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Does anyone have any thoughts on the relationship between Old Believers/Ritualists and Russian Catholics? I know that a number of Russian Old Believer priests recognized Rome in the nineteenth century and of Pius X's comments on the Russian Rite. BUt I was wondering about the history of this..is there a historical argument which led these old Beleivers to communion with Rome? Was there a perception that Rome was unaffected by the issues of 1666, prior to Pius X's statements?


Ned W

It has always been clear that Rome has not the slightest objection to the pre-Nikonian tradition and happily blesses the use of that tradition.

The only issue I can think of, and it's not much of an issue, is that earlier in the twentieth century there was a thought that neither Russian tradition should influence the other. Nowadays, though, with the increase in liturgical scholarship and understanding, it is a commonplace to suggest that this or that element is better in the Old Rite, and that to restore such elements in a pastorally sensitive way would be a serious improvement. The two such points which come immediately to mind are chant and iconography, but there are many others.

Incognitus

Ned, Fr. Eustachy Susalev was the first known Old Rite Russian Catholic priest who was received in the early 1900s. The 1905 Ukaz of Nicholas II certainly prompted some who were considering such a thing to go through with it, "coming out of the closet" so to speak. But there were later movements also, both of clergy and laymen.

Fr. Patapy Emilianov and most of his Old Rite parish came into communion with Rome later, about 1918, with reportedly over 800 coming with him. Unfortunately the scourges of Communist persecutions, lack of their own clergy and support from the Latin hierarchy scattered them about and most either perished or moved to one of the Old Rite communities elswhere, such as Oregon, Alaska, Harbin, etc.

At the 1917 Russian Catholic Synod the Old Rite was, of course, recognized as being of equal dignity and the Russian Catholic priests could freely celebrate either. However it was decreed in this Synod that each rite should be kept intact according to the service books of that time and that no admixture of the two should occur. If you ask any Old Ritualists today about this point, and I encourage you to, they will agree that this was a wise statement and they will furthermore maintain the integrity of the Old Rite in public liturgical services.

Since the majority of the flock (other than the Nizhni Bogdanovka parishioners of Fr. Patapy and a few others) were of the Nikonian usage, most of the Russian Catholic priests celebrated according to the New Rite.

I think one could point to the dissemination of Soloviev's ideas as a catalyst- quite a few of the Russian Catholic priests who came into communion with Rome were directly or indirectly affected by his thought, and some of them knew Soloviev first hand. But it was never a flood, so to speak, one priest, a couple faithful at a time, with the exception of the parish I mentioned.

As far as Rome is concerned, she really had no direct stated preference in which rite was used, the issue being communion and acceptance of the Petrine ministry. Certainly Rome encouraged both usages amongst the Russian Catholic community, as did Metropolitan Sheptytsky to his scattered flock.

St. Pius X's well-known comments to Mrs. Ushakova at her audience certainly made no distinction between Old and New Rite, but his statement was more general in nature to not subtract, add, or change anything from the received tradition of the Russian Catholic faithful, which would have included the Old Rite for some.

In Oregon Brother Ambrose continued to keep the small Old Rite chapel and museum at Mt. Angel although there have been no Liturgies since the time of Abbot Damian.

I would be all for restoring an Old Rite parish or mission, if the opportunity and will of the faithful presented themselves. There are certain specific Greek Catholic hierarchs that have already indicated privately that possibility.

That does not stop anyone from keeping aspects of the Old Rite like some of the Domostroi, the rules of personal piety and home practices of the Old Rite which some of us continue to do. In many cases these represent the genius of the received spiritual tradition of Rus', and may be the remnant that can be held onto in the home of those who love the glorious Old Rite.
DD

I can't imagine what that argument would be, nor can I picture the Old Believers being influenced by the writings of someone like Soloviev.

Read about the history of the Old Believers, or figures like Avvakum or the Denisov brothers and you will find a large part of their history and worldview is a deep antipathy to the west. One of their main objections to the Nikonian reforms was that they were unduly influenced by the west (through the Greeks). This fed in to the highly apocolyptic world view that often viewed incursions from the west as harbingers of the coming of the Anti-Christ.

