Speech of the Primate of the True Orthodox Church of Russia on the 15th Anniversary of the Synaxis

The following speech was read out to the Primates at a meeting in Greece on the Saturday before Myrrh-Bearers Sunday:
Address of His Holiness † Seraphim Motovilov, Metropolitan of Moscow and All Russia, Primate of the True-Orthodox Church of Russia, Chairman of the World Most Holy Synaxis of the True-Orthodox Churches, on the occasion of the fifteenth anniversary of the establishment of communion between the True-Orthodox Churches of Russia and Greece.

“May they all be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us, so that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me.”
— John 17:21

“The Church is not walls and a roof, but faith and life.”
— St. John Chrysostom

My beloved ones!

Today, on this bright and blessed day of the feast of the holy Myrrh-bearing Women, when the whole world still trembles from that ineffable joy which filled the hearts of the women who were the first to be deemed worthy to behold the Risen Savior, I again stand upon blessed Greek soil. Here, in this holy monastery, which has become for me not simply a second home, but a true haven of the soul, where every stone, every dome, every breath of the monks and nuns, and every heartbeat of the laypeople is sealed with the seal of great love, wisdom, and humility before our Lord Jesus Christ.

Here, in this grace-filled corner, every year now, for many years already, I immerse myself in the ocean of living faith. The fire of sincere prayer, lifted up to the Throne of the Most High, burns here so brightly that it seems as though Heaven itself bends down to the earth. I plunge into the indescribable purity of tens of thousands of souls, glorifying the Risen Christ in a single impulse, and my heart overflows with gratitude for the great gift of brotherly love, mutual understanding, and support. This is not merely human friendship — it is that divine love of which the Apostle spoke: “Love never fails” (1 Cor. 13:8). Like the myrrh poured out upon the feet of the Savior, it gives fragrance and healing, uniting us into one Body of Christ.

Our common path began fifteen years ago, when His Beatitude Metropolitan Angelos Anastasiou, my true brother in Christ, good friend, fellow-struggler, and fellow-prayer, visited our holy place in Russia, and our hearts, guided by the Holy Spirit, recognized one another. We both felt how the Lord Himself was saying to us: “It is not good for man to be alone” (Gen. 2:18). In solitude, the path of true service to Christ was becoming unbearably difficult. But together, hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder with our brothers and sisters, we set out upon a path strewn with thorns, but illumined by the light of the Resurrection. And then we brought to the peoples not human words, but the words of eternal life — the words of the true faith, enlightening the mind, strengthening the spirit, explaining the truth, and instructing on the path of salvation. We bestowed upon people not earthly goods, but the light of Christ and the love which “suffers long, is kind, does not seek its own” (1 Cor. 13:4).

Our common decision was marked by the signing of the Tomos on full and indivisible communion between the True-Orthodox Churches of Russia and Greece, which became the first act of such a kind in the entire hundred-year history of the True-Orthodox Church.

The Lord did not abandon us. When in 2021 He called to Himself our beloved brother and friend, His Beatitude Metropolitan Angelos, his prayers and intercession covered us like an invisible mantle. Our union not only did not weaken — it blossomed like a vine planted in good soil and watered by the grace of God. Today the Holy Synaxis of the True-Orthodox Churches is no longer two peoples, but a great family, into which have entered sons and daughters of many countries and languages: Russia and Greece, the United States and the British Isles, Bukovina, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Latin America… And these are only those whom I can name today. How many more souls thirsting for truth have cleaved to us! How many hearts, wounded by the falsehood of this world, have found peace and hope here!

We began in a difficult time. The world shouted about “freedom of conscience,” but behind the scenes of this freedom there lurked an unseen pressure — the pressure of those who support the official, “state” church structures. We chose another path: to be outside states, outside their political games, outside earthly ambitions. We strove only for that for which the Church of Christ was created — the salvation of souls. We did not ask favors from the mighty of this world; we did not seek earthly benefits. And therefore it was impossible to buy us, break us, or force us to be silent. “It is difficult to govern those who are not interested in earthly treasures. It is impossible to suppress those who have fixed their gaze upon the Kingdom of Heaven” — so we said then, and so we repeat now.

