the schism in shanghai

Chapter 3 –The Schism in Shanghai

The course of church life in China at the end of the Second

World War, its internal collisions, and troubles are well-known

even now.

In an Epistle of August 2, 1946 to his Orthodox flock, Saint

John of Shanghai wrote “In view of the severing of communication

with other countries for several years we have been isolated from

the Higher Church Administration Abroad and for long periods of

time we have been cut off from the diocesan center, we have been

forced to guide local church life on our own but taking all

opportunities for re-establishing communications.

During the period of the war there were attempts made to

establish an East Asian Church Administration under the

leadership of Metropolitan Meletiiy. The authorities in Harbin at

that time strongly insisted that we cease to commemorate

Metropolitan Anastasiiy, whom they considered as hostile to them.

However, based on many references to the canons, the hierarchs in

the Far East resisted these demands and continued to consider

Metropolitan Anastasiiy as the head of the Church Abroad. After

the defeat of Germany there was no information about the fate of

the Synod Abroad and various rumors circulated. At the end of

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July last year we were informed that the hierarchs in Harbin had

decided to ask the Most Holy Patriarch of Moscow to place them

under his jurisdiction. We immediately wrote to Archbishop

Victor, that is in the absence of information about the fate of

the Synod Abroad, and it being unlawful to remain independent of

a higher church authority we also must enter into relations with

the Most Holy Patriarch of Moscow and in the absence of any

hindrances to submit ourselves to him.”

From 1931 the Orthodox Church in China was isolated from the

whole Orthodox world. Ties with the Synod Abroad were cut as a

result of military action in Europe and Asia and China’s war of

liberation against Japan. The representative of the Synod Abroad

in China was His Eminence Metropolitan Meletiiy, who lived in

Harbin. The title of Bishop of Beijing and China belonged to

Archbishop Victor, Head of the 20th Mission. The Harbin diocese

was completely independent in its governance. After the creation

of Japan’s puppet state Manchukuo with its capital in Hsinking

(Xinjing, now Changchun)Xin Jiang, the diocese lay beyond the

boundaries of the Republic of China and it was difficult to

consult with the Head of the Ecclesiastical Mission in Beijing on

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matters of church life. The Orthodox suffered persecution. The

Japanese administration demanded from all citizens a symbolic bow

to the goddess Amaterasu, the progenitor of the imperial house of

Japan. Priest Alexander Zhu and Feodor Bogolyubov, Hieromonk

Pavel were killed and some clergy were forcibly transferred from

the Harbin diocese to Beijing.

In a report of March 24, 1945 the priest of the Tabyn Kazan

Theotokos women’s monastery located in Kakagashi, near Dairen

(Dalniiy) addressed by Archpriest John Petelina to the Patriarch

Alexei I of Moscow and All Russia Alexei I, there is the

following description of the situation in China: “The Japanese

regional administration has paralyzed the entire economic life of

the emigration, more than half of the Russian schools have been

destroyed…. Some of the priests have been subjected to severe

repression, beatings and even death. The hierarchs who are at

hand, namely His Eminence Metropolitan Meletiiy, His Eminence

Archbishop Nestor, His Eminence. Archbishop Victor, His Grace

Bishop John and His Grace Bishop Juvenaly cannot come to any

amicable agreement among themselves…” His Grace Bishop Juveanaly

wrote that the Episcopal Conference of the Harbin Diocese had

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elevated Bishop Dimitriiy to the rank of archbishop in accordance

with the will of Metropolitan Meletiiy. This was a clear sign of

the autonomy of the diocese and its isolation from the center of

the church – the Synod Abroad. Further on this report it stated

the willingness of many emigrants to accept the jurisdiction of

the Moscow Patriarchate. Father John turned to the Patriarch with

a proposal that he send a summons to the Far Eastern hierarchy to

reunite with the Mother Church and submit to the Patriarch’s

authority.

In July 1945 there was an Episcopal Conference in Harbin to

discuss the question of the acceptance of a new jurisdiction. It

was decided to ask Patriarch Alexei to transfer them into the

Moscow Patriarchate. However the Beijing diocese had to decide

this question independently. Saint John, the Bishop of Shanghai –

a jurist by his education, a canonist and legal consultant to the

Mission – convinced Archbishop Victor, his ruling hierarch, to

accept the new jurisdiction. On July 31, 1945, he wrote to the

Head of the Mission “…. After the decision of the Harbin Diocese

and in view of the absence of information of the Synod Abroad

over the course of several years, any other decision of our

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diocese would make it an independent, autocephalous diocese.

