ARCHBISHOP ANDREW OF UFA AND THE OLD BELIEVERS

Vladimir Moss

There are many controversial aspects to the life of that most independent-minded of bishops, Hieromartyr Andrew, Archbishop of Ufa – for example, his membership of the “new” Holy Synod in April, 1917, and his rejection of the locum tenancy of Metropolitan Peter of Krutitsa. However, perhaps the most controversial of all his acts – and the one with possibly the greatest long-term consequences – was his extremely close relationship with the Old Believers. This article represents a brief review and evaluation of this relationship.

Archbishop Andrew’s early contacts with the Old Believers were uncontroversial. Just after the February revolution, he presided over the All-Russian Congress of Yedinovertsy (that is, converts to Orthodoxy from the Old Believers who were allowed to retain the Old Believer rite) in Nizhni-Novgorod. In May, 1917, together with the future hieromartyr-bishop Joseph (Petrovykh) and the yedinoverets Protopriest (later bishop and hieromartyr) Simon (Sheev), he visited the Rogozhskoye monastery in Moscow, the spiritual centre of the Byelokrinitsky Old Believer hierarchy, and handed over a letter from the Congress expressing a desire for union. However, the reply of the Old Believer bishops was negative.

In January, 1919 Archbishop Andrew was elected bishop of Satkinsk and the first-hierarch of all the Yedinovertsy.

But Vladyka’s sympathy for the Old Believers went further than these early actions would suggest, and further than the opinion, which was generally accepted in his time, that the anathemas on the Old Rite were unjust and should be removed. Influenced by one of his teachers at the Academy, Professor N. Kapterev, he adopted a still more “liberal” attitude towards the Old Believers which has been a subject of controversy to this day. While continuing to recognize the pre-revolutionary Church, he considered that it had fallen into caesaropapism, or the “Niconian heresy” as he called it, and that it was “Niconianism” that had led to the Russian revolution and to the renovationist and sergianist submission of the Church to Soviet power. He often referred to the Orthodox as “Niconians”, while calling the Old Believer “Ancient Orthodox”, whose schism was not a schism, but precisely a protest against this unlawful encroachment on the freedom of the Church. Therefore Vladyka Andrew's attempted rapprochement with the Old Believers must be seen in the context of the main struggle of the times - the struggle of the Church against Soviet power and renovationist and sergianist caesaropapism.

Let us turn to Archbishop Andrew’s own account of his dealings with the Old Believers: “In September, 1917 the so-called beglopopovtsi [i.e. those Old Believers who accepted runaway priests from the official Russian Church, but had no hierarchy of their own] approached me with the request that I become their bishop. At this time I was in Moscow at the 1917 Council. I agreed in principle, but on condition that my flock in Ufa should remain in my jurisdiction. It was Lev Alexeyevich Molekhonov who was conducting negotiations with me on the side of the beglopopovtsi. He assembled in Moscow a small convention of representatives of other communities of theirs. At this convention, after long discussions, they agreed that my union with this group of Old Believers should take place in the following manner: I would come without vestments to the church of the beglopopovtsi in Moscow (on M. Andronievskaia street). They would meet me with the question: ‘Who are you?’ I would reply at first that I was a bishop of the Orthodox, One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, and them I would read the Symbol of Faith and a lengthy confession of faith, which everyone ordained to the episcopate would read. Then I, at the request of the beglopopovtsi, would anoint myself with the same chrism which they in 1917 called and considered to be patriarchal, which remained [to them] from Patriarch Joseph [(1642-1652), the last Moscow Patriarch recognized by both the Orthodox and the Old Believers]. With this my ‘rite of reception’ would come to an end.

“My spiritual father, Archbishop Anthony of Kharkov, knew about all these negotiations, and Patriarch Tikhon was informed about everything. They approved my intentions.

“Thus from both sides everything was measured, calculated, thought out and humanly speaking worked out in a manner completely acceptable for all. After this I went to Ufa.

