Voices from Russia

His Holiness Aleksei Rediger (1929- ), Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia, First Hierarch of the Moscow Patriarchate

The Archpastoral Council that took place last week was a graphic demonstration of the unity of the Moscow Patriarchate. For the first time, a delegation from the ROCOR participated in the sessions. Not only intra-church affairs were on the agenda, for one of the main items of discussion was the theme that Patriarch Aleksei II already raised in his speech before the Deputies of the European Parliament in Strasbourg. This was the conflict of modern liberal values with traditional Christian morals. As an example of this, he spoke of the homosexual marriages now legalised in some countries, which forces society to no longer consider such behaviour sinful. As a result, the Council approved a document on the Orthodox understanding of human rights. The bishops know that this position shall be strongly condemned in Europe. However, both the Russian and foreign hierarchs all agreed on this together.

Twenty years ago, they couldn’t even pray together… even simple ordinary everyday conversation seemed impossible. For almost a century, clergy and laity on different sides of the borders of the then-USSR considered each other enemies and were hostile to one another… Soviet Russia versus the White emigration. Each side had its pain… the Civil War, the bloodshed, the foreign lands of exile. When they said “Holy Russia”, it seemed that they were talking of two very different countries.

All thought that a miracle would be needed for reconciliation. However, they united a year ago. Now, they speak about the miracle that happened, how they understand one another thoroughly now, and it seems as if there was never almost a hundred years of separation. This was an Archpastoral Council of the MP graced with the participation of the hierarchs of the foreign church, an event truly out of the ordinary. For the first time, Orthodox Americans, Australians, Kazakhs, Japanese, and Russians spoke, served, and lived together.

A little buffet in a small café in the centre of Moscow… here sits Metropolitan Hilarion of New York and Eastern America. He’s a little troubled by his accent, but, not when he’s praying. Modern Russian… he only learned that relatively recently. His parents emigrated to Canada from Volynia, their native language was Ukrainian, and their mother-church was Russian Orthodox. However, even then, in the middle of the last century, they did not recognise the Ukrainian Orthodox Church that had appeared in the diaspora.

Metropolitan HIlarion Kapral (1948- ), Metropolitan of New York and Eastern America, First Hierarch of the ROCOR

“We were Russian Orthodox because we considered that Russians, Byelorussians, and Ukrainians are one people. Therefore, my parents did not join the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which was a splinter group”, said Metropolitan Hilarion, who is the First Hierarch of the ROCOR. “Orthodoxy is so joined with Russian consciousness that only those people in the emigration who retained a sense of Russianness remained in the Church. Those who stayed outside of the Church were assimilated into the local culture in short order”, noted Archpriest Peter Kholodny, the Treasurer of the Holy Synod of the ROCOR.

Nikolai Sluchevsky, the great-grandson of Pyotr Stolypin was one of those who did not assimilate. Although he was born in California, he considers Russia his homeland. He started a story about parish life in San Francisco with the following words, “How many young people are coming to church! This is a new thing for us”.

Not only pleasant matters were discussed at the Archpastoral Council. There was the whole scandalous affair of Bishop Diomid of Anadyr and Chukotka, more precisely, he was a bishop two days ago, but, now he is deposed from his office. Some of his parishioners came to Moscow to support him outside the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. They did not hide from the cameras, but, the priests amongst them appeared to be hiding from the photographers.

What does he trouble us with? If Diomid’s protests against passports and taxpayer identification numbers are nothing but simple obscurantism, his calls for conflict with other confessions and nationalities are direct incitements to religious and national hostility. This is a matter covered by the criminal statutes. The church sees this as nothing but schism. The Council called this schismatic to repentance, but, he refuses to answer.

The word “schism” was heard often enough in the Council sessions. “We know that any schism is a tragedy. They shall divide the saints and make them strangers; they shall cause nothing but chaos in the Church. Certainly, the true reason behind the schism is that there is a political scheme to foment a quarrel between the Ukrainian and Russian peoples”, stated Metropolitan Agafangel of Odessa and Izmail.

Metropolitan Vladimir Sabodan (1935- ) of Kiev and all the Ukraine, First Hierarch of the canonical Ukrainian Autonomous Orthodox Church of the MP

The Ukraine… Presidents changed, revolutions occurred, but, the attempts of the leadership in Kiev to separate the Ukrainian Autonomous Orthodox Church of the MP from its mother-church never ceased. The very words, “Moscow Patriarchate” were a red flag to the Ukrainian establishment, as if it were a political choice, for example, between canonical Orthodoxy and NATO.

“In general, the church relates to political boundaries as it does to any human fancy. Today, we have these boundaries. Tomorrow, we may have others. However, the Church has an entirely different concept of history. It recognises a united civilisational space, expressed in a common secular language. But, I would say that Church language follows spiritual-cultural space. Some are attempting to destroy this space, to reshape it. We ask, why? This is the first time this has been attempted in a thousand years”, said Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, chairman of the MP Department of External Church Relations.   

This is not the first time… in the Ukraine, there have been repeated attempts to destroy Orthodoxy. Even in the 17th century, a Catholic Metropolitan proposed to create in Little Russia an independent Orthodox Church. Then, something happened. Those who grasped independence soon entered the Unia with the Catholics. In essence, they were absorbed by them.  

“Today, in the Ukraine, there is the so-called ‘Ukrainian independent church’ that is headed by the deposed and anathematised Philaret Denisenko. He has already stated several times that union with the Catholic Church is necessary. Why is this a requirement?” asked Archimandrite Tikhon Shevkunov, the superior of the Sretensky Monastery in Moscow.

In order to change the mentality of the people… what shall happen with those who refuse to change and stand for their faith and their conscience?

