Opening of the All-Russian Church Council

Church Council... Over the past twelve years, these words have not left the lips of all church people, have not left the pages of the spiritual and secular press, and have been heard from the heights of the parliamentary stands. And yet... There was still no council. It was as if some kind of spell hung over the conciliar life of the Russian Church. The highest resolution of March 31, 1905 at the report of the Holy Synod on the convening of the Council: “I recognize it as impossible to accomplish in the troubled times we are currently experiencing such a great undertaking, requiring both calm and deliberation, such as the convening of a Local Council. I leave it to myself, when the time is favorable for this, to follow the ancient examples of Orthodox emperors, to give movement to this great work and to convene a Council of the All-Russian Church for a canonical discussion of the subjects of faith and church government.” Years passed after years; in the slightly changed conditions of state life, the position of the Orthodox Church became unbearable. Church life fell into greater and greater disorder. Even people who were strangers to it were rooting for the Russian Orthodox Church. Previously persecuted religious communities received freedom. In ancient Orthodox Moscow, cathedrals of schismatics met without hindrance and congresses of Baptists gathered. For the Orthodox Church, a favorable summer has not yet arrived. The tsarist autocracy, formed according to Petrine ideal, was all the time hostile to the independence of the Russian National Church and in this regard, to its own destruction, remained true to itself until the very end. It took a spontaneous coup, the overthrow of the royal throne itself, so that the favorable time would come for the Orthodox Church to convene a Council, which it had been deprived of for 235 years. The attitude of the reigning dynasty towards the Orthodox Church “is a historical example of ingratitude. Three hundred years ago the Church demanded a national dynasty, rejecting the dynasty of other faiths. The High Hierarch of the Russian Church, His Holiness Patriarch Hermogenes, suffered martyrdom for the idea of ​​a national dynasty. And this dynasty soon turned completely alien to the Russian people, destroyed the patriarchate, struck the shepherd of the Russian Church and deprived the scattered sheep of the opportunity to gather together, thereby bringing the Church to an extremely disastrous state. The St. Petersburg period of Russian history ends with a terrible shame and grave national disaster, and in these dark days the dawn of a new, free church life must rise. They prepared for the Council for a long time. Entire volumes of pre-conciliar works and discussions on all sorts of issues were published, and yet the council had to be assembled hastily. In the shortest possible time, regulations on the Council were drawn up, and elections of members of the Council were appointed and carried out everywhere. Despite all this, the Council met on the appointed date - August 15, the day of the Dormition of the Mother of God. It is difficult and, perhaps, impossible to describe the thoughts and feelings with which each member of the Council approached Moscow. Over the course of two and a half centuries, we, of course, have become unaccustomed to cathedral life; cathedrals have disappeared from our lives. For us, the Cathedral has already become a religious symbol, and it is almost impossible for us to imagine the Cathedral as an everyday phenomenon. For us, the Cathedral appears in iconographic terms; we see the Ecumenical Councils in the wall paintings of churches, where the saints, the “fathers of the Councils,” sit decorously. The members of this Council met each other for the first time within the walls of the Moscow Assumption Cathedral. Here, as it were, two Russias met - “the ancient and the new, they met and looked at each other, feeling each other and not recognizing each other well. New people came to the ancient church. How much [has been experienced] in two hundred years! How their mental, moral, cultural appearance has changed! Did faith and piety remain the same or did they become different? In the service itself, two eras were intertwined: the exquisite singing of the synodal choir was suddenly bursting with the singing of the Dormition cathedrals. And it must be said that the ancient pillar singing produced a stronger impression - as if the ancient walls of the cathedral were coming to life; power, firmness and steadfastness were heard in the melody. You involuntarily take an inquisitive look at the members of the Council and, first of all, notice how diverse the composition of the members of the Council is. The composition of the Council is as varied and diverse as the hundred-million-strong Russian Orthodox Church itself. Well-known metropolitan archpriests and unknown rural priests, many representatives of science and teachers, prominent public and government figures, whose name is on everyone’s lips, next to them are simple rural peasants, whose very appearance sometimes represents simple village piety, military figures of officers and soldiers are also noticeable. Everyone gathered here with their thoughts, with their needs, concerns for the good of the Church, and sometimes with a peculiar understanding of this good. And it was joyful to see this diverse mass of cathedral members, and at the same time creepy and fearful. It is joyful because the dream of many generations of Russian Orthodox people about the return to the Church of canonical conciliar government, which has been so brazenly desecrated since the time of Peter, has finally come true. It is scary because there have been no Councils for so long, so many misunderstandings, mutual misunderstandings, and sometimes enmity and ill will have accumulated in the Church Body. These people are so diverse, so far from each other, so unaccustomed to each other - “will they be able to unite in common love and like-mindedness, understand each other, appreciate each other, forgive each other’s past for the sake of a better future?” All these disturbing questions constantly worried my thoughts and created a restless state of mind. There were moments of special spiritual uplift. This was the moment of the opening of the Council after the Liturgy of the Assumption. Processions of the cross led by saints gathered from all over Moscow. Several dozen saints of the Russian Church stood on the platform in the middle of the cathedral in full vestments. They were joined by many archimandrites, archpriests and priests. The lay members of the Council came out into the middle of the cathedral. The Metropolitan of Kiev reads a short letter about the opening of the Council. The members of the Council chanted the Creed. The moment was amazing, many had tears in their eyes. Immediately, in a long line, the members of the Council left the cathedral and, going to St. Alexy at the Chudov Monastery, went to a nationwide prayer service on Red Square. It’s a clear, sunny day, the square is flooded with many thousands of people, a whole forest of banners rises above the blackening crowd. According to a special rite, a prayer service was performed at the Place of Execution, and among the banners, the members of the Cathedral returned to the Kremlin through the St. Nicholas Gate. Almost entire parishes of Orthodox Muscovites with their spiritual shepherds stood near some banners. Other parishes greeted the passing Cathedral by singing troparions. But all the way along the way, tears involuntarily blurred my eyes. Those were tears of tender joy, warming the heart and softening the soul. And for several more days the opening of the Cathedral continued - “in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and in the designated cathedral chamber-hall of the Moscow diocesan house. The Council was slowly organized. In the press they compared the Cathedral to a big bell, which cannot be struck immediately: you need to swing your tongue for a long time in advance. God willing, this comparison will continue to be true - so that the Cathedral really turns out to be a big bell that would ring loudly and force everyone to cross themselves and listen to itself! The very first days of the Council's meetings were interrupted by cathedral prayers. On August 27, the Council came to the Lavra of St. Sergius. On this day, many members of the Council visited our academy, inspecting the academic premises, the library, and so on. During the liturgy in the Trinity Cathedral, a member of the Cathedral, Academy Professor Archimandrite Hilarion, spoke. On August 29, the Council prayerfully commemorated at the fraternal cemetery all those who laid down their lives for their faith and Fatherland. Only in September the Council began its activities, which can be discussed later. But we cannot keep silent about one more impression at the opening of the Cathedral. The civil government was away from the Council. During the cathedral services, a state meeting continued in the Bolshoi Theater, where, naturally, most of the public attention was diverted. The civil authorities in the person of the minister-president made only something like a brief visit to the Council in the Assumption Cathedral during the liturgy...