“Our Founder Saint”
An Interview with Bishop Irenei About the Centenary of the Repose of Patriarch Tikhon.

Following the recent visit of His Grace Bishop Irenei of London and Western Europe of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia to Brussels for the Rite of Unction in the capital’s Memorial Church of St Job and the Divine Liturgy in the same city’s Resurrection Parish, Vladyka was interviewed by the Diocese’s web site staff about the commemoration of the centenary of Patriarch St Tikhon, which was held on the Sunday of Bishop Irenei’s Belgian visitation.

—Vladyka, this year, you instructed all parishes of the Diocese of Great Britain and Western Europe to specially mark the commemoration of Patriarch Tikhon’s blessed repose on the final Sunday of Great Lent. Was there a particular reason for this?

It was a decision of the Holy Synod of Bishops that this year the whole ROCOR would mark in a special way the 100-year anniversaries of two great hierarchs linked to the establishment and martyric growth of our Church Abroad: Patriarch St Tikhon of Moscow, who reigned at the time of the godless revolution in Russia and oversaw the initial formation of the Church Abroad, granting its founding his Patriarchal blessing and establishing its abiding canonical basis, in its autonomy, through his famous Decree No. 362; and the confessor-hierarch St Jonah of Hankow, better known to English speakers as St Jonah of Manchuria, who was a great spiritual witness to the Truth of the Church. Both saints were glorified by the Church Abroad: St Tikhon in 1981, and St Jonah in 1996. In the years that followed, other parts of the Orthodox world confirmed these canonisations by their own local processes.

By an instruction from the Holy Synod, the names of both these confessor-hierarchs are being included in the dismissal of every Divine Liturgy served in all our parishes, throughout the whole year.

—Why did you instruct this Sunday in particular to be dedicated to St Tikhon’s memory?

This, too, was a decision of the Holy Synod, which in our Diocese we have implemented in concert with the pious Archpastors of all the other Dioceses of the Church. This date was chosen as the Sunday nearest the Feast of the Annunciation of the Theotokos, 25th March / 7th April, which this year falls on a Monday. The holy Patriarch fell asleep in the Lord on this feast in the year 1925 (which, as it happened, was a Sunday that year), having served the Divine Liturgy a final time, made weak and frail from years of severest persecution by the atheists.

This year, we mark the centenary of that pious and blessed repose, and the next day celebrate the Feast of the Annunciation, lifting up our prayers together with him to God’s Mother, whom he loved and continues to love.

—Can you tell us more about why Patriarch Tikhon is such an important figure for our faithful today?

There are so many reasons! First and foremost, and above all else, he is a true image of the love of God and fidelity to His Will. In a world ever more furiously tossed about by the waves of relativism, renovation, revolution and blind self-determinism, he is an example of a different and infinitely better way of life: one grounded in God’s self-revelation, and wholly committed to the life He grants.

Secondly, St Tikhon holds an especially dear place to all children of the Russian Orthodox diaspora, whose home is in the Church Abroad, as he was instrumental in the founding of the ROCOR. In those terrible years following the Bolshevik destruction of Godly rule and the attempt to create a godless society through the active elimination of all institutions and individuals who sought to follow Him, St Tikhon, with divine clarity of vision, foresaw that the continued existence of the Church in her full freedom, in the lands succumbing to those terrible worldly powers, would be impossible. He therefore blessed, offered Patriarchal counsel to, interacted with, and granted his authorisation to the formation of an administration outside of the crumbling Russian Empire, and in due course issued a Patriarchal Decree in 1920 granting the secure canonical basis for the formation of what came to be known as our Church Abroad. This Decree, together with his interactions and other documents, established the nature of the ROCOR’s autonomy and self-governance, which were so diligently preserved the better part of a century later, when the Act of Reconciliation was signed.

—Is this the Act of 2007, by which the restoration of communion with the Patriarchate was re-established?

Yes. At that time, the Primates of the two parts of the Russian Orthodox Church — Patriarch Alexei II of Moscow and Metropolitan Laurus of the ROCOR — followed very closely the spirit of St Tikhon, carefully preserving the character of the Church Abroad’s autonomy and heritage, whilst joyfully restoring the bonds of fraternal love after so many years of forced estrangement. How could that love not be embraced, in light of the defeat, at long last, of those atheistic powers that had held the Russian lands captive for so long? Really, to behold the warm embrace of Patriarch Alexei and Metropolitan Laurus — both of whom have since gone on to the next life — it was a profound moment of grace. Yet that love was met out with wisdom: the two parts of historic Russian Orthodoxy remained and remain each self-governing. The world had changed much since 1920, and yet it was mutually affirmed that the autonomy of the two parts of the Church remained blessed and useful, and so would continue in perpetuity. The Patriarchate, freed from Communist interference, would attend to the flock in its vast territories; and the Church Abroad, having become ‘local’ to so many regions of the diaspora for nearly a century, would continue its ministry to that flock, linked to no State, nation or government, but reaching out from ancient origins to the various corners of the world. I cannot help but feel that Patriarch Tikhon was present in this whole process, through his intercessions, guiding those Archpastors and Primates, in carrying forward the work he had begun. And now, 18 years after the signing of that Act, we bear witness to the continuation of his vision, as both the Patriarchate and the ROCOR continue to grow, side by side, retaining each their independence while maintaining spiritual bonds of love. Our Church Abroad remains governed by our Primate, the First Hierarch in New York, with our own Holy Synod, our own statutes, and our own unique identity and mission.

