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How Bad was the Metz Agreement? A Russian Catholic Perspective

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Above: Metz, France.

As a foreigner to the US and the rest of the world once called free, sometimes, among those akin to me in the one true faith, I come across issues that I find to be both controversial and surprising. For example, as we have celebrated the anniversary of the Second Vatican Council, I am thinking about the issue of the so-called Metz Agreement between the Roman Catholic officials and the Russian Orthodox hierarchy associated with the Soviet government in its desire to prevent official conciliar condemnation of Communism. The treaty gets recalled frequently when Vatican II itself is discussed deep in the hold of that peculiar Noah’s Ark that unites English-speaking Eastern Catholics with the Latin traditionalists of the same tongue. I hope that my little contribution to the discourse going on inside of that little Ark of ours will help maintain the whole ship in peace and agreement before it reaches the shore.

Concentrating on the Metz Agreement, I shall first summarise the concerns of the Latin Trad brethren about that issue, trying to be as accurate as I can. Should I be wrong, then at least it will be easier for the reader to understand further mistakes in my reasoning.

As far as I understand, after reading the relevant articles and materials, some of my Latin brothers consider it to be at least a gross mistake, and at most a mortal sin that the highest ranks of the Catholic Church met with representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church and agreed that there would be no condemnation of Сommunism at the brand new Ecumenical Council. My Latin brothers  hold such condemnation to have been urgent, relevant and necessary at the time, and that its subsequent absence might have led to the dawn of Liberation theology in the Latin America, the moral decay of the Catholic clergy infected with extreme Leftist ideas, as well as resulting in some unfortunate policy changes of the Vatican in regards to totalitarian and anti-Christian states and governments.

In other words, if there had been no Metz agreement, things would’ve turned out better after Vatican II. But what exactly was the Metz Agreement? In order to figure this out, I first want to deal with the textual and canonical status of this Agreement, its probable impact on the agenda of Vatican II, and the social teaching of the coeval Popes.

The Metz Agreement was not a Church document

Though it has never been stated otherwise by the attestants for its infamy (quite on the contrary, all such sources available to me emphasise the ‘off the record’ nature of a treaty said to have happened in the convent of the Little Sisters of the Poor on the outskirts of French Metz), the very words ‘pact,’ ‘accord,’ and ‘agreement’ used in various books and articles[1] (as well as in casual discussions) create some semblance of historical terms, thus inspiring false memories of a written pact, as if it had been sealed and put in an archive. That is why I find it important to state definitively that no ‘Metz Agreement’ has ever been signed as a written treaty of any sort in the official chronicles of the Vatican documents[2] or the documents related to the ecumenical dialogue.[3] Neither has it been found in Soviet or Russian Orthodox sources, nor in any other accessible realm of recorded data.

In other words, it was not an official Concordat between the Vatican and the Soviet regime, through its ‘official representatives’ in the Russian Orthodox Church.

Okay… But what if the very nature and content of this pact with the Red Devil was so terribly shameful that the text was hidden better than the Molotov-Ribbentrop secret agreement? Not necessarily. One should keep it in mind that both the Lateran treaty with Mussolini[4] and the Reichskonkordat with the Nazis[5] (that was signed on 20 July 1933 by Secretary of State Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII) were both public and published despite their extremely controversial nature (even before the official de-facto condemnation of Nazi ideology in 1937 with the ‘Mit Brennender Sorge’ encyclical of Pius XI). This is due to, among other things, the length of the ‘red tape’ used for their preparation, and most importantly the seriousness of the matter for the lives of millions of Catholics as well as various structures of the Catholic Church in Europe. Even if ‘the Vatican FBI’ had tried their best to make those agreements as secret as the infamous secret protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Nazi Germany and the USSR, they likewise would have not been able to keep a needle in a haystack after one of the conspirators passed away (the German Reich, Mussolini’s regime or, in our case here – the USSR, with the collapse of which the mentioned Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, was very soon declassified).

If we consider the complex circumstances it will keep us from asribing too much importance to Metz in both short and long term Vatican policy of the 20th century, specifically in regards to Eastern countries.

One day we should look at these two aforementioned examples separately to compare them to the Metz Agreement in greater detail. But as a starting point, it’s important to focus on the primary facts through the verified and relevant texts available.

What You Have in English

Many relevant texts from the Western part were kindly gathered by Professor Romano Amerio in his book Iota Unum, and I shall consider his words taken from the article by Atila Sinke Guimarães – a well known critic of the Council – in the selective order chosen by him and published on Tradition in Action:[6]

The salient and half secret point that should be noted, is the restriction on the Council’s liberty to which John XXIII had agreed a few months earlier, in making an accord with the Orthodox Church by which the patriarchate of Moscow accepted the papal invitation to send observers to the Council, while the Pope for his part guaranteed the Council would refrain from condemning Communism. The negotiations took place at Metz in August 1962, and all the details of time and place were given at a press conference by Mgr. Paul Joseph Schmitt, the Bishop of that Diocese [newspaper Le Lorrain, 2/9/63]. The negotiations ended in an agreement signed by metropolitan Nikodim for the Orthodox Church and Cardinal Tisserant, the Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals, for the Holy See.      

News of the agreement was given in the France Nouvelle, the central bulletin of the French communist party in the edition of January 16-22, 1963 in these terms: ‘Because the world socialist system is showing its superiority in an uncontestable fashion, and is strong through the support of hundreds and hundreds of millions of men, the Church can no longer be content with a crude anti-communism. As part of its dialogue with the Russian Orthodox Church, it has even promised there will be no direct attack on the Communist system at the Council.’

On the Catholic side, the daily La Croix of February 15, 1963 gave notice of the agreement, concluding: ‘As a consequence of this conversation, Msgr. Nikodim agreed that someone should go to Moscow carrying an invitation, on condition that guarantees were given concerning the apolitical attitude of the Council (emphasis mine).

And also:

This important information about Vatican-Kremlin negotiations is confirmed in an article ‘The mystery of the Rome-Moscow pact’ published in the October 1989 issue of 30 Dias, which quotes statements made by the Bishop of Metz, Paul Joseph Schmitt. In a February 9, 1963 interview with the newspaper Republicain Lorrain, Mgr. Schmitt said:

“It was in our region that the ‘secret’ meeting of Cardinal Tisserant with archbishop Nikodin occurred. The exact place was the residence of Fr. Lagarde, chaplain for the Little Sister of the Poor in Borny [on the outskirts of Metz]. Here for the first time the arrival of the prelates of the Russian Church was mentioned. After this meeting, the conditions for the presence of the Russian church’s observers were established by Cardinal Willebrands, an assistant of Cardinal Bea. Archbishop Nikodin agreed that an official invitation should be sent to Moscow, with the guarantee of the apolitical character of the Council.” (emphasis mine)

Here are the conclusions made by Atila Sinke Guimarães with the words of prof. Amelio:

Moscow’s condition, namely that the Council should say nothing about Communism, was not, therefore, a secret, but the isolated publication of it made no impression on general opinion, as it was not taken up by the press at large and circulated, either because of the apathetic and anaesthetized attitude to Communism common in clerical circles or because the Pope took action to impose silence in the matter. Nonetheless, the agreement had a powerful, albeit silent, effect on the course of the Council when requests for a renewal of the condemnation of Communism were rejected in order to observe this agreement to say nothing about it.

These sources are limited in their analysis of the pact in question. First, they are secondary to secondary – commentaries to the commentaries made in a different language. Secondly, they are isolated within one particular ‘tradi-discourse’: the combination of these two factors make them fragile and uninviting for a more general audience that sometimes unfairly neglects them due to

  1. suspicion against the ‘radical traditionalists’ and their impartiality,
  2. insufficient knowledge of French and Russian languages along with the primary sources that are also not commonly known;
  3. little interest in the subject matter that makes the general public and secular scholars move in a vicious circle from the a) to b) in their attitude towards the mentioned sources.