The universal and terrible pandemic of 2019–2021, which carried off many lives of our brothers, limited our close communication, but could not diminish its fruitfulness. We continued to communicate online, by telephone and internet connection, by frequent video conferences. During the time of the pandemic, services in our churches did not cease for a single moment, while the churches of the official churches stood empty even on Paschal night. We always remained faithful to God, and we were able to stand firm in that dreadful time. To stand firm, no matter what. To stand firm thanks to the sincere prayerful support of all the churches that became our common family, which I felt and continue to feel with every fiber of my soul when I stand at the Holy Table and, like all of you, lift up a prayer wrung from the heart for all and for everything: for the peace of the whole world, for the welfare of the holy churches of God, and for the union of all. And when I say, “Christ is in our midst,” to the concelebrants in the altar, I mentally embrace all those who, to one degree or another, have become the meaning of my life.

Another trial for all of us has been the wars and upheavals of the last decade, which have enveloped the globe.

I do not understand, and probably will never be able to understand, why people are incapable of grasping one simple and obvious truth: how fragile our world is. And how small it is. Instead of loving and building up, they hate and destroy. Instead of rejoicing in life, they applaud death. Instead of praying to God, they worship mammon. And instead of following the call of conscience, they destroy churches.

The confrontation between Russia and Ukraine, which entered an acute phase in 2022, is not merely a conflict between two powers, whatever reasons may have lain at its foundation. It is a confrontation between East and West, between the stronghold of Orthodoxy and open obscurantism. On one side, it is goodness and universal forgiveness; on the other, open cynicism and cruelty. It is the light of truth and the triumph of darkness. It is the defense of traditional values and universal human morality, in which Russia has always been so strong, and the open trampling down of everything and everyone, vividly expressed in the nationalist ideology of Ukraine. And it is bitter for me to see how the furious shoots of modern Nazism put down roots not only in the soul of a once-brotherly people, but also in various corners of our long-suffering world, corrupting immature souls and provoking whole peoples onto the road to hell.

Someday, I very much hope, all this will end. And, having come to their senses from their drunken stupor, many will look with horror upon the work of their own hands and cry out in despair: “Lord! What have we done?” But will there still be time left for repentance? I do not know. I am not sure. And our task with you is to shield the souls of those who have entrusted themselves to us, our children of the True-Orthodox Church, from such horror. We must continue unfailingly to observe the commandments of our Lord Jesus Christ, clearly follow His path, and save the souls of those who wander in darkness. We must become at the same time both a lamp of the soul and a lamp of the mind, a fortress of faith and a stronghold of hope. We must. Because there is no one else.

And meanwhile we are forced, with grief, to observe the universal decline of spirituality and to become witnesses of madness and disorder.

I will give only a few examples that have struck me recently:

The ancient land of Armenia. A country that, at the dawn of the ages, received Christ. A land where the spiritual authority of the Mother See of Etchmiadzin seemed unshakeable. And it is precisely there that the state is undertaking repressions against the Catholicos of All Armenians, carrying out arrests among the clergy and followers of the Armenian Apostolic Church, imprisoning bishops only because they support and defend their Primate.

Ukraine, torn apart by contradictions. A country where Orthodoxy has turned into a farce. And where the state, in the person of a bandit-like clique, decides by command which church is to exist and which is to disappear; where officials are not ashamed to prescribe to hierarchs and priests exactly how one ought to serve God and whom one should commemorate in prayers. A country where the innocent blood of believers is shed during raider seizures of churches. A country where unwanted servants of God are forcibly sent to the front and compelled to take up weapons, while those who disagree are put in prison and charged with treason. And over all this stretches the shadow of Constantinople, blessing lawlessness and trampling down the foundations.

