It was then that falsehood came into our Russian land. The great misfortune, the root of all the evil to come, was the loss of faith in the value of personal opinions. People imagined that it was out of date to follow their own moral sense, that they must all sing the same tune in chorus, and live by other people’s notions, the notions which were being crammed down everybody’s throats.

Boris Pasternak, Dr Zhivago, Chapter 13, Section 14

Foreword: Romania and the Universal Church

It was in May 1978 that I spoke to the late Marianna Greenan, a member of the Russian émigré Behr family, about her pilgrimage to Romania. (Both the English and the French branches of the Behrs of that generation were staunch supporters of the Moscow Patriarchate). She told me how she had visited a small embroidery workshop in Romania and realised that all the workers were nuns who had been forced to leave their Convent, as the Communists had closed it. One of them who spoke some Russian explained to Marianna that she said one Jesus Prayer for every stitch that she made.

Then the woman, or rather nun, whispered to Marianna that ‘our persecution is all the fault of you Russians’. Marianna, a member of the Patriarchate, was astonished and asked why. The nun told her: ‘Because you overthrew our Orthodox Tsar and so we are all suffering’. This story has remained with me these nearly fifty years. For the whole Orthodox world has indeed suffered ever since the great treason of the upper-class Russian aristocrats and generals, among them Romanovs, in 1917: ‘All around treason and cowardice and deceit’, as the Tsar wrote.

Introduction: Carpathia and Hesychasm

My latest pilgrimage here has reminded me of my 2004 pilgrimage to the Presov Rus homeland of the ever-memorable Carpatho-Rusyn Metropolitan Lavr (Shkurla) in north-eastern Slovakia. Just across the border from Moldova, eastern Slovakia and northern Romania, Carpatho-Rus, which is still under Ukrainian occupation and so goes by the Kievan name of Transcarpathia, still has hesychast hermits living in the forests on the mountain-slopes.

St Job of Ugolka (+ 1985) was such a one. He is the still living fruit of the Athonite tradition, defended theologically against secularist humanism by St Gregory Palamas. This tradition went north from Athos through Bulgaria and Rila, to Serbia and Romania, to the Russia of St Sergius of Radonezh and his 70 monasteries. Later it passed on to St Paisy (Velichkovsky) in Neamt, St Seraphim of Sarov, the Optina Elders and St John of Kronstadt. That tradition is alive today in such Carpathian lights as Metr Onufry of Kiev.

7 October: A Meeting with Metr Vladimir of Chisinau (Moscow Patriarchate)

Most of Moldova was in pre-Soviet times known as Bessarabia, as Pushkin described, and was an integral part of Romania. However, with the Soviet occupation that large province and its churches were forced to join the Moscow Patriarchate. Since the fall of the USSR in 1991, when only some 380 churches remained open, the Church has been restored (nearly 1300 more churches repaired or built) and the people have been returning to the Romanian Church.

The return to the Romanian Church is a spontaneous movement of the people, followed, but not led, by the clergy, as several priests confirmed to me. As the elderly die out, this movement is inevitable, only those who recall Soviet times are staying with Moscow. It has become obvious that Moldova will disappear from the map of Europe within a few years and will be absorbed back into Romania, together with its Church.

Meeting at the Metropolia, Metr Vladimir told me that at present he still has 1,350 churches in this country of two and a half million, all of them using the old calendar. As for the Romanian Church in Moldova, known as the Autonomous Metropolia of Bessarabia (which mirrors the Autonomy given to the Romanian Church in Western Europe), it has taken 300 churches back from Metr Vladimir, all of them also using the old calendar.

The number returning to the Romanian Church has doubled in the last two years and is increasing every month. Other priests told me that the numbers of people leaving and taking their clergy with them, suggest that the Metropolia of Bessarabia, for now with 4 bishops, will be larger than the Moscow Patriarchate, for now with 11 bishops, within two years. The movement is one-way and has been much accelerated by the present events in the Ukraine.

Metr Vladimir admitted to me that the essence of the problem is that the Russians in Moscow treat Moldovans as ‘third-class Orthodox’ and refused to give it Autocephaly. Now it is too late for that. I told the Metropolitan that this is also exactly what Moscow does to most Moldovans in the Diaspora (apart from those under the enlightened Metr Nestor), as well as to English and French Orthodox and to other Non-Russian Orthodox in the Diaspora, stabbing us in the back. He did not know that there are now 30 Moldovan parishes under the Romanian Church in Italy, and 5 in England, with 3 which took refuge in the Romanian Church from ROCOR in 2022.