A good example of such a misfortune is shown in a single line: ‘A press conference by Mgr. Paul Joseph Schmitt, the Bishop of that Diocese [newspaper Le Lorrain, 2/9/63]’.It was this line that caused the entire Wikipedia page for the Metz Accord to be deleted from the portal by the moderators.

According to the French version of this online encyclopaedia,[7] the Catholic daily newspaper named Le Lorrain ceased to publish in 1945. This information contributed to Wikipedia’s decision to delete the whole article of ‘Metz Accord’ as unreasonable, erroneous and biased: indeed, one should not make a reference to an 1963 issue of a journal that had not existed for 18 years.

Did Trads Fake the Evidence?

On my own investigation I can say under oath: the Trads are not guilty. The conclusion about the newspaper being dead from the middle of the 40s was mistakenly derived from the article of Yves Guillauma, who wrote about the local press in France during the WW2.[8] In a nutshell, a careful reading of this article shows that 1945 was not actually the end of that daily newspaper (but rather the end of one period of its history). This is proved by the French National Library that states Le Lorrain was  published until 1969.[9]

So, the deletion of the corresponding article from Wikipedia was unfair! And that is just one example of the injustice paid to the Trad argumentation or, rather, of its communicative misfortune.

Besides, both relevant issues of a) Catholic Le Lorrain and  b) its political rival (that is said to contain the Metz-related interview with Mgr. Paul Joseph Schmitt)  – Republicain Lorrain – are not accessible online. Moreover, it gets even worse with another anti-Metz source –  the October 1989 issue of 30 Dias. This journal has only been mentioned in a couple of Trad sites that would make references to each other and post the same material with the same quotes. This is the mystery I failed to unravel. Although this circumstance does not prove the authors using the reference guilty of any  reprehensible inaccuracy, most of the general audience in the Catholic world and beyond would not invest that much effort in researching the matter.

Needless to say, we should not overestimate the enthusiasm expressed by that French Communist newspaper, neither in terms of the publisher’s imaginable connection with ‘secret Kremlin sources,’ nor in terms of its influence on the current situation among Catholics, their hierarchy and its mindset. Communists say things. Many of these things are innacurate.

Also, it is not particularly important for the investigation: for that particular issue was published well after Cardinal Willebrands first came to Moscow to finalise negotiations, and that visit happened after the supposed meeting at Metz. Metz is supposed to have been secret, whereas the Vatican-Moscow dialogue had already gone absolutely public by the date of Cardinal Willebrands’s trip to the Red Capital. It was so public and open that the official Russian Orthodox Journal, which we shall consider below, published a long flattering article about the Second Vatican Council in the same month of his visit. The French Communists have their later comment which came four months later.

All the data combined creates an impression of a conspiracy theory, rather than an actual conspiracy – a pulp fiction story. I do not think that is entirely fair, but certainly some intense work needs to be done in order to de-marginalise the entire question. It will involve searching the archives, translating sources and submitting all of this to the standards of academic rigour.

I hope to do my bit first by translating into English some Russian sources that I have found in the academic literature and the Russian National Library archives in Saint-Petersburg, reviewing and introducing them to my fellow brothers and sisters of the anglophone Catholic world. I would also like to provide the reader with my own Russian Catholic testimonial on the main ‘defendants’ in this Metz conspiracy case. Among those defendants are Cardinal Bea, the most notorious Cardinal Tisserant and finally, Orthodox Archbishop Nikodim Rotov – a Soviet-supporter and, as if this is not enough, a semi-secret KGB high-ranking agent! So yes, the Trads have a right to ask questions.

What We Have in Russian

Disappointment awaits those who hope to find some triumphalism or even moderately enthusiastic reaction towards the meeting of Metz, or any reaction at all in Russian ecclesiastical sources as of 1962– there is none.

The modern discourse is also poor, to the level of occasional inaccuracy. For example, one modern scholar I have managed to read on this topic mentions the meeting in Metz, but he a) does not provide any references or details (except for the date), and b) gets confused in the names of the two prelates who met, confusing two different historical events:

At this meeting [in Metz], Archbishop Nikodim and Cardinal Willebrands agreed that if the Council did not condemn Communism, but rather focused on issues of struggle for universal peace, then that would make it possible for those invited from the Moscow Patriarchate to attend.[10]

All the English sources talk about Cardinal Tisserant – a very high ranking cardinal of the time, while it was ‘after this meeting [of Metz], [when] the conditions for the presence of the Russian church’s observers were established by Cardinal Willebrands, an assistant of Cardinal Bea,’ as stated in the interview of Paul Joseph Schmitt for the Republicain Lorrain newspaper, mentioned above.

The Russian Orthodox encyclopedia agrees with the English sources revealing another interesting circumstance.[11] This seemingly minor mistake made by the deacon Rusak (the researcher quoted above) reveals an even greater truth about the significance of the Metz meeting:

Why would this scholar make such a mistake, when it comes to the key figures? The answer may be a surprise and a disappoinment.

The Metz meeting was not the first, nor the most decisive meeting.

The meeting prior to the Metz negotiations was held near Paris, in August 1962 – some days or weeks before:

the Vatican Secretary of the Commission for Promoting Christian Unity, Cardinal Willebrands, spoke to Msr. Nikodim [Rotov, the Russian Orthodox official for ecumenism] about the upcoming [Second Vatican] Council. The latter expressed his regret that no invitation had been sent to Moscow. The Vatican had sent an invitation to all Orthodox Churches, but it was sent in the name of the Patriarch of Constantinople. The Latins were sure that this was enough, based on their own experience.[12]

Some sources say that the topic of discussion in Paris between Willebrands (who then after Metz would go to Moscow)and Rotov was practically the same as it is reported of Metz: changing the tone towards the Soviets.[13]

Now it is clear why the two meetings got confused: the same Russian hierarch met with two different Latin prelates in France in a couple of weeks on the same topic. With this circumstance taken into consideration, one can assume that all preliminary agreements had been already made in Paris, while in Metz, Nikodim Rotov only received additional guarantees from a higher-level prelate of the Catholic Church — Cardinal Tisserant.

And that is exactly what the Russian Orthodox encyclopedia suggests as the official version of what happened.[14] The sources show that Metz happened on August 18. The sources do not indicate on what day the Paris meeting happened, only that it was in the same month and occurred before Metz.

The second factor that may have contributed to the mistake made in this Russian article is that the same negotiators – ‘Cardinal Willebrands and Msr. Rotov’ – met several times: not only before Metz in Paris, but also after Metz in Moscow, as I have mentioned earlier. This latter meeting is often considered to be a fruit of the Metz Agreement, although the real role of Metz is difficult to differentiate from that of  Paris in this respect.

Before we move on, there is something we need to underline lest the truth should get lost among the numerous details: the Russian Orthodox Church officially admits that the Meeting at Metz did take place. And the very people the Trads have been talking about did discuss the conditions of the Rusian Orthodox Church’s deligation being present at the upcoming Council. And the condition was about the public attitude towards the Soviet Union.

So, we must pay justice to the Trads! As much as we must be careful with the wording used by the Russian Orthodox Church: ‘Absence of political issues condemning the USSR in the Council program’ [“отсутствие в программе Собора вопросов политического характера с осуждением СССР”] is not quite the same as ‘non-condemnation of Communism.’ At least, in the Russian language…

From here I will consider one primary source – the only official journal for the Russian Orthodox Church at the time – The Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate (JMP). The English version of journal has been published since 1971, but not before. I have studied the Russian text of the issues of 1961 (pre-Metz), 1962 (Metz and the closest context) and 1963 (with the Council going on), translating some relevant parts from those issues.

There is no mention of Metz in any of the 36 (37) issues in 1962, and the closest in time reference dates back to October 1962, when Monsignor John Willebrands came to Moscow, as I have mentioned,after the Metz agreement and supposedly because of it:

‘TO MONSIGNOR J. WILLEBRANDS’ STAY IN MOSCOW

From September 27 to October 2 of this year, the secretary of the Secretariat for promoting Christian unity in preparation for the Second Vatican Council of the Roman Catholic Church, Monsignor John Willebrands, was in Moscow. The purpose of Monsignor Willebrands’ visit was to inform the Moscow Patriarchate about the preparation for the Second Vatican Council and the final stage of this preparation, as well as about the purposes of the Council, the issues scheduled for resolution, and also about the conciliar procedure.