“But then the events of 1918 and 1919 took place. The beglopopovtsi lost me for a long time. I was in Siberia and then in a difficult incarceration… But in 1925, when I was in exile in Askhabad [in 1923 Archbishop Andrew had again been arrested and sentenced to three years exile in Central Asia, first in Ashkhabad, and then in Tashkent], the beglopopovets Archimandrite Clement came to me and began to ask me again that I should become bishop for the beglopopovtsi…

“I agreed to do everything that I had promised to L.A. Molekhonov… Moreover, I agreed to become bishop for the beglopopovtsi only on condition that Archimandrite Clement should himself receive consecration to the episcopate and would become de facto an active bishop, for I myself was chained to Askhabad or some other place for a long time.

“Clement accepted all my conditions and on August 28, 1925 we for the first time prayed together with him to God in a truly Orthodox, that is, not caesaro-papist church [!!!]; I on my side had fulfilled everything that I had been blessed to do by Patriarch Tikhon. On September 3, 1925 I (together with Bishop Rufinus) consecrated Clement to the episcopate, giving him the authority to be my deputy, as it were, as long as I did not enjoy freedom of movement…

“After this we parted on the same day of September 3.

“But soon I received news from Bishop Clement that the beglopopovtsi recognised neither me nor him as their bishops and that he, Clement, had been received in his existing rank into the number of the bishops of the Belokrinnitsky hierarchy.”

The renovationist Vestnik Svysashchennago Synoda reported: "According to the report of Archimandrite Clement, Bishop Andrew did not agree to the second rite (i.e. chrismation) for a long time, and agreed only after sustained discussions with, or demands from Clement, based on the 95th canon of the Sixth Ecumenical Council (which orders that heretics should be united to Orthodoxy only through chrismation).

"Archbishop Andrew said the following to Clement before the chrismation: 'It is not your hand that is being lain upon me, but the hand of that patriarch who consecrated your ancient chrism: when you read the proclamation, and when I recite the heresies and confession of faith before chrismation, then I immediately become your bishop and can commune with you. But since I am your bishop, that means that a priest cannot anoint a bishop.'

"After this, Archbishop Andrew anointed himself with the Old Believer chrism [more exactly: the chrism consecrated by the Orthodox Patriarch Joseph] and read out the following confession of faith: 'I, Bishop Andrew, of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, who was consecrated to the rank of bishop on October 4, 1907 in front of the holy relics of the Kazan hierarchs Gurias and Barsonuphius and on the day of their commemoration, and who am now suffering persecution from the ruling hierarchy for the freedom of the Church of Christ, confess before the Holy Church that Patriarch Nicon in his wisdom disrupted the life and love of the Catholic Church, thereby laying the beginnings of the schism in the Russian Church. On the basis of Patriarch Nicon's mistake was established that caesaropapism which has, since the time of Patriarch Nicon, undermined all the roots of Russian Church life and was finally expressed in the formation of the so-called 'Living Church', which is at present the ruling hierarchy and which has transgressed all the church canons... But I, although I am a sinful and unworthy bishop, by the mercy of God ascribe myself to no ruling hierarchy and have always remembered the command of the holy Apostle Peter: 'Pasture the flock of God without lording it over God's inheritance'."

Hearing about the events in Askhabad, Metropolitan Peter, the locum tenens of the Patriarchal Throne, banned Archbishop Andrew from serving, although a later search in the Synodal offices revealed no such decree, as witnessed by a “Spravka” by the Chancellor of the Patriarchal Synod, Archbishop Pitirim of Dmitrov on October 27, 1927 (№ 1799). However, Archbishop Andrew was not inclined to obey such a decree, whether genuine or not; for he considered Metropolitan Peter to be “an autocrat in clerical guise” who had ascended the ecclesiastical ladder by means of an intrigue, and the whole system of the succession of power in the Church by means of secret wills to be uncanonical. Thus he continued to “ascribe myself to no ruling hierarchy”, and to rule the Ufa diocese on an autonomous basis until the convening of a Council of the whole Russian Church, consecrating no less than 40 bishops for the Catacomb Church – about 30 already by the beginning of 1927.

