1945 AND THE MOSCOW PATRIARCHATE'S "THEOLOGY OF VICTORY"
Written by Vladimir Moss
1945
AND THE MP’S “THEOLOGY OF VICTORY”
It is well-known that for over eighty
years now the Moscow Patriarchate has assiduously defended and advanced the
cause of world communism, making excuses for the Soviet government even in its
most evil acts – and such acts have been without precedent in world history…
This process began with the pro-Soviet “declaration” of Metropolitan, later
Patriarch Sergius in 1927. It gathered pace under Patriarch Alexis during and
after the Second World War. In the 1960s, under Metropolitan Nicodemus of
Leningrad, it acquired a quasi-theological basis in the “Theology of Peace”,
very similar to the “liberation theology” of the contemporary Catholic Marxists
of Central and
Let us briefly examine how this “theology
of victory” grew out of the “theology of peace” of the 1960s.
*
The so-called “movement for peace” or
“theology of peace” arose as an essentially political reaction to the foundation
of NATO in 1949. This organization had been created in order to defend
In line with this position, the MP
organized a series of ecumenical conferences “in defence of peace” with
representatives not only of the Christian confessions, but also of Hinduism,
Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Shintoism and Sikhism. Insofar as these religious
“fighters for peace” worshipped completely different gods or (in the case of
Buddhism) no god at all, there was no place at these conferences for the
specifically Christian understanding of peace. Thus there was no mention
of the fact that peace on earth is possible only if there is peace with God,
which is obtained only through faith in the redeeming work of Christ, Who “is
our peace” (Ephesians 2.14), and through a constant struggle with evil
in all its forms, including atheism and communism.
Moreover, as Kurochkin writes, “on the
pages of the ecclesiastical press and on the lips of those speaking before the
believers, the similarity and closeness of the communist and Christian social
and moral ideals was proclaimed more and more often.” And so the cult of Stalin
was transformed into the cult of communism. For “the patriarchal church, having
conquered the renovationists, was forced to assimilate the heritage of the
conquered not only in the field of political re-orientation, but also in the
sphere of ideological reconstruction.”[2]
The “Gospel of Communist Christianity”
appeared in an encyclical of the patriarchate “in connection with the Great
October Socialist Revolution”, which supposedly “turned into reality the dreams
of many generations of people. It made all the natural riches of the land and
means of production into the inheritance of the people. It changed the very
essence of human relations, making all our citizens equal and excluding
from our society any possibility of enmity between peoples of difference races
and nationalities, of different persuasions, faiths and social conditions.”[3]
Insofar as the MP confessed that the
revolution “changed the very essence of human relations” for the better, it
renounced the Christian Faith for that of the faith of the Antichrist. This
aspect of the MP’s apostasy is often forgotten. And of course now, since the
fall of communism, the MP no longer talks about its enthusiasm for the
antichristian creed of communism. But by any normal definition of words, the
hierarchs of the MP ceased to be, not only Orthodox in any meaningful sense,
but also Christian at this time…
“The so-called ‘theology of peace’,” wrote
Protopresbyter George Grabbe, “is in essence the chiliastic preaching of the
“The peace
which the
“That is
why, in his report ‘Peace and Freedom’ at the local conference of the movement
for peace in
“What is
Metropolitan Nicodemus renouncing in these words? He is renouncing the
patristic and ascetic past, he is trying to turn the Church from striving for
heaven to the path of earthly social tasks. His
“He is
echoed by Protopriest V.M. Borovoj, who expressed himself still more vividly:
‘Systematic theology and the historical churches have never been on the side of
the revolution for the simple reason that they were prisoners of the
cosmo-centric understanding of reality, prisoners of the static understanding
of an order established once and for all on earth. Only in the last decades,
when profound changes, a kind of revolution, have taken place in philosophical,
theological and scientific thought as the result of an anthropocentric view of
the cosmos, an evolutionary conception of the universe and a new rethinking of
the whole history of humanity – only after all this has there appeared the
possibility of working out a theology of development and revolution’ (J.M.P.,
1966, № 9, p. 78)…
“By moving
in this apostatic direction the
Marxism-Leninism went out of fashion after the fall of the
It was illustrated most vividly in an
article entitled “The Religion of Victory” in which a new Russian
religio-political bloc, “For Victory!” presented its programme. The victory in
question was the victory of the Soviet forces over Nazi Germany in 1945, whose
blood was considered by the bloc to have “a mystical, sacred meaning”, being
“the main emblem of the Russian historical consciousness”. The political and
economic aspects of the bloc’s programme were communistic; but its nationalist
and religious aspects were still more alarming. Yeltsin and his colleagues were
accused of having betrayed ’45 and the “truly genius-quality” achievements of
post-war Sovietism. “However”, wrote Valentine Chikin, “the enemy [which is
clearly the West] has not succeeded in destroying our Victory. Victory is that
spiritual force which will help us to be regenerated. From Victory, as from a
fruitful tree, will arise new technologies, will grow new schools, defence will
be strengthened, a world-view will be worked out. And a new communality
embracing the whole nation will confirm the Victory of ’45 in the 21st
century.