Monsignor Willebrands was received by a member of the Holy Synod, Chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, Archbishop Nikodim [Rotov] of Yaroslavl and Rostov and had conversations with him. In addition, Monsignor Willebrands made a report on the Second Vatican Council at a meeting that members of the Holy Synod, members of the Synodal Commission for Inter-Christian Relations, representatives of the Moscow and Leningrad Theological Academies, responsible employees of the Moscow Patriarchate had with him. The participants of  this meeting asked Monsignor Willebrands numerous questions, to which he presented the official position of the Roman Catholic Church. (…)

Meetings and conversations between representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church and Monsignor Willebrands proceeded in a friendly atmosphere, in the spirit of Christian brotherhood.’[15]

In terms of content, something approximating a reference to the Metz Agreement as it is known to the West can only be found in the February issue of 1963 of the same Journal in a large piece speculating on what is and should be the Russian Orthodox stance on the Vatican II and Catholicism in general. It covers the development of the Russian Orthodox — Catholic  relations from the end of the 1950s to the end of the Council’s first session in 1962.

The initial expectations concerning the Second Vatican Council were formed by a centuries-old history of inter-ecclesiastical conflicts, so it should come as no surprise that the author writes: ‘by the restraint [of ours] it was made clear that the Russian Orthodox Church, even qua the observers [sent from her part], would never find it possible to attend a Council that would combine an anti-Orthodox mood with a hostile attitude towards the countries of the East.’[16]

Interestingly, the author utterly denies not Metz, but a different clandestine meeting between the Catholic and the ROC officials (alleged to have happened in 1959[17]). He says nothing about the meeting in Metz, which is very telling: both Trads and Russian Orthodox zealots would wish no such meeting had taken place in history, and for similar reasons! But the Metz Accords were never a shared shame.

But there is a chance that, no matter how well known to common people, the meetings in Paris and Metz had actually warmed up the relations between the two Churches.

Is there a chance that Metz was a step from hate to love? Possibly. But let us dig deeper!

Before Metz and Paris

The Journal as of 1961[18] contains several statements:

  1. against Uniates in general and Metropolitan Sheptytsky in particular;[19]
  2. against the Roman Catholic way of praying for the Christian unity during the respective Week of Prayer;[20]
  3. against Cardinal Bea’s stance on the obstacles for Christian Union;[21]
  4. againstanti-Communismand ‘militarism’ of the Catholic Church, as well as Catholic religious dogmas and teachings;[22]
  5. a negative view of the Second Vatican Council as an attempt to find new ways of expansion and political dominance, which are now required due to the failure of the old ones;[23]
  6. responding to a piece of criticism from Ulisse Alessio Floridi titled “Moscow Patriarchate against the Catholic Church” and published by  La Civilta Cattolica № 2655;[24]
  7. another against the Uniates.[25]

Interestingly, in May 1961, the Journal published an editorial piece ironically titled ‘Non possumus,’ which, while enumerating the usual Eastern Orthodox criticisms against Rome, responded to cardinal Bea, who had just officially invited the Russian Orthodox to the Second Vatican Council via the Patriarch of Constantinopole, saying the following: ‘The Moscow Patriarchate answers Cardinal Bea: Non possumus![26]

After Paris and Metz

In 1962,[27] the same journal gradually  softened its tone towards Catholics. In the first issue after Metz (September), an article was published with a discourse on achieving unity between the Christian Churches. The text was written quite in the spirit of the ‘theology of continuity’ of Benedict XVI, in which the desire to find a compromise and the legitimate diversity of forms to express the Faith does not go against the integrity of this Faith, while the recognition of the genuine spiritual gifts dwelling in the breakaway Churches and communities does not equate them with the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, by which, of course, with some sad irony, the Orthodox one is meant by the author.[28]

It is worth noting that all those Vatican II-like ideas were put in the context of the Russian Orthodox relations with the Oriental Churches. In my opinion, there are two possible explanations: either the Orthodox theologians followed the course of the pre-conciliar discussion in the Catholic Church and applied some elements of the developed ecclesiology to those whom it was easier for them to recognise as ‘separated brothers,’ or else there was one Geist behind both changes – some of us may call it nur Zeitgeist, while others – Heiliger.

To say more, it was in 1962 when a new section titled, ‘Ecumenical Problems’ was introduced into the Journal. This new topic replaced the previous section named ‘From the life of hetero-doxic confessions.’ It was also significant that the once editorial article with a defintive title ‘Non Possumus!’ from 1961 was now considered ‘the author’s personal opinion,’ while Patriarch Alexiy himself in an interview with French journalist Jean Goulier spoke of  the two Churches – Russian Orthodox and the Catholic – as being close ‘to each other in the field of doctrine and liturgical matters.’[29]

That was truly unprecedented.

The following 1963 issues of the Journal[30] are openly positive towards the Pope and the Council:

  1. in the already mentioned article titled ‘On the Second Vatican Council [О Втором Ватиканском соборе]’[31] not only is Vatican II spoken of in a flattering manner, with great attention to small details, but the brief history of Catholic Ecumenical Councils is provided from an objective perspective that does not fail even when it comes to the Lyons and Florentine unions – something very odd for the Russian Orthodox default rhetoric, even unthinkable before;
  2. ‘Walking the path of unanimity [Путем единомыслия]’[32] is another article praising the Catholic Church for ‘the spirit of synodality’[33] [‘дух соборности’] and aggiornamento, speaking against those trying to secure the status quo – namely the Vatican bureaucracy. The article also claimed that reforms should be carried out wisely, that is, without prejudice to tradition. The whole article was written as if covering the actual Ecumenical council of an already united Church;
  3. ‘The Second Vatican Council and the modern humanity [Второй Ватиканский собор и современное человечество]’[34] underlines that the Сouncil seeks to meet the needs of the modern Catholic flock in their problems and life circumstances;
  4. when Pope St. John XXIII first fell sick and then died, a double public exchange of telegrams was published in the Journal, as if between fellow brother bishops of the same Church in full communion.[35] That was – again – unprecedented;
  5. ‘On the encyclical Pacem in Terris [Об энциклике Pacem in Terris]’[36]: the Papal teaching on ‘Catholic Social Justice’ was highly appreciated, because St. John XXIII spoke of the right to work and being supported when senile… he also criticised individualism and speculated on the natural equality of all people etc. (Indeed, some people say Pope Francis should have chosen the name of John XXIV.)
  6. the August issue provides a telegram from the Russian Patriarch Alexiy to Rome. It expresses hopes that the newly elected (now, saint) Paul VI would work for universal peace just as hard as his (now, also saint) predecessor had been working.[37] It also prints a thankful answer of the new Pontiff that was received in Moscow;[38]
  7. in September, – the corresponding issue tells us[39] – a Roman Catholic bishop Francois Charrière came to Russia to participate in the celebration of Patriarch Alexy’s fiftieth anniversary of priestly ordination, where he delivered a congratulatory speech expressing hope for the union of the Churches to be reestablished by overcoming all the obstacles to this goal. That speech was well received within the Russian Orthodox community;
  8. in October, – it is reported[40] – Nikodim Rotov (this Russian Soviet champion of Ecumenism associated with the Metz Accords) went to Rome, while the next issue has a whole article dedicated specifically to the second session of the Second Vatican Council.[41]

As you can see, the difference in tone of the discourse within this official ROC journal between 1961 and 1963 is as great as the amplitude of temperature in Siberia between winter and summer. That was truly a 180 degree turn.