If there were any disputes regarding the Orthodox understanding of human rights, there are only indirect signs. The concept was approved unanimously, but, there were questions. Should the Church be involving itself in secular matters? Is it necessary to criticise secular laws? It was decided that if the secular law legalises sin, then, yes. In the human sense, homosexual marriage is against nature. In the church sense, it is sinful.

“We are posed the question, what do you want to do? Should we work within existing paradigms to attain certain rights? Or, do you want to change the world? But, I pose this question to homosexuals, what do you want? Do you wish to act within the existing law and tradition? Or, do you want to change the world? They wish to change the world, and they are changing it. If this is permitted for homosexuals, why is it not permitted for believers?” noted Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad.

A priest changes the world by his sermon and missions… in Orthodoxy, the tradition of mission is not as strong as it is amongst Catholics or Muslims. Should we change this attitude? Can we preach the Gospel only in the church?

Deacon Andrei Kuraev, Professor at the Moscow Theological Academy, great Orthodox preacher

“A group of priests from Moscow demanded that the Council forbid all non-traditional missions, that is, the only form that mission could take was that the priest would stand in church and speak in Church Slavonic… there would be no more sermons at rock concerts or at sporting events. They wanted to forbid everything. Well… the Council did not give in to these loudmouths. That is good”, said Deacon Andrei Kuraev, professor at the Moscow Theological Academy.

Orthodox priests on the streets of Moscow, Tallinn, Shanghai, or Toronto… you wouldn’t say they are a common sight. However, 20 years ago, there were only 42 churches in Moscow, today, there are over 600. Churches are popping up everywhere. You can buy everything you need for your parish in Sofrino. All the hierarchs from all over the world are buying “church utensils”. True… the word “utensils” does no justice to their splendour.

29 June 2008

Ilya Kanavin

Vesti-Nedeli (News Weekly)

Quoted in Interfax-Religion

http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=radio&div=891 (in Russian)

Professor Natalia Narochnitskaya, Doctor of Historical Sciences, President of the Historical Perspectives Foundation

Recently, a documentary film entitled The Fall of an Empire, written by Archimandrite Tikhon Shevkunov, the Superior of the Sretensky Monastery in Moscow, aired on Russian television. In an interview with Aleksei Sosedov of the website Interfax-Religion, Natalia Narochnitskaya, Doctor of Historical Sciences and President of the Historical Perspectives Fund, shared her impressions of the film.

*****

The film The Fall of an Empire gave us a panoramic view of the general development of human history, something that most modern people do not wish to see. Unfortunately, most viewers only see the superficial details of this film, for they wish to guard themselves from the burden of responsibility that comes from seeing their behaviour as a part of the evolution of history. Today, people prefer to see only that small patch of reality on which they sit, and they do not desire to know where the winding river of history flows as a whole. The film reminds us about Byzantium, the mother of both the Western and the Orthodox civilisations, an entity intentionally removed not only from Soviet Russian historical awareness, but, also from that of Europe in general, as well.

The liberals who criticised this film did so because they do not abide the very existence of the concept it enunciated, that the purposes and measures of human history are intimately connected with the faith, for the faith harmonises the dichotomies between the personal and general philosophical senses of the historical path of mankind. Contemporary liberalism asserts the independence of the human personality from the restraints placed upon it by faith; they assert it is free of the constraint of religious, national, and family values. In their view, mankind must struggle to achieve this autonomy in order to progress. We would beg to differ. No, in this case, mankind ceases to understand the linkage of one’s personal life with the general life of society.

This film is useful, and it actually was historically-accurate, although any film of this kind is bound to contain some oversimplification. But, our liberals prefer to argue over this or that detail; for example, they say that something was taken at times from this century, at times from another. But, this is because the concept of the film itself is unbearable to them, for it suggests that something other than the West was the light of the world!

There is no flattery in the film with respect to Byzantium; it showed Byzantium’s vitality and how it lost it, how it lost the meaning of its existence, and how this destroyed the Empire, and how others took advantage of this situation. It is absolutely true that, up to the middle of the second millennium, Byzantium was truly the cultural metropolis of the world. In comparison, Western Europe was a place where kings only bathed twice in their lives, once, when they were born, and, again, when they were placed in the coffin. The West was lower than the Byzantine provinces; it was a backwater of this civilisation. Meanwhile, in Byzantium, manners were very refined by the standards of the times, the domestic arts, architecture, trade, and haute couture in clothing were all highly developed. This is all absolutely true, just as it is true that after Byzantium’s fall the impetus in intellectual thought shifted to Western Europe, which served as an enormous push in the development of Western science, culture, and civilisation. Europe had fallen very far behind. Those material influences that the West secured for itself at the cost of robbing Byzantium and South America are not sufficiently reckoned, they are comparable in scope to centuries of growth through natural evolution.

The basic idea of the film lays in the stipulation that technology, science, or external development cannot forestall collapse if the inner core is destroyed. Decline is inevitable if society loses the connection between the personal and the common good, if it loses civil sensibility, if it loses the understanding of the distinction between sin and virtue, and if the élite becomes so rotten that they no longer recognise themselves as part of the nation.

The West can see a warning for itself in this film, because the same thing is happening to Western civilisation, a civilisation that also had vitality, a great culture founded upon the fiery conviction of Christian truth, upon the struggle between good and evil. This is the source of the monologues of Macbeth, Hamlet, and Schiller’s heroes. What is the end result of all this, if man’s most important choice today is his brand of toothpaste, and his homeland is where the taxes are lowest? That is why they are helpless before non-Western emigrants, not entirely because there are hordes of such emigrants, but, because Westerners have lost their own values.