The Baltic region, where, by the will of local rulers, nuns are driven out of monasteries. Moldova, on whose territory the Romanian Patriarchate is waging war against the Moscow Patriarchate. Africa, the ancient land of the Church of Alexandria, where, contrary to existing rules and canons, the Synod of the Russian Church establishes its own exarchate.

And against the background of all this, there are unceasing high-profile scandals connected with high-ranking bishops of World Orthodoxy.

Only the True-Orthodox Church, like an island of calm and grace, stands above all this filth and worldly vanity, continuing to do what the true Church ought to do: the salvation of the souls of the human race. We truly remain the only guardians of the ancient Christian traditions, and perhaps it is we who are those rightly called the salt of the earth and the conscience of mankind.

Now war has flared up also in the Middle East. The excessive ambitions of Washington and Tel Aviv, in the desire to rule over the oil fields of Iran, colliding with the fanaticism of the Islamic world, have led to enormous casualties and destruction. As a result, a great Christian holy place is under threat — the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. For Tehran, defending itself from military aggression, one way or another will respond, and is already responding, with retaliatory strikes against Israel.

You and I are observing what could, with a high degree of probability, be called clear signs of the Apocalypse. Perhaps not everything is lost yet, but, however sorrowful it is and whatever anyone may say, the Third World War has, nevertheless, already begun.

Do not comfort yourselves with illusions. The terrible events tearing the globe apart are not so much the actions of politicians who are insane and crazed by permissiveness. They are the consequences of the hardening of human souls. They are the rampant spread of cynicism and the fall of morality. They are godlessness and total unbelief. They are pride and the desire to overthrow foundations. They are the same actions that once destroyed, down to the foundation, Rome and Babylon, which had seemed unshakeable. Today history is repeating itself in one of its very worst forms. And the disunity that, like corrosion, eats away at the Christian world only contributes to this.

For fifteen years, bit by bit, we have been gathering and uniting those who follow without reservation the road of Christ, who, rejecting the earthly, direct their gaze toward the heavenly. We do not oppose official Orthodoxy. Why should we? They themselves expose and put on public display their festering wounds, rejecting God and the people who seek the Light of Truth. Why fight against that which is destroying itself? Against the asp that devours its own tail? Our task is different. We must simply show the peoples another path: the path of love and forgiveness, the path of building up and redemption, the path of mercy and non-acquisitiveness, the path of sincere prayer and true ascetic struggle.

The Holy Synaxis of the True-Orthodox Churches is not the Vatican, which has made the Church resemble a state; it is not Constantinople, permeated with the heresy of caesaropapism; it is not the patriarchs of the local churches, who in their pride consider themselves infallible and measure themselves against one another by the greatness of their own thrones. The Holy Synaxis is a real family: a family of peoples and churches, bishops and laypeople, priests and monastics, who have accepted Christ with all their heart and unfailingly follow after Him.

Our task is the preservation of traditions, the upbringing of the younger generation in the spirit of love for God and for people. And we will never stop at what has been achieved. We will always go forward, with faith in our hearts and with the name of the Lord on our lips. This is precisely what we dreamed of with the now-reposed Metropolitan Angelos, and this is precisely what those who inherit after us will continue. We will continue. We will raise the young generation in the spirit of love for God and for people. We will never stop. Our family will grow like the cedars of Lebanon, and everything we do will resound with a pure ringing in the souls of those who seek the truth. The tuning fork of the human soul cannot be deceived. For from the beginning it is tuned to that great harmony whose name is God.

So let us be strong in our faith and be worthy of the ancient inheritance of our holy forefathers. May the All-Merciful Lord bless us in our works and give us the strength to pass through the chosen path with honor, with an open gaze and with our head held high. May the great sacrifice of the Savior become for us a guiding star, and may His promise — “I am with you always, even unto the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20) — as a reminder of His constant presence, become eternal consolation in our hearts.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.