Relations with the Moscow Church authorities are possible since

the ukaze of November 7, 1920 is inapplicable. At the present

time there is no basis for our remaining a self-governing diocese

and we should act the way the Harbin diocese did. The

commemoration of the name of the chairman of the Synod Abroad for

the time being should continue for now because according to Canon

14 of the Quinisext council, one cannot cease commemorating

one’s Metropolitan. The commemoration of the Patriarch has to be

immediately introduced throughout the Diocese by an ukasze from

you.” The absolutely clear, irreproachable (from the canonical

point of view) position was shared by Archbishop Victor who in a

telegram of August 1945 requested that Patriarch Alexei should

accept him and Bishop John into his jurisdiction. The younger

sister of Archbishop Victor, O.V. Keping, recalled: “At the end

of 1944, still during the time of the Japanese occupation,

Archbishop Victor sent his relative, his sister’s husband, Boris

Mikhailovich Keping, to the Soviet Consulate in Beijing bringing

there an official report addressed to the Patriarch of Moscow and

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all Rus, asking to be united with the Patriarchal Church. There

was no answer.

On October 1, 1945 a delegation consisting of Bishop

Elevferiiy of Rostov and Tagorog and Priest Gregory Razumovskiiy

were given an order (No. 1263) with the signature of the

Patriarch to visit Harbin and “Reunite the schismatic bishops” in

Manchuria. This was not difficult to do because at the time the

empire of Manchukuo was occupied by Soviet forces. Visiting China

proper was not possible due to the wartime situation. All of the

hierarchs and almost all of the clergy in Manchuria joyfully

accepted the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate, however the

Soviet authorities began to use this fact to force them to accept

Soviet citizenship (out of all the well-known clergy the only one

who did not accept the jurisdiction of the Patriarch was the son

of Archbishop Dimitriiy of Hailar, Archimandrite Filaret. He

later headed the Synod Abroad).

On December 7, 1945 the Patriarch sent the following

telegram to Metropolitan Meletiiy in Harbin: “Our delegation has

safely returned to Moscow. With fatherly love and joy we receive

the hierarchs, clergy and laity of the Harbin, Kamchatka-

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Petropavlosk and China Beijing dioceses into the bosom of the

Mother Church…” On the December 27,th 1945 the Synod issued Ukaze

No. 39 about the reuniting of the Far Eastern Diocese.

Regular postal and telegraph communications within China

were difficult due to wartime conditions. Therefore the

Patriarch’s telegram sent January 11, 1946 about the reception of

the Beijing diocese under his omophor was not received in

Beijing. Consequently no one in Shanghai knew about the

Patriarch’s decision. The question of submission to a higher

church authority remained an open question, although Bishop John

had already begun to commemorate the Patriarch even before

receiving news form Moscow. Archbishop Victor in Beijing did the

same. In the meantime, on September 28, 1945, Bishop John of

Shanghai had received a telegram from Geneva from Metropolitan

Anastasiiy, the First Hierarch of the Church Abroad, informing

him that the Synod Abroad was still functioning (it was

impossible to send a telegram to Archbishop Victor in Beijing

from Geneva so it was sent to his Vicar in Shanghai).

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On September 29, 1945 Bishop John in Shanghai sent a

telegram to Beijing relaying Metropolitan Anastasiiy’s enquiry.

It is possible that this telegram also did not arrive.

Bishop John made the natural and most reasonable decision in

this situation. Recognizing the need to be subject to a higher

church authority, Bishop John renewed his former relations with

the Synod Abroad, receiving various instructions from the Synod

and carrying them out.

In October, Archbishop Victor in Beijing informed Shanghai

of his declaration to the Most Holy Patriarch of his submission

to the Moscow Patriarchate. Archbishop Victor informed Bishop

John of the exact conditions of his declaration personally during

his visit to Shanghai in January 1946. In his report to the Most

Holy Patriarch of July 21, 1946, Archbishop Victor wrote that he

had arrived in Shanghai in February 1946 already having the reply

of the Patriarch from Moscow. However, we know that the

Patriarch’s first telegram had not been received by Archbishop

Victor so he could not have known of the Patriarch’s decision

before his arrival in Shanghai. In Shanghai, Bishop John informed

the Head of the Mission that communication with the Church

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Authority abroad had been reestablished and so the transfer to

any other church authority could only be done with the permission

of Metropolitan Anastasiiy, otherwise this would be a violation

of the Canons, especially if one took into account that the

diocese of Shanghai, as well that of Beijing, had been

established by the Synod Abroad. In principle the Head of the

Mission did not protest against this because the decision of the

representative of the Synod, Metropolitan Meletiiy, had already

decided to enter the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarch.