Neither is the film very flattering to our own Russian state. On the contrary, it articulates a ringing, bold, and daring rebuke. If we lose the vital foundations of our society, and if our élite becomes corrupted, history will judge even the specific eras of responsible and constructive government as nothing more than fleeting ephemera.

5 February 2008

Interfax-Religion

http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=interview&div=166 (in Russian)

Editor’s Note:

Another English translation of this piece exists on Pravoslavie.ru. Not only is it overly literal at points, obscuring the meaning of Professor Narochnitskaya, it lacks Paragraph 2 of the main body of text. There is nothing I dislike more than incomplete translation, especially where an important point is made, as is the case here. Shame on the original translator! All of us who translate have an obligation to present the original in its entirety. The English-speaking reader has the right to as complete a text as exists in the Russian original.

Archimandrite Tikhon Shevkunov, Superior of the Sretensky Monastery

Moscow, 19 March 2008 (Interfax):

Archimandrite Tikhon Shevkunov, the superior of the Sretensky Monastery, said the decision of the late Metropolitan Laurus to restore the canonical unity of the ROCOR with the Church in the motherland was “very courageous”. “It’s very interesting to think about this decision’s background. Metropolitan Laurus realised that the numerous opponents of reunification would direct their fire against him if he said, “Yes, there shall be reconciliation”. There would be not only positive criticism and sincere objections, but defamation, dirt, and slander. Indeed, this was how it happpened”, Fr Tikhon said in an interview on the Vesti (News) TV channel.

In his opinion, Metropolitan Laurus knew “exactly what he would have to face”. “There is a popular belief in the Church that a pastor goes to his Golgotha at the close of his days. Metropolitan Laurus entered upon this Golgotha consciously and voluntarily. It is hard to imagine how much mud was thrown at him, a man of simple and holy life”, Fr Tikhon said (note well that Archimandrite Tikhon was one of the active participants in the negotiations leading to the reunion in the Church).

He noted that the primate of the ROCOR “was enormously respected and honoured by his flock because of his age and position. It would have been a simple thing to have simply grumbled, ‘It is not time for this, yet’. Everyone would have said, ‘Oh isn’t Vladyki so shrewd! Indeed, we have to put it on hold. Not everything is clear in Russia and with the Russian Church. Metropolitan Laurus has decided wisely. Let‘s wait’. However, he did not choose to take this completely safe and cautious route”, Fr Tikhon emphasised.

Interfax-Religion

http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=23403 (in Russian)

Archimandrite Tikhon Shevkunov, superior of the Sretensky Monastery, and confessor of President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin

Moscow, Sretensky Monastery, 16 March 2008

At 21.00 on 16 March at the Sretensky Monastery in Moscow the brotherhood of the monastery and the students of the Sretensky Seminary celebrated a Pannikhida in memory of the newly-departed Metropolitan Laurus, the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. After the completion of the service, the superior of the monastery, Archimandrite Tikhon Shevkunov, gave the following address to the assembly.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!

My dear fathers and brotherhood! It was our great joy not only to see, but, also to associate with this holy man, for whose sake we have completed this first pannikhida. Metropolitan Laurus lived a long, exultant, and admirable life as a Christian monk of the Russian Orthodox Church. From his youth, indeed, for the remainder of his life, he dedicated himself entirely to the service of Christ and His Church, and he brought to God all the talents that were entrusted to him. First of all, he purified himself of all passions, and his soul was decorated with love, immeasurable kindness, and true humbleness. He brought to the Lord as the fruit of his works and prayers the entire assembly of archpastors and pastors, and his monastic disciples and students at Holy Trinity Monastery and Seminary in Jordanville.

He made a largely unseen, but, very important, contribution to the revival of Orthodox Russia. The books published by the printing house under his direction in the middle and end of the last century reached Russia under arduous conditions, and they shed the light of Christ’s salvation in the moral darkness and fog that surrounded so many in our motherland in those times. We can see the fruit of his life in the lives of countless laity of the ROCOR, of whom he was their most precious spiritual teacher and benefactor. However, the greatest example to his parishioners was his holy and focused life, with a continual burning love for Christ and sacrificial service to his flock.

Finally, his main offering to Christ as archpastor and head of the ROCOR was his carrying through of the wishes of its founders… the eventual reunification of it with the Church in the motherland. It was made possible together with His Holiness Patriarch Aleksei, these two men who lived at a time that was incomprehensively difficult, yet, also incomparably inspiring, for Russian priests, bishops, and monks. Without being distracted by the storms of hatred and spite, they accomplished the duty that was laid before them by the Lord Jesus Christ.

We, in Russia, did not know Vladyki for many years, during the time of our separation. However, we became the joyful witnesses of his last great endeavour, which he completed for the sake of the entire Russian emigration, both those who had already gone on to the Lord, and those now living scattered over the face of the globe. Perhaps, most importantly, we became witnesses of how he did this; we became the witnesses of his prayers. Precisely, prayer was the main source of Vladyki Laurus’ power, it was his main vocation, it was his main talent, and it was his main weapon. Prayer was his main joy and hope.

Today, such people are very rare. I, along with all of you, had the blessing of seeing this man and associating with him. You remember, as it was less than a month ago, how he served his last (and it seemed like the only one!) liturgy in Moscow with us here in the Sretensky Monastery. He said to me that it seemed as though the very earth here at the Sretensky Monastery was like an antimension because so many of the New Martyrs had accepted torture and death for Christ here.

We remember everything that happened in connection with this service… Vladyki Laurus, in spite of the tremendous fatigue caused by his ill-health, the long flight from America, the daily services and celebrations, after the service ended, at the common meal, he not only gave a general blessing, he blessed each one of us in particular! He blessed every monk, novice, seminarian, and worker in the refectory. With love, interest, and happiness he looked into the face of each monk and seminarian. All of you were for him the same as his family. The blessings of this champion of prayer and this man of a most holy life shall stay with us to the end of our days.

