Icon
of the Irish Saints.
Sixty-five
years after the greatest saint of the Russian Diaspora, St. John of Shanghai,
an impeccable Russian patriot, monarchist and anti-ecumenist, drew up a list of
Western Orthodox saints to be added to the Russian Orthodox calendar, word has
reached Moscow. Yesterday the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church decided to
add them to the universal Russian Orthodox calendar. This is a great spiritual
victory. For over four decades we in the Russian Orthodox Diaspora have been adding
the names of thousands of these saints to our local calendars, writing their
lives, painting their icons, composing and celebrating services to them,
venerating their holy relics and going on pilgrimage to them. Now we have
official recognition from His Holiness Patriarch Kirill.
With
this, the Russian Orthodox Church has recognized what She has always
proclaimed, that the Orthodox Church is the only Church, that there is no such
thing as saints outside the Orthodox Church, to which belong therefore all the
saints venerated by the Orthodox faithful in the West up until 1054. That is
when the leaders of the Church in Western Europe took Her into schism and
ending Her existence, founding Roman Catholicism, which, as is known, later
spread into a myriad of protesting branches and sects.
The
fact that Roman Catholicism and even some of its other branches venerate
Orthodox saints does not in any way mean that those saints are not Orthodox. We
should rejoice that Roman Catholics and others venerate the Apostles Peter and
Paul, who were martyred in Rome, the Protomartyr of Britain, St. Alban, St.
Patrick, the Enlightener of Ireland or St. Genevieve of Paris. They are
venerating Orthodox saints. We know from pastoral experience over many decades
that such heterodox even find their way into the Orthodox Church in this way,
through the saints of the lands in which they live. Glory be to God! The local
saints are wonderful missionaries, even in our own days.
Of
course, there is nothing new in finding saints of the West in the Russian
Orthodox calendar. Look at St. Tatiana of Rome, or St. Irenaeus of Lyon, St.
Julian of Le Mans (Cenomansis), St. Alexei the Man of God, St. Hilary of
Poitiers (“Piktavijskij”), St. Ambrose of Milan, St. Cassian of Marseille, St.
Leo the Great, St. Gregory the Dialogist, both popes of Rome, and a host of
others. They have always been in the Russian Orthodox calendar. So has St.
Athanasius of Alexandria, who wrote his Life of St. Antony the Great while in
exile in Trier in modern Germany. So has St. Symeon the Stylite who
corresponded with St. Genevieve of Paris.
Icon of All Saints
ITrue,
there may be some of a pharisaical, chauvinistic and even neo-pagan mentality,
who do not like having non-Russians in the Russian Orthodox calendar. Such
people will certainly have to exclude from their calendars Christ Himself, the
Mother of God Herself, as well as the Apostles, St. Nicholas the Wonderworker,
St. Basil the Great, St. John Chrysostom and thousands of others from the
Church calendar—after all, none of them was Russian. And they would also have
to exclude from the Church calendar, St. Olga and St. Vladimir, who were
Scandinavians, as well as the Tsar-Martyr Nicholas II, who was only 1/128th
Russian by blood, not to mention the Tsarina Alexandra, who was German.
We
have always believed that the Russian Orthodox Church, alone of all the Local
Orthodox Churches, is multinational. All the others are mononational, looking
after only their own nationality, Romanian, Greek, Serb, Bulgarian, Georgian,
etc. If this is the case, and such great figures in Russian history as
Patriarch Nikon, Dostoyevsky, Metropolitan Antony Khrapovitsky and saints like
St. Seraphim of Sarov, St. John of Kronstadt and St. John of Shanghai, who all
saw for Russia a universal, messianic mission in these last times, are right,
then let chauvinists, pharisees and neo-pagans cease expressing their ignorance
of Church history. Their “Church” appears to be divided, unholy, nationalistic
and anti-apostolic, but our Church is One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic.
Archpriest Andrew Phillips
3/13/2017
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