“Let us not forget:
in the 40s a wonderful fusing together of Russian epochs took place. Of the
pagan, with Prince Sviatoslav [‘the accursed’, as the Orthodox Church calls
him], who defeated the Khazars. Of the Orthodox, in which the great Russian
commanders and saints Alexander Nevsky and Dimitri Donskoj acted. Of the
monarchist, with Peter, Suvorov and Kutuzov. In the smoke of the battles of the
Fatherland war they combined with the brilliant ‘reds’ Zhukov, Vasilevsky and
Rokossovsky, which Joseph Stalin so clearly and loudly proclaimed from the
Mausoleum…
“Only the bloc ‘For
Victory’ has the right to claim the breadth of the whole nation. The ideology
of the bloc ‘For Victory!’ is the long awaited national idea… Victory is also
that sacred word which overflows the Russian heart with pride and freedom.”
Alexander Prokhanov
continued the theme: “Victory is not simply the national idea. Victory is a
faith, the particular religious cast of mind of the Russians. Under the cupola
of Victory both the Orthodox and the Muslim and the atheist and the
passionately believing person will find himself a place. Of course, in order to
reveal this faith, it needs its evangelists, such as John the Theologian. It
needs its builders and organizers. In the consciousness of this religious
philosophy there is a place for artists and sculptors, sociologists and
political scientists, historians and politicians.
“We still have to finish building this
great Russian faith – Victory! In it the miracle expected for centuries, which
was handed down from the sorcerers from mouth to mouth, from Kievan Rus’ to the
Orthodox writers rushed to support this
ideology. Movements began for the canonization of such “strong” leaders as Ivan
the Terrible and Rasputin. “Icons” of Stalin have appeared. And, most horrific and
blasphemous of all, the anniversary of the Soviet victory on
Again, the former idol of ROCOR’s
liberals, Fr. Demetrius Dudko, wrote: “Now the time has come to rehabilitate
Stalin. And yet not him himself, but the concept of statehood. Today we can see
for ourselves what a crime non-statehood is and what a blessing statehood is!
No matter how many cry that in Soviet times many perished in the camps – how
many are perishing now, without trials or investigations… If Stalin were here,
there would be no such collapse… Stalin, an atheist from the external point of
view, was actually a believer, and this could be proved by facts if it were not
for the spatial limitations of this article. It is not without reason that in
the Russian Orthodox Church, when he died, ‘eternal memory’ was sung to him…
The main thing is that Stalin looked after people in a fatherly manner. Stalin
legitimately stands next to Suvorov!”[7]
“Ecclesiastical Stalinism” was the most
horrific sign of the lack of repentance of the Moscow Patriarchate even now
that it had been liberated from Soviet oppression. That lack of repentance has
continued and intensified in the first decade of the twenty-first century. In
2010, it has become the official ideology of the Moscow Patriarchate as
preached by her new leader, Patriarch Cyril, who believes that “we must be
penetrated with a special understanding of the redemptive significance of the
Great Patriotic War – and this is a religious understanding”.
Cyril mocks those historians who think
that the evil on the Soviet side was no less than that on the Nazi side: with
their “primitive and sinful analysis”, he says, they fail to see “the Divine
perspective”. The fact is, according to the patriarch, that
Let us consider for a moment what actually
happened in the war, and in the period just before and after it.