Andrew

Well, at least one of the Old Rite priests who came into communion with Rome and who kept the Old Rite did indeed cite the influence of Soloviev (Fr. Eustachy Susalev). One might not be able to imagine it but it did, in fact, occur, and he was faithful to the Old Rite while in communion with Rome until his martyrdom.

Blessed Exarch Leonid (Feodorov) even celebrated a Pontifical Old Rite Divine Liturgy for the Old Rite clergy prior to his arrest.

Perhaps what was pointed out in the pseudo-messianic leanings actually led them towards communion. The State Church was to them the foundation of the anti-Old Rite establishment, the descendents of those who caused the martyrdom of Bl. Avvakum and the other Old Rite martyers. Seeing other Old Rite priests allowed to enter into communion with Rome who were welcomed to maintain all of the Old Rite traditions obviously affected some.
DD

There is nothing at all to prevent the celebration of the Old Rite at conferences, theological schools, and similar venues. The only problems would be of the practical variety - learning the music and enough Church-Slavonic to make the service credible. In the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, celebrations of the Old Rite occurred fairly frequently long before the Erie parish came into communion with them.

It is not hard to sympathize with the Old-Ritualists, who do not like the thought of anyone mixing some of their practices with some Nikonian practices. But history tells us that progress is made in stages, and any restoration of the Old Rite will largely depend on people becoming gradually accustomed to it - suddenly announcing that as of next week, the Nikonian use is forbidden and we must all use the Old Rite in all its rigors is just not on.

Thirty or forty years ago, a certain priest and his parish in the USA were seriously contemplating joining the Russian Orthodox Old-Ritualist Church, and asked the Metropolitan if he would be able to accept them, since they were still using the Nikonian services. Without hesitation the Metropolitan agreed, saying that very gradually, without force, it would be possible to restore the Old Rite in God's own good time but that this would have to come as the parishioners themselves came to see the value, rather than as an imposition. For other reasons the parish did not in fact join the Old Ritualists, but the precedent is there.

Incognitus

I guess there's an exception to every rule. An Old Believer priest would be the last person I would think would come under the influence of the ideas of someone like Soloviev. I don't know the particulars though, so I can't comment in that case.

What was attractive to Soloviev and other like minded intellectuals about Rome was that it was un-Russian. Old Belief by contrast is deeply Russian, and in this it has a common strand with the state church though it was persectued terribly by it. Sentiments such as those of Vyshensky (a forerunner of Avvakum), who described the Roman Church as that of "Jezebel", were and are not uncommon. Russian messianism is also not a pseudo or minor aspect of Old Belief, it is a defining characteristic of it.

There are also strong anti-intellectual currents that run through Old Belief, what Avvakum called "almanac mongering". This again is something I think would turn off rank and file Old Believers to be influenced by someone like Soloviev.

The question originally asked was "is there a historical argument which led these old Beleivers to communion with Rome" and I can only say I don't see how. The Old Believers didn't even consider the post Nikonian church to be truly Orthodox. The western churches would simply be off the charts so to speak. Soloviev came up with his version of history for his own reasons, and generally this has appealed to the most liberal among the Orthodox (ironically), not the most conservative (as the Old Believers are).

I would imagine it would be entirely acceptable to celebrate the Old Rite at conferences, theological schools and the like. I think who you would find doing it though are people with an interest in Old Rite liturgics, and not Old Believers themselves. That's why in this thread I think two things are being talked about.

Andrew

I have just this minute rmeembered that there is an Old Ritual church in Sydney. I recall seeing something on them by the Archimandrite Serge in Dublin on Ruscath. Seems he was very freindly with them. Wonderful ways the Irish have of making friends all over the world. He provided some good information of what to do and what not to do if attending their D Liturgy.

ICXC
NIKA

I suppose there are exceptions. This is certainly true for some individual sects, but for some priestly groups (as the Erie parish, for example), it is indeed a minor aspect.

The welcome by Rome to certain Old Rite groups and clergy on one hand, and the still cold Nikonian church on the others seems to have been noticed. For some this seemed to have furthermore precipitated an impetus to establish communion with Rome.

