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Born George Nikolaivich Voznesensky
at Only the third Metropolitan of the Synod of Bishops since the Revolution, Vladika Philaret's 21-year rule
was not without significance. It seems that to each Metropolitan God has
assigned specific tasks, laying different burdens on each one as if giving a
crown of thorns with the white klobuk [1]. To the
first, Metropolitan Antony (Khrapovitsky) was given
the awesome responsibility of carrying our New Martyr Patriarch Tikhon's decree ordering the formation of a Higher Church
Authority outside The second Chief Shepherd of the Church Abroad, Metropolitan Anastassy, reigned for nearly thirty years, and his life
and achievements have been written about extensively in the last OA. Like an
aged Moses, he led the exiled Almost simultaneously with Vladika Philaret's election, massive changes in the spiritual
climate of the world began affecting the Church Abroad. Modernizations in
Roman Catholicism, innovations and ecumenism in other Orthodox jurisdictions,
a thirst for genuine holiness even among people born and bred to the
neo-paganism of modern life--all these forces manifested themselves in a veritable
tidal wave of new people, new "tribes ," coming into the Church
Abroad. And these came, not because they were Slavophiles
or ethnic dilettantes in search of borrowed "roots," but because
they sensed that the One of the most respected writers of the Russian Church Abroad, the late Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose), himself a convert from Protestantism, was not a man given to exaggeration or overstatement, but Metropolitan Philaret's steadfast example so inspired him that in 1976 he wrote the fallowing evaluation of the Metro "Among the primates of the Orthodox Churches today, there is only one from whom is always expected--and not only by members of his own Church, but by very many in a number of other Orthodox Churches as well-the clear voice of Orthodox righteousness and truth and conscience, untainted by political considerations or calculations of any kind. The voice of Metropolitan Philaret of New York, Chief Hierarch of the Russian Church Outside of Russia, is the only fully Orthodox voice among ail the Orthodox primates. In this he is like to the Holy Fathers of ancient times, who placed purity of Orthodoxy above all else, and he stands in the midst of today's confused religious world as a solitary champion of Orthodoxy in the spirit of the Ecumenical Councils." (Orthodox Word, vol. 12, No. 1, Jan .-Feb., 1976) Fr. Seraphim then explained that while those on what he called the "left" (liberal or reform-minded Orthodox) saw Vladika Metropolitan as an extremist, and those on the "right" with "zeal not according to knowledge" (Rom. 10;2) also misunderstood him, the Metropolitan was in reality only and simply "Orthodox," not knowing left or right "wings," wanting only to call back to Orthodoxy all those who have departed from the age-old Faith. Accordingly, in addition to his many pastoral letters as presiding bishop, Met. Philaret also wrote several sorrowful Epistles to the hierarchies of other Orthodox jurisdictions in an effort to humbly but firmly remind them of their responsibilities as shepherds of their flocks and of the principles by which the Faith has always operated, in and out of season, when he saw signs of deviation from the True Faith. As Fr. Seraphim said, "The Orthodox stand of
Met. Philaret is rooted in his experience from
childhood of the age-old Orthodox way of life ....
In his uncompromising stand for true Orthodoxy he is very like
his namesake in 19th-century
The article above is adapted from Metropolitan Philaret's obituary in Orthodox Life. |