Orthodox Reflections

Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? –Luke 6:46

Christian life began in the catacombs, and that is where it shall end. We know this, because the saints warn us of such a time. St Hippolytus of Rome, writing of the tribulations to come, says: “the Church flees from city to city, and seeks concealment in the wilderness, possessed of no other defence than the wings of the great eagle, that is, the faith of Jesus Christ.”[i] Yet this term, “Catacomb Church”, which describes the sort of Church that St Hippolytus himself knew well and anticipated to come again, is a loaded one. For some it signifies fundamentalism and schism, whilst for others a powerful testament to the unrelenting faith of the saints. I therefore wish to explore the meaning of this term a little more and tentatively present a proposal relevant to our own times.

We have all suffered very much at the hands of the restrictions imposed upon us by our governments and our hierarchs. We have seen our beloved icons snatched away from our lips, the sanctity of our Lord’s Body and Blood hypocritically confessed in word and denied in deed, enforced masking before the face of God which the Apostle teaches we behold with “unveiled faces” (II Cor.3:18), the little children no longer being suffered to come unto Him, and a whole host of other abuses and abominations that have cut right to the heart of what we thought were the basics of our faith. I am therefore unsurprised when I hear even the most extreme opinions come out of the mouths of those who oppose these innovations. I personally do not agree with the likes of Hieromonk Euphrosynos the Sabbaite,[ii] who claim that the vaccine is the Mark of the Beast, that grace has departed from the Orthodox Churches and the True Church is only to be found in the catacombs. As Orthodox Christians we do not think in such black-and-white terms. We know that the human person is a more complex being than that, and we try to understand the spiritual wounds, scars and calamities which cause us to fall time and time again into terrible deeds. Lord, have mercy!

That being said, I can certainly appreciate why a zealous Orthodox Christian shocked by the hypocrisy we have seen might be inclined to think like Fr Euphrosynos. We know from history that the fall into heresy and the withdrawal of grace from a church body is a process and not a sudden act of divine indignation. The Great Schism in which the Latin Church departed from formal communion with the Orthodox Catholic Church was the culmination of a gradual falling away from the practices of Apostolic Christianity which has its origins in at least the 9^th century. God promised to spare the people of Sodom if there was found even one righteous man among them. God does not suffer from hissy fits in which the good and the evil, the bitter and the sweet are lumped together and cut off from His love. Still, we ought to look out for the signs of falling away, lest grace indeed be removed from us, and we be left without the saving Mysteries of the Orthodox Church.

The “Catacomb Church” is, at heart, a hidden part of the Body of Christ. I am quite convinced that there is a part of the Church in the catacombs as we speak, but which we know little about precisely because—they are in the catacombs! One hears rumours about such people: an intangible and occasional gathering of Orthodox faithful in Afghanistan,[iii] individuals who question the secret activities of bishops in Russia being forced out of parish leadership positions, never to return to the church building itself… What exactly goes on is between them and God.

The historical Catacomb Church of Russia faced far greater dangers than we do today, but their disobedience to the official hierarchy of Metropolitan Sergius was born not out of a personal desire for glory, out of heresy or vain schism, but out of their obedience to Christ. This longing which the Russian catacombniks had for the pure living waters of Orthodoxy gave birth to the martyric witness of the Catacomb Saints inside Russia and the firm confession of the ROCOR hierarchs outside Russia. What I find interesting in more recent history is that ROCOR’s attempts in the 1990s to establish “catacomb” bishops inside Russia ended with schism and isolation, not for the sake of Christ, but the narrow-mindedness of the hierarchs placed there (just look at the state of the “Russian True Orthodox Church” or the Synod of Metropolitan Agafangel in Russia today)—in communion with nobody but themselves, declaring themselves to be the only Orthodox Christians left in the whole world, and diminishing unto oblivion. Perhaps this, as well as the glory-seeking and worldliness which has led the canonical hierarchs into our Church’s current sorry state, is our own fault—our bishops do after all vest in imperial sakkoi and wear the emperor’s crown. Whilst I appreciate that this is merely an outward sign of the grace of the episcopate and their apostolic status, contrast it to the early Christian bishops (as seen in many icons) who wore the omophorion over a simple priest’s vestments, or catacomb bishops such as the New Hieromartyr Schema-Bishop Macarius Vasiliev (commemorated 1 April O.S.) who followed this ancient practice out of humility, and one begins to wonder—do we really help ourselves?