I said to him that the problem is that he is not allowed a Diaspora and that therefore he is losing most of his Diaspora Moldovans, in the same way as he is losing his churches inside Moldova. I added that we would have joined the Moldovan Church ten years ago, if it had had a Diaspora, rather than continue to be mistreated by politically-minded, Greek-hating Russians who to boot ‘dislike Romanians and only half-like Moldovans’ (and only half-like anyone who is not American), to quote one of their bishops. The Metropolitan looked as though he too had been living with that Cross for a long time. At present he cannot visit Britain or Ireland – the authorities will not grant him a visa.

Metr Vladimir asked me what our experience had been. I informed him that I had studied at St Serge in Paris with the last emigres from before the Revolution. I had spent 47 years in the Russian Church, battling for its unity and meeting two Patriarchs. I told him how a very young Metropolitan in Moscow, who has never spent any time in a monastery, literally told us, all six churches, to ‘go away’. When informed that after nearly fifty years of faithfulness to the Russian Church we would therefore be forced to join another canonical Local Church, the Romanian, the young Metropolitan had simply answered: ‘Too bad for you’.

Metr Vladimir invited us to concelebrate with him; he has no problem with the Romanian Church, despite the fact that the people are leaving him for it. You cannot go against the people when they act en masse, and he knows that. The people ask their priests: ‘We have joined the Romanian Church, will you come with us?’ The priests follow the fait accompli.

8 October: The Convent of Suruceni

Today we go to venerate the relics of St Dionysius of Bessarabia (1868-1943), a great hierarch. He did much to translate the liturgical texts into Romanian, was a patriot of Greater Romania, and his incorrupt relics lie in this beautiful convent, which is still under Metropolitan Vladimir. We venerated his relics, took part in the Akathist and spoke to the Abbess. We were impressed. One of the nuns, who had spent 20 years in the Ukraine, asked me about our views of Metr Onufry (‘a living saint’), and Metr Antony (Bloom) and St Sophrony (Sakharov) and my impressions of them both and why they had argued in 1965. I told her that our church is dedicated to St John (Maximovich), who stood above all such émigré personality disputes.

9 October: St Martha and Maria Convent

Today we went to one of the largest convents in Moldova, also still under Metropolitan Vladimir. A former Communist youth camp, it was founded in 1992 on 200 euros (!). It is a work of faith. It has three churches, one a magnificent large, frescoed church, some sixty nuns and many other very large buildings, including a boarding-school. It runs from the profits of its extensive farm. I met Fr Andrei, the elder, a most impressive spiritual father. We talked long and he spoke of his very poor childhood, when the Communists so oppressed the Church, and he described the Convent’s very, very close links with the monastery of Putna in Romania, which is a great centre of holiness. Putna donated a whole wooden church to the Convent, which stands as the third church.

11 October

Today we baptised a child and served a three-hour Vigil at the very large, brand-new church in Costinesti, a small town near Chisinau. A new Convent is being built alongside it.

12 October

Today we celebrated the Sunday liturgy in the same church. It was attended by about 150 people.

14 October

Today is the Feast of the Protection and we celebrate the liturgy in a church outside Chisinau. It is very pleasing to see most of the people, men and women alike, dressed in national costume.

15 October: Meetings with a Saint and two Bishops in Iasi

Today, my namesday, we leave at 3.30 am to go to Iasi in Romania, about three hours away. There are 500 churches in Iasi itself and another 500 outside this City of some 350,000. But the greatest glory of the Metropolia of Iasi is the relics of St Paraskeva. 200,000 pilgrims have gathered for her feast day before, on and after 14 October. We venerate her relics and can feel the warmth of her millennial hands.

We concelebrate the liturgy with the very young-looking Bishop Theofil from Bacau. Apart from all three priests and three parishioners from Colchester, there are another seventeen priests, four protodeacons and hundreds of people. A choir of young women sings magnificently with Russian chants. Communion is from three large chalices. The largest is 2.5 litres, whereas our largest Sunday chalice in Colchester is only 1.5 litres (a third of a gallon). But our altar is bigger! As is usual in the Romanian Church, this is a real concelebration, all are involved, all take an active part. This is the people’s Church. And of course the people understand everything, as the Romanian used for services is close to everyday Romanian. This is different from both the Greek and the Russian Churches.

After the Liturgy we are invited to eat with Bishop Nikifor, one of the two assistant bishops to Metropolitan Theofan of Iasi. We converse in French and Russian. He tells us that the Russian Church’s decision to go into schism and expel us, because we objected to its schism, is the Romanian Church’s gain. We reply to him that it is also our gain! Then we speak of Fr Raphael Noica, whom we both so love.

