Crucea.ro

Hieromartyr Ilarion Troitsky, Archbishop of Vereya († 1929)

 In a book review on the Moscow Patriarchate’s expurgated edition of the collected works of Hieromartyr Ilarion, Egor Holmogorov, a contributor to the then ROCA journal Vertograd-Inform (No. 2/47, Feb­ruary 1999), made the following astute observations concerning Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky and Hieromartyr Ilarion:

…One of the most renowned works of Saint Ilarion was ig­nored by these vigi­lant fighters against heresy — the article, Bethlehem and Golgotha… One can see why. Criticism of the Scholastic teaching about Redemption as “satisfac­tion” is asso­ciated — in the minds of the majority of the flock and pastors of the Mos­cow Patriar­chate — before all else, with the myth of the “Stavro­clast her­esy”, over whose dissemina­tion are energetically laboring the fol­lowers of Hegumen Herman (Podmoshen­sky), who… to all appearances, considers his life’s work to be the speculating on the memory of the ever-memorable Fr. Sera­phim (Rose), and the slandering of the memory of His Beati­tude, Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky) — the chief critic of Scholasticism, and whose true dis­ciple Saint Ilarion was.

In this regard it is understandable that any tes­ti­mony that this hieromartyr shared the views of his teacher, Metropolitan Anthony, on Redemption must be suppressed. …[thus] the article Bethlehem and Golgotha — maintaining a more strictly theological tone, and being considerably more reso­lute in its conclusions — did not find a place in this collection …And yet, pre­cisely in the article Beth­lehem and Golgotha Saint Ilarion declares with all resoluteness: “It is not possible to agree with the juridical theory of salvation, which dis­regards both the Incarnation and Resurrection, and which recognizes only Golgotha alone, with the sun darkened, with nature troubled, with the earth quaking, with the rocks rend­ing. This is a theory foreign and un-churchly, which in­filtrated ecclesiastical theology only two hundred years ago…”

Nevertheless, a publication of the articles and works of Metropolitan An­thony and his disciples (Saint Ilarion, Saint John, Saint Philaret, the Right­eous Justin [Popovich]) on this topic would be of great significance. It would de­stroy the myth concerning the “Stav­roclast her­esy” once and for all. It would become clear to every unbiased reader that there can be no question of either some founding of a “Christianity without the Cross”, or of some dis­paragement of the sacrifice on Golgotha. Fr. Seraphim (Rose) was correct in warning against a minimizing of the redemptive significance of the sufferings of Christ. He was wrong in attributing such tendencies to Metropolitan An­thony himself. It was impor­tant, both to Metro­politan Anthony and to Saint Ilarion, to emphasize the significance of the exploit of the God-Man. For them it is a matter of compre­hending the Cross within the con­text of the en­tire redemptive exploit of the God-Man, of a ceasing to reduce Re­demp­tion to Deicide, in which the God-Man figures as little more than the passive Vic­tim, in which He is the “Offered” and the “Received”, but in no wise the “Of­ferer” or the “Re­ceiver”. In the teaching of Metropolitan Anthony the pre-eminent significance belongs not so much to the dogmatic sense (which was formulated to a sufficient degree already by Patristic an­tiquity, and is in need of nothing more than a refusal to understand it through the prism of Roman Catholic “Summas”), as to the ascetical and pas­toral. It is not by chance that the greatest number of attacks were provoked, not by the teaching concerning the struggle in Geth­semane (it is obvious to the at­tentive reader of the works of Metro­politan Anthony that he nowhere says that our Redemption was ac­complished in Gethse­mane), but by the teach­ing on the compassionate love of Christ toward each sinful indi­vidual, the relating of re­demption and deifi­cation not only to human nature in general, but likewise to each man who is willing to accept Christ and to respond to His love with his own love, to drink His cup and to be baptized with His baptism.

Precisely toward the repudiation of the significance of the compassionate love of Christ, toward the negation of the necessity for every Christian, and espe­cially pastors, of acquiring the gift of this love, are directed the primary ef­forts of the enemies of Metro­politan Anthony and of our Church… For the Moscow Patriarchate it is extremely important to emasculate the very essence of the Or­thodox doctrine on Redemption, to forget about the moral rebirth which is de­manded of the Christian, about the moral exploit of active love, which is ex­pected of him daily by the Lord, and to reduce salvation to a purely juridical pro­cedure… It’s quite evident that the emphasis on the moral element in Redemption, the understanding of the Christian life as a struggle and the killing of the old man, the understanding of the Holy Mysteries not as something grant­ing “salvation”, but as a God-given, grace-filled power for the accom­plishment of this saving exploit, the understanding of a pastor’s duty as a duty of love, as the supreme spiritual commission, and not as the perfunctory performance of rites — in short, all that constitutes the very es­sence of the teaching of Metro­politan Anthony — is for the Mos­cow Patriar­chate like unto death, for it totally discredits those principles on which she is constructed. …Therefore it is so im­portant for the apologists of the Moscow Patriarchate at any cost whatsoever to blacken the memory of Metropolitan Anthony and cast upon him the shadow of the accusation of heresy.

We do not assert that in the teaching of Metropolitan Anthony everything is indisput­able, just as Metropolitan Anthony himself did not assert such a thing. But it is imperative to note that it [i.e., his teaching] was, in its funda­mental con­cepts, incorporated by eccle­siastical Orthodox theology in the works of such to­tally diverse authors as Saint John of Shanghai, Righteous Justin (Popovich), the Hierarch Philaret (Voznesensky), Bishop Gregory (Grabbe), and Fr. Georges Florovsky, all of whom did not conceal the influ­ence of His Beatitude, Metro­politan Anthony, on their works. …and, thus, to call him a “heretic” and to ac­cuse him of an imaginary “Stavroclasm” would manifest an ab­solutely inexcus­able audacity. And it is quite ridiculous to ap­ply this accusation to the ROCA as a whole. And even more ridiculous is it to undertake a “purge” of our pa­tristic heritage, more particularly of such a true, talented, and undoubtedly Orthodox dis­ciple of the Most-blessed Abba, as Saint Ilarion, with the purpose of remov­ing any traces of the influence of Metropolitan Anthony on the theological mind of his disciples.

Gheorghe Vanau