I shall say that Vladyki was one of the best and one of the most self-sacrificing people that I have ever met in my life.

Pravoslavie.Ru

http://www.pravoslavie.ru/news/080317003413 (in Russian)

Archimandrite Tikhon Shevkunov poses a very important question in his film: Who are we as Russians? Is Russia just a remote backwoods of Europe? Are we doomed to be obedient pupils of the West? Or, is Russia the heir to ancient traditions passed down directly from classical Rome from which the West could also benefit? Should Russia follow the Western paradigm, as if it was indeed universal, or does Russia have its own path that is just as legitimate? This has always been a question for Russia, not only during the 19th century disputes between Slavophiles and the Westernisers, but, also during the reforms of Peter the Great and in the backroom discussions of speechwriters for Soviet leaders such as Leonid Brezhnev and Mikhail Gorbachev.

A fresh look at the history of Byzantium, an empire despised by Western and Soviet ideologues alike, presents us with an excellent opportunity to talk about contemporary Russia. For the first time, the average Russian television viewer heard that the Eastern Roman Empire was neither an “evil empire”, nor a centre of dark obscurantism and superfluous luxury, but, the largest civilisation of its time, one that has something to offer modern Russia. It is little wonder, then, that the film upset those who have been trying to convince us that the sun rises not in the East but in the West. It is surprising that some critics have not bothered to discuss the film’s production quality or the facts and ideas it portrays, but, have simply lashed out at the very idea of “rehabilitating” Byzantium and the “Byzantine spirit” in Russia. Their arguments are weak. “The filmmakers are trying to take us back to the Middle Ages”, they say.

What we need here is a real dialogue with pro-Western Russians. Are they able to prove that the course of development they favour is the sole alternative, even though that path is causing an increasing number of crises in the West? What has the West come to, when its leading nations drop bombs in an effort to prove the truth of their cause (which is a sign of weakness)? Alternatively, does the ideal of an alliance between the people and the authorities suggested by Byzantium offer a viable model for the future? Might the West itself one day turn to such a model as well? We clearly do not have enough dialogue on these questions. Instead, we have heated arguments on the one hand, and demands that the film be all but prohibited on the other.

The film provides convincing arguments that the Byzantine model of society, one based on Christian social ideals, on the unity of faith and civil action, on the “symphony” and harmony of Church and State, and on mutual understanding rather than competition, has a very promising future. It is no coincidence that Russia survived, and even thrived, when it adopted this model. The main thing now is not to marginalise those who are sympathetic to this paradigm, whether in the East or in the West.

In my view, Byzantium would not have perished if it could have found a general modus vivendi with the Muslim world. It did find one, but, only when it was too late to save them. Russia did find such a solution. If the Archbishop of Canterbury spoke recently of the need of the West to reconcile itself with Islamic law, I must point up that in some of the regions of the Russian Empire such accommodation with Sharia existed for many centuries, and this only strengthened the unity of our country. Indeed, our respect for other traditions, and our realisation that alteration and “re-education” of other peoples and cultures was impossible, became the basis of harmony in our society.

It was necessary for Byzantium to have contacts and real dialogue with its Western neighbours. Not all who came from the West were enemies. Many of the participants in the first crusades sincerely wished to help the Byzantines, and they did help them, with the sacrifice of their money, well-being, and their very lives. The attack and pillage of Constantinople in 1204 by the Fourth Crusade was considered by many contemporary Western Europeans as a tragedy, not excepting the Pope of Rome. It was only later that Westerners began to apply the disparaging term “Byzantium” to the Empire of the Romaioi, deeming it unworthy of respect. By losing contact with the Orthodox East, the West began to breathe with only one lung; it choked itself in spiritual isolation.

Russia needs dialogue with the West. It is not only indifferent egoists and our opponents that live there, we also have sincere friends in the West, and the copies of Russian icons hanging in the churches of Brussels, Paris, and Rome testify to this. However, this dialogue should not be a one-way street. Russia and the West need to respect each other and accept each other the way we are. Only in this way can we offer each other our best qualities as friends, and correct the worst.

7 March 2008

Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin

Vice Chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations

The Moscow Times, as quoted by Interfax-Religion

http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=23234 (in Russian)

Editor’s note: Paragraphs 5 and 6 are missing in the English version on the Interfax website. I have translated them from the Russian original.

Moscow, 22 February 2008 (Interfax):

Archimandrite Tikhon Shevkunov, superior of the Sretensky Monastery in Moscow and author of the screenplay to the recent film Vizantisky Urok (The Byzantine Lesson), believes that Russia can exist “only as an empire”, and that it should take its example in this from the USA. “We were troubled or frightened at what was valued in other countries. If you go to Washington, everywhere one sees imperial symbols. There is no doubt that you are in the centre of a great imperial capital. Look at the Capitol buildings, the omnipresent imperial eagles, and the Senate”, he said in an interview published Friday in the newspaper Izvestiya.

Fr Tikhon believes that Americans “are not ashamed to call things by their proper names, and they are aware of what they are. This awareness forms both the people and the country. 17-year-old boys drive tractors on American farms, they are keen on it, and they do not give a hang what goes on in New York. These boys know where their home is, and they shall live there until the day they die. Their grandchildren… why, they shall do the same! Americans are self-sufficient. They are an imperial people. We should learn from them”.

Speaking about his screenplay to Vizantisky Urok, a film which has found a wide response in Russia, Fr Tikhon remarked that the analogies to the contemporary situation in Russia “were not hidden, they are obvious”. He went on to say, “I chose such examples deliberately, because it is important that events that occurred in the past in medieval Byzantium (sic) are now occurring in modern Russia. We must choose the path that our country shall take. In what direction shall we go? What position in the present world crisis shall we select?”

