On canonization of the saints. A talk with archpriest Georgiy Mitrofanov.
- Canonization of saints is a very difficult issue. History of the
Church is, first of all, the history of sainthood, and the twentieth century
in this regard is one of the saddest periods of our church history. The
Russian Church, having given the world an enormous number of saints, had
no opportunity to complete the canonization. From 1917 to 1988 only two
ascetics were canonized, and that only because it was important for
the international politics of the USSR (for example, the canonization of
Nicholas of Japan emphasized the presence of the Russian Orthodox Church,
of Russia, and therefore, of the Soviet Union in Japan).
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Canonization of saints became possible only in the 1980s when under the
circumstances of perestroika, the government started to change the
politics with respect to the Church. On the eve of the festivities for
the 1000 year anniversary of the baptism of Russia, the government agreed
to perform several canonizations. In 1987 a Synodal committee on the
canonization of saints was formed.
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For the 18 years of the committee's work, over 1500 saints have been
canonized. These canonizations have demanded from us some very serious
and, I will not be afraid of the word, innovative decisions. The Church
lives by tradition, but the tradition does not always develop in an
uninterrupted and peaceful way. Let us review what are the grounds for
canonization. First of all, miracles connected with the life of a
Christian and the miracles occurring after his death in connection with
his commemoration. Secondly, the veneration of a Christian by the church
people and, finally, his righteous life. Everything is clear, it would
seem. Yet, here is the problem that we encountered almost immediately.
Veneration by the people of many pious Christians is absent in our
country. If you were to ask me: "Which of the saints canonized by your
committee fully corresponds to the main criteria?" -- I would give you
only several names.
Among these names, first of all, I would mention the names of holy
righteous John of Kronshtadt and blessed Kseniya of Saint-Petersburg.
Namely these saints were venerated especially deeply during the Soviet
period, even though that was very difficult, as the government was very
much against their veneration. It is examplary that the Soviet
censorship had forbidden to mention the names of blessed Kseniya and Fr. John
of Kronshtadt, as well as the name of St. Seraphim of Sarov even in the
"Journal of Moscow Patriarchate." So great was the intention of the
government to erase from the memory of the Church those saints who have been
profoundly venerated. What then could be said about the neo-martyrs in this
regard! So much less could have been said about them.
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In this way, the veneration of many saints must have been simply absent in
our country. What concerns miracles, they do occur namely where and
when the veneration of the reposed holy people takes place. But if there
is no veneration, how would the miracles happen, and how could they be
fixed in such circumstances? In addition, another difficult question
arose before us. Veneration by what people do we need to take in
consideration? Sometimes we are suggested to glorify a person, pointing
to the fact that he is venerated by all kinds of people: by the believers and
atheists, Muslims and Buddists. In this case, however, we must raise the
question of canonization of various extrasensory individuals that the
Soviet people were so fond of. This is absurd. Thus, we must rely on the
veneration namely by the church people. Here, too, we encounter certain
difficulties. What is the church people? How can we define its borders?
It is often said that in Russia there are 80% of the Orthodox. In
reality, 80% are people of the Russian Federation of the Slavic descent,
that is, the descendants of the Orthodox. In our country, there are
barely over half the people baptized, but it still does not mean that they
have been churched. A churched person is someone who goes to confession
and communion at least once a year. There are no more than 3-4% of such
people in our country, but even among them there are a great many
religously ignorant people. These people have suggested that we
canonized, e.g., John the Terrible, Rasputin, and even Stalin. Such ideas
wander in the minds of our church people. So, whose opinion can we rely
on in our work?
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We understood fairly early that we would have to reveal for the Church
those saints whom people have forgotten, whom people could not have left
unforgotten in the earlier period. In the majority of cases we would not
rely on the veneration by people and would not have the various witnesses
of miracles. With this we understood that we would have to be very
careful and thorough in our work so as not to allow for the glorification
of those who are not worthy of this. At one point in an interview with
one of the moscow newspapers I used the following phrase: "It is better to
under-canonize than to over-canonize." Ultimately, all the worthy are
glorified by God, and the church canonization takes place, foremost, for
those of us living on earth. Thus, a canonization must be completed only
when there is no doubt.
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So, coming from the aforementioned principles, we began our work. Its
result is known to you: the glorification of 1500 saints. I would like to
draw your attention to the following issue. Among the 1500 saints of the
XX century about 1400 of them are neo-martyrs. These numbers make one
think. What does such a large quantity of martyrs tell us? Does it speak
about the glory of our Russian Orthodox Church? Or about Her affliction?
It has becomes obvious to me in the past years that this is the great
sorrow of our Church. We have lost a great number of saints who have not
had time to finish everything in their service to the church. The horror
from this is intensified by the realization that they would often be
murdered by their own flock, by the baptized folk, by people who took
communion since their infancy, but who have fallen away from the Church.
And they would murder them with the participation or the indifference of
the majority of the Russian Orthodox Christians.
I must say that at the meeting with the representatives of the Russian
Orthodox Church Abroad at the All-Abroad hierarchal gathering in 2003, I
was able to see how the saints we glorified, the saints who with their
blood have strengthened the Church -- how this unites us with people who
living abroad during all these years remained Russian Orthodox Christians.
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