Yet, speaking of Metz, one can find no reference to a particular agreement between the Roman Catholic and the Soviet Orthodox leaders to abstain from a solemn condemnation of Communism by the Council even in this very, albeit pro-Catholic, pro-Soviet Journal:

  • Neither in the issue of February 1963, where a whole interview with the Russian Patriarch Alexiy about the participation of the Russian observing delegates in the Vatican II was printed;
  • Nor within the annual review specifically titled as ‘the Russian Orthodox Church in her relationships with Orthodox and Non-Orthodox Churches in 1962,’[42] although another article within the same issue almost suggests with benevolent approval that the Catholic Church, once politicised and biased against Communism, had taken a sudden turn Left.


What can we make of it?

Metz: The Verdict

Having studied the information and primary sources available to me, I came to the conclusion that the meeting between Cardinal Tisserant and Archbishop Nikodim Rotov in Metz did take place and corresponded with high probability in terms of subject matter and decisions to how the secondary sources in the English language describe them. So, the Trads are vindicated: all the charges of knowingly creating conspiracy theories and fake news must be dropped.

Even if we had no ‘official confession’ printed in the Russian Orthodox Encyclopedia, the evidence would still be solid. But we do have it. And the Communists were undoubtedly involved. While some Russian authors claim that the Communists officially gave this permission for sending the Russian Orthodox observers to Vatican II in October 1962,[43] others are more restrained in their judgement: according to Dr. Olga Vasileva at a historical conference dedicated to Mitropolitan Rotov earlier this October, ‘there is no direct decision of the CPSU Central Committee on the participation of ROC delegates in the council, but there is indirect evidence of such a decision.’[44] For ‘it is now impossible to imagine that any action of this kind could have been taken without a decision by the Soviet authorities, without a decision by the CPSU Central Committee.’

At the same time, the absence of a written, official joint declaration, widely covered in the press East and West alike, does not reflect the great significance of the accord that entailed secrecy, but rather it reflects the episodic character of the event within the context of a much larger history:

  1. the preparation of the Second Vatican Council;
  2. the development of social teaching within the Catholic Church;
  3. the political situation of the Cold War and the Ecumenical movement flourishing during the second half of the 20th century;
  4. a personal and institutional friendship between the Roman and Moscow Churches as a particular manifestation of all the three previous factors, though not limited to them.

But what about the Soviets? What was their interest? Their motivation seems to have been on two fronts.

First of all, they would hardly have given permission for the Russian Orthodox to send their representatives to the Catholic Council, or for Monsignor Willebrands to come to Moscow and have all those various meetings he had, if there had been no preliminary agreements on the Anti-Communist agenda. In the materialistic logic of the USSR government, the Catholic Church was a servant of the Western Capitalist oppressors of the working class, the once prosperous and now ageing leader of that malicious gang clinging to her crown. So, it is clear what they tried to avoid.

But what did they try to gain?

Dr. Vasileva argues that Stalin’s heir Nikita Khrushchev ‘was far from dogmatic questions,’ and just ‘needed trade relations with Italy.’[45] And that is most likely the case. But was it limited to that? In fact, the participation of the Russian Orthodox observers at Vatican II opened a new page in Soviet diplomacy of utilising the Russian Church for political and ideological purposes.

From a materialist perspective, the fact that the Churches became sort of friends is merely a side effect. Many religious people may even see this side effect as providential. But one may ask:

Wasn’t this ‘friendship’ obtained by Rome through bribery, when Rome got less Anti-Communist during the reign of the ‘Red Pope’ – St. John XXIII?

This is by no means an irrelevant question. The jury is invited to consider the arguments of the prosecution and the defence.

On the one hand,

  1. It is true that the Russian Orthodox Church under the Soviet regime was in a servile position to the Communist Party; for she officially accepted the Communist power and recognised the Soviet state through the mouth and hand of Patriarch Sergiy who was supported by most of the Russian bishops in 1927. In her international relations, the Russian Church has always supported the Soviet state, whitewashing its deeds and promoting some utterly Left ideas that would appeal to the Soviet government in the Christian ecumenical and international discourse of the era.
  2. It is also true that Archbishop and then Metropolitan Nikodim Rotov was a sincere Communist, which is not a secret, as well as a high-ranking KGB officer, which is lesser known, but very open indeed even to the general public.
  3. It is barely disputable as well that the Second Vatican Council did not solemnly condemn Communism, and the encyclical of the Pope who initiated it – St. John XIII – to speak politically, had an inclination to the Left, emphasising and expressing those aspects of the Catholic teaching that were conceptually and emotionally closer, as well as more understandable categorically to left-wing people around the globe. His encyclical also denounced the vices typical of any Capitalist society.

Speaking of the Soviet government and its role, I shall take a step further and even agree that it most probably had its own goals and plans for the infiltration of the Catholic Church, craving to influence her internal life, bishop appointment policy and – why not? – the course of the 21st Ecumenical Council as much as it possibly could. Such policies would have been entirely natural within the logic of the time, and therefore those Catholic Conservatives and Traditionalists who raise, for example, the issue of Cardinal McCarrick’s Communist background[46] or the infiltration of the Polish clergy by KGB agents[47] should not be simply dismissed as lunatics.

All the facts and suspicions should be paid attention to and openly investigated by many independent scholars in order to prevent panic, distrust and marginalisation of Conservative  people in the Catholic Church, as well as to establish the true state of affairs, the limits of the supposed infiltration. We must seek the truth that shall set us free. For the sake of that very same Truth, one needs to take into account both

  • the peculiarity of attitude towards the State in Eastern Orthodoxy and
  • the Vatican’s intention towards the Russian Church, which had a long pre-conciliar history that did not end suddenly in August 1962.

Two Swords, ‘Vera’ and ‘Pravda’: Civilisational Clash at the Town of Metz

First of all, a Roman Catholic should always be aware that the ‘Orthodox East’ has not had its own Thomas Aquinas, Francisco de Vitoria orSuárezwith their complex political theology. It hardly has any tradition of a critical attitude towards secular powers in general. Orthodox Churches have always lived in one or another Empire or a National state more recently, like the soul lives within the body. This is the right metaphor. And it has been the case since the time of the Byzantine Empire when all the Eastern Churches were in full Communion with Rome and continued after the separation.

That circumstance has led to the development of the first politico-theological paradigm for the Byzantine Church – the Symphony. During the time of the Christian Caesars it was a point of common agreement that the Church would accept and approve all the actions of the State, except for the encouragement of heresies or intervention into dogmatic issues along with open fornication or any other public impurity among the royals (although all these borders would often get violated in history). The State in its turn acted as the ‘earthly body’ of the Church, the entire people of God. The Emperor was a ‘supernumerary bishop’ of a kind. Pontifex maximus, he persecuted heretics and defended the True Faith (when not vise versa: many times in history he abused his power in all the innocent and malicious ways imaginable, but the ideal was there).

The fall of Constantinople shocked the Christians of New Rome. It was 1453 and a different political and religious crisis came, and the question arose: how could it have happened that our Great Christian Empire perished, and a Muslim Sultan came to replace the Basileus? How could God allow this? And what for? The Greeks would give different answers to these questions, one of which became especially famous in Russia thanks to the literary heritage of a philosopher named Ivan Peresvetov.

That late mediaeval Russian thinker admonished the Russian Czar Ivan IV the Terrible and the whole Russian society by speculation on the fallen Byzantine Empire, saying something approximating the following:

The Greeks had One True Vera (Russian ‘вера’: faith), but no Pravda (Russian ‘правда’: truth, justice, especially social justice). Thus the Turkish Sultan came and dethroned their Emperor, because he did live in accordance with the Lord’s Pravda, and therefore the Almighty God allowed him to reign over the Christian people with good and just laws, although he did not know the true Vera – the Orthodox Faith of the Greeks.[48]

When the Russian Czardom (the Russian Empire), the state in which Ivan Peresvetov himself craved to see Vera and Pravda (Faith and Social Justice) balanced out once again, fell under the onslaught of the Bolsheviks, this ‘Turkish’ paradigm of self perception quickly started to unfold among the Orthodox hierarchy of the Soviet Union, while the desire to return to the golden-age state of ‘symphony’ between Church and State, the blessed memory of this union of Soul and Body, had not disappeared from the ecclesiastical memory. And how could it have disappeared?