“Let us imagine that today that a strong ruler such as Basil II came to us. However, luck does not save a state, as the entire history of Byzantium (sic) shows. It is necessary to devise a government that would exclude weak rulers, and what is more, the government itself would aid the advancement of talented, competent, and selfless people in its service”, Fr Tikhon concluded.

Interfax-Religion

http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=23020 (in Russian)

Archimandrite Tikhon Shevkunov, Superior of the Sretensky Monastery (Moscow. RF), Confessor of President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin

Not long before his death Fr Ioann called me and said, “I’m going to die soon. Please do me a favour and write what you remember and want to say about me. Otherwise, people will write about me anyway, and they will come up with such things as they did about poor Fr Nikolai, who supposedly resurrected cats. That way I’ll look everything over and be at peace”.

Thus, fulfilling my spiritual father’s obedience, I began this task in the hope that Batiushka himself would separate the wheat from the chaff, perhaps suggest some things that I might have forgotten, and, as always, correct any mistakes I might have made.

I will not write very much about what Fr Ioann meant to me. My whole monastic life was inseparably connected with him. He has been and remains for me the ideal of an Orthodox Christian, a monk, and a loving and demanding priest and father.

It would be impossible, of course, to re-tell everything that happened over the course of our relationship. His spiritual counsels can be read in his published letters. In my opinion, they are the best that have been written in the area of spiritual and moral literature in Russia for the last fifty years. I would like to relate something else, known to me personally.

For me, Fr Ioann’s main spiritual quality was not only his gift of discernment, but also his unshakeable faith in the all-good and perfect Providence of God, which leads a Christian to salvation. An epigraph to one of Fr Ioann’s books is something he often repeated: “The main things in spiritual life are faith in God’s Providence and discernment with guidance”. Once, in answer to my perplexity, Batiushka wrote: “At the moment I am reading a passage from the Old Testament, and what depth [I find in it]: A man’s heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps (Proverbs 16:9). The wise Solomon bore this out. You, also, in your own life must be convinced that it can be no other way”.

I don’t want to force my opinion on anyone, but I am deeply convinced that Fr Ioann was one of the very few people living in our times to whom the Lord revealed His Divine will-about specific people and about events taking place in the Church and the world. This is probably due to the highest manifestation of love for God and devotion to His holy will, in response to which the Lord reveals the destiny of people to the Christian ascetic, making such a man a sharer in His mysteries. I repeat that I don’t want to force my opinion on anyone, but I have been led to this feeling by many real-life stories connected with Fr Ioann. And it is not only my opinion. My closest spiritual friends, the now deceased Fr. Rafail and Abbot Nikita, who introduced me to Fr Ioann, thanked God first of all for the fact that their spiritual father was a man to whom God’s will was revealed, and each of us experienced this personally. Unfortunately, though, as often happens in life, even when we know God’s will we cannot find the strength and determination to fulfil it. But, I will speak about this later.

I met Fr Ioann in the autumn of 1982, when immediately after my Baptism I arrived at the Pskov-Caves Monastery. Back then he did not particularly impress me: a very kind old man, quite robust (he was only seventy-two then), always in a hurry, always surrounded by a crowd of pilgrims. Other residents of the monastery looked much more severely ascetic and monastic. But, not much time at all passed before I began to understand that this old man was what in old Russia had been called an “elder” since ancient times. This is the rarest and most precious phenomenon in the Church.

Trust and obedience are the main rule of the relationship between a Christian and his spiritual father. Of course, one cannot manifest absolute obedience to every spiritual father. Such spiritual directors are a rarity. This is quite a delicate matter. Very serious spiritual and life tragedies often happen when unreasoning priests imagine themselves to be elders, and their unfortunate spiritual children take upon themselves a form of absolute obedience which is beyond their strength and entirely inappropriate in our times. Fr Ioann never ordered or forced anyone to listen to his spiritual advice. People would come to free, unfeigned obedience to him through experience and time. He never called himself an elder. When he was told he was, he would smile and say that there are no elders nowadays, only experienced old men. He remained convinced of that. However, I am convinced that in his person the Lord sent me a true elder, who knew God’s will for me and all that is needed for my salvation.

I recall, when I was still a young novice in the monastery, a Moscow pilgrim came up to me and told me what he had just witnessed: Fr Ioann, surrounded by pilgrims, was hurrying through the monastery courtyard towards the church. Suddenly a tear-stained woman with a three-year-old child in her arms rushed up to him: “Batiushka, bless me to go ahead with his surgery… the doctors say it must be done immediately, in Moscow”. Then, something happened which stunned both me and the pilgrim who told me the story. Fr Ioann stopped and firmly told her: “Under no circumstances. He’ll die on the operating table. Pray and give him medical treatment, but by no means have the surgery. He’ll recover”. He then made the sign of the Cross over the child.

The pilgrim and I sat down and were terrified by our own speculations: What if Fr Ioann is mistaken? What if the baby dies? What would the mother do to Fr. John if that happens? Of course, we couldn’t believe that Fr Ioann had displayed a crude denial of medicine, something which, however rare, still is not unheard of in some Church circles. We knew of many cases when Fr Ioann would bless surgery and even insist on it. There were many well-known doctors among his spiritual children. With dread we awaited what would happen. Would the broken-hearted mother show up in the monastery and raise a monstrous scandal? Or would nothing of the kind happen, as Fr Ioann had predicted?

Apparently nothing happened, because Fr Ioann went on as before with his daily walk between the church and his cell, surrounded by pilgrims filled with hope and gratitude. It remained for us to assume that Fr Ioann foresaw God’s Providence for that infant, and took upon himself the great responsibility for his life. And the Lord did not put the faith and hope of his faithful servant to shame.

