Introduction: The Background
After the Soviet Union fell in 1991, large numbers of ex-Soviet citizens settled in the West. The Orthodox among them, then about 1% of the total, went to wherever there was a Russian-speaking church. By 1990 the parishes of the old and dying ROCOR were almost empty, as the emigres had almost totally failed to pass on the Faith to their descendants. In 1992 I even had to set up a completely new parish in Lisbon for the new ex-Soviet emigres, though still under ROCOR. By 2000 all ROCOR parishes had been revitalised, but with ex-Soviet Russians. Moreover, the ROCOR bishops at the top, now almost all of the second generation or converts, had to ordain many of the ‘Soviets’ priests – there was nobody else left to ordain.
As a result, it gradually dawned even on the strongly anti-Soviet, often rather dry and cold, ROCOR bishops that there would have to be a reconciliation with Moscow. Moscow was, after all, 99% of the whole Russian Orthodox Church, and, by then, ex-Soviet Russians already formed 90% of their tiny émigré Church. Ex-Soviet clergy and parishioners understood nothing of the hair-splitting arguments against Moscow of the old émigrés and their descendants and converts.
They simply concelebrated with Moscow whenever they wanted and the people took communion freely in Moscow churches. Clearly, ROCOR bishops were losing control. The split between Moscow and the ROCOR group had been outlived. It was totally irrelevant to the post-Soviet masses, ‘the mob’, as one aristocratic and monocled (!) ROCOR bishop insultingly called them on the Russian Church website pravoslavie.ru, to the scandal of all!
To Moscow
Thus, the bishops were gradually forced by weight of numbers to lead the few remaining children of ROCOR emigres to concelebrate with Moscow. Having usurped the very elderly Metropolitan Vitaly in New York, who for them had outlived his age and who anyway had dementia, in 2001, ambitious bishops began to move towards talks with Moscow. These talks finally resulted in the historic Patriarchal and émigré concelebration in Moscow in 2007, where I was, I believe, the only Non-Russian priest present. However, even this reconciliation did not stop the bullying and intimidation of the non-aristocratic, not to say peasant, bishop-victims inside the Synod by the ‘princes of the Church’, the political wing of the utterly divided ROCOR Synod.
Their victims ranged from the meek and saintly Slovak Metr Laurus to the equally meek and mild Ukrainian Metr Hilarion, who feared the ‘politicos’, as he openly told us, almost trembling, and to Patriarch Kyrill himself. The latter was astonished and very, very upset by the categorical refusal of the politico bishops to accept the Patriarch’s very generous, canonical and utterly logical suggestion (it was in 2012 or soon after) to restructure ROCOR into Metropolia, in the USA, in Oceania and in Western Europe.
They even rejected his generous offer for a ROCOR bishop to become Metropolitan of a united Russian Orthodox Church of Western Europe, the foundation of the future Local Church. Rarely has there been such a tragic rejection of Divine destiny towards forming new Local Churches. This rejection, some ten years ago now, was in fact the turning-point for ROCOR. From that moment on, it reverted to control by its ‘princes of the Church’ political wing, concerned only with money and property, abandoning its spiritual, ‘Johannite’ (St John of Shanghai) tradition. Their predecessors had persecuted St John, now they would continue, persecuting St John’s spiritual descendants.
Underlying Sectarianism Returns
With this tragic refusal to accept its destiny, ROCOR had preferred suicidal, elitist, exclusivist isolation to playing the leading role in forming future Local Churches in Western Europe and elsewhere. The offer had been made on a golden plate and been rejected. The offer would not be made by offended Moscow again. It was clear that others would now have to play that role. ROCOR had sidelined itself, making itself irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, due to its nationalist exclusivism and pharisaic superiority complex, much, much developed by recent and unintegrated fanatical converts of a Protestant background. Moscow was at a loss, since it simply did not have the candidates with the linguistic, administrative and moral ability to lead its Churches outside Russia.
Thus, ROCOR lost the opportunity to head the establishment of three Metropolias: one to lead to the long-overdue Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Western Europe; in North America to merge positively with the OCA; finally, to set up a new Metropolia for the Continent of Oceania. The task of establishing just a Russian Orthodox Metropolia in Western Europe now went to Moscow, eventually through the efficient Metropolitan Nestor, supported by the very small, Paris-based Archdiocese of Western Europe, led by its Metropolitan Jean (Renneteau).
In 2021, ROCOR decided to take part in the American-led schism against the Moscow Metropolitan Jean, leading the emigres to split from that part of Moscow and so even further into self-isolation. The only occasional concelebrations would now be with highly conservative Antiochian, ‘more Orthodox than the Orthodox’, converts. The rest of the Orthodox Church was rejected. Moscow was secretly, and increasingly openly, despised; Greeks, Romanians and Moldovans openly hated; and in 2024, when the Serbian Orthodox Church invited a delegation from New York to try and bring ROCOR back from the brink, it also failed. No Church can be founded on hatred.
Conclusion: The Future
As one Russian Orthodox Metropolitan said to me of one ROCOR hierarch in 2012: ‘His Russian is superb, better than that of Russians, his liturgical knowledge second to none, but where is his love’? Thanks to sectarianism, ROCOR is rapidly losing its jurisdiction in Western Europe, just as it lost that in Vlasovite ROCOR South America. Now that Moscow is at last starting to send out competent, non-corrupt and non-homosexual bishops to Western Europe, ROCOR is increasingly looking like a small, right-wing American sect, with little influence outside its sectarian converts and their ghettoes.
Today, with the tragic conflict in the Ukraine ongoing, Moscow is isolated by Russian nationalism, but the emigres are isolated by convert exclusivism. The pro-Zelensky attitude of ROCOR since 2022, even demanding that Russian troops stop liberating the Donbass from Kiev-led genocide (!), is not in fact pro-Ukrainian, but pro-CIA. Unsurprisingly, ROCOR is now seen as treasonous by Moscow, but with its Russian-ness it is also seen as totally unacceptable by the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Metr Onufry, just as it was by post-1945 Ukrainian (and Belarussian) emigres.
As a result, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has over the last two years opened up a hundred parishes in Western Europe, which have nothing to do with ROCOR. As for Moldovans, they have been leaving the Russian Church for the Romanian Church, offended by Russian racism, just like the Ukrainians and so nearly all other Non-Russians. It is clear that other Local Churches will have to take on the mantle of establishing a multinational Local Church of Western Europe. Tragically, the dream of the ever-memorable Patriarch Alexis II of Moscow of forming a Local Church in Western Europe is for now dead. In the future only a radical change of policy and repentance could bring the constituent parts of the Russian Church in the Diaspora, now in schism, back to contributing to that great project, which others have now been put in charge of.