1953 Synod Message upon Stalin's death

History of the MP: 1953, Message from the ROCOR Synod upon Stalin's death

Author: Metropolitan Agafangel. Date of publication:19 november 2018... Category: History of the Russian Orthodox Church . 
1953.  Message from the Synod of Bishops of the ROCOR to Stalin's death.

The death of Stalin is the death of the greatest persecutor of the faith of Christ in history. The crimes of Nero, Diocletian, Julian the Apostate, and other wicked ones pale in the face of his terrible deeds. No one can compare with him either in the number of victims, or in cruelty to them, or in deceit in achieving their goals. All satanic malice seemed to be embodied in this man, who, even more than the Pharisees, deserves the title of the son of the devil.

The Orthodox person is especially shocked by his truly satanic, cruel and crafty policy towards the Church.

First, an attempt to destroy it both through the murder of prominent pastors and believers, and through internal decomposition of it with the help of artificially created schisms. Then forcing the artificially selected leaders of it to bow to him and all the godless system led by him. And not only to worship, but also to praise the persecutor of the Church, as if it were her benefactor, in the face of the whole world, calling black white and satanic God.

When this most vicious persecutor of the Church was praised by the archpastors and pastors who fell under the weight of persecution during his lifetime, it was a sign of the greatest humiliation of the Church. The consolation for us could be that this lie was put to shame by the feat of countless fearless martyrs and secret Christians who rejected all the temptations of Satan.

Ancient persecutions also caused the fall of both hierarchs and laity. And in those days there were people who, being unable to withstand the torment for Christ, either explicitly reckoned from Him, or pretended to offer sacrifice to idols, in a roundabout way receiving certification in the offering of a sacrifice that they did not actually bring (libellatics ). The Church condemned not only the first, but also the second for their crafty cowardice and denial of Christ, if not in their hearts, then before people.

But the history of the Church does not know of another example of the creation of an entire church organization, led by the Patriarch and the Council, which would be based on kneeling down before an obvious enemy of God and glorifying him as a supposed benefactor. The blood of millions of believers cries out to God, but the hierarch who calls himself the Patriarch of All Russia does not seem to hear this. He humbly thanks their murderer and defiler of countless churches.

Stalin's death brought this temptation to its highest blasphemous manifestation. Newspapers reported, not only about the worship of Patriarch Alexei to the ashes of the godless enemy of Christ, but also about the performance of memorial services for him. Can you imagine anything more blasphemous than a memorial service for Stalin?

Is it possible to pray unhypocritically that the greatest persecutor of faith and the enemy of God from the ages will be made by the Lord "in paradise, where the faces of the saints and the righteous ones shine like lights." Indeed, this prayer into sin and lawlessness, not only in essence, but also formally, for Stalin, along with other People's Commissars, was excommunicated by His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon and Patriarch Alexei himself, no matter how he bowed to Stalin, never dared to announce removing this anathema from him.

A prayer for the repose of an unrepentant sinner excommunicated from the Church with the saints is a blasphemous heresy, for it is a confession that one can allegedly acquire the Kingdom of God in heaven, driving and exterminating his sons on earth in the name of destroying faith in God itself. This is the confusion of the Kingdom of God with the kingdom of darkness. This is no less a sin than a clear denial of Christ, faith in Whom thus. confessed as optional for admission to His Kingdom.

In this act of the Moscow ecclesiastical authority the most vivid manifestation of that underlying sin, which has so convincingly distinguished our confessors in Russia since 1927 and to this day denounces our Church abroad.

"Church Life", Edition at the Synod of Bishops of the ROCOR, No. 3-4, March-April, 1953, p. 63-65.