*
The period 1917 to 1941 constituted the
most relentless, massive, bloody and destructive persecution of the Orthodox
Church in the whole of her history. To take just one out of many staggering statistics:
according to Russian government figures, in 1937 alone 136,900 clergy were
arrested, of whom 106,800 were killed.[9]
Not content with destroying its own citizens on an unprecedented scale, the
The Nazi invasion on the Sunday of All
Saints of Russia, 1941 liberated
However, it was a different story for
those who remained in the Soviet sphere. The miseries of war compounded the
miseries created by the Soviets themselves, and there was no let-up in the
persecution of the Christians, especially the Catacomb Christians who refused
to recognize Soviet power or fight “for the achievements of October”. Many were
shot for refusing to serve in the Red Army; thousands more were sent to the
camps.
Moreover, in spite of the best efforts of
the Soviet propagandists, there was no genuine revival of Russian patriotism,
in spite of the peddling of the myth of “the Great Fatherland War” as a great
victory for Russian patriotism over a foreign invader. For, as Anton Kuznetsov
writes, “from the very beginning the Bolsheviks showed themselves to be an anti-Russian
power, for which the concepts of Homeland, Fatherland, honour and duty do
not exist; in whom the holy things of the Russian people elicit hatred; which
replaced the word ‘Russia’ with the word ‘Internationale’, and the Russian flag
with the red banner; which even in its national composition was not Russian: it
was dominated by Jews (they constituted a huge percentage, and at first it
seemed as if it was a question of a purely ‘Jewish power’) and foreigners.
“During the 24 years of its domination the
Bolshevik (‘Soviet’) power had had enormous successes in the annihilation of
historical
“One has no right to
call such a regime a national power. It must be defined as an anti-national,
occupying power, the overthrow of which every honourable patriot can only
welcome.
“… The antinational and antipopular
essence of the Red (Soviet) army is clear to everyone who has come into more or
less close contact with this army.
“Every Russian who
has preserved his national memory will agree that the Workers and Peasants Red
Army (RKKA) never was either the continuer of the traditions, nor the
successor by right, of the Russian Imperial Army (that is what the White
army was and remains to this day). The Red army was created by the Bolsheviks
in the place of the Russian Army that they had destroyed. Moreover, the
creators, leaders and backbone of the personal make-up of this army were either
open betrayers of the Homeland, or breakers of their oath and deserters from
the Russian Army. This army dishonoured itself in the Civil war by pillaging
and the killing our Russian officers and generals and by unheard-of violence
against the Russian people. At its creation it was filled with a criminal
rabble, village riff-raff, red guards, sailors, and also with Chinese,
Hungarians, Latvians and other ‘internationalists’. In the make-up of the Red
army the communists constituted: in 1920 – 10.5%, in 1925 – 40.8%, in 1930 –
52%, and from the end of the 30s all the command posts were occupied by
communists and members of the komsomol. This army was stuffed with NKVD
informants and political guides, its destinies were determined by commissars,
the majority of whom were Jews; it represented, not a national Army, but the
party army of the Bolshevik Communist Party (B) – the Communist Party of the
“But of course the most terrible blow at
this myth is delivered by the Russian Liberation Army [ROA] in the Second World
War, which is called ‘the Vlasovites’ by Soviet patriots. The very fact that at
various times 1,000,000 (one million!) Soviet citizens served in the German
Wermacht must cut off all talk of a ‘great fatherland’ war, for in fact: where,
when and in what Fatherland war do people in such numbers voluntarily
pass over to the side of the opponent and fight in his ranks? Soviet patriots
find nothing cleverer to say than to declare these people innate traitors,
self-seekers and cowards. This is a blatant lie, but even if it were true, it
remains complete incomprehensible why
As the Bolsheviks retreated in 1941, “the
NKVD carried out a programme of liquidation of all the prisoners sitting in
their jails. In the huge Lukyanov prison in
The Germans were in
general greeted with ecstatic joy. Thus Alexander Solzhenitsyn writes: “
“That is what the popular mood was like –
the mood of peoples some of whom had lived through twenty-four years of
communism and others but a single year. For them the whole point of this latest
war was to cast off the scourge of communism. Naturally enough, each people was
primarily bent not on resolving any European problem but on its own national
task – liberation from communism…”[12]
“In the years of the war,” writes Anatoly
Krasikov, “with the agreement of the German occupying authorities, 7547
Orthodox churches were opened (as against 1270 opened in 1944-1947 with the
permission of the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church).”[13]
Even in fully Sovietized regions such as
However, the Germans’ stupidity and
race-hatred towards the Slavs undermined the goodwill initially shown them, and
towards the end of the war many Russians were glad to see the back of them. For
the bitter fact is that Nazism and Sovietism are closely related spirits and
ideologies, two branches of the single antichristian revolution. So the savage
war between them was in no way a war between good and evil, even relatively
speaking, but rather a war between two demon-possessed regimes.