Unskilled in all things politically independent, lacking her own view on politics (unlike the Roman Catholic Church in this regard), the Russian Church (to a large extent) accepted the new Soviet government with a fair amount of fatalism in her heart, while simultaneously keeping to its own Faith and tolerating atheistic policies of the Soviet rulers. After 1943, theynevertheless incorporated the Church apparatus into their own ranks just like the Turks did in the 15th century to the Greek clergy and pagan, then Muslim Mongols did to the same Russian Church establishment during the 12-13 centuries within their own once ever-expanding Empire.

The Russian Orthodox Church, exiled from the paradise of Symphony, started to think in the categories of the fundamental distinction between the Orthodox Faith and ‘Bolshevik Pravda’ – the left social justice agenda of those ‘Red Ottomans’ – in the context of their seemingly weird phenomenological integrity (not to say forced cohabitation) in one country and among one nation  of the same Russian Church.

Facilitated by the desire to once again feel ‘home’ in reestablished Symphony, the drive was invoked from the depth of historical memory to seek Truth and Social Justice – that Pravda – in the moral principles of those Atheists who seized power inthe Motherland. Whatever level of Stockholm syndrome had been involved in the case, one should note: The Russian Church did not convert to the Communist ‘Vera’/Faith – the basic Christian dogmas remained the same and did not lose their fundamental significance (which is clear for anybody who actually knew the people and read their texts); rather she accepted  the paradigm of Soviet social philosophy and the corresponding international agenda, trying to integrate it all with Christian principles.

That is why in 1927 Metropolitan Sergiy Stargorodsky – the temporary head of the Russian Orthodox Church – addressed all the bishops, priests and laity of his Church, and the bishops signed that:

We want to be Orthodox and at the same time we recognise the Soviet Union as our civil Motherland, whose joys and successes are our joys and successes, and whose failures are our failures. Any blow directed at the Union, be it a war, a boycott, some kind of public disaster, or simply a murder from around the corner, like the Warsaw one [note: the assassination of Voikov is meant], is recognized by us as a blow directed at us. Remaining Orthodox, we remember our duty to be citizens of the Union “not only out of fear of punishment, but also in conscience,” as the Apostle taught us (Rom. 13:5).[49]

Mr. Voikov, to make it clear, was a Red terrorist and a member of the firing squad that killed Emperor Nicholay II, who is now revered as a saint by the same Russian Orthodox Church.

It is difficult to draw a line between sincerity and fear in this whole complex story, but in the context of relations with the Roman Catholic Church, it becomes quite clear why ‘Political Catholicism’ and Anti-Communism were a target for Russian Orthodox criticism before Metz, but to be more exact,  before the intensification of the dialogue, the first sessions of the Vatican II, all attended events and declarations including Pacem in terris.

It was at least not entirely about Communism as a pseudo-religious eschatology, but rather about the wounded Russian patriotism and a fundamental difference in the very understanding of how Church and State are related to each other that had been taking place for centuries between
a) the ‘a priori patriotic’ to any state of residence of Eastern Orthodoxy (the Russian Church being just one example) and
b) the independently dominant Roman Catholicism that for a millenium had been bringing up the whole family of European nations, preceding all of them and thus rightfully independent from any of those states for the most part of Western history.

It is also more clear now what the ‘notorious KGB informant’ and Orthodox Metropolitan Nikodim Rotov meant in January 1963, when he wrote:

Is it possible for a Christian to pass by with stupid and self-satisfied indifference to other people’s need, to the grief of children who do not know the joys of childhood, to the multitude of physically and morally oppressed and destitute people, and other types of social evil, covered up by the formal equality of everybody before the law? As for blind anti-Communism, we tend to see in it either a manifestation of ‘impure motives’ alien to Christianity (1 Thess. 2, 3) and of a clearly propagandistic nature, or a sad misunderstanding based on disinformation and misunderstanding of living reality. Many dismiss Communism for its association with the ‘mortal sin’ of Atheism. But they forget about Atheism dwelling in the depths of any non-Communist society. An objective study of Atheism shows the need for a strict distinction between the motives that lead to an Atheistic worldview. We know that Communist Atheism is a certain system of beliefs that includes moral principles that do not contradict Christian norms. The other Atheism is blasphemous, immoral, arising from the desire to live ‘free’ from the Divine law of Truth [Pravda], existed mainly in the depths of the old society and most often would arise on the basis of the idle and depraved life of the propertied classes. Christianity really considers Atheism of the second type to be a mortal sin, but it looks at Communist Atheism in a different way.[50]

Finally, coming back to the Metz Agreement, it is now clear why the Western sources that covered the story  – Catholic and French Communist alike – only speak of ‘non-condemnation of Communism’ while the Russian Orthodox ones – of the now irrelevant fervent attitude towards Orthodoxy and ‘the countries of the East.’ The Western perspective, as usual, is more metaphysical, while the Russian Orthodox turned out to be more existential. The western sources are searching for a doctrinal statement. The eastern sources are searching for a modus vivendi.

Hateful towards Communism both per se and in its associated historical evils, I still realise that the second perspective has its own truth, while perceptual difference crying for integration and mutual correction reassures me, a private Russian Catholic, of the following resolution:

As an actual historical event, the Metz negotiation was not as influential as it is perceived by the Westerners, and  its written form doesn’t seem to exist. However, it may have been providential.

I shall try  to defend this position in pragmatic and moral categories.

Metz & Co: Was it Worth It?

Metropolitan Nikodim Rotov was indeed a Communist (yet in the relative Byzantine, not absolute Western sense of the word), but at the same time he was a sincere Orthodox hierarch with his own agenda and interests, who was truly amazed by the spirit of the Catholic Church he came to know – by Pope St. John XXIII personally and his parental concern for the peace of the world and social justice. He seems to have really believed in the Council and in the very possibility of Catholic Unity between Rome and Moscow.

And this brought some extremely good fruits:

  1. a great achievement was reached by the Russian Orthodox Holy Synod decision of December 16, 1969, initiated by Nikodim, according to which the clergy of the Moscow Patriarchate were allowed ‘to pass the grace of the Holy Sacraments to Catholics and Old Believers in cases of extreme spiritual necessity for the latter and in the absence of their own priests in their places’;[51]
  2. Ukrainian Uniate clergy, whose Church structures had been destroyed under Stalin, got the opportunity to study at the Leningrad (Saint-Petersburg) Theological Academy of the Russian Orthodox Church. The fact that they were Catholics and Uniates under the patronage of Metropolitan Nikodim of the Russian Orthodox Church was a very open secret, but no one demanded that they renounce their faith and their loyalty to the Pope of Rome. Having completed their studies and received parish appointments in their regions of Soviet Ukraine, those priests partially created the basis for the future revival of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.
  3. Nikodim made possible the work of the Eastern Rite Jesuits in Soviet Russia. For example, the Jesuit Hieromonk Mikhail Arrants (Miguel Arranz y Lorenzo SJ) read lectures at the Leningrad Orthodox Theological Academy between 1975-1979, which helped to hatch and feed the so-called ‘chicks of the Nikodim’s nest’ – priests and bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church who were formed during his episcopate, survived the Soviet Union and maintained a significantly warm pro-Catholic attitude up to the present. All thanks belong to Nikodim that today Saint-Petersburg is a city especially friendly to Rome and Catholicism not only in architecture and history, but  also in ecclesiastical matters.
  4. Nikodim Rotov had decent relations with Russian Greek Catholics abroad. With his disciple (now known as Patriarch Kyrill of Moscow) he visited the Russian Assumption Catholic Monastery in Rome that was founded by Cardinal Tisserant.[52] In 1970 he invited the third Exarch of the Russian Byzantine Catholic Church Fr. Andrey Katkov to Leningrad (Saint-Petersburg), and he himself would take trips to Rome many times, as well as to Fatima, where our Blessed Mother asked the whole Church to pray for Russia.
  5. According to some testimonies (including those of the eye-witnesses and co-celebrants), Nikodim Rotov himself celebrated Holy Masses, and it is publicly known that he served the Orthodox litia (a non-eucharistic requiem) for the late Pope St. John XXIII.[53]
  6. In the end, Metropolitan Nikodim died in Rome ‘at the feet’ of John Paul I, with whom he so longed for full communion. ‘The Pope read the prayers of departure and the prayer for the remission of sins. The Secretary of State, Cardinal John Villo, arrived and also prayed at the body of the deceased Metropolitan.’[54]
  7. Finally, a personal testimony. Once his closest student and subdeacon, and now a Russian Catholic hegumen Amvrosiy (Blinkov), a fellow student and roommate of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, who shared the pro-Catholic views of his teacher Nikodim Rotov, but did not support any cooperation with the KGB, is currently an emeritus priest in our Church here in Russia. Fr. Amvrosiy testifies by his own life that Metropolitan Nikodim raised a decent Russian Catholic within such a ‘Soviet’ Russian Orthodox Church, and so do many clandestine Catholics among the Russian Orthodox clergy of today.