I remembered that incident ten years later, in 1993. A very similar story ended, on the one hand, tragically from a human perspective, but on the other, due to Fr Ioann’s prayers, it served for the eternal salvation of a Christian soul and as a profound lesson for those who witnessed it.

Usually, when he was firmly convinced of the correctness and necessity of his counsels for someone who had turned to him, Batiushka tried to persuade, convince, or even beg and plead with the person to carry out what was necessary. If that person stubbornly insisted on his own will, Batiushka usually sighed and said, “Well, then, try it. Do what you think is right”. And always, as far as I know about such cases, those who did not follow Fr Ioann’s wise spiritual advice would bitterly repent of it in the end. As a rule, the next time they came to him it would be with the firm intention of doing as he said. Fr Ioann always received such people with true love and compassion, and never begrudged them his time, trying with all his might to correct their mistake.

There lived in Moscow a very interesting and unique woman, Valentina Pavlovna Konovalova. She was a kind of real Moscow kupchikha (of the merchant class), and looked as though she had walked out of a canvas by Kustodiev. At the beginning of the 1990s she was sixty years old. She was the director of a large grocery depot on Prospekt Mira. Plump and stocky, she would sit regally at the desk in her office, where behind her, even in the most difficult Soviet times, large icons hung on the walls. On the floor by her desk there lay a huge plastic sack of money. She herself, at her own discretion, would decide how to spend that money… whether to send her subordinates to buy a consignment of fresh vegetables or to give it away to the poor and vagrants who flocked to her store in large numbers. Her employees feared her, but loved her. During Lent, she would arrange for an Unction service right in her office, which even the Tartars who worked at the depot would reverently attend. During the years of deficiency, Moscow priests and sometimes even bishops would drop in on her. With some she would be respectful, while with others, whose “ecumenism” she did not approve of, she would be curt and even rather rude.

Many times, as part of my obedience, I would drive from [the Pskov-Caves Monastery in] Pechory to Moscow in a large truck to purchase provisions for the monastery for Pascha and Nativity. Valentina Pavlovna would receive us novices in a very warm and motherly way, and we became friends with her, especially since we had a favourite topic for our conversations: our common confessor, Fr Ioann. Batiushka was perhaps the only man in the world whom Valentina Pavlovna feared, infinitely respected, and loved. Twice a year, with her closest colleagues she would go to the monastery in Pechory, and would fast and confess there. It would be impossible to recognise her then. She would be so meek, quiet and shy-in no way reminiscent of the “Moscow queen”.

At the end of 1993 several changes took place in my life. I was appointed as Superior of the metochion of the Pskov-Caves Monastery in Moscow, the present-day Sretensky Monastery, and I often made trips to Pechory. Valentina Pavlovna, who had a cataract in her eye, once requested that I ask Fr Ioann’s blessing for her to have the cataract removed at the Feodorov Ophthalmic Institute. Fr Ioann’s reply surprised me a little: “No, no, by no means. Not now, let some time go by”. The next day, I passed his exact words on to her, and Valentina Pavlovna was very distressed, for everything had been already arranged at the Feodorov Institute. So, she wrote Fr Ioann a detailed letter, explaining to him that it was a very simple operation, not worth any attention, and asking for his blessing again.

Fr Ioann, of course, knew as well as she did what kind of surgery it was, and that it didn’t pose any serious threat. But, having read her letter, he became terribly anxious. We sat together for a long time, and he kept persuading me that it was essential to talk Valentina Pavlovna out of having the surgery at that time. He wrote to her again. He asked, begged, and even ordered her, as her spiritual father, to put off the surgery. I had two free weeks coming up. I hadn’t had a vacation for over ten years, so Fr Ioann blessed me to go to a sanatorium in the Crimea for two weeks, and to take Valentina Pavlovna with me. He told her about that in the letter as well, adding that she was to have her surgery a month after the vacation. “If she has her surgery now, she’ll die”, he sadly told me when we were saying goodbye to each other.

However, in Moscow I realized that we had run into a brick wall. All of a sudden, Valentina Pavlovna, probably for the first time in her life, rose up against the will of her spiritual father. She at first firmly refused to go to the Crimea, but then it seemed as though she was humbling herself. But she was quite indignant that Fr Ioann was making so much fuss about such a trifle. I told her that no matter what, I was going to work on making our arrangements, and we would soon be going to the Crimea.

A few days later, I received the Patriarch’s blessing for the trip, after which I ordered two reservations, which were not difficult to obtain at that time of year. Then, I called the store to tell Valentina Pavlovna about our departure. “She’s in the hospital, in surgery”, her assistant told me.

“What?!” I cried. “But, Fr Ioann strictly forbade her!”

It turned out that a couple of days earlier some nun, formerly a doctor, had called on her, and having found out about her cataract problem, didn’t agree with Fr Ioann’s decision, either. So, she took it upon herself to get a blessing from one of the spiritual fathers of the Holy Trinity-St Sergius Lavra. A blessing was received, and Valentina Pavlovna went straight to the Feodorov Institute, hoping that after a short and simple operation she would go with me to the Crimea. However, during the surgery, right on the operating table, she had a serious stroke and was totally paralysed. As soon as I learned about it I rushed to call Fr Filaret, Fr Ioann’s long-time cell-attendant. In exceptional cases Fr Ioann would go down to Fr Filaret’s cell and use his phone.

“How could you! Why didn’t you listen to me?” cried Fr Ioann, almost in tears. “If I insist on something, that means I know what I’m doing!”

What could I tell him? I asked Fr Ioann what I was to do. Valentina Pavlovna was still unconscious. Fr Ioann said I should take the Reserved Gifts from the church to my cell, and as soon as Valentina Pavlovna regained consciousness I was to immediately go and confess her and give her Holy Communion.