And the bigger demon won… with the natural
result that as the Red Army advanced westwards in the later stages of the war, one
of the greatest exoduses in human history took place. Millions of people of
various nations fled before the apocalyptic beast – especially Russians, who
knew precisely what the return of Soviet power portended. These included almost
the whole hierarchy of the Belorussian and
The behaviour of the Red Army soldiers was
almost unbelievably bestial, cruel and lustful. This has been excused by Soviet
propagandists on the grounds that it was natural for the soldiers to take
vengeance on the Germans for their atrocities in
In any case, what atrocities had the
female population of the German provinces committed? And yet, as recent
historical research has demonstrated, it was precisely this element of the
population that suffered the most. For, as Richard Evans, Regius Professor of
Modern History at
In this way, if Patriarch Cyril is to be
believed, did the glorious Christian soldiers of the Red Army “redeem the sins
of the Russian people”! In this way did Stalin “trample down death by death”!
In this way was Christ glorified in a new Pascha, a new and unprecedentedly
glorious propitiatory act!
But no: the results
of the war were irredeemably evil for all the peoples who came within the
Soviet sphere – and even outside that sphere, since Stalin bullied his allies
into forcibly repatriating millions of Russians in accordance with the Yalta
agreement. Thus “from 1945 to 1947, 2,272,000 people were handed over by the
Allies to the
The largest category
of those forcibly repatriated was composed of those who had fought in the Red
army. Already during the war the authorities had executed 157,000 Red Army
soldiers (the equivalent of fifteen divisions) and almost a million were
arrested.[17] And
there was no respite now for those who had spent the war in Nazi
prisoner-of-war camps or had simply witnessed the prosperity of the West and
therefore knew that Soviet propaganda about the West was a lie. Thus Protopriest
Michael Ardov writes: “I remember quite well the years right after the war, 1945,
1946, and how
In 1945 a hand-picked selection of the
most craven bishops in
The decisions of the council had direct
and extremely unpleasant consequences for those Orthodox Christians who
remained faithful to Christ. Thus Professor Ivan Andreev, who was a member of
the
Other consequences
of Stalin’s “redemption” included the enslavement of the Romanian, Bulgarian
and
Further west, the
communist parties of France and Italy received a new lease of life from “Uncle
Joe’s” prestigious victory and the generous subsidies he gave them (at the
expense of the starving Russian people, of course), so that only the presence
of American troops in Western Europe and the still more generous
(self-interested, but still generous) subsidies of the American Marshall plan
saved Western Europe from the Soviet yoke. As the Iron Curtain fell across
Europe, hordes of Stalin’s redeeming angels dispersed throughout the world,
spreading peace and goodwill for all men – except Christians, Capitalists and
all men in general who did not embrace the antichristian creed of Dialectical
Marxism.
Their greatest
victory came in 1949, when the world’s most populous country,
*
It is characteristic
of fallen men to understand everything in crudely physical and external terms, in terms of men alive or
dead, lands conquered or lost, goods seized or destroyed… But Christians are
exhorted not to judge by external appearances (John 7.24), but by
internal reality. For Christianity is the religion of the Spirit, of the
invisible and the immaterial, which manifests itself in the visible and the
material, but has its roots elsewhere.