—At the beginning of its history, then, what was Patriarch Tikhon’s relationship to the governance of the ROCOR?

It is absolutely clear that in the earliest years of her life, the Hierarchy and faithful of the Church Abroad actively considered their labours to be undertaken wholly in concert and spiritual fellowship with the legitimate, saintly, and suffering Patriarch, who from 1922 was imprisoned by the bolsheviks for his confession of faith. The journals and magazines published by the diaspora communities in those years demonstrate this on almost every page. The Higher Church Administration of what became known as our ROCOR, despite having been given the autonomy to act in its own right (and when it did so, and Patriarch Tikhon eventually was able to be made known of its decisions amidst his sufferings, he offered his blessing as a sign of his acknowledgement of that governance being rightly exercised), our first Primate and the Hierarchs surrounding him consciously sought to do everything in spiritual and — so far as was possible — practical communion with the long-suffering Patriarch imprisoned in Moscow. Quickly the practical possibilities deteriorated, but not the spiritual communion.

We can only be grateful to our man-befriending God that the rectitude of canonical communion between the two parts of historic Russian Orthodoxy has been restored in our day, and with it the healing of so many other disruptions of unity in the Faith. Many today misunderstand the nature of canonical communion, seeking to see everything in political terms, as if it equates to administrative authority or is paralleled to political governance — as if one part of the Church ‘controls’ another, or one is subservient to the other, and so on. But this is deeply to misunderstand the nature of Church life. What such a canonical relationship fundamentally means is that, today, both parts of the Russian Orthodox Church — the Church in Russia and the Church Outside Russia — precisely maintain their complete autonomy in administrative, pastoral and such matters, while choosing, in adherence to the ancient Canons, to lay open their canonical actions to the mutual examination and affirmation of one another, as is the ancient practice of all Orthodox Churches. In the world, man often lives in isolation, but not in the Church! We freely lay open our lives before one another, standing ‘on our own two feet’, but eagerly seeking the counsel of fraternal relations to bear common witness to the One Apostolic Faith. This, too, we see so much in the life of St Tikhon.

—Vladyka, if I can ask it like this, what would you say is St Tikhon’s message for us today?

I would say two principal things, amongst many others. First, as a confessor who offered the whole of his life — even unto his death — in martyric witness to God’s love, he reminds all of us of the fidelity and constancy required of true Christians. We live in such weak times, today! Our generation crumbles in fear and panic at the slightest provocations! But when we turn to a saint such as Patriarch Tikhon, who saw the whole world around him crumble, and centuries of Orthodox life and freedom attacked and suppressed in the most vicious possible terms, we witness a saint who never wavered in standing with and for the God Whom he loved and served.

Secondly, St Tikhon reminds us all — particularly in the diaspora — of what it means to bear the title ‘Russian Orthodox Christians’. Especially in the current political moment, when the dreadful political circumstances of the present day make some in the West uncomfortable with the seemingly political connotations of such a title, St Tikhon bears witness to what we really mean when we use it: we refer to a spiritual heritage drawn from a millennium of Orthodox piety and faith that, in our case, emerged from the lands of ancient Rus’ and its many peoples, cultures and languages, and was handed down to us by those very saints, even to our day. By his very act of blessing the foundation of the Church Abroad as a separate part of Russian Orthodoxy, St Tikhon confirmed for his generation and ours that this spiritual culture is not inextricably linked to any place, State or regime. It is a divine inheritance! We give thanks to God, the Maker of the soil in those lands where these saints attained His life, from which sprouted trees whose branches cover the whole world. And we give thanks to St Tikhon and so many others like him, who show us that we are inheritors of this spiritual culture here, in Europe, in America, in Australia — everywhere that the children of the Church seek after His will. We all have the same Fatherland.

—Fatherland? What do you mean when you say this?

It is a most beautiful word: we speak of the land of our fathers. Our inheritance. Our homeland. And while sometimes, in our human narrowness, we reduce this idea almost entirely to physical lands or countries, this is ‘to miss the forest for the trees’, as the saying goes. Our one and true Fatherland is the Kingdom of God — nothing less, and nothing else. And as this Fatherland has shone its light on different human nations and states over the centuries, we give thanks for that influence, cherish that legacy, and seek to follow it to its source.