However, there was still hope that the situation could be

resolved without violating the Canons. Everyone hoped for a

positive decision from Metropolitan Anastasiiy. Moreover, in the

winter of 1946 no one yet knew of the Patriarch’s decision in

regard to the Beijing diocese. The follow-up telegram was only

received in April, 1946 on Holy Saturday. In the address to his

flock in Shanghai, Bishop John wrote: “The Church Administration

Abroad believes it is useful for the church to continue its

spiritual care over us, of whom they informed us and the Head of

the Mission. In light of this we consider it impossible to make

any decision regarding the question without instruction and

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approval of the Russian Church Authority Abroad. It has already

been decided at the Council in 1938 in which we took part that

when the hour of our return to our homeland comes, that the

hierarchy abroad would not act in an uncoordinated manner and

then the Church Abroad would report to the All-Russian Synod the

actions during the time of its forced disunity. The information

about the free resumption of canonical-liturgical union with the

Moscow Patriarchate received by Archbishop Victor on Holy

Saturday in response to his appeal to His Holiness Patriarch

Alexei of August 1945 truly gave us joy, because in it we saw the

beginning of mutual understanding between the two parts of the

Russian Church divided by borders, and the possibility of mutual

support between the two united centers of the Russian people

within and without our Fatherland. Pursuing one common goal and

acting separately in response to the situation in which we find

ourselves, the Church within Russia and Abroad can more

successfully attain our common, as well as our individual goals,

which we each have until the possibility of full unity. At the

present time the Church in Russia has to heal the wound left by

militant atheism and be set free from the bonds hindering the

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fullness of its internal and external activity. The task of the

Russian Church Abroad is to prevent the dispersion of the

children of the Russian Orthodox Church and to preserve the

spiritual values brought with them from the Motherland, and to

spread Orthodoxy in the countries in which they live. The

activities of the Council of Hierarchs Abroad, meeting on the

anniversary of Germany’s defeat in the city of Munich, occupied

by the Allies, were directed to these goals. However, the

divisions which would lead later to schism were already apparent

by this time.

On May 31, 1946 the Head of the Mission, Archbishop Victor

of Beijing and China, arrived in Shanghai on a plane from

Beijing. He was accompanied by Archpriest Valentin Sinaiskiiy

and Igumen Nikodim. The news of Archbishop Victor’s arrival had

already appeared in Russian newspapers. Bishop John and the

Shanghai clergy had been informed of Archbishop Victor’s arrival.

Attorney Penkotsi, through whom the news of Archbishop Victor’s

arrival had come, met with Bishop John on May 30th and had a long

personal discussion with him about the forthcoming visit of the

Head of the Mission. Having received this news, Bishop John

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called together all his clergy and at the meeting he said he

would not meet Archbishop Victor. Protopresbyter Elias Wen later

recalled “Upon his arrival in Shanghai from Beijing Archbishop

Victor, accompanied by eight members of the Komsomol headed to

the cathedral. At 6:00 in the evening Archbishop Victor arrived

at the Cathedral where members of the Council of the Mission

awaited him. In the cathedral the Archbishop was greeted with the

Holy Cross by the rector of the cathedral Protopresbyter Michael

Rogozhin. The majority of the clergy, headed by Bishop John did

not come to the meeting. From the time of his arrival in Shanghai

Archbishop Victor traveled with a guard – a group of employees of

the general consulate of the USSR in Shanghai.

On Saturday, June 1st Bishop John visited Archbishop Victor

before the All-Night Vigil – they had to decide the question of

how they would serve together. The problem was that Bishop John

had blessed a priest suspended by Archbishop Victor to serve.

Protopresbyter Michael Rogozhin served and both bishops prayed in

the altar. On Sunday June 2nd, the early Liturgy in the Cathedral

was served by Bishop John with priests suspended by Archbishop

Victor, and the later Liturgy was served by Archbishop Victor.

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On the evening before the feast of Pentecost the two

hierarchs served the Vigil in the Cathedral together. After the

polyeleon Archpriest Elias Wen threatened Archbishop Victor with

his fist in the altar, calling him a deceiver and reproaching him

for humiliating the Chinese clergy. He was supported by

Protodeacon Elisei Zhao. The two hierarchs served the later

Liturgy of the feast of Pentecost together on June 11th.

Archbishop Victor accompanied by staff members of the Consulate

General of the USSR in Shanghai headed for Nanjing to be

introduced to leading members of the Chinese government.

During the period of Archbishop Victor’s visit to Nanjing,

Bishop John made public a telegram of the Synod Abroad raising

him to the rank of Archbishop and giving him the rights of an

independent bishop (Ukaze No. 108, from June 9, 1946). On June

10th Archbishop John published Ukaze No 109 in which he called

for God’s blessing on the clergy and people of his diocese. With

these Ukazses the foundation of an independent Shanghai diocese

was laid – timewise this was before any other decision had been

made in Moscow. In response to Protopresbyter Michael Rogozhin,

who asked Archbishop John whether he submitted to the Head of the

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Mission and the Patriarch. Archbishop John replied that he did

not submit juridically, but that he acknowledged the Patriarch.

In a conversation of June 14 with Archbishop Victor who had

arrived from Nanjing, Bishop John emphasized that he was the

independent bishop of the Shanghai diocese.