Were there casualties? The dark side of 20th century Ecumenism

Nothing is perfect under the moon. Heavenly prosperity awaits us only in the Kingdom of Heaven. And here on earth, even the brightest joy is always overshadowed. And our subject does not belong among the brightest.

Much has been said and written, especially by Ukrainian Greek Catholics, that the Vatican, in pursuit of unity with Moscow according to its Eastern policy would neglect its faithful children of the Uniate Churches, as if under the pressure of its new sweetheart – the Russian Orthodox Church.

Indeed, having entered into a multilateral Orthodox-Catholic dialogue, that being already in the 1980s, the Moscow Patriarchate raised the issue of the Uniates, displeased with their revival that eventually led to the collapse of Moscow’s control over the whole Western Ukraine when the Soviet Union ceased to exist. For the fear of losing Moscow, Rome made many diplomatic steps not particularly in favour of the UGCC or the Russian Catholics more recently, as it may look from outside and feel ‘from within.’

In June 19-27, 1988 at New Valamo, Finland, the Russian ORthodox delegates first raised the question of ‘uniatism.’[55] The most recent ‘punch’ endured by the Uniate brethren was in 2016, when Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow signed a joint declaration stating: ‘it is today clear that the past method of “uniatism,” understood as the admission of one community to another by separating it from its Church, is not the way to re–establish unity.’[56]

It should not come as a surprise that relations with the Russian Orthodox Church have imposed certain restrictions on the development of the Catholic Church in Russia. It becomes obvious when high ranking prelates or individual pastors on the ground turn due prudence into abandoning any mission, and the local Church, into an ethnic ghetto for the Germans, Poles and Lethuanians with some Ukrainian presence that naturally fade, as fades therefore the entire Church under under such supervision. The only question is whether the absence of such close relations with the Orthodox would make (or have made) any difference. I wouldn’t bet on that either. But as we say in Russia, there is no place for a ‘would’ in history.[57]

Metz and all it stands for: Was it Sinful?

The question of whether the Metz Accord (regardless of its actual status in the documented history) may be morally reprehensible is to be resolved in a synchronic analysis. The right question is, was there a violation of a moral commandment or an apostasy, an unjustifiable compromise in the realm of positive Catholic dogma and morals?

I would argue that was not the case. Even the most vicious critics of the whole matter would hardly argue otherwise. That the Communists liked Pope John XXIII who simply cared for the poor (a love to which the Communists pay lip service) by no means suggests that the Holy Father was either a Communist himself or a weak believer in the evil character of the Soviet utopia.

According to Catholic teaching, evil is not substantial. It is only a parasite on God’s creation, which is always good. While the English say that one must pay the devil his due, Il Papa Santo decided rather to take back what the enemy had stolen – the concern for social justice, peace between peoples and care for the poorest among us, those topics being absolutely Catholic from the very beginning, before they were poisoned by the Red Dragon.

Another question may arise about particular intentions and circumstances.

Indeed, it is relatively easy to understand the general motivation of St. John XXIII and speculate on the Divine providence for the Church that turned her face to the Left agenda in order to exorcise and rebaptise it in the general context of the Cold War. The devil may lurk within the details: particular events, words and actions constituting the conditionally acquitted members of the ‘Metz gang’ will often remain dubious.

As the motivation of Nikodim Rotov has already been discussed in previous sections, I suggest we should not forget about the Catholic side that was represented by Cardinal Eugène Tisserant.

I shall hereby present two questions from the Trad-prosecution:

  1. Was he aware of all the Church-State issues of the East that we have tackled? Or maybe he just did not hate Communism enough to insist on condemning it?
  2. Did he not betray the ‘pro-mission’ policies of pre-Vatican II towards the Schismatic East for the sake of that brand new ‘defeatist ecumenism?’

In fact, his record was not limited to just being the Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals: he had been dealing with all things Eastern since his ecclesiastical formation years. Future Cardinal Tisserant graduated from the Lyceum in Nancy and studied for one year at the Faculty of Natural Sciences at the Catholic University of Paris. For two years he studied the Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopian and Assyrian languages. Tisserant studied Arabic at the School of Oriental Languages, attended courses in Oriental archeology and paleography, Greek, Assyrian and Arabic at the Sorbonne, and he also studied Greek ceramics and the Egyptian language at the Louvre School.

During this period, the future cardinal began to publish his scientific works, including various translations from oriental languages. Then Tisserant left for Jerusalem, where he worked with Fr. Lagrange, continuing to master the Syrian and Hebrew languages, and also beginning to study the Holy Scripture. As a next step he began teaching Syriac at the Lateran University, while also becoming head of the eastern section of the Vatican Library. In 1923, Pope Pius XI sent him along with Fr. Cyril Korolevsky (real name – Jean François Joseph Charon) to the Balkan Peninsula to buy some Eastern artefacts from the local population. They acquired a mass of rare and valuable books for the Vatican Eastern Library during that period.

In 1936, after the death of Cardinal Sinchero, Pope Pius XI erected Fr. Eugene Tisserant to the rank of Cardinal with the appointment as the secretary of the Congregation for the Eastern Churches. In this capacity, he actively participated in the work of the Russian apostolate, supported the very prominent publishing house named ‘La Vie avec Dieu,’ but, what is more essential to us – the Russian Catholics – Cardinal Tisserant was a member of the special commission established by Pope Pius XI. This commission developed and published official ecclesiastical books and a liturgical calendar for the Russian Catholic Church of the Byzantine rite.[58]

Looking at the biography of the ‘defendant,’ his personal record of supporting brotherly relations between Catholics and Russian Orthodox people long before the Council, the trust he enjoyed from Pius XI, and also holding in my own hand the liturgical books that form a significant part of our Church’s identity –  ‘us’ meaning the Russian Orthodox people who were received into full communion with the successor of Peter and the Vicar of Christ – I cannot agree with those who accuse Cardinal Eugene Tisserant of any hypocrisy, inconsistency, treason, apostasy, naivete or any anti-Eastern-Catholic attitude, but most especially of any ignorance concerning the state of affairs within Russian Orthodoxy in the first half of the 20th century, not to mention personal sympathy for Communism as an ideology.

Speaking of which… 

Was There an Urgent Need to Solemnly Condemn Communism for the Good of Souls?

I believe that a condemnation is required only when it can help the Church save any souls, for the supreme law of the Church is the salvation of souls. So, I agree that it was just and good for the Popes to fight this destructive utopia when it was breeding amidst the European minds in the nineteenth  century.

Ever since this ghost of Communism started possessing a certain country like the Biblical evil spirit that it really was, it is a legitimate question as to whether such condemnation would cause more good than harm. One should keep in mind a main concern of an exorcist: while expelling demons from a poor body and soul of a nation, not to harm their host.

When could have been the right time?

The entire international community, including the Vatican, saved hundreds of thousands of Russian people living in the already Soviet Communist republic during the famine of 1922-1924.[59] Should the Catholic Church have condemned Communism in a public Russia-related context to doom thousands of innocent people to starvation, lowering the iron curtain ahead of time? I don’t think it is easy to argue for that in a good conscience. Because there is a real chance that would have happened, as North Korea shows us.