We compare the People’s Salvation Cathedral (named in typical Romanian fashion, for this is the Church of the People) in Bucharest with the main Russian Military Cathedral outside Moscow, which were both built at the same time. The People’s Salvation Cathedral is the world’s largest and tallest Orthodox Cathedral, with the largest mosaic collection in the world and the world’s largest iconostasis (407 m²). It can take 6,000 worshippers:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Salvation_Cathedral

The Russian Military Church outside Moscow, with its Communist emblems:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Cathedral_of_the_Russian_Armed_Forces

The comparison is between light and dark, between the beauty of the Ascension (which is the dedication) and an attempt to intimidate by military victory.

Leadership in today’s Romanian Church is under the influence of the new saints. They are the glory of the Romanian Church, its New Martyrs and Confessors, St Arsenie Boca, St Arsenie Papacioc, St Sofian Boghiu, St Dumitru Stăniloae, my own favourite, St Cleopa Ilie, the Shepherd of the Carpathians, and many others. Fr Cleopa was a living saint, a living icon, the people’s shepherd. These saints are the guarantee of the independence and freedom of the Church from politicians. They have the Tradition of life.

Why are the Patriarchates of Constantinople and Moscow not also under the influence of their Saints? Both have plenty of new and great saints and pastors, Athonite Elders like St Paisios and St Porphyrios, or New Martyrs and Confessors, but somehow their politically-minded episcopates seem to have sidelined these pastors and the veneration of the new saints is often nominal.

16 October: Back in Moldova

In a town outside Chisinau I meet one of the most senior priests in Moldova, a theologian, born in Romanian North Bukovina, which Stalin stole and added to the Ukraine in 1945, though this priest has lived in Moldova for decades. I will call him Fr X. We discuss our many mutual acquaintances, living and reposed: Patriarch Alexiy II, Patriarch Kyrill, Metr Onufry of Kiev (who is so similar to the ever-memorable Metr Lavr (Shkurla)), Metr Tikhon (Shevkunov), Metr Antony (Bloom), St Sophrony (Sakharov), Fr Alexander Schmemann.

Interestingly, Fr X. wears his mitre and two crosses only at Easter. I have the same custom, wearing them only ‘for the sake of the feast’, ‘radi prazdnika’. We have the same attitude to such pompous awards. He gives me an icon of St Alexander, a local New Martyr, martyred by the Soviets in Kazan in 1943.

He tells me that several of the local Moscow Patriarchate bishops are either married or else divorced, one is a politician in a cassock, only one is a monk. I tell him that the situation is no different from in Russia, but that I prefer the ones who are still married, at least they are normal. Those who could not live with their wife may have some personality flaw and, unmarried, they may have other vices. It is what the Apostle Paul recommended, that candidates be ‘the husband of one wife’. There are of course the homosexuals, of whom there is only one notorious case in Moldova, though quite a minority of the episcopate in Russia and elsewhere is, as the Budapest affair publicly proved, even to the naïve and the liberals.

I suggest that Moscow, like Constantinople, spends too much time consorting with the Pope of Rome and that his Papism has rubbed off on them. Fr X. corrects me and says that the Pope of Rome would love to have as much power and money as they have in Moscow and Constantinople.

Fr X., who knows Metr Vladimir very well, both before and since transferring to the Romanian Church, once accompanied Metr Vladimir to Romania on a secret trip to negotiate the transfer of his Church to the Romanian Church. Fr X. commented that Metr Vladimir would like to take the whole of his Moldovan Church to the Romanian Church, instead of seeing batches of parishes go to the Romanian Church, one group at a time, the largest batch so far numbering sixty, which was just over a year ago. However, Metr Vladimir cannot transfer, for he is a prisoner, a political hostage. As for the pieces of paper ‘defrocking’ clergy who join the Romanian Church, the Metropolitan told everyone to ignore them – they are purely political documents, which he is forced to issue ‘by the powers that be’.

We agree that the problem is that so many in the Russian Church think in the Soviet categories of atheism and nationalism, as politicians and businessmen in cassocks, but not as pastors. After 1991 they changed from atheism to Orthodoxy overnight, but only in dress. Pastors would long ago have granted autocephaly to any Church which is present in any numbers in the thirteen independent Republics, apart from Russia and Georgia which already had autocephalous Churches, that the USSR broke up into. Now, through its Soviet centralisation, Moscow is losing everything. It is this purely secular and political centralisation of power which makes clericalist Moscow bishops into militaristic generals, who then bully, humiliate and intimidate priests as soldiers whose task is to carry out rituals (‘treboispolniteli’).

We come to the discussion of the conflict in the Ukraine and the delusional attitude of the West. I mention that Hitler in his last months was also delusional, as were his propaganda media. People are always delusional, when they are losing a war. This delusion comes from hubris, as was Hitler’s case, as is the EU’s case and that of all the other Globalists. Hubris comes from the need for victory instead of reconciliation, which friendly groups promote. Hubris in today’s case too indicates a loss of contact with reality and the huge overestimation of the West’s own competence, accomplishments and capabilities. As they say, ‘pride goes before the fall’. As for Narcissus, he rejected the advances of all who approached him, and instead fell in love with his own reflection in a swamp. The swamp in Washington?