In the meantime, the Most Holy Patriarch Alexei issued Ukaze

No. 605 which ordered the transformation of the East Asian

Metropolia into the East Asian Exarchate of the Moscow

Patriarchate. Metropolitan Nestor was appointed as exarch with

the title of Metropolitan of Harbin and Manchuria in view of the

death of Metropolitan Meleitiiy. The vicar of the Harbin diocese

was to be Archpriest Leonid Viktorov (after being tonsured a

monk) with the title Bishop of Qiqihar.

On June 15th, Archbishop Victor published an ukazse

announcing the release of Archbishop John from his duties of

exarch and the appointment of Bishop Juvenaly. Archbishop Victor

again on June 2nd sent a request to the Patriarch in Moscow. On

this matter, June 16th after the sermon after the later Liturgy,

announced that he had received an ukazse releasing him from the

duties of the Shanghai vicariate but said he was not going to

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obey it. “I will only obey this ukaze if someone can show me in

the sacred scripture or the laws of any country that says that

breaking one’s oath is a virtue.”

On June 20th Archbishop John published an ukaze which stated

that in a radiogram of June 19, 1946 the Synod of Hierarchs

Abroad, meeting on May 20, 1946 in Munich, decided to make the

Shanghai area an independent diocese headed by Archbishop John

and to release Archbishop Victor from the administration of the

Shanghai diocese. It is important to notice that the Synod Abroad

had established an independent Shanghai diocese within the

territory of the Beijing diocese without the consent or knowledge

of the ruling bishop, a violation of canon law. From that moment

on it became impossible for the two hierarchs to concelebrate. In

principle, the question of the Shanghai diocese was not a new

question. Already in 1938 Archbishop Nestor presented to the

Synod Abroad a detailed plan concerning the arrangement of

dioceses in the Far East, in which the borders of the Shanghai

diocese were defined. Bishop John at that time the representative

of the Head of the Mission to the Synod, did not consider it

possible to agree to this plan, and it was sent for the response

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of Archbishop Victor and Archbishop Nestor, who (i.e. Archbishop

Meletiiy) soon attended the Sobor in person. He telegraphed news

from Munich declaring the Shanghai Vicariate an independent

diocese was unexpected by Archbishop John, but he accepted his

appointment as an ecclesiastical obedience and did not refuse.

On July 7th, on the 25th anniversary of Archbishop Victor’s

service, Bishop John agreed at first that Archbishop Victor could

serve in the cathedra, but when he learned that 10,000 Soviet

citizens living in Shanghai (they had already received Soviet

citizenship) would come to the service and Bishop John, fearing

disorder and agitation among his flock, refused with the support

of the Mayor of Shanghai, to let him serve. Archbishop Victor had

to serve the Liturgy and a thanksgiving moleben in St. Nicholas

Church, and not in the cathedral by which he was offended. On

June 20th Bishop John issued an ukazse releasing Protopresbyter

Michael Rogozhin from his post of rector of the Theotokos

Cathedral in Shanghai designating Archpriest Ilya Wen as acting

rector. Fr. Michael informed Archbishop Victor of the ukasze,

saying he was not going to obey it because he was a priest of the

Beijing diocese and a Vicar Bishop did not have the authority to

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release him from his duties. On June 22nd Archpriest Ilya Wen and

Protodeacon Elisei Zhao refused to allow Protopresbyter Michael

to serve the Vigil in the Cathedral. On June 29th, on the orders

of Archbishop John the church warden of the cathedral, Bogomolov

and Archpriest Ilya removed the cash box from the cathedral. By

uUkasze No. 715 of June 28, 1946 Archbishop John appointed

Protopresbyter Michael Rogozhin head of the council of diocesan

affairs and by Uukazse Nno. 727 of August 2nd ordered him to

respond to Ukaze Nno. 715. Fr. Michael did not respond to either

of these ukazes, as a result of which by Uukaze Nno. 728 of

August 2nd was released from all responsibility in Shanghai and

proposed that he give all documents and property, etc. of the

diocese to Archpriest Ilya Wen. Fr. Michael responded to all

these ukazes by declaring that he could not submit to the ukaze

of Archbishop John, who had been released from the management of

the vicariate.

In June, Archbishop John received Chinese citizenship,

passport number 91.

On August 6th, Archbishop John turned to the Minster of

Internal Affairs of the Republic of China with a request to

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confirm him as Head of the Orthodox Churches in Shanghai, to

which the authorities gave their consent.

On August 18, 1946 at the request of the inhabitants of

Wayside, (an area near the river in Shanghai), a church was

consecrated in honor of the Kazan icon of the Mother of God in a

building rented in Archbishop Victor’s name, where Archbishop

Victor and the other clergy, who would not submit to Archbishop

John, served. With Archbishop Victor’s blessing,. pPastoral

courses were held in this building. Afterwards six men who had

completed these courses were ordained, two as priests, two as

deacons and two as subdeacons. Bishop John and the clergy loyal

to him served in the Holy Theotokos Cathedral and four domestic

churches, the churches belonging to the Mission, namely: the

church at the home for old women, the church at the commercial

institute and the church in the St. Tikhon of Zadonsk orphanage,

and the church in the women’s school. The church at the women’s

monastery in the Harbin metochion voluntarily joined the new

Shanghai diocese and part of the parish at Wayside. (These latter

three churches were in rented buildings).