Rome did condemn Communism when the Vatican relief mission returned to Rome in 1924 (Divini Redemptoris, 5). Does it not make sense that the Pope waited until that year?

After this, Pius XI condemned the persecution of Catholics “unleashed in Russia, in Mexico” in encylicals in 1928, 1931, May 1932, Sept 1932, and June 1933, before issuing a further encyclical in 1937, at a time when the Soviet-backed Communists were killing priests and nuns in the streets of Spain, in which he called Communism a “Satanic scourge” (Divini Redemptoris, 7). Nevertheless the Pope was careful to uplift the Russian people and distinguish them from their government.[60]

After the outbreak of World War II, condemnations could be seen as fanning the flames of more violence. In fact, when there were no condemnations, the Communist ideology was weakened in Russia. When the War against Hitler broke loose, when the entire free World united with the Soviet Union, the Russian Orthodox played a significant role in changing the national myth of this seemingly rigid and unchangeable system of the Bolsheviks. It was the Russian Orthodox patriotism that motivated this Church to make an attempt to link the defence of the ‘Soviet Civil Motherland’ against the Nazis to other patriotic wars in Russian national record, integrating that particular episode of Soviet Russia into the history and identity of Old Russia in public opinion and mainstream discourse of the  official propaganda – something the original Bolsheviks of 1917 openly hated and tried hard to wipe out forever. This attempt was successful and approved by the Government, as it turned out. Was that a better time to solemnly condemn Communism? I wouldn’t be so sure either. And what form of it exactly, amidst the battle field against somebody like Hitler?

In the case relevant to us, when it comes to the end of the 50s and 60s, the Russian Orthodox’s talking points were about the universal peace craved by all nations and the stable coexistence between the two different systems of the post-war world – the Democratic and the Soviet – with the presumption of Socialism being superior and more morally justifiable compared to Сapitalism (although not always explicitly: it follows clearly from every issue of the JMP of those years, correspondence and speeches of Russian hierarchs who wouldn’t stop reminding us that war pleases neither God, nor… the ‘civil homeland’).

Could that have been the right moment to add some fuel, make the Cold War hotter, bringing the whole World yet a step closer to the edge of the nuclear abyss? And should it have been such a moment, given that no single soul would be gained for the Catholic flock.

I think that such heated behaviour on the part of the Catholic Church, although some of its children would like it now to have happened, would still have been a disaster that would have caused more persecution and war, to the loss of more souls.

How Lucky Was the Vatican Bet?

From my point of view, it was providential that St. John XXIII ‘baptised’ the peacemaking agenda, thereby destroying the Soviet monopoly over it and thus starting to cast out the evil spirit of Communist and anti-Catholic resentment from the Russian Church without causing any significant harm to her body. He could have become a good exorcist, I believe.

In fact, should one ask if the Vatican’s bet was justified, history shows it very clearly:

  • the USSR collapsed, and the Soviet ideology got calamitously compromised during the lifetime and with the active help of the second post-conciliar Pope – St. John Paul II;
  • the Russian Church, on the contrary, is alive, and, thanks to all the achievements that we tentatively attribute to the meeting at Metz, it is now much closer to unity with Rome than it used to be in the second half of the 19th century or during the first decades of the last century.

Solemn Consecration vs Solemn Condemnation: What Would Mary Say?

To add a purely spiritual argument into this semi-pragmatic pot I shall recall Our Blessed Mother. It was the revolutionary year of 1917 when our country turned red and the Most Holy Theotokos of Fatima asked the Holy Father and the college of bishops to make a solemn consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart in order to convert the country from its errors. What were those errors? Communism was not an isolated problem. Converting to this false utopia, my country not only lost tens of millions of born people during famine, political repressions and religious persecutions. Even more have died unborn, for we sacrificed our sons and our daughters unto devils after Soviet Russia became the first country to legalise abortion a year after revolution. One may certainly think of other errors spread.

Yet, it was not the Solemn Condemnation of Communism, but Solemn Consecration of a suffering country that Our Blessed Mother asked the Pope and the bishops – at the level approximating that of a Ecumenical Council and even exceeding it – along with prayers and sacrifices during Her apparitions.

Can a Schismatic Participant be present at a Catholic Council? A Florentine Lesson

Alright – one may say – maybe the solemn conciliar condemnation of Communism was not so urgent at the time, but what about the participation of the unrepentant schismatics in the Catholic Ecumenical Council? Is it not a form of modernism or relativism?

Wishing to speak to the Latin admirers of Holy Tradition in a common language, I shall recall another Ecumenical Council, which is held in high esteem by all of us – unlike Vatican II – the Ferrara-Florentine Council of 1438–1445.

Indeed, was there a political and ideological force in the 15th century that was no less dangerous to Christendom compared to Communism five hundred years later? In fact, there was one. That religion and political ideology was Islam, and the political body to spread and enforce this teaching was the mighty Ottoman Empire – the Soviet Union of the time. However, the Holy Council, having a goal to unite all Christians across East and West, did not aim to condemn Islam as a false doctrine and heresy, even though the religion of Islam is far from the One True Catholic Faith, and its political implementation was indeed a threat to the whole Western world.

By the time the Council was held, most of the ancient Eastern patriarchs were already under Turkish rule. On the one hand, it is unlikely that the condemnation of Turkish Islam with a special bull or a dogma proclaimed solemnly in Italy would have saved any Christian soul that lived in free lands from going to the Turks and apostasising (as some of Europeans did at the time), while on the other hand, it is even less likely that such a move would have served well the Christians who lived on the territories occupied by the Muslim Ottomans.

As for the question of ‘schismatic participation,’ formally speaking, half of the delegates at the Council of Florence were schismatics from the point of view of post-Trent theology: the Orthodox Greeks. However, these prelates, some of whom represented Eastern Patriarchs who were at the same time loyal Turkish subjects, were not just observers, as the Russian Soviet bishops were at Vatican II, but full-fledged delegates equal to the Catholic Latins.

How could that be the case?

Often in our minds, we reduce the Traditional attitude towards the boundaries of the Church, schism and heresy to the very peculiar period starting from the Counter-Reformation and continuing up to to the Second Vatican Council. It was the period when the Church, struggling with Protestantism and secularism along with other -isms (Communism, Modernism etc.), was forced to develop a number of very precise criteria of membership, as well as solid borderlines so as not to lose her identity and half of the flock. However, the history and Tradition of the Church is neither limited to this particular period in the backward direction, nor in the way forward. Nevertheless, here I would agree, along with the late pope Benedict XVI, that everything new should be read in the context of the old, just like the old be looked at through the prism of the new within the same mystical Body of Christ, which is the Catholic Church metaphysically and that dwells in this Catholic Church fully in terms of particular ecclesiastical corporations.

I hope that the Holy Spirit will help us walk the narrow path of Generous Catholic Orthodoxy and Living Catholic Tradition, so that we, Greeks and Latins alike, at brotherly peace among ourselves, can find out and realise: that  strange Ark, wherein we found shelter, is nothing but the boat of St. Peter himself, and in many holds and cabins huddle we do – numerous people of all the tribes on Earth – fallible as humans are – awaiting for the blessed shores of Heaven.


[1] See, for example, Martin Malachi’s The Jesuits and other sources soon to be considered.

[2] Enchiridion Vaticanum 1 Documenti del Concilio Vaticano II (1962-1965), Edizione 16a,  EDB, Bologna 1997.

[3] Enchiridion Oecumenicum, Documenti del dialogo teologico interconfessionale 1, Dialoghi internationali 1931-1984, EDB, Bologna 1994.

