www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church (ROAC)

Are any of you familiar with the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church (ROAC)under Metropolitan Valentine? I was wondering about its canonicity and whether it was a vagante group or a real Orthodox one. Thank you for your time.

Joyce --

As Serge has alluded in another post, this is a group of schismatic Russian Orthodox based in Suzdal, a town in European Russia that is relatively close to Moscow. The ROAC is not recognized by, and is not in communion with, any other Orthodox Church, as far as I know, but it has received certain dissidents from the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad.

Brendan

Thanks, Brendan. Joyce, the ROAC began when a former Russian Orthodox monk, Valentin, joined ROCOR and eventually was consecrated to be ROCOR's bishop in Russia. But he broke away from ROCOR and is now metropolitan of his own uncanonical, recognized-by-no-one church, ROAC. So yes, basically he is an Eastern vagante. Apparently he seeks to pick up dissidents from ROCOR.

http://oldworldrus.com

Met. Valentin is in communion with one of the 12.7 Greek Old Calendar Archbishops of Athens.

anastasios

So do the Orthodox view the vagante Groups like Rome views the Old Catholics or is it different. I was interested in ROAC because I am thinking of entering an Old Calendar Orthodox Jurisdiction and read some of the stories of the Catecomb Russian Church and was rather amazed as to their courage and spiritual fortitude. I am a Latin Catholic who wants to enter the Eastern Church, but not the Eastern Rite nor Modernist Orthodoxy. Thank you for your help.

Dear Joyce,

The Orthodox view groups like ROAC more severely than Rome views the Old Catholics. Anything outside the Orthodox communion is treated like it doesn't have grace, though Orthodoxy doesn't dogmatize about where grace is not. Catholicism is more generous to the Old Catholics and all Orthodox groups, both canonical and non, holding that if they teach enough of the truth (including about the Eucharist, an important point) and have a "valid line of apostolic succession' they have real bishps and real sacraments. So in Catholic eyes, Met. Valentin is really a bishop but in Orthodox eyes, at least functionally (regarding grace) he no longer is one.

The catacomb Orthodox of Russia were heroic and grace-filled. Probably the closest thing to them you can find here in the US, as far as practices are concerned, is ROCOR. Their situation in Orthodoxy is unique. Founded by exiled Russian bishops after the revolution, it isn't in communion with most other Orthodox Churches except the Church of Serbia, but everybody recognizes it as Orthodox. So they're in a kind of netherworld between canonical and noncanonical. If you don't want "Modernism', however one defines that, here's your stop.

http://oldworldrus.com

[ 12-17-2001: Message edited by: Serge ]

Hi Joyce --

"Modernist Orthodoxy"

Care to define this?

Thanks,

Brendan

From what I have learned so far the Modernist Orthodox are those who practice false ecumenism, act and look like Eastern Catholics, I guess they mean "Uniates" or Latinized Eastern Rite Catholics, but who have not become official Byzantine Rite Catholics, who are thoroughly Western in mindset and seperated from the pleroma or fullness of True Orthodoxy. I guess that is what is considered Modernist Orthodox. I am desiring True Orthodoxy not a shell or facade of it; I want the Real thing; that is why I asked about ROAC. So Serge, ROAC according to SCOBA Orthodox and the ROCOR and MP is considered to be graceless? What do the Canons say and are they in communion with any other Old Calendar Groups? Doesn't Orthodoxy teach that all you need is a Right Believing bishop, of course with Apostolic Succession and the True Faith, and there is the Church? What is the proper ecclesiology?

Thank you.

Dear Joyce,

Good questions!

So Serge, ROAC according to SCOBA Orthodox and the ROCOR and MP is considered to be graceless?

As ROAC is considered outside the Church, functionally, yes.

What do the Canons say and are they in communion with any other Old Calendar Groups?

Rule of thumb: Orthodox groups like ROCOR that believe New Calendar groups have grace can be considered Orthodox. ROCOR itself uses this rule: it is in communion with Old Calendarist groups like Greek ones that agree with it in refraining from denying New Calendar Orthodox have grace. Groups that claim New Calendar Churches are graceless are not in communion with Orthodoxy.

