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Greetings on the feast of all Russian saints!
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On this day in 1943, Martyr Alexander of Munich was beheaded.
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In 2012, the Russian Church Abroad was preparing the glorification of Alexander Schmorell, a Russian German whom the Nazis executed. At that time, I worked as a proofreader for Pravoslavnaia Rus’, a Russian language periodical of Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville. I was skeptical about the reasons for this glorification, thinking that the ROCOR would like to use it to change the perception of herself as a church that was a beneficiary of the Third Reich.
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However, while proofreading an issue of Pravoslavnaia Rus containing the letters of St. Alexander of Munich, it became clear to me that there were no "two sides to the story." His letters were permeated with "mere Christianity." There were no facts that may complicate the narrative. St. Alexander of Munich just stood up against the anti-Christian Third Reich. So, I converted from a skeptic to a believer.
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My wife and I have three children. It was my job to give them names. So, when our third child was born on August 16, 2012, I was wavering between two heavenly patrons: the venerable Vadim priestmonk and martyr of Persia (376), and