By Fr Ioann’s prayers, Valentina Pavlovna became conscious the next day. Her relatives immediately informed me, and I was at the hospital in half an hour. She was wheeled out to me in one of the intensive care wards. She was lying, so tiny, under a white sheet. She could not speak, and upon seeing me, started crying. Her confession, that she had given in to the enemy’s temptation in her disobedience to and distrust of her spiritual father, was clear without any words. I read the prayer of absolution over her and gave her Communion. We bade farewell to each other. The next day, Fr Vladimir Chuvikin communed her again, and soon afterwards she died. According to an ancient Church tradition, the soul of a person who has been vouchsafed to receive Communion on the day of his death goes to the Lord’s throne, escaping the tollhouses. This happens either to great ascetics, or people with exceptionally pure hearts. Or to those who have very powerful intercessors.

The history of the restoration of Sretensky Monastery has also been continually connected with Archimandrite Fr Ioann. In that year, 1993, I came to Fr Ioann with a whole mass of problems. After a long conversation in Fr Ioann’s cell, he did not give me any direct answers, and we were in a hurry to attend the Vigil service to Archangel Michael. I prayed in the kliros, and Fr Ioann prayed in the altar. I was preparing to vest in order to pray the Akathist, when Fr Ioann literally ran out of the altar, and taking me by the hand, said joyfully, “You will found a metochion of the Pskov-Caves Monastery in Moscow”.

“Batiushka”, I said, “His Holiness the Patriarch does not bless the founding of metochions in Moscow, unless they be of stavropegial monasteries. Another monastery made such a request to the Patriarch not long ago, and His Holiness answered that if we were to give churches to all the monasteries desiring metochions, there would be no parishes left in Moscow”.

[He said,] “Have no fear! Go straight to His Holiness, and ask to open a metochion of the Pskov-Caves Monastery”.

He gave me a heartfelt blessing, according to his custom, and there was nothing left for me to do but to kiss his hand and place all hope in God’s hands, and in his prayers.

Everything turned out just as Fr Ioann said. I made my request, albeit not without fear, to His Holiness the Patriarch about the opening of a metochion of the Pskov-Caves Monastery. But, the Patriarch replied very mercifully to this request, blessed this resolution, and immediately delegated the matter to [Vicar Bishop] Arseny and [Dean] Fr Vladimir Divakov. Thus was the first and only diocesan metochion opened in Moscow, which, as Fr Ioann also had foretold, would later become an independent monastery, never losing its spiritual connection with either Pechory or Fr Ioann. It is superfluous to say that Fr Ioann’s blessing and counsel in the monastery’s life was most precious and desirable for us. I must confess, though, that not all the letters I received were affectionate. Sometimes, his letters were so stern that I could not regain my composure for several days.

Usually when someone begins to reminisce about Fr Ioann, they write about how good, kind, and loving he was. Yes, this is undoubtedly true; I never knew a man more able to express fatherly, Christian love. However, it must be added that Fr Ioann could be truly tough when necessary. He could at times find such words of reproach that one would not envy the recipient afterwards. I recall when I was a novice in Pechory, I happened to hear what Fr Ioann said to two young hieromonks: “What kind of monks are you? You are only jolly fellows”. Fr Ioann was never afraid to speak the truth without respect of persons, and he did so first of all in order to correct and save the soul of the one with whom he spoke, be he a hierarch or a simple novice. This firmness and spiritual integrity was of course placed in Fr Ioann’s soul from early childhood, when he knew those great ascetics and New Martyrs. This was all an expression of true Christian love for God and people. It was also, of course, an expression of a true Christian consciousness. Here is one reply to a letter from me in 1997.

“Here is another example of an analogous situation from my memory’s archives. I was twelve years old at the time, but the impression was so earth-shakingly strong, that to this day I can still see everything that happened, and remember each participant by name.

A remarkable Vladyka served in Orel, Archbishop Serafim Ostroymov, an exceedingly intelligent, kind, and loving man, about whom there could be no end of eulogy. He prepared himself by his life for a crown of martyrdom, which did in fact come to pass. So, on Forgiveness Sunday this godly hierarch banished two monks from the monastery, Igumen Kallistos and Hierodeacon Tikhon, for some transgression. He banished them authoritatively, in front of other people, thereby preserving others from temptation, and then immediately preached a homily about Forgiveness Sunday and asked forgiveness of all.

My childish consciousness was quite shaken by what had taken place, precisely because the one thing occurred right after the other: first banishment, that is, the absence of forgiveness, and then the humble asking of forgiveness for himself, and his own forgiveness of everyone. I only understood one thing: that punishment can serve as the beginning of forgiveness, and without it, there can be no forgiveness.

Now, I bow down before Vladyka’s courage and wisdom, for the lesson he taught remained as a living example for all present then, as you see-for a whole lifetime.”

What else can I write of essential importance, so that Fr Ioann himself could read these lines and confirm the veracity of this testimony?

During the years of our relationship I noticed that Fr Ioann had particular principles regarding spiritual counsel. Of course, he did not apply them automatically. Interesting to me was his advice about marriage. He blessed marriage only after the bride and bridegroom had known each other for at least three years. This seems a very long term to today’s impetuous youth. However, many cases have shown how Fr Ioann’s experience and insistence on this time of testing could save the souls of the husband and wife, and of their family. I know many instances when priests out of pity shortened this term before marriage given by Fr Ioann, with woeful consequences for the young families.