Now then to my main point: if we want to talk about adopting a catacomb mindset to survive these present trials, we must be clear: nobody wants to enter the catacombs for the wrong reasons, facing spiritual delusion and ultimately, schism. Like the Catacomb Saints of our history, we must show humility and try, no matter through however much weeping, to support our well-intentioned if deluded brethren with our prayers. Ultimately, we must not, never, ever, lose sight of the point of our actions, which are not for our sakes, but for the sake of Christ. What I am talking about is a “hedging” against the Orthodox hierarchs, which in many places we cannot trust to provide us with the means to offer the divine service that God commands us to offer. Even if the whole coronavirus business blows over (which seems less likely every day) many of our bishops have shown themselves to be the hirelings that flee at the appearance of the wolf.

Laypeople wishing to hedge themselves in this way must learn how to perform reader services at home. These services, commended highly by the beloved ROCOR hierarch Averky (Taushev) of blessed memory as “absolutely necessary” and furthermore required when no priest is present to serve liturgically, that “[the faithful] gather on Sundays and feast days in church or even in homes when there is no church, in order to perform together the public prayer according to the established order of divine services.”[iv] Many people have already begun using these services at home in the past year, using the plethora of resources available on the internet to put together services. Some find the prospect of this worship daunting, but the basic liturgical cycle of the day can be followed by praying the Midnight Office and Small Compline (which in pre-Raskol Russia and among Old Believers today is the preferred rule for morning and evening prayer, respectively) which are not difficult to chant and require very little additional material to put together. The same is true of the First, Third, Sixth and Ninth Hours, and the Typika/Obednitsa which is sung instead of the Divine Liturgy on Sundays and feast days. Vespers and Matins (and the All-Night Vigil in the Russian tradition) are harder services to put together, but there is no reason not to try as one gets used to the services. It is ideal to be able to offer the Vigil or at least Great Vespers on Saturday evenings and the eves of great feasts, but if that is too difficult, one can insert the appointed canon from Matins into Small Compline instead. No matter what we are able to offer, God sees our efforts and will reward us, regardless of our initial mistakes. For my family, this has been a life-saving opportunity to maintain the spirit of the daily liturgical cycle over the past year.

The point of this is to offer divine service to God, and also to worship in fellowship with other Christians. So, once we are comfortable praying like this, we should make contact with other Orthodox people of a like mind. We can gather together, offer the services together, eat meals together and so on. To those who say, ‘what about the Holy Mysteries?’ I would say this: yes the Holy Mysteries are important, but the divine services are an extension of that grace. One of the reasons why we pray the liturgy of the hours precisely to prepare ourselves for the Holy Mysteries. We also pray them to glorify God and to ask Him to remit our sins. At a time when extraordinary circumstances have deprived many of the faithful not only of the Mysteries of the Church, but of pious shepherds and churches to go to at all, that is as good a time as any to increase prayer and beg for such remission.

Perhaps with such small efforts, when a serious and violent persecution comes to our door, we will have the strength to witness Christ, even unto death. Until that time comes, if it should come, brethren: be well, bear one another’s burdens, and remember God.

Wretched Alban, a member of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia.

For those wishing to pray the reader services, this online horologion, with additional links and resources for praying at home, is a good place to start:

https://saintjonah.org/orthodox-liturgical-texts-and-resources/horologion/

[i] Hippolytus, On Christ and Antichrist, §61

[ii] For more on Fr Euphrosynos’ opinion, read here: https://sofiakioroglou.wordpress.com/2021/09/07/%cf%84he-victory-of-the-saints-by-hieromonk-euphrosyne-the-sabbaite/

[iii] Pray now, brethren, for the Christians of Afghanistan!

[iv] Abp. Averky of Jordanville in Orthodox Word, Jan.-Feb. 1974