As regards the supposed ban on Archbishop Andrew by Metropolitan Peter, we must conclude either, if we are to believe Metropolitan Sergius, that "it may have been lost on the road", or, much more likely, that it never existed. Unfortunately, however, this supposed ban by Metropolitan Peter caused him to be distrusted for a time by Archbishop Andrew. But this distrust did not last, as we shall see…

Archbishop Andrew returned from exile to Ufa in 1926, and according to eyewitnesses, the people visited their Vladyka in unending streams. However, the Ufa clergy led by the newly appointed Bishop John met him with hostility and coldness. As one of his parishioners wrote in her diary: "The people search him out and revere him, and all the parishioners of various churches invite him to them, while the clergy does not accept him. There are many rumours, and no one knows what to believe... Bishop Andrew took up his residence in the workers' quarter on Samara street not far from the Simeonov church. He served in the Simeonov church, and in such a way, according to another eyewitness, that "we ascended to heaven and did not want to come down."

In July, 1926, Metropolitan Peter’s deputy, Metropolitan Sergius, renewed the attack on Archbishop Andrew, and banned him from serving. However, even if we assume that the charges against him were justified, this ban was invalid, since it transgressed the 74th Apostolic canon. According to this, a bishop must be first be summoned to trial by bishops, and if he does not obey, he must be summoned again through two bishops who are sent to bring him, and then a third time through two bishops, and only when he does not appear the third time will the Council pronounce its decisions about him. In the case of Archbishop Andrew, he was not only not invited to a trial, but the sentence against him was passed, not by a Council, but by a single bishop like himself. From this it follows that his ban was invalid.

Archbishop Andrew wrote: “This Sergius, knowing that I was in Ufa, wrote to my flock a letter, filled with slander against me, as if I had fallen away from Orthodoxy, as if I by the second rite had united myself to the beglopopovtsi, etc. I had no difficulty in proving that this was a lie and that the deputy of the locum tenens was simply a liar!…

“And so Metropolitan Sergius slandered me, traveling along this well-trodden path of slander and lies. But in Ufa amidst the ‘Niconians’ there were some thinking people and they did not believe Sergius’ slander, as they did not believe Peter’s. Moreover, two things took place which served to help me personally and help the Church in general.

“At that time I had two vicar-bishops with me – Anthony [Milovidov, of Ust-Katavsky] and Pitirim [of Nizhegorod, later Schema-Bishop Peter (Ladygin)]. Both of them wanted to check out everything that related to me in the matter of the reunion with Old Believerism. Anthony set off to chek things out in Moscow, obtained the trust of people in the chancellery of the Patriarchal Synod and personally got into the Synodal archive, so as to study the documents relating to me.

“You can imagine his surprise when in the spring of 1927 he became convinced that there were absolutely no documents about me in the Synodal archives, neither about my ‘departure into schism’, nor about my ‘ban’, etc. He asked in the Synod what this meant, and received the exceptionally characteristic reply: ‘Metropolitan Peter was probably only wanting to frighten Bishop Andrew’!…

“Bishop Pitirim, a 70-year-old monk who used to be on Old Athos, a clever man, although unlettered, went not to the sergianist Synod, which he did not recognize, but to Yaroslavl to Metropolitan Agathangelus, so as to tell him everything concerning Church life in Ufa in detail and to hear his opinion. Metropolitan Agathangel heard Bishop Pitirim out very attentively for several hours (two days) and told my vicar-bishop Pitirim (whom I had consecrated to the episcopate during my first exile in Tedzhent in June, 1925), that he should not be upset, that my ecclesiastical behaviour was irreproachable and that only in the interests of ecclesiastical peace he, Metropolitan Agathangel, advised me not to carry out any hierarchical consecrations but in the interests of the enlightenment of the flock in Ufa and other faithful sons of the Church, he, Metropolitan Agathangel, advised me to present my whole ‘case’ before the judgement of the nearest – at least three – bishops.