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Among the eleven priests in Shanghai who were loyal to

Archbishop Victor were Protopresbyter Michael Rogozhin,

Archpriest Alexei Filimonov (the rector of the St. Nicholas

Church), Archpriest Sergei Borodin and Hieromonk German. The

clergy of Archbishop John’s diocese consisted of twelve priests

and three protodeacons. With the declaration of the new diocese,

the Orthodox population of Shanghai were divided into two

jurisdictions: the Patriarchate – up to 10,000 people and

Archbishop John’s – up to 5000 people. The first consisted of

citizens of the USSR. The latter remained immigrants.

On August 25th, Bishop John announced that he would serve

the Liturgy in the St. Nicholas Church where up to then

Archbishop Victor had been serving. The church was built on

rented land and the time of the lease had already come to an end

before the period of church trouble in Shanghai. According to the

lease the property could have been purchased but this was

impossible during the years of the Japanese occupation of

Shanghai and the owner of the property demanded in court that the

church be handed over to her. At this time, some of the members

of the parish council agreed on a new lease with the landowner,

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recognizing in this way, that she had the right to the church.

With the support of the Shanghai police, this church was turned

over to supporters of Archbishop John.

Archbishop John issued and published an ukaze in the foreign

newspapers in Shanghai stating that he was the only legal head of

the Orthodox churches in Shanghai and so he annulled all of

Archbishop Victor’s orders and would prosecute him for any future

orders.

Concluding his report to Patriarch Alexei about the events,

Archbishop Victor wrote: “This schism is nothing but Archbishop

John’s attempt to escape from subordination to anyone…. By

promising various advantages for their service to the Chinese

clergy, he has started to seize property belonging to the Beijing

diocese and the Mission. I have turned to the General Counsel of

the USSR in Shanghai and the Special Envoy to China with a

request that they defend my rights as Head of the Mission to the

property of the Mission and the property of the Russian Orthodox

Church in China, which belongs to the Russian state, i.e., the

USSR. Eighty percent of my flock consisting of citizens of the

USSR and a small, but distinguished member of the clergy, who are

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loyal to Your Holiness and to me as Head of the Mission, are a

pledge of the successful overcoming of this schism. The

restoration of my rights as Head of the Mission in China will put

an end to the as yet unformed new Shanghai diocese.”

In regard to this, Archbishop John addressed his Shanghai

flock in the following words: “We will submit to those

Archpastors which our Higher Church Authority sees fit for us to

submit to, or else separate ourselves from all church matters if

the successors of the bishop who consecrated us remove our

responsibility for the flock here, but even then we would not

stop praying for those whom we have spiritually cared for during

all these years. We pray the Lord that he speed the coming of

long desired and hoped for hour when the First Hierarch of All

Russia, will ascend his throne in his rightful place and the

Dormition Cathedral and will gather around him all Russian

Archpastors from all of Russia and those foreign lands where they

have gone.”

A part of the Russian clergy who did not desire to go to the

USSR (a perfectly understandable thing in the 40s) thought that

remaining beyond the borders of Russia; they would be in the

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jurisdiction of Metropolitan Anastasiiy. However, one cause of

the church troubles was not only Archbishop John’s desire to save

the lives of his Shanghai flock, but the desire on the part of

the Soviet diplomats to convince the Head of the Mission and the

majority of the faithful in China that complete freedom of

conscience existed in the USSR. The Chinese clergy counted on

taking over the parishes in Shanghai which had been abandoned and

drawing closer to the management of the diocese, and if possible,

to gain control of the entire Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in

China. The Chinese clergy, having access to the Chinese

authorities, took advantage of the situation. It is well-known

that even in the time of Archbishop Victor all the Chinese

Orthodox clergy, headed by Archpriest Sergei Chang, took measures

with the help of the government to seize the mission in Beijing.

In one of his reports to the Patriarch, Archbishop Victor wrote:

“On the death of Archbishop Simon I took over the duties of Head

of the Mission. From the first days of my management I was

confronted with the extreme aggression of the Chinese Orthodox

clergy and the fight for the Mission brought me such burdensome,

bitter troubles that I lost the use of my legs and had to be

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treated at the Beijing Rockefeller Institute. With the help of

good people I managed to defend the Missions against aggression…

now Orthodox Chinese and Manchurians have again arisen against

me”.

