The history of the Orthodox western rite is a bizarre and confusing tale. As a result, since few in Orthodoxy want to take the time to learn it, rumor, innuendo and sermonizing predominate over historic facts. The mission of the western rite was created by two entities: first, by the Antiochean Orthodox Church of Syria under Gregory IV, who permitted his British diocese to refer to itself as the “Old Catholic Western Rite Archdiocese.” Secondly, the consecration of William, a former Roman Catholic turned Old Catholic turned western Orthodox, by The head of the Albanian church, Throfan. Ultimately, Metropolitan +William became the exarch for the western rite under the Moscow Patriarch in the Soviet era. Hence begins the saga of the western rite as a synthesis of Old Catholics (St. Tikhon also permitted the use of the phrase “Old Catholic), Syrian, Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox churches. At the time, the liturgy used was a slightly modified version of the Tridentine Roman Rite, the Anglican Book of Common Prayer was not, nor has it ever been, considered a proper Orthodox prayer book in any form.
Few realize in America that there was a bishop who had the authority of a patriarch. This was the great +Palladios of Ukraine (+1969). This Archbishop founded the Autocephalous Synod of Bishops of the Western Rite, recognized by Patriarch Athenagoras. Officially in 1967. Since +Palladios was granted a tomos of autocephalicity, his rival became the exarch of the same Phanar, Iakovos the Apostate, who spent the remainder of his life attempting to blot out the name of Palladios from the annals of American Orthodoxy. Since the mis-named “Orthodox Church in America” (OCA) also pretends to be “autocephalous,” it also has refused to believe or accept the reality of the Patriarch’s move to create an autocephalous Orthodox church in America under the great Ukrainian, and even more, to recognize that it was western rite.
+Palladios derived his orders from the famed +Dionysii of Poland, himself consecrated by the Russian Orthodox Church at the Pochyaev Lavra on orders from Constantinople, though the chief consecrator was the Patriarch of Antioch, the same Gregory IV, there were eight Russian no-consecrators. +Dionysii himself then brought many parishes of the Polish Old Catholic National Church into Orthodoxy, and from there, encouraged the western rite, which, at the time, was, as already mentioned, a modified version of the Roman Rite of Trent, or the Tridentine Rite. This, it should be noted, was merely considered a temporary measure until the scholarly spadework on the ancient Latin liturgical documents could be accomplished.
Metropolitan +William (+1979), was consecrated at the St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Cathedral in New York in 1934 and received into the Russian Orthodox Patriarchate. William was then named exarch for the western rite under the Patriarchate of Moscow. However, it was through the recently emigrated Bishop +Palladios that William left the KGB dominated hierarchy and repented of his association with them. Like the fraudulent “autocephalicity” for the OCA, the Patriarchate (at the time under Alexei I) was using the fact that America, English speaking western rite Orthodox were under the “care and protection” of the Moscow Patriarchate as a means of manipulating global opinion. In fact, the entire purpose of resurrecting the “patriarchate” during World War II was to legitimize the liquidation of dissenting faithful and to place a face upon the assault on Orthodoxy that the Soviet Secret Police had been engaging in since 1921. By the time the Patriarchate was resurrected by Stalin in 1944, +William wanted out, and Palladios wanted to receive him.
After +William’s repentance, he joined the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Exile, which at the time was under Constantinople, and eventually, the western rite had its own synod under +William, himself under the direction of +Palladios. Ultimately, the Ukrainians in America broke with Constantinople under the sordid reign of Demetrius of the Phanar. The Ukrainians in America were scandalized by the Phanar’s recognition of the Soviet puppet church, as well as its recognition (in 1973) of the Roman papacy as a “sister church.” The fact remains that the Ukrainians for a long time withstood patiently the sins of the Phanar, and only in 1973 did the Ukrainians (now post-Palladios) withdraw their recognition of the Phanar, which played into the hands of the ever-ambitious and aggressive Iakovos of New York. Iakavos then began a slanderous campaign of vilification towards everything connected with the late autocephalous hierarch in America. He invented the story that the archbishop was mentally incompetent and had “spent time in a mental institution.” Of course, this was in reference to +Palladios’ constant back pain, which caused him to enter a hospital for some time. In Iakavos’ world, that soon became a “mental hospital.”