[4] INTER SANCTAM SEDEM ET ITALIAE REGNUM CONVENTIONES INITAE DIE 11 FEBRUARII 1929, URL: https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/secretariat_state/archivio/documents/rc_seg-st_19290211_patti-lateranensi_it.html

[5] Lothar Schoeppe, Konkordate seit 1800: Originaltext und deutsche Uebersetzung der geltenden Konkordate. Frankfurt am Main; Berlin: Alfred Metzner Verlag, 1964, p. 35. URL: http://www.ibka.org/artikel/ag97/reichskonkordat.html;
Translated into English by Muriel Fraser, translation taken from the Concordat Watch website URL: https://www.concordatwatch.eu/showkb.php?org_id=858&kb_header_id=752&kb_id=1211

[6] Atila Sinke Guimarães, The Pact of Metz, cf. Tradition in Action website, URL: https://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/a007ht.htm

[7] URL: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Lorrain_(journal)
The debate in Wikipedia is archived here: https://wiki.alquds.edu/?query=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Metz_Accord

[8] Yves Guillauma, Les quotidiens de transition à la Libération in Le Temps des medias, no 8, January 2007, p. 193-205, URL: https://www.cairn.info/revue-le-temps-des-medias-2007-1-page-193.htm

[9]Bibliothèque nationale de France, Les journaux d’intérêt local parus en France, des origines à 1944”, a page dedicated to Le Lorrain,  URL: https://presselocaleancienne.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb32809323p

[10]Свящ. Николай Савчук, Второй Ватиканский Собор: история, URL: https://bogoslov.ru/article/3797891

[11] Между тем в июле 1962 г. офиц. приглашения от кард. Беа о направлении наблюдателей на II Ватиканский Собор были получены К-польским патриархом Афинагором I и предстоятелями нек-рых др. правосл. Церквей. РПЦ такого приглашения не получила. В авг. того же года Никодим встречался в Париже на сессии Центрального комитета ВСЦ с секретарем СХЕ И. Виллебрандсом (впоследствии кардинал), а затем провел негласные переговоры в Меце с кард. Э. Тиссераном, оговорив условия участия наблюдателей от РПЦ на II Ватиканском Соборе: отсутствие в программе Собора вопросов политического характера с осуждением СССР и офиц. приглашение от Ватикана в адрес Московского Патриархата. М. В. Шкаровский, Никодим Ротов // Православная энциклопедия, URL: https://www.pravenc.ru/text/2565592.html

[12] From ibid

[13] See also Степанов (Русак) В. Свидетельство обвинения. — М., 1993. Volume 3, p. 17

[14] Шкаровский, op. cit.

[15] К пребыванию в Москве монсеньера И. Виллебрандса // Журнал Московской Патриархии . – 1962. – № 10. – С. 43-44.

[16] Ведерников А. Позиция благожелательного внимания (по поводу Второго Ватиканского Собора) // Журнал Московской Патриархии . – 1963. – № 2. – С. 63

[17] Ibid, 63

[18] Журнал Московской Патриархии. № 1-12. 1961 год. М. Издание Московской Патриархии 1961г.

[19] Ibid, №1 (January), pp. 54-68

[20] Ibid, №2 (February), pp. 76-78

[21] Ibid, №4 (April), pp. 47-50

[22] Ibid, №6 (June), p. 54

[23] Ibid, p. 55

[24] Ibid, p. 76

[25] Ibid, №10 (October), p. 45

[26] Ibid, №5 (May), pp. 73-75

[27] Журнал Московской Патриархии. № 1-12. 1962 год. М. Издание Московской Патриархии 1962г.

[28] Ibid, №8, p. 48-61

[29] Ibid, № 9, pp. 14-16

[30] Журнал Московской Патриархии. № 1-12. 1963 год. М. Издание Московской Патриархии 1963г.

[31] Ibid, №1 (January) p. 72

[32] Ibid №3, №4 (January, March) pp. 54-59; 62-68

[33]Another possible translation: ‘conciliarity’

[34] Ibid, №5 (May) p. 74

[35] Ibid, №6 (June) p. 3

[36] Ibid, №6 (June) p. 74-80

[37] Ibid, p.9

[38] Ibid, p. 10

[39] Ibid, №9 (September), pp. 52-55

[40] Ibid, №10 (October), pp. 3-5

[41] Ibid, №11 (November) p. 46

[42] Иванов Н., Русская Православная Церковь в ее взаимоотношениях с православными и инославными церквами в 1962 году. See in Журнал Московской Патриархии, 1962, №2 (February) pp. 22-35.

[43] See in Свящ. Николай Савчук, Второй Ватиканский Собор: история, URL: https://bogoslov.ru/article/3797891

[44] Васильева О. «Митрополит Никодим (Ротов) в истории Русской Православной Церкви: внешнеполитический аспект», a report at the conference dedicated to the 95th anniversary of the birth of Metropolitan Nikodim (Rotov), ​​St. Petersburg, October 17, 2024. Quoted from the Blagovest-info press release, URL: https://www.blagovest-info.ru/index.php?ss=2&s=4&id=109309

[45] Ibid

[46] Like the lay apostolate Churchmilitant.com; see, for example, here:  https://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/china-grooms-mccarrick

[47] See for example: “Chojnacka Barbara, Agenturalne oddziaływanie Moskwy na Sobór Watykański II,”
URL:http://www.solidarni2010.pl/11746-agenturalne-oddzialywanie-moskwy-na-sobor-watykanski-ii.html

[48] The full text of Ivan Peresvetov’s petitions to Ivan the Terrible in Russian one can reach here: http://drevne-rus-lit.niv.ru/drevne-rus-lit/text/sochineniya-ivana-peresvetova/sochineniya-ivana-peresvetova.htm; there is no more expert literature to be found in Russian about the meaning and significance of his input.

[49] Прот. Владислав Цыпин. «ДЕКЛАРАЦИЯ» 1927 г. // Православная энциклопедия. — М., 2007. — Т. XIV  — С. 328-334 URL: http://www.pravenc.ru/text/171618.html

[50] See Журнал Московской Патриархии. № 1-12. 1963 год. М. Издание Московской Патриархии 1963г., №1, p. 42).

[51] Quoted from: Ольга Васильева, Поместный собор 1971 г.: Вопросы и размышления. URL: https://rusk.ru/st.php?idar=22729

[52] Read about Monastero della Dormizione di Maria “Uspenskij” at the Russian Wikipedia: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Успенский_монастырь_(Рим)

[53] See in Журнал Московской Патриархии. № 1-12. 1963 год. М. Издание Московской Патриархии 1963г.  №10, p. 3

[54] Русак Владимир, диакон. Погребение митрополита Никодима (Ротова) // Журнал Московской Патриархии. — 1978. — № 11. — C. 12—16. Cf. the Russian Wikipedia, URL: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Никодим_(Ротов)

[55] See in the list of Catholic-EO ecumenical meetings, URL: http://www.prounione.urbe.it/dia-int/o-rc/e_o-rc-info.html

[56] Joint Declaration of Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, official Russian translation, URLhttps://mospat.ru/en/news/49758/

[57] ‘История не терпит сослагательного наклонения’ – a Russian proverb.

[58] An explanatory introduction to the reprint edition of the Russian Catholic Church of the Byzantine rite Ecclesiastical calendar: Bely Kamen, St. Petersburg 2022, pp. 32-34; see also: Колупаев В. Брюссельское издательство «Жизнь с Богом»: Книжный мир Русского Зарубежья XX века. Радиомиссия для советских слушателей. Saarbrucken, 2012. 336 с. URL: http://zarubezhje.narod.ru/texts/Vladimir_Kolupaev_ZhiznSBogom.htm

[59] Юлия Зайцева, Папская миссия помощи голодающим в России 1922-1924 гг. как «первые шаги настоящего экуменического диалога», URL: http://www.blagovest-info.ru/index.php?ss=2&s=4&id=94397

[60] “In making these observations it is no part of Our intention to condemn en masse the peoples of the Soviet Union. For them We cherish the warmest paternal affection. We are well aware that not a few of them groan beneath the yoke imposed on them by men who in very large part are strangers to the real interests of the country. We recognize that many others were deceived by fallacious hopes. We blame only the system, with its authors and abettors who considered Russia the best-prepared field for experimenting with a plan elaborated decades ago, and who from there continue to spread it from one end of the world to the other” (Divini Redemptoris, 24).

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