The sergianists’ “theology
of victory” proclaims a crudely sensual, blasphemously heretical understanding
of redemption and of the basic principles of Christian morality. Their
understanding of redemption through Stalin is essentially the same as the
Judaic understanding of redemption through their false Messiah: a
national-political liberation from, and extermination of, their external
enemies by means of war and bloodshed. While Patriarch Cyril may talk about the
victory of 1945 as having redeemed the Russian people from their sins, this is
merely a quasi-religious fig-leaf for a shamelessly non-religious and even
anti-religious goal.
Christ rejected the
Judaic dream of national liberation from the Romans, and for that He was
crucified. The redemption He wrought, which was redemption from sin,
death and the devil, as opposed to a national-political oppressor, was
accomplished through precisely the opposite means to those employed in the
Jewish and Soviet-German wars: through the voluntary acceptance of suffering and
humiliation without the slightest hint of vengefulness, hatred, lust or pride. Externally, Christ and His work appeared
to suffer complete defeat as His Body was laid in the tomb and His disciples
fled in fear and despair. Externally, His
Death on the Cross appeared to change nothing – at any rate, in the political
domain. But internally, within His own
Soul and Body, within the depths of Satan’s domain in the heart of the earth,
and later in the souls and bodies of those who followed Him in truth, sin was
redeemed, death was abolished and Satan crushed in a Victory far more devastating
and complete than any national or political victory.
Physical evils can
be overcome by physical means, but spiritual evil can be overcome by nothing
else than spiritual means. And the twin demons of Sovietism and Nazism are
undoubtedly spiritual evils. Thus Elder Aristocles of Moscow declared in 1911: "An evil will shortly take
Such spiritual evils can be overcome only
by spiritual good, by holiness. This was the teaching of Tsar-Martyr Nicholas,
in his last message to the world, as passed on by his daughter, the martyred Great-Princess Olga Nikolayevna: "Father asks the following
message to be given to all those who have remained faithful to him, and to
those on whom they may have an influence, that they should not take revenge for
him, since he has forgiven everyone and prays for everyone, that they should
not take revenge for themselves, and should remember that the evil which is now
in the world will be still stronger, but that it is not love that will conquer
evil, but only love...” And the reverence in which the Tsar-Martyr is held in
But the
Moscow Patriarchate has not absorbed the lesson of the Tsar-Martyr. Acting like
Goebbels to Putin’s Hitler, Patriarch Cyril stokes up the passions of
vengefulness, of pobedobesie, “victory-demonism”. Far from recognizing
that the physical victory of 1945 was in fact a catastrophic spiritual defeat,
when Stalin conquered
We must
conclude that if the deaths of the Red Army soldiers in 1945 can be considered
to be sacrifices, then they were sacrifices, not to God, but to the devil. Nor
should this idea be understood in a purely figurative sense. Archpriest Lev
Lebedev speaks about the bloodthirstiness of communism – it is in fact by a
wide margin the most bloodthirsty movement in human history[24]
- as its “devil-worshipping essence. For the blood it sheds is always
ritualistic, it is a sacrifice to demons. St. John Chrysostom wrote: ‘It is a
habit among the demons that when men give Divine worship to them with
the stench and smoke of blood, they, like bloodthirsty and insatiable dogs, remain
in those places for eating and enjoyment.’ It is from such bloody
sacrifices that the Satanists receive those demonic energies which are
so necessary to them in their struggle for power or for the sake of its
preservation. It is precisely here that we decipher the enigma: the strange
bloodthirstiness of all, without exception all, revolutions, and of the whole
of the regime of the Bolsheviks from 1917 to 1953.”[25]
That communism, a supposedly strictly
“scientific” and atheist doctrine, should be compared to devil-worshipping may
at first seem strange. And yet closer study of communist history confirms this
verdict. The communists’ extraordinary hatred of God and Christians, and indeed
of mankind in general, can only be explained by demon-possession – more
precisely, by an unconscious compulsion to bring blood-sacrifices to the devil,
who was, in Christ’s words, “a murderer from the beginning” (John 8.44)…
Nor can the possibility be excluded that in some cases they knew precisely to
whom they were sacrificing. After all, the leading Bolsheviks came from a
religious background, Talmudic Judaism, and joined the Party in a conscious
rebellion against the God of their fathers…
This can be illustrated from the deathbed
confession of Yankel Yurovsky, the murderer of the Tsar: “Our family suffered
less from the constant hunger than from my father’s religious fanaticism… On
holidays and regular days the children were forced to pray, and it is not
surprising that my first active protest was against religious and nationalistic
traditions. I came to hate God and prayer as I hated poverty and the bosses…”[26]
He
hated God, but did he cease to believe in Him? Or did he perhaps transfer his
allegiance consciously to His great antagonist, the devil? We do not know the
answer to these questions. But we do know that the Tsar and his family were executed in a decidedly Judaist-ritualistic manner.