The fact remains that the assault on +Palladios derives from the political and personal ambition of that group of fallen hierarchs who refer to themselves as the Exarch for Constantinople and the OCA. It is no accident that after +Palladios’ death in 1969, the OCA, the very next year sought “autocephalicity” from Moscow, while at the same time blackening +Palladios’ name, if not refusing to mention his name altogether. In other words, the 1970 tomos of autocephalicity from Moscow was an attempt to “upstage” +Palladios, as well as, from the Russian side, gain revenge for the Archbishop’s luring their former exarch in America into the Ukrainian anti-communist Church. At the same time, the “patriarchate” in Moscow can continue its propaganda campaign as a legitimate part of “world Orthodoxy” by helping John Meyendorff and the now schismatic American metropolia. The World Council of Churches financed the meetings that permitted the metropolia to receive a “tomos” from Moscow.
For +Palladios’ part, he always performed the eastern rite. However, he understood that, in order to make converts of Anglicans and Catholics in America and Canada, he needed to promote a purified version of the western rite. Since the Polish western-rite derives from the Old Catholics, the liturgy used was that of the Tridentine liturgy. It was not until the successor to Metropolitan +Joseph, himself successor to Metropolitan +William, Archbishop +John (Lo Bue) that the work of translation on the ancient English documents was undertaken. The Ukrainian Synod for the Western Rite, after the death of +Palladios, continued its existence until its incorporation into the Synod of +Auxentios (GOC) fairly recently. +Auxentios, like +Palladios, realized that western converts should have their own synod, based on the ancient forms of liturgy of both eastern and western rites. To some extent then, it might be said that +Auxentios, in forming the Milan Synod in 1978, was imitating the success of +Palladios in forming his own autocephalous synod years earlier.
Archbishop +John and Bishop +Hilarion, both students of Metropolitan +Joseph, sought the proper translation of the ancient Old Roman (or Sarum) rite. To do this, many of the early Latin documents were sought of the “Sarum” rite. The point was to find that which was consistent in the documents as a baseline, and to exclude that which was added later. This was a painstaking process, involving a tremendous amount of work in cross-checking documents and agonizing over translation. The “bedrock” document ultimately became the Portiforium (or breviary) of York (sometimes called the Portiforium of St. Oswald), the prayer-book of St. Ethelwold for use at both Winchester and Wooster. Further, another major document was the Sacramentary of Leofric of Exeter in England (8th century), which also remains a major bedrock document, from which other versions are checked against. Hence, the revived Old Roman rite derives from impeccable sources, though sources few in the Orthodox western rite movement have ever heard of, let alone can read.
Unfortunately, the western-rite dilettantes in both the Antiochean group as well as the ROCOR have heaped scorn on this assiduous process of translation, instead outrageously opting for the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, used in both jurisdictions almost exclusively to this day. Nevertheless, any honest investigation must conclude that the punctilious work of Archbishop +John, following the advice and assistance of both Fr. John Shaw (ROCOR) and Bishop +Daniel (ROCOR), remains the standard in western rite scholarship top this day, and, to put it delicately, this attention to detail and meticulous research threatens the BCP afficionados in unfortunately, competing jurisdictions of Orthodoxy. In response to their anti-historical position, those in the AOC and the ROCOR attack the “canonicity” of the Milan Synod as a way of avoiding the rather complex and arduous historical and linguistic issues involved.