Doesn't Orthodoxy teach that all you need is a Right Believing bishop, of course with Apostolic Succession and the True Faith, and there is the Church? What is the proper ecclesiology?

Not quite. Orthodoxy also teaches that communion is essential too. It is conceivable that functionally the Church could be reduced to only one bishop in the world, like St Athanasius vs. the world in the early years of the Church during the Arian heresy's heyday, but not likely. Orthodox ecclesiology is a theology of community, communion and conciliarity - соборность in Russian (in the Nicene Creed the Russian Church translates "Catholic', universal, as соборный, "conciliar', and the Russian word for cathedral and council is the same, соборъ ): the Church is a family of Churches headed by apostolic bishops, all teaching the same faith, the same dogma, and all sharing the same Eucharist. Most Orthodox worldwide are Old Calendar (including the largest Church, the Church of Russia), but the Orthodox Church includes mostly New Calendar Churches like the OCA and the Church of Greece too.

The Church, in Orthodox eyes, exists in its fullness wherever a right-believing bishop in the apostolic succession and in communion with all other Orthodox bishops, or his ordained deputy, a priest, celebrates the Eucharist with and for his community of the faithful. The Church is one, her mysteries are one.

http://oldworldrus.com

[ 12-17-2001: Message edited by: Serge ]

Joyce --

I normally don't do this (and I have critiqued others for doing similar things), but I am going to warn you not to engage in a fruitless search for so-called 'True Orthodoxy'. I have known people who have engaged in such a search, only to cause great problems with spouses, children, families and friends (and then turn around and cite the Gospel's words to that effect as some sort of wrongheaded justification for their own blinkered view).

Fact: The jurisdictions that are in communion with Constantinople (which includes the Holy Mountain, by the way) are all thoroughly Orthodox, and just as every bit Orthodox as those jurisdictions which are not in communion with Constantinople. None of these jursidictions has a hangover from uniatism, or is practicing a false ecumenism, or whatever the various groups not in communion with Constantinople may say. We may not always agree with each other on everything, but we are spiritually astute enough to realize that the things on which we disagree are not matters of dogma and as such are not fatal to our communion.

Keep in mind that fidelity to the truth is critical, but so is unity. Some Orthodox groups give lip-service to unity and place the maypole for unity so high as to virtually make unity impossible -- even among fellow Orthodox! It is not true that if we disagree with what the Bishop of Jurisdiction X said at an ecumenical meeting, that we must break communion with Bishop X, or rather, with his jurisdiction. It is not true that because we think someone that Bishop X is meeting with in an ecumenical meeting has views that are not Orthodox, that Bishop X himself (and, by extension, anyone in communion with Bishop X) is therefore not Orthodox simply because Bishop X has agreed to meet with this person. It is not true that because Bishop X celebrates according to the New Calendar that his sacraments are without grace. This is what is called "reductio ad absurdam" -- and it's something that some Orthodox seem to be very good at, despite the Latin epithet.

I would advise you to explore all of Orthodoxy, and not just the self-styled "traditionalist" places within Orthodoxy (as if Athos were not traditionalist!). There are many POVs here, and it is dangerous to expose yourself principally to one of them to the detriment of the others. Honestly, I have seen a few spiritual paths shipwrecked by following that course. I would personally warn you to proceed carefully, and with an open mind to all points of view in Orthodoxy at this point.

"So Serge, ROAC according to SCOBA Orthodox and the ROCOR and MP is considered to be graceless?"

At a minimum it's in schism. The rest depends on whether he was ecclesiastically deposed -- if so, then he was, per Orthodoxy, laicized. Serge seems to know more of the details on this.

"Doesn't Orthodoxy teach that all you need is a Right Believing bishop, of course with Apostolic Succession and the True Faith, and there is the Church?"

But it gets tricky when a Bishop is deposed by his Synod -- if he then "founds" another jurisdiction, does he have apostolic succession? Good argument that he does not, because apostolic succession comes from within the Church. The groups that have done this usually have to resort to saying something like the Snyod that deposed Bishop X itself was not the Church and therefore lacked grace and therefore did not have the power to depose Bishop X. What that means is that any Bishop can go and get himself deposed from a sitting Synod, then turn around and say that Synod is a non-Church, and therefore say that only he (and certain others who may support him) have true apostolic succession, and are the "True Church" -- hence the typical wording favored by these groupings.