Also it would seem not all of the Old Rite clergy were ignorant of the philosophical currents around them (such as Soloviev or Dostoyevsky who purportedly modelled Alyosha in the Brothers Karamazov after Soloviev), and were quite well read.

The priests I mentioned continued to maintain the Old Rite while in communion with Rome and it was not merely a liturgical curiosity, but they entered into communion with the specific desire to remain Old Rite priests. They were indeed Old Ritualists in communion with Rome, and in the case of Fr. Patapy he had a large Old Rite community to look after until it was dispersed through various Soviet arrests and persecutions.

Overall, the question would not seem perhaps any more odd than the situation of the Western Rite within Orthodoxy, namely why any strictly Western liturgical and spiritual tradition would unite as a subset of a seemingly very different spiritual, theological, and liturgical Byzantine mother church.
DD

What the Erie parish reflects though are the shared values of the Old Believers and the church abroad. Among these would be commitment to Russian spirituality, conservative piety, opposition to western theology and rejection of ecumenism among other things.

Being an Old Believer, but seeking some sort of rapproachment with Rome would put one in a state of dialectical tension simply by the very nature of Old Belief. I can think of very little in terms of practical value the Roman church could offer the Old Believers, and I can think of lots of things Old Believers would reject that are part of the Roman Church.

Andrew

I think similar arguments can be made for the presence of the Western Rite within Orthodoxy, but nonetheless both are there as historical realities. "Practical" is not always the deciding factor as history often reminds us.

The Tsarist Church was apparently seen as the greater of evils than communion with Rome by some at that time. After a few priests were allowed full and unmolested use of the Old Rite after coming into communion with Rome, it seemingly became more appealing for others.
DD

Dear Friends,

(First of all, Fr. DIAKon, an excellent post above on the Old Rite!)

It could be that the Old Rite community that came into union with Rome was led to that move by reasons similar to why the Ruthenian Orthodox Metropolia of Kyiv was led to the same union in 1596.

The reason I'm inclining most toward is that union with Rome meant that the Old Rite would have had an ecclesial environment in which they would be left alone to practice their Old Rite in freedom, and freedom from the repressive politics of Russian imperialism, Tsarist and Soviet, and that of the Nikonians.

Rome at least was a patriarchate that was "far away" and further away than the Moscow Patriarchate - a reason actually given by some of our EC Union of Brest forefathers - and so would interfere less in one's church affairs.

Also, the figure of the then EC Metropolitan Andrew Sheptytsky, who was well known and well respected even by Russian Orthodox (of the Tsarist persuasion, even though he was imprisoned by the Tsarist government, since he personally assisted Russian Orthodox hierarchs and aristocrats to escape the Bolsheviks).

Also, the diplomatic way in which Sheptytsky handled the Russian Catholic Syno of 1904 and the way in which he personally ensured the protection and maintenance of the fullest possible expression of the Particular Russian tradition et al. was esteemed, as we know, widely in Russian circles, especially those who, owing to their education and cultural inclination westward toward Europe, saw in Sheptytsky "one of their own" i.e. the ideal European Christian educated in the West but whose faith was firmly Eastern etc.

The experiences of Bl. Leonid Fyodorov are telling. I don't know whether Bl. Leonid was Old Rite or New Rite, but he DID belong, when he became an EC, to an Old Rite Russian Catholic Orthodox (that's how they called themselves) community (in union with Rome).

That community wrote a letter of prayerful support to Tsar St Nicholas II for his son St Alexis and signed themselves as "the Russian Old Rite Orthodox community in union with Rome."

The Tsar wrote back to them, thanking them for their prayers and referred to them in accordance with the exact title above.

Bl. Leonid and his group held onto that letter and showed it to the Tsarist police whenever they came to evict them as "troublemakers" from their premises where they held their services - the police backed off when they saw the letter.

So fond did Met. Andrew Sheptytsky become of Bl. Leonid Fyodorov (the Metropolitan, as I understand, first wrote to Rome to introduce the canonization cause of Bl. Leonid and recommended this cause to ALL Ukrainian Catholics, citing Leonid as a saint and martyr of "our Church" along with others), so close did he become to Bl. Leonid that a number of Sheptytsky's detractors, Polish and Russian, have sometimes suggested, blasphemously, that Leonid was the "illegitimate son" of the Metropolitan!!