Therefore, prior to the work of Archbishop +John and company, the western rite tradition was forced to use the Tridentine ritual. This was because, according to the Synod of Moscow, the Book of Common Prayer was not acceptable as an Orthodox liturgical book. But neither was the Rite of Trent. Nevertheless, both the Ukrainians and Russians accepted the Rite of Trent rather than the BCP with the understanding that it was temporary, and eventually, the proper translations were to be done and hence, the true Old Roman rite resurrected. The proof that the BCP was rejected by the Synod of Moscow (as opposed to the claims of the AOC and ROCOR) was that the Muscovite exarch in America for the western rite, Metropolitan +William, was authorized solely to use, temporarily, the Tridentine Ritual. There was no mention at all of the BCP. +Palladios as well, rejected the use of the BCP under any circumstances. If St. Tikhon, who never heard of the liturgy attributed to him, was so interested in the BCP, then why did the people he consecrated (or rather, received) to the western rite episcopate, such as Mar Timotheus, never use it? Hence, by the mid-1960s, the BCP was rejected both by the autocephalous Ukrainian church in America, as well as the kept-Muscovite Patriarchate. Hence, the BCP, as it is used by both the ROCOR and the AOC, has no right to exist within an Orthodox framework. There is no theological reason to use it, since it is the book of the Anglican church, and no historical reason, since all parties involved in propagating the western rite, St. Tikhon included, never included it.
+Palladios was a visionary. Under the strained domination of both the Marxists and the modernists who sympathized and worked with them, +Palladios envisioned the Old Calendar movement and the Ukrainians as leading an anti-communist, truly universal and multi-lingual and multi-ethnic Orthodox resurgence. For +Palladios, Ukraine was perfectly situated to mediate between the ethnic and regional claims of the Orthodox church, and has always thought of itself as being in a very good position to propagate the western rites. As it turns out, the Patriarchate of Moscow banned the western rite in the mid-1970s as a reaction against this, and it is precisely for this reason why the OCA to this day refuses to countenance the western rite within itself. At the movement, the BCP “western rite” is merely tolerated in the new ROCOR/MP jurisdiction, and its fate awaits final clarification. If Fr. John Shaw is consecrated bishop (and as of 8/15/08, it seems to be the case), it will be interesting to see what he does with the BCP within the ROCOR, a book he is vehemently against.
For +Palladios, the kept Patriarchate of Moscow was the enemy. It was the “betrayal of Judas,” that of Sergianism, that was the primary evil in Orthodoxy. It was not the mere matter of the state creating a church structure, but the state creating a church structure for the sole purpose of assisting in the liquidation of that very church, a concept unparalleled in history. Hence, the “new patriarchate” of 1944 was worse than a fraud, it was partaking in the sin of Judas. As Vladimir Moss has pointed out, Moscow has not only not repented of this role, but has even considered canonizing its primary exponent, Patriarch Sergius himself. Hence, for +Palladios, an independent Ukraine was both a bridge between east and west, a thorn in the side of the communists and the launch pad for Orthodox renewal.
Hence, the movement sought by +Palladios was that of an anti-ecumenical, yet truly universal Orthodox resurgence. It was to be multi-ethnic and multi-ritualist, it was to be pluralist, but within a strict, canonical order. It was to depend not on “immigrant Orthodoxy,” but on converts and an aggressive missionary stance towards the heretics. For him, the Uniats were the first to be targeted. In Ukraine, joining the Uniats was seen as a method of escaping Moscow, then and now. Orthodoxy, as every single church father of any substance has said, is the one true church of Jesus Christ, and salvation is impossible outside of it. Hence, the western rite was a missionary tool (as the Unia was for the papalists), as well as an obligation, to resurrect the rites of the ancient west, suppressed by Rome, and yet, in their time, productive of sanctity. Archbishop St. John Maximovitch was following the example of +Palladios in his own desire to resurrect the ancient western rites. If Russia was to be sunk into tyranny and misery, then that should be turned for the better: use the diapora to propagate Orthodoxy in the west, and using, wherever possible, the western rites to make this happen. As Anglicanism and Romanism sink into the evil of liberalism and modernism, Orthodoxy remains what she truly is, the only island of true Christianity in a world of corruption, evil and dishonesty. And she will prove this by promulgating the western rite, the ancient western tradition and the Benedictine monastery. As a result, Orthodoxy can boast that she has the last true Benedictines in the world.