"What is the proper ecclesiology?"

The proper ecclesiology requires communion. That's the element missing in the definition you have cited, and which is often missing in the definitions provided by these "Trues". Sure, they're in communion with *someone* ... but the tradition of the Church is that the life of the Church is lived in communion with the other local churches. Communion with the other local churches is not broken lightly, swiftly, or over non-dogmatic issues. There is, furthermore, no ecclesiologcal precedent for breaking communion with *all* of the other local Churches over an issue like the church calendar or the nature of ecumenical discussions with non-Orthodox, and claiming that Bishop X and two or three others in the world are the "True Orthodox Church", and everyone else is graceless. That's simply not "communion", and it's not the life of the Church. In charity, I consider that some of these people may be Orthodox, but they are in a grave situation because of their lack of communion with the Orthodox Church.

Note for the file that this analysis does *not* apply to ROCOR, which has a separate historical basis and raises a separate set of issues.

Brendan

But it gets tricky when a Bishop is deposed by his Synod -- if he then "founds" another jurisdiction, does he have apostolic succession? Good argument that he does not, because apostolic succession comes from within the Church. The groups that have done this usually have to resort to saying something like the Snyod that deposed Bishop X itself was not the Church and therefore lacked grace and therefore did not have the power to depose Bishop X. What that means is that any Bishop can go and get himself deposed from a sitting Synod, then turn around and say that Synod is a non-Church, and therefore say that only he (and certain others who may support him) have true apostolic succession, and are the "True Church" -- hence the typical wording favored by these groupings.

Which seems pretty silly, since if Synod X, doing the deposing, is a non-Church, and the same Synod X is the one that priested and consecrated Bishop Truedoxios as a bishop, that would mean Bp T never really was a priest or a bishop! So much for his new Synod's claim to be "true Orthodox'.

I don't know if Valentin ever was deposed by ROCOR when he quit; it seems likely.

http://oldworldrus.com

Dear Joyce,

I would have to agree with Brendan on this one - I normally agree with him on everything else except when it comes to new geographical locations of fictional future patriarchates . . .

One will always find people who consider themselves to be more "orthodox" than others, this goes for both the Latin and Orthodox Churches.

Is salvation to be found in exerting one's efforts to find a group that believes that it and it alone is going to heaven on the basis of their views on ecumenism, modernism etc.?

Such thinking inevitably leads to the proliferation of breakaway sects which break up even more as soon as a bishop pops up who says he doesn't like what his Synod is doing.

I am not saying you shouldn't become Orthodox if you want to.

I have assisted friends to become Orthodox after numerous fruitless attempts on my part to get them to listen to reason (kidding, kidding).

But there is more to living the Life in Christ than what we exclude from our faith and way of life.

Also, when people start using terms like "Ecumenism" and "Modernism," as Brendan said, it is often a particular bishop's definition of what that means.

You are much better off working with Brendan in joining the OCA, if you simply feel you must leave the Latin Church.

I would ask you to reconsider the reasons why you want to leave.

They may not be the best ones.

But whatever you decide in prayer and recollection, you know we here are with you to support you in your struggles, whether in the Latin Church or the OCA.

If you became a Ukrainian Catholic, you would have the best of both worlds . . .

(Don't leave, don't leave!)

Your unbiased and neutral servant,

Alex

A quick search of the Web shows that former Archimandrite (monastic priest with honorific rank) Valentin, now Met. Valentin of ROAC, has been deposed (reduced to the lay state) by his original Church, the Church of Russia, so his position in Orthodoxy seems doubtful.

http://oldworldrus.com

Then what, may I ask, are the issues? What's the story with ROCOR? If it will deviate the thread, or be too much to write, is there someplace on the web where I can read up on this?

Mor --

I think that it will deviate the thread. There's a lot of 20th Century Russian and Russian diaspora history involved. You might want to try www.rocor.org, [rocor.org,] or www.synod.org. [synod.org.]

Brendan