In his report to His Holiness Patriarch Alexei, Archpriest

Valentin Sinaiskiiy wrote from Beijing “... a separate group of

Chinese in Shanghai… small in number but very dangerous and

strong since they have set themselves the goal of seizing the

property of the Mission and have the possibility of using the

Chinese courts and authorities. If the mission were to be seized

by the Chinese, then missionary activity in China would quickly

come to an end, because the older Chinese clergy are decrepit,

and the younger ones are (not to condemn them) not sufficiently

permeated with the Christian spirit and look at their service as

a source of their salary. The Mission would become their sinecure

and a source of income. There are no replacements for the older

clergy and indeed for the Chinese clergy in general.”

This report was written in response to unprecedented

circumstances. In the morning of October 19, 1946 Archbishop

Victor, Head of the Mission, was arrested in his rooms in the

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Archbishop’s house in Shanghai by the Chinese authorities and was

sent to the prison on Ward Road, to a common cell with Chinese

criminals and a number was placed on his riassa. This arrest was

the result of slander on the part of the Chinese clergy of

Shanghai. The next day this was covered in detail in all the

newspapers.

At that time a directive from the locum tenens of the

Chairman of the Council of the Russian Eecclesiastical Mission in

China, Protopresbyter Michael Rogozhin, was published stating

that directives in regard to the Mission, its property and

parishes, which did not come from him were null and void. In this

way the Mission found a temporary head. As his representative in

Beijing, Fr. Michael appointed Archimandrite Gavril, and in

Shanghai, Archpriest A. Filimonov.

The Chinese authorities indicted Archbishop Victor for his

participation in the Anti-Comintern Alliance of Northern China, a

Russian fascist organization, as well as for collaboration with

the Japanese occupation authorities. There were fifteen charges

in the indictment.

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In reply to the charge Archbishop Victor organized an

anticommunist committee in Northern China, the Head of the

Mission replied that his agreement with the anticommunist

committee and the Japanese military was only in regard to

ideology. As a former tsarist officer, it was painful to him to

see, after the communist revolution in 1917, the shame of Russia

for signing the Brest peace treaty and the disintegration of the

army. During the revolution Archbishop Victor lost a brother and

two cousins. During all the years of his life in the emigration

he lived with the memory of the turbulent period of the

revolution. Of course he was an anticommunist, but only

ideologically, because his status as a cleric would not allow him

to take part in activities of a practical, organizational

character. Of course he was not the head of the anticommunist

committee, but only an honorary member which by the way caused

many problems for the Mission. The Japanese and the members of

the anticommunist committee wanted to subordinate the Head and

priests of the Mission to themselves, and to control church

property. Generally speaking, they frequently acted against the

church. The Japanese occupational forces destroyed the Memorial

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Church in Tianjin, killed Hieromonk Pavel in Zhailanor. They

tortured to death the rector of the church in Kalgan, Fr.

Alexander Zhuch. The Japanese seized parts of the Mission’s

property. In Harbin the school, hospital, the Hhouse of Mmercy

and the library were seized. During the occupation, Archbishop

Victor was forcibly summoned by the Japanese military authorities

to Harbin, where under the threat of being declared a war

criminal, was told to place the representation church and the

clergy of the Mission under the jurisdiction of the Harbin

diocese temporarily until the end of the war. The management of

the property of the Mission was entrusted to Metropolitan

Meletiiy living at the Mission’s representation church in Harbin.

In any case, the Head of the Mission had neither the trust nor

the respect of the occupation authorities.

Further, Archbishop Victor was accused of forming and

leading a Cossack unit in a Cossack village near Tianjin. The

Head of the Mission replied he was only an honorary member of the

unit because of hereditary Cossack roots, but his activity went

no further than being an honorary member. In answer to the

question why the Archbishop had been seen in photographs with the

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Japanese military, he remarked that as an official person, he was

obliged to attend all official ceremonies, as a representative of

the whole Russian colony. The Archbishop did not admit the

possibility that Chinese Orthodox clergy were officially invited

to ceremonies of the Anticomintern Committee. However, he did not

deny the authorship of a speech he gave to his subordinate for

the first anniversary of the Anticomintern Committee in Tianjin

(it was of a clearly collaborative character) and truly regretted

this. As a result of this gathering the rector of the Tianjin

Holy Protection Church, Archimandrite Gavril suffered, being

quickly exiled to Shanghai.

The Archbishop was also accused of forming military units in

Shanghai for guarding railroads in Northern China, to which he

replied “They were formed by others, lay people. The men enlisted

here moved north with their families. They were promised many

things, land and cattle, but when they got to the north they

found hey had been deceived. They were refused places to live and

once a large group of women and children were led to the gates of

the Mission and abandoned. The administration of the Mission took

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pity on these unfortunate people and found space for them in

various buildings and the library.”

In regard to the awards - the Order of the Anticomintern

Committee - the Archbishop explained that he had received it at

the very beginning of the activity of the committee, “for his

official position, not for his services. The Archbishop also

rejected the accusation of publishing pro-Japanese Shanghai paper

saying he had never worked at the newspaper as everyone knew.