“’But this is only my advice, and it will be clearer how to act on the spot,” said Metropolitan Agathangel to Bishop Pitirim.

“Bishop Pitirim, on returning to Ufa, told me about all this, and Bishop Habbakuk of Old Ufa decided immediately to carry out the advice of Metropolitan Agathangel and on February 3, 1927 he invited Bishop Pitirim and Anthony to a convention in Ufa, while he asked me for all the materials that would explain my ecclesiastical behaviour.

“On February 3, 1927 these three bishops issued under their signatures an ‘Act with regard to the Affair of Archbishop Andrew’, in which they laid out the circumstances of the affair and came to the conclusion that I had not ‘departed’ anywhere, and that Metropolitan Sergius’ slander was in essence a light-minded and shameful intrusion into a holy affair.”

From October 3-6, 1927 a large diocesan Congress took place in the Simeonov church in Ufa at which the “Act” was approved, Archbishop Andrew vindicated “as their true Ufa archpastor" and Metropolitan Sergius accused of lying. Vladyka Andrew's own view of his episcopal authority is contained in his reply to the Address of the clergy-lay assembly of March 26, 1926: "I remain a bishop for those who recognize me as their bishop, who fed me for the six years I was in prison, and who need me. I don't impose my episcopate on anyone."

However, Archbishop Andrew’s relations with the Old Believers did not end there. When Vladyka was released from prison in 1931, he began to visit the Rogozhskoye cemetery again, as he had at the beginning of the revolution. He concluded “that I am for them not a stranger, but their own, and I am for them not a hostile and harmful ‘Niconian’, but a true bishop of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church”. It seems that he then entered into communion with Archbishop Meletius (Kartushin) of Moscow, the first-hierarch of the Belokrinitsky hierarchy, and together with him consecrated a secret bishop, Basil Guslinsky.

Soon, however, he was again exiled. During this period, on April 1, 1932, priests of the Belokrinitsky hierarchy sent him the Holy Gifts and an omophorion. by the Old Believers. Archbishop Andrew now considered himself to be in full communion with Archbishop Meletius “in the holy ecclesiastical dogmas, and in prayer, and in ecclesiastical discipline (that is, in the holy rites)”. At the same time, he rejected the idea that he had “transferred” to the Belokrinitsky hierarchy, and insisted on remaining Bishop of Ufa, retaining “full freedom of Church action, rousing the suspicions of nobody”. Archbishop Meletius appears to have accepted this condition.

In reviewing the relations between Archbishop Andrew and the Old Believers, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that the Old Believers used the good intentions and missionary zeal of the holy bishop to deceive him into making errors that have cast a shadow over his reputation both then and to the present day. He considered that, as a result of his actions, “the schism, as a schism, has ideologically speaking come to an end”. But he was tricked by the beglopopovtsi, who rejected both him and the bishop he had consecrated for them, Clement. And there was not then, and has not been since then, any union between the Orthodox Church and the Old Believers of the Belokrinitsky hierarchy. Nor can there be, since the Belokrinitsky hierarchy, as the “Andrewites” themselves admit, followed the sergianists in becoming a tool of Soviet propaganda. In striving, like the Apostle Paul, to be "all things to all men", Archbishop Andrew sometimes expressed extreme statements concerning Patriarch Nicon and the pre-revolutionary Church which have not been generally accepted by the Russian Orthodox Church (or even, paradoxically, by his spiritual father, Metropolitan Anthony, who considered Patriarch Nicon to be an uncanonized saint). This gave the opportunity to lesser, evil-intentioned men, such as Metropolitan Sergius, to cast doubt on Archbishop Andrew's Orthodoxy, whereas in fact Vladyka maintained his good confession, as we shall see, to the extent of giving his blood for Christ...