With regard to monastic tonsure, Fr Ioann as a rule also demanded a significant time of testing. He likewise placed great emphasis upon parental blessing. For example, I waited ten years for Fr Ioann’s decision about my tonsure, until my mother blessed me to be a monk. In response to all of my impatient requests for the tonsure, Fr Ioann always persuaded me to wait for my mother’s blessing. He assured me that the Lord would not forget this patience and obedience. I remembered these words when they tonsured me in Donskoy Monastery. It turned out that I was tonsured on my very birthday, when I turned thirty-three, and was named after my favourite saint, Holy Hierarch Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow.

Fr Ioann related to hierarchs and archpastors of the Church with enormous reverence, love, and obedience. He was truly a man of the Church. Many times did he bless people to do exactly as His Holiness [the Patriarch] would decide, or as the bishop or the abbot would bless. This was based upon faith that on earth truth abides only in the Church, is deeply felt there, and is brought to Her spiritual children. Fr Ioann did not countenance any schisms or revolts; he always fearlessly and fearsomely spoke out against them, although he knew what slanders and even hatred he would have to drink for this. But, he endured it all, lest he himself or his spiritual flock stray from the royal path of the Church.

This applies also to the trials our Church has experienced over the recent decades: reformist tendencies on the one hand, and on the other, morbid eschatological moods. In both cases, Fr Ioann exercised discernment, showing love for those who were confused spiritually due to faulty reasoning and the enemy’s snares, yet warning of the harm which they were actively and even viciously ready to bring to the Church. Nearly a century of Church life gave Fr Ioann a serious advantage in the discernment of spirits, in determining what one or another distraction, renovation, or “zeal not according to knowledge” (cf. Romans 10:2) might bring. Truly, there is nothing new under the sun. “I will not participate in your campaign”, he wrote to one young and very sincere hieromonk, who was proposing that Fr Ioann participate in the movement “Life without the Social Security Number”. He wrote, “The very spirit of such activity, with its abundant selfishness, noise, and hope in man rather than in God, yes, and especially with its criticism of the Church hierarchy, which springs out like a fountain in your words, forbids me to do so. I have already seen such things in the activities of the renovationists, who rose up against the most gentle Patriarch Tikhon, in fact, against the Lord Himself and His Church”.

Fr Ioann many times expressed his sober and deeply considered reaction to the problems of the global computer accounting system and other similar tendencies of the modern world. This has all been published in many places and has served for many as a cause of spiritual peace, calming of the spirit of revolt, and trust in the Russian Orthodox Church. For others it unfortunately served as a reason to attack Fr Ioann and even to slander him outright.

I think that this experience of slander and hatred coming during the last years of his life was sent by the Lord providentially. St Barsanuphius of Optina, it seems, wrote somewhere that the Lord sends such trials to his servants precisely at the end of their lives, as an image of the Saviour’s Golgotha.

Several years before these events, Fr Ioann also stood firm under fire in order to preserve the people of the Church from the temptation of a new renovationism. He often met and conversed with currently popular supporters of modernisation and renovation in the Church. Only after exhausting every means of convincing them of the extreme danger of this path, did he pronounce clearly, precisely, for all to hear, and with full responsibility for his words: “If we do not destroy this movement, it will destroy the Church”.

I was a witness to how Fr Ioann endured the hatred and false accusations poured out upon him for standing in the Truth of Christ. I saw all his pain, but also his good nature, when he endured misunderstanding and betrayal. Batiushka never lost his infinite love for his offenders, or his Christian forgiveness. I will always remember the words of his sermon in the St Michael Cathedral of the Pskov-Caves Monastery in 1985. “The Lord has given us a commandment to love our neighbours. But, we mustn’t worry about whether or not they love us. We must only take care that we love them”.

One Moscow priest, a spiritual son of Fr Ioann, came to me with a terrible request: to return the epitrachelion with which Fr Ioann had blessed him for the priesthood. This priest, as he said, was disappointed with Fr Ioann for not supporting his dissident political views. This was in the late eighties. What didn’t this priest say? But, he was deaf to my arguments: that Fr Ioann had himself spent many years in prison camps; that he was tortured but not broken; that he was the last person who could be suspected of conformism. With a heavy heart I gave this epitrachelion to Batiushka. His reaction stunned me. He crossed himself, kissed the priestly vestment reverently, and said, “I gave it to him with love, and I accept it again with love”. Later, this priest joined another jurisdiction. He did not like it there either, and joined another.

Neither can I hide the following fact, which might evoke varying responses, but, for the sake of truth, I cannot keep silent about it. Yes, Fr Ioann certainly did revere and submit to the Church hierarchy, but this did not mean automatic, unthinking submission. I witnessed an occasion when one of the monastery’s abbots and the ruling hierarch tried to persuade Batiushka to give his blessing on their decision, with which Fr Ioann did not agree. They needed the elder’s authority to support their decision. They approached Batiushka seriously, as they say, “with a knife to the throat”. Monks and priests can imagine what it means to stand up to pressure from their ruling hierarch or abbot. But, Fr Ioann withstood this prolonged pressure quite calmly. He respectfully, patiently, and meekly explained that he could not say “I bless” to something that did not agree with his soul, but should his superiors consider it necessary to take this action, then he would unmurmuringly accept their decision… they would answer for it before God and the brothers. He said, however, that he considered that this decision was being taken out of passion, and he could not give his “good word” on it.

Much more could be written, chiefly about how the souls of people who met Fr Ioann were transformed and resurrected, how people obtained faith and salvation. But, this is bound up with people who are still alive, and therefore I cannot relate these stories without their permission.

In conclusion I would like to say just one thing: I thank the Lord that by His great mercy He gave me, a sinner, the chance to meet such a Christian in my life and to get to know him. I think there has never been anything more astounding in my life so far, nor is there ever likely to be in its remainder.

2 February 2007

Archimandrite Tikhon Shevkunov

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