Strange cabbalistic symbols were found on the walls of the room where the crime
took place which have been deciphered to mean: “Here, by order of the secret
powers, the Tsar was offered as a sacrifice for the destruction of
the state. Let all peoples be informed of this…”[27]
A second illustration. Once the
former seminarian Stalin said to Churchill: “May God help you”. Churchill
replied: “God, of course, is on our side.” Stalin replied: “And the devil is,
naturally, on mine, and through our combined efforts we shall defeat the
enemy.”[28]
He was joking, of course...
*
But was there nothing,
it may be asked, to redeem the “victory” of 1945, that bacchanalia of evil?
Yes, there was, and we find it again in Revelation: When he opened
the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for
the word of God and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a
loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and
avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” Then a white robe was given
to each of them, and it was said to them that they should rest a little while
longer, until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who
would be killed as they were was completed (6. 9-11). In other words, the
silver lining in the black cloud, the redeeming factor in the horrific triumph
of evil that was 1945, was the feat of the Holy New Martyrs of Russia who
rejected Soviet power.
Not, of course, that
any mere man can redeem – and not the least of Patriarch Cyril’s heresies is
his implication that mere men can redeem sins independently of Christ the Redeemer.
For, as David says: “A brother cannot redeem; shall a man redeem? He shall not
give to God a ransom for himself, nor the price of redemption of his own soul,
though he hath laboured for ever, and shall live to the end” (Psalm
48.7-8 (LXX)). Not even the greatest of the saints, and certainly not the
raging atheist rapists of the Red Army, can be said to redeem anyone. Only
Christ God is the Redeemer, He Who has offered up the perfect propitiatory
Sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.
And only He is the
Victor. For the true victor is not he who kills men and conquers kingdoms,
thereby offering pleasing sacrifices to the devil, the hater of men and “ruler
of this world”, but He Who through His perfect Sacrifice of Himself to God destroyed
the power of the devil himself, thereby freeing men from death. For, as
Nevertheless, of the saints and the
martyrs it can truly be said that they participate in the redeeming
Sacrifice and Victory of Christ to this extent, that by their sufferings they
“fill up in their flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ” (Colossians
1.24). They offered themselves up as whole-burnt sacrifices to the Saviour, and
their sacrifice was not in vain, but rather gives them the boldness to
intercede for the avengement of their blood and the bringing forward of the
final victory of Christ over Bolshevism…
*
So where does this
leave Patriarch Cyril, and his glorification of the “redemptive sacrifice” of
the Bolshevik Satanists? Metropolitan Anastasy, first-hierarch of the
Russian Church Abroad, put it well when, in response to Patriarch Alexis’
description of Stalin as “the chosen one of the Lord, who leads our fatherland
to prosperity and glory”, he wrote that at this point “the subservience of man
borders already on blasphemy. Really – can one tolerate that a person stained
with blood from head to foot, covered with crimes like leprosy and poisoned
deeply with the poison of godlessness, should be named ‘the chosen of the
Lord’, and could be destined to lead our homeland ‘to prosperity and glory’?
Does this not amount to casting slander and abuse on God the Most High Himself,
Who, in such a case, would be responsible for all the evil that has been going
on already for many years in our land ruled by the Bolsheviks headed by Stalin?