Fr X. criticises President Putin. He said to me that the President does not like the martyred Tsar. President Putin considers that the Tsar was weak in 1917, he should have fought against his enemies, even if millions had died.  I comment that for me the Tsar is a criterion of Orthodoxy and that in this way President Putin shows that he is still a Soviet man, without understanding of Christian martyrdom, of the Sts Boris and Gleb attitude of Tsar Nicholas. This rejection of the Tsar’s attitude was precisely the error of the Whites, who created the Russian Civil War, in which perhaps four million people died. The Whites, led by anti-Bolshevik and also anti-Tsar generals and traitors, disobeyed the Tsar, who wanted only peace.

The Tsar knew that it would be useless to fight militarily against the Bolsheviks. Apostasy can only be cured by misfortune – you cannot halt it by force. Thus, Bolshevism was only stopped by the satanic intervention of Hitler, who murdered 27 million people of the old Russian Empire. The White Orthodox Emigration, from which I was issued, initially through the influence of the Benckendorffs 39 years after the Revolution, has prayed for 100 years and more for the coming of a new Tsar, like St Nicholas, and who will reverse the injustices of 1917. But that can only come through repentance and humility, when Russia is spiritually ready. It is still far from that.

I emphasise to him that the White Orthodox Emigration was only a small part of the whole White Emigration. This was composed for the most part of capitalists and traitors to Russia, greedy and grasping people who only hated the Communists because the latter had stolen their property from them, and not because they opposed Communist atheism – they themselves were atheists and as such also opposed the Church and the Tsar. From the Orthodox viewpoint, they were not White at all, rather they were Black, and in the Russian Civil War, which Tsar Nicholas had avoided, they carried out just as many atrocities as the Reds.

Fr X. asks me about the Russian Emigration and why it split into three parts. I tell him that all was determined by the attitudes of the key players, clergy and laity, to the Soviet State. Those who remained in the Patriarchate were coloured by their deep Soviet patriotism and even support of Stalin. Those who went to Paris, mainly very Westernised Saint Petersburg aristocrats, had overthrown the Tsar and wanted a Western-style Parliament, whereas those in ROCOR were simply anti-Communists, who wanted to restore the pre-Revolutionary State, despite all its social injustices and Church decadence (communion at best once a year) and careerism. Virtually no-one was creative and looked to recreating not the pre-Revolutionary Sate of nominal Orthodoxy, bureaucracy and corruption, but Holy Rus’, except perhaps for the repentant Kartashov.

16 October: Exhibition for Queen Marie

In the afternoon we are invited to the town of Straseni, where there is an exhibition at the Museum dedicated to Queen Marie of Romania (1875-1938). Queen Marie was a unique Anglo-Russian figure, the daughter of Prince Alfred (a son of Queen Victoria) and Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, daughter of Tsar Alexander III of Russia, aunt of Tsar Nicholas II and the Tsarina. She married Ferdinand of Romania, who became King of Romania.  In 1926 Queen Marie adopted the Orthodox Faith (she did not remain Anglican, as some falsely claim on the internet and on AI, though she later had sentimental sympathies for Bahai). She is much loved here, as she played a great diplomatic role for Romania at the Versailles Peace Conference, wrote over 30 books and spoke poetically of her love for Romania, helping to create Greater Romania, of which she was the last Queen and best ambassadress:

https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=maria+of+romania+film&&mid=8DF9E3904F0F41D6455E8DF9E3904F0F41D6455E&FORM=VAMGZC

Queen Marie, the cousin of King Charles’ great-grandfather, spoke very good Romanian, albeit with an English accent, and was immediately loved by Romanians, being renowned for her beauty, wisdom and love of her adopted country and its customs. Later Communist slanders are not believed. Below are some of her sayings:

Nothing is far when you want to get there.

Nothing is ours really, not even our own souls.

In much knowledge there is also much grief.

To be entirely happy in marriage, the same thing must be important to both.

Fashion exists for women with no taste, etiquette for people with no breeding.

Photographs were taken of our international delegation to the Museum.

17 October

We return to England and hear the tragic but unsurprising news that the Anglican Communion has now officially split into two, with the woke side, led by Canterbury and numbering about 15% of the whole, falling away from the African-led orthodox majority.

On the other hand, we hear the good news that our Archdiocese has obtained a very large former church in Peterborough, which we will use, once we have spent £300,000 on needed repairs. We already have the money. This will further increase and strengthen our Orthodox presence in our native East of England. The Local Church is being constructed. This is God’s work.