Archbishop Palladios is a figure the modernists needed to repress in order to continue their agenda in both Syosset, Engelwood and Jordanville. Orthodoxy is today sunk into the mire of modernism, institutionalism, politics and arrogance. Being part of the “right” synod (always defined as that which is the “largest” or “most famous”) has taken the place of actual knowledge of the Orthodox faith and life. Orthodoxy is being used to buttress the egos of its adherents, rather than being what it is, the living breath of the Holy Ghost on earth. The Russians have been suffering since the death of St. Philaret (+1985), and the arrogance of its historic base within the emigre Russian nobility is reasserting itself. It may be said that there are two “ROCORs,” the first, from Blessed Antony to St. Philaret, and the second, very different in scope, from Vitaly to today. The first was royalist, traditional and monastic, convinced of the gracelessness of the patriarchate and believing, quite rightly, that the Russian church had two branches, the ROCOR and the catacomb church. It believed that she was part of a Suffering Church, one outside of worldly channels, one apart from this world. Today, she sees herself as the opposite. After the death of John Maximovitch(+1966), Averky of Jordanville (+1976), Seraphim Rose (+1982) and Philaret, the ROCOR took a new turn, one connected with union with the Serbian church and the Cyprianites (in that these moves were meant to “re-enter” the world) looking to the Patriarchate in Moscow as an “erring sister church,” rather than a graceless entity, the creation of the NKVD, as St. Philaret viewed it.
In many ways, the current movement of the ROCOR is its base in the old nobility seeking a new “service state” to become a part of. This base in the old service nobility has been historically one of the weak points of the Synod abroad, providing her with a class basis that exists outside of the Orthodox mind (though a problem, this should not be construed as an attack on her spiritually, the fact is that the majority of the ROCOR’s bishops historically have descended from the nobility). The Old Rite and the Ukrainian movement represents the national-populist school of the Slavophiles rather than the noble school of Uvarov and “Official Nationality” of the Synod Abroad. The Ukrainians and the Old Rite hold to the peasantry, the commune and the middle ages, while the old ROCOR represents the nobility at the time of Nicholas I. For the “new ROCOR” prestige and visibility are more important than the ancient faith. Being part of “world Orthodoxy,” with its money, foundation grants and worldly prestige has, after the deaths of the ROCOR’s luminaries, become more important than the faith, and this is the fact behind the ROCOR/MP union far more than abstract “canonical” issues.
+Palladios was a monastic first, above politics and the fashions of the age. He sought a revitalized, monastic and multi-ethnic Orthodoxy at a time when the Greek church was advocating prayerful relations with Jews, Catholics and Muslims. +Palladios struck all who knew him as a wise spiritual leader, a true staretz, not a politician or political functionary, as so many Russian clerics have become. For him, the monastic, whether of eastern or Benedictine background, was the soul of the church, and political agendas were its anti-type. Politics was about manipulation, money and power, while the church was about the spirit, rising above these objects and fetishes of the world. It was the mystical life, though with both feet planted firmly on the ground, that motivated him, and those, such as Metropolitan Joseph and Archbishop John, who came after him. The Truth matters above all else, not prestige, money, “recognition” and “fitting in,” which is now the very scourge of Orthodoxy in 2008, another version of Sergianism, “going-along-to-get-along.”
As Archbishop Averky realized, there were two Orthodoxies, one modernist and Sergianists (by which he meant the OCA, the Greeks, the Antiocheans, etc) and the Suffering Orthodox, which he clearly stated meant the Old Calendar resistence. He openly wondered what would happen to Jordanville when he was no more, afraid above all else the ROCOR would turn to the world rather than to its own tradition. And in this he was correct, and like St +Philaret and +Palladios, the memory and witness of Averky is, in its turn, being swept under the rug. +Palladios was firmly in the camp of the Suffering, and it is from him, as well as from +Chrystomos I, +Auxentios, St. Glicerie of Romania, +Philaret, +Volodymyr and +Averky that we take our example, not from the world and its fetishes. Hence, we, like +Palladios, suffer, and are faced with a world that seeks to blot out our memory and vision from themselves.