile and poverty in a world that has not
understood the suffering of her people, she has focused her
attention on preserving unchanged the faith which unites her
people, and so quite naturally she finds herself a stranger
to the whole ecumenical mentality, which is based on religious
indifference and self-satisfaction, material affluence, and
soulless internationalism. On the other hand, she has been preserved
from falling into extremism on the "right side" (such
as might be a declaration that the Mysteries of the Moscow Patriarchate
are without grace) by her vivid awareness that the Sergianist
church in Russia is not free; one can of course have no communion
with such a body, dominated by atheists, but precise definitions
of its status are best left to a free Russian church council
in the future.
If there seems to be a "logical contradiction" here
("if you don't deny her Mysteries, why don't you have communion
with her?"), it is a problem only for rationalists; those
who approach church questions with the heart as well as the
head have no trouble accepting this position, which is the testament
bequeathed to he Russian Church of the Diaspora by her wise
Chief Hierarch, Metropolitan Anastassy (+1965).
Living in freedom, the Russian Church Outside of Russia has
considered as one of her important obligations to express her
solidarity and full communion with the underground True Orthodox
Church of Russia, whose existence is totally ignored and even
denied by "official" Orthodoxy. In God's time, when
the terrible trial of the Russian Church and people will have
passed, the other Orthodox Churches may understand the Russian
Church situation better; until then, it is perhaps all one can
hope for that the free Orthodox Churches have never questioned
the right of the Russian Church Outside of Russia to exist or
denied the grace of her Mysteries, almost all of them have long
remained in communion with her (until her non-participation
in the ecumenical movement isolated her and made her a reproach
to the other Churches, especially in the last decade), and up
to this day they have (at least passively) resisted the politically-inspired
attempts of the Moscow Patriarchate to have her declared "schismatic"
and "uncanonical."
In recent years, the Russian Church Outside of Russia has also
given support and recognition to the True Orthodox Christians
of Greece, whose situation also has long been exceedingly difficult
and misunderstood. In Greece the first blow against the Church
(the calendar reform) was not as deadly as the "Declaration"
of Metropolitan Sergius in Russia, and for this reason it has
taken longer for the theological consciousness of the Orthodox
Greek people to see its full anti-orthodox significance. Further,
few bishops in Greece have been bold enough to join the movement
(whereas, by contrast, the number of non-Sergianist bishops
in the beginning was larger than the whole episcopate of the
Greek Church). And only in recent years has the cause of the
old calendarists become even a little "intellectually respectable,"
as more and more university graduates have joined it. Over the
years it has suffered persecutions, sometimes quite fierce,
from the State and the official Church, and to this day it remains
disdained by the "sophisticated" and totally without
recognition from the "official" Orthodox world. Unfortunately,
internal disagreements and divisions have continued to weaken
the cause of the old calendarists, and the lack a single unanimous
voice to express their stand for patristic Orthodoxy. Still,
the basic Orthodoxy of their position cannot be denied, and
one can only welcome such sound presentations of it as may be
seen in the article that follows.
The increasing realization in recent years of the basic oneness
of the cause of True Orthodoxy throughout the world, whether
in the Catacomb Church of Russia, the old calendarists of Greece,
or the Russian Church Outside of Russia, has led some to think
in terms of a "united front" of confessing Churches
to oppose the ecumenical movement which has taken possession
of "official" Orthodoxy. However, under present conditions
this will hardly come to pass; and in any case, this is a "political"
view of the situation which sees the significance of the mission
of true Orthodoxy in too external a manner. The full dimensions
of the True-Orthodox protest against "ecumenical Orthodoxy",
against the neutralized, lukewarm Orthodoxy of the apostasy,
have yet to be revealed, above all in Russia. But it cannot
be that the witness of so many martyrs and confessors and champions
of True Orthodoxy in the 20th century will have been in vain.
May God preserve His zealots in the royal path of true Orthodoxy,
faithful to Him and to His Holy Church until the end of the
age!
This article originally appeared in The Orthodox Word, Sept.-Oct.,
1976 (70), 143-149. |
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