Metropolitan Andrew knew Leonid's mother, who also became a Russian Catholic, as did other Russians of aristocratic background and western education - they all shared much in common with Andrew, a Count himself.

Alex

And also an excellent post, Graf Roman...

Blessed Leonid's mother was ethnically Greek, and like many mothers of that time was the "hegumenssa" of the family. So he was definitely brought up in a Nikonian and Greek influenced liturgical milleu. Certainly she was pivotal in fostering Bl. Leonid's vocation as an apostle of unity.

That he had sympathies for the Old Rite was well known, and he did celebrate according to the Old Rite with Frs. Susalev and Emilianov on occasion. At those times he carefully followed the Old Rite style of vesting as a bishop (Great Omophorion over the felon, and not vesting in the sakkos).

Bl. Leonid's efforts were largely responsible for Fr. Patapy and his Old Rite parish at Nizhni Bogdanovka coming into communion with Rome.

Fr. Patapy came for a visit and saw one of the Old Rite Liturgies with Bl. Leonid and Fr. Susalev, and saw that nothing was "watered down" or latinized in their observance of the Old Rite. After communicating that to his people, they made their choice.

It's funny how persecution can make bedfellows-how differences can be put away in the cold confines of cell blocks. Perhaps the Old Ritualists tending towards communion saw the treatment of the Russian Catholics as akin to their own situation in some ways.
DD

Again, it seems like two things are being talked about, ordinary Old Believers vs. intellectuals with an interest in the Old Rite (aside from what would appear to be a few white crows). The Old Believers now have their own hierarchy, they are essentially completely self sufficient. There is nothing practically speaking they could get from Rome, and there�s a whole ream of reasons why they would not be interested in being associated with them. These reasons are all foundational in the history of Old Belief (antipathy to the west, distrust of outside authority, suspicion of philosophized faith, belief in a pure Orthodox state and the eschatological destiny of Russia, etc). Imagine how an Old Believer would react to witnessing a standard Novus Ordo mass and I think you can basically guage what the liklehood is of Old Believers seeking solace with Rome.

Andrew

The thread started with the historical reasons why the Old Ritualists sought communion with Rome, and those have been pretty well addressed. This comment dwells in the present, and also oversimplifies the great complexity of Old Rite soglasnie in various stages of intercommunion with other groups, whether priestless or priestly, and in various stages of hierarchal development.

Again, one could make similar points relative to the Western Rite in Orthodoxy. As with both, they have happened, issues of practicality aside. And actually considering the oppression the Old Rite faithful historically suffered from the Nikonian Russian Church, perhaps not, even today when cultural persecution still happens of Old Ritualists in some corners of the former USSR.

Exactly why some where interested in communion - the Russian Catholics were not the Tsarist Church which they saw as the cause of their centuries-old persecution. And that same Tsarist Church was attempting to suppress the Russian Catholics. As I mentioned, persecution often makes interesting bedfriends. Sort of the thought that my enemy's enemy is my friend.

It seems Andrew in the above post is the one attempting to discuss tangential points - the historical movement of the Old Ritualists into communion with Rome was the subject, not the Novus Ordo.

As we see with the Old Ritualists who entered into communion with Rome, they were neither made to accept the Roman Rite nor even the Nikonian Russian Rite. This statement seems a non-sequitor, especially considering they would never have had the opportunity to see the Novus Ordo in 1918, and even today, would not be forced to attend or have to celebrate it.
Again I would point to the Western Rite of Orthodoxy, as those clergy are not made to offer the Byzantine Rite and vice versa.

I think overall some excellent hypotheses have been advanced to get at the historical reality of the movement of certain groups of Old Ritualists into communion with Rome.

We praise God that Fr. Patapy Emilianov's name is under consideration for beatification. We will soon have a Catholic Old Rite hieromartyr. May he and all of the Old Rite martyrs intercede for us.
FDD