When asked why the former mill building at the Mission in

Beijing had been rented to the Japanese, Archbishop Victor

replied that he had been forced to do this and, in addition, the

building had been seized from a layman who had rented the mill

earlier.

One of the questions concerned the time when children of the

Chinese clergy had been accused of theft by some Russians and

beaten on the territory of the Mission. That day the Archbishop

had been in Beidai-he and when he returned to the Mission he made

it clear that those who had been beaten were innocent. He could

not, of course, answer for other peoples’ fights.

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After the interrogation the prosecutor accepted Archbishop

Victor’s word as a clergyman that he was obliged to remain in

Shanghai until the trial. Archbishop Victor had to leave his

passport with the prosecution and leave a monetary security for

two trade businesses.

On October 24th, with the active involvement of Soviet

diplomats and the help of the son of Jiang Jieshi, Jiang Jingg

Guo, Archbishop Victor was set free, without his passport, on

bail of 5000 American dollars, without the right to leave

Shanghai until the trial. The Journal of the Russian

Ecclesiastical Mission in China wrote “The example of Archbishop

Victor’s arrest convinces all citizens of the Soviet Union of the

vitality of the Great Stalin Constitution – the Fundamental Law,

by which our homeland lives. Despite the fact that the Church is

separated from the state, all citizens of the Soviet Union,

regardless of their position or activity, always and everywhere

have the support and defense of their government.”

After his release from prison Archbishop Victor spent some

time in the hospital (the result of a mini-stroke) and after

leaving the hospital was under the surveillance of the

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prosecutor. On January 15, 1947 Archbishop Victor wrote to the

Patriarch “A narrow, fanatical chauvinism on the part of the

local Shanghai Chinese Orthodox clergy against us has appeared.

This chauvinism is cultivated and strongly supported by the

Chinese Government. “Only in the middle of April 1943 was

Archbishop Victor officially informed by the prosecutor of the

Shanghai court that the investigative agencies had been unable to

put together a case against him in the absence of any materials

which could confirm the Archbishop’s guilt in collaborating with

the Japanese. In order to prevent the transfer of his flock in

Beijing to Archbishop John’s jurisdiction, Archbishop Victor

arrived in his residence in Beijing (Beiguan) in June 1947.

Through an ukaze of his Holiness Alexei the First, Patriarch

of Moscow and all Russian, number 1424 of October 22, 1946,

Archbishop Victor of Beijing and China was confirmed as head of

the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in China.

An ukaze of analogous content, number 2544 of November 26,

1941 of the Synod of Bishops Abroad, instructed Archbishop John

of Shanghai to carry out the duties of the Head of the Mission.

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The Chinese government in Nanjking recognized Archbishop John as

Head of the Mission.

Archbishop John openly said that he, as the Head of the

Mission, officially recognized by the Chinese government, did not

really think about the seizure of church property; the property

of the Mission and the diocese should be transferred to him by

right because his position was definitive and legally sanctioned.

Archbishop John already had control of the property in Shanghai.

Archbishop John’s goal was to safeguard the property of the

Church to bring it out of China at a later date. In connection

with the complicated political situation and the approaching

victory of the communist revolution, emigrants were fleeing from

the cities of Northern China. They could save or take with them

very little. One could foresee that when an atheist authority

came into power many sacred objects would be seized or simply

destroyed. In fact, that was what happened. The atheist Soviet

authorities permitted the destruction of the churches of the

Mission and the looting of its property and library.

Trying to safeguard church property in August 1948

Archbishop John arrived in the resort town of JQingdao and as the

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Head of the Mission, recognized as such by the Interior Ministry

of the Guomindang government, moved to the priest’s house at the

St. Sophia Church in JQingdao. About half of the parishioners of

this parish refused Soviet citizenship and were preparing to

leave China in the near future and the other half decided to

accept Soviet citizenship. Nevertheless, the situation in the

parish was peaceful, thanks largely to the restrained and peace-

loving character of the rector, Father Sadok, who recognized

Archbishop Victor as his diocesan bishop, but did not refuse

Archbishop John. A quarrel developed between the parishioners of

his church who truly respected Archbishop John for his genuinely

heroic labors, his asceticism and many other spiritual

characteristics, (rare in our time) and the clergy of the parish

concerning the canonical obedience of the Saint Sophia parish.