The atom bomb, and all the other destructive means invented by modern
technology, are indeed less dangerous than the moral disintegration
which the highest representatives of the civil and church authorities have put
into the Russian soul by their example. The breaking of the atom brings with it
only physical devastation and destruction, whereas the corruption of the
mind, heart and will entails the spiritual death of a whole nation,
after which there is no resurrection.”[30]
And yet a resurrection of Holy Russia is
possible. But it can come about only when the nation as a whole repents, condemns
the satanic victory of 1945, anathematizes “Patriarch” Cyril and all those with
him who glorify it, and returns to a real knowledge of the one and only Victor
over death and hades, the Lord Jesus Christ. Each one who repents in this way is
offering his own true sacrifice to counteract the false sacrifices of the
Bolsheviks. For, as Elder Aristocles said: “One must repent of one's sins and
fear to do even the least sin, but strive to do good, even the smallest. For
even the wing of a fly has weight, and God's scales are exact. And when even
the smallest of good in the cup tips the balance, then will God reveal His
mercy upon
Vladimir
Moss.
May
15/28, 2010; revised May 21 /
[1]
“Bogoslovie ‘Pobedy’”, Nasha Strana (
[2] P.K.
Kurochkin, Evoliutsia sovremennogo russkogo pravoslavia,
[3] Zhurnal Moskovskoj Patriarkhii), 1967; translated in Orthodox Life, № 110, March-April, 1968, p. 25.
[4] Grabbe, Dogmat o Tserkvi v sovremennom mire, report to the Third All-Diaspora Council, 1974 (in Russian).
[5] V. Chikin, A. Prokhanov, “Religia Pobedy: Beseda”, Zavtra, № 32 (297), 1999, p. 2. Cf. Egor Kholmogorov, “Dve Pobedy”, Spetznaz Rossii, № 5 (44), May, 2000, and my reply: V. Moss, http://www.orthodoxchristianbooks.com/articles/316/imperia-i-anti-imperia-(-russian).
[6] Yuri Krupnov, “The Victory is Pascha”, http://pravaya.ru/look/7580?print=1 (in Russian).
[7] Dudko, “Mysli sviaschennika”, http://patriotica.narod.ru/history/dudko (in Russian).
[8] “Bogoslovie Pobedy”, op. cit.
[9] A document of the Commission attached to the President of the Russian Federation on the Rehabilitation of the Victims of Political Repressions, January 5, 1996; Service Orthodoxe de Presse, № 204, January, 1996, p. 15 (in French). According to another source, from October, 1917 to June, 1941 inclusive, 134,000 clergy were killed, of whom the majority (80,000) were killed between 1928 and 1940. (“’Nasha Strana’ – konechno zhe ne Vasha, http://catacomb.org.ua/modules.php?name=Pages&go=print_page&pid=771, p. 3 (in Russian).
[10]Kuznetsov, “O Sovietsko-Germanskoj Vojne”, http://catacomb.org.ua/modules.php?name=Pages&go=print page&pid=570 pp. 3-4, 7-8 (in Russian). A. Soldatov writes: “The memory of the ‘Vlasovtsy’ is dear to many children of the Russian Church Abroad (ROCOR)… In the memorial cemetery of ROCOR in Novo Diveyevo near New York there stands an obelisk which perpetuates the memory of all the officers and soldiers of the Russian Army of Liberation, who perished ‘in the name of the idea of a Russia free from communism and fascism” (“Radosti Paskhi i Skorb’ Pobedy”, Moskovskie Novosti and Vertograd, № 520, May 14, 2005 (in Russian)).
[11] Monk Epiphany (Chernov), “Tserkov’ Katakombnaya na Zemle Rossijskoj” (MS, Old Woking, in Russian).
[12]
Solzhenitsyn, The Mortal Danger,
[13]
Krasikov, “’Tretij Rim’ i Bol’sheviki”, in L.M. Vorontsova, A.V. Pchelintsev
and S.B. Filatov (eds.), Religia i Prava Cheloveka,
[14] Evans, The
Third Reich at War,
[15] Soldatov, op. cit., p. 11, footnote 6.
[16] Shumilo, “Sovietskij Rezhim i ‘Sovietskaia Tserkov’’ v 40-e-50-e gody XX stoletia”, http://catacomb.org.ua/modules.php?name=Pages&go=page&pid=678 (in Russian)).
[17] Alexander
Yakovlev, A Century of Russian Violence in Soviet
[18]
Ardov, “Avoiding participation in the Great Victory Services”, sermon given on