The quarrel was settled with the help of the police – the keys to

the church were kept in the police station and for services were

given either to Archbishop John or to the priest he had recently

designated as rector of the parish, Father Kyril Zaitsev. In a

special ukaze Archbishop John announced the dissolution of the

St. Sophia Church brotherhood in QJingdao and revived an old

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church organization, “The Russian Christian Emigrant Society of

QJingdao”. Its members did not recognize Archbishop Victor as

head of the mission and submitted to Archbishop John. Its

property was reregistered. This later saved the church from

destruction. Services in the St. Sophia Church in QJingdao were

served in rotation by priests under Archbishop John and

Archbishop Victor. This continued until the departure of the

emigrants from JQingdao to the Philippines in 1949, and so the

greater part of the property and archives of the church were

brought by the emigrants to America and Australia. This also

happened with the greater part of the church property in Shanghai

taken from China by Archbishop John.

What was the cause of such a split among the clergy and laity of

Shanghai, QJingdao and Tianjin?

One of the absolute conditions for being under the omophor

of the Patriarch was the necessity of not having the resolution

of ecclesiastical problems depend on political tendencies in

Russia. Calling Archbishop Victor to submit to the Moscow

Patriarchate on July 31, 1945, Archbishop John wrote: “At the

present time, we have not been presented with conditions of an

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ideological character which would serve as a cause for changing

church governance abroad. If we are given acceptable conditions,

the preservation of our current church governance will become the

problem of that church authority which is established independent

of external conditions.” Unfortunately the soviet authorities

tried to create such conditions.

The hundreds of thousands of emigrants in China, isolated

from their homeland for thirty years, could not imagine what was

going on there. They continued to live with the memory of the

assault of the church and the murder of the Tsar, the policy of

the authorities which led to the signing of the treaty of Brest,

the results of which prevented Russia from enjoying the fruits of

victory in the First World War, the atheistic ideology and the

other things which forced them to leave their homeland. Few knew

anything definite about Stalin. They knew only that Germany had

been defeated, the reestablishment of the Patriarchate and the

opening of seminaries. In newspapers and movies, which the

Ssoviet Cconsulate distributed widely which told about the happy

Ssoviet people who enjoyed freedom. The emigrants were purposely

deceived, so that they would take Soviet citizenship. Many

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naively thought that, just as in the former Tsarist empire, the

cChurch was protected and defended by the government. It seems

natural to them, that having submitted to the Patriarch, to take

Soviet citizenship.

What was the fate of those who returned to Russia before

1956? Metropolitan Nestor was arrested in 1948 by the Chinese

communists in Harbin, being charged with collaborating with the

Japanese occupation, was deported to the USSR as a war criminal

where, according to his biographers, he remained retired for

eight years in the settlement of Yavas in the Mordovskoi ASSR

Actually he was sentenced to remain there having been accused of

writing the book “The Shelling of the Moscow Kremlin” and charged

with serving memorial services before the remains of the

Alapayesk Martyrs (Grand Dukes of the House of Romanov) in

Harbin. Others, especially laypeople, were shot, exiled or put in

prison camps. The Head of the Mission, Archbishop Victor, was

also deceived. In one of his letters to the Patriarch of Moscow,

he wrote that it was time to declare to the Chinese authorities

that the Orthodox Church was no small group, but had 220 million

members – he evidentially thought that in the USSR people went to

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church freely as in former times. Archbishop Victor received a

Soviet passport in February 1946 at the General Consulate in

Shanghai. The Head of the Mission, arrested in Shanghai by the

Chinese prosecutor, in response to the question of why he, an

anticommunist, had now become a citizen of the USSR, replied with

complete sincerity “An honorable person cannot recognize the

authorities, mutually excluding each other. At the present time

in the USSR Orthodox dioceses are being reestablished everywhere,

churches, monasteries and church schools are being opened. The

clergy actively participate in the task of building up the state

after the Great Patriotic War. The society of the USSR does not

in any way contradict the teaching of the Holy Orthodox Church.

The authorities of the USSR, after all the terror of the world,

think only of making our homeland great and glorious.”

This was true. But Archbishop Victor did not know the whole

truth, just as many of those who convinced the emigrants to take

Soviet citizenship and return to the homeland did not know the

whole truth. The flock followed its clergy, not knowing that many

were going to their death. But not all: Archbishop John was far-

sighted in many things. Commemorating the Patriarch at services

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(and also celebrating services of thanksgiving at the victories

of the Russian aArmsy in the Second World War and making

collections for Russia. Nevertheless, he did not in any way

accept Soviet citizenship, declaring in the hearing of all that

such a step was not a proof of patriotism. The Shanghai clergy

were on the side of their bishop, the laity were divided in their

opinions. Five thousand residents of Shanghai later emigrated to

America and remained alive, but one can only guess about the fate

of the 10,000 people who returned to the USSR. Some emerged alive

from Stalin’s camps. For Archbishop John, the taking of Soviet

citizenship was that unacceptable ideological condition about

which he had warned Archbishop Victor.

The attempts of the Soviet to exert pressure on the

hierarchs and not completely reliable stories of complete freedom

of conscience in the USSR became the fundamental cause of the

church schism in Shanghai, which took place with the interference

in church matters by the Soviet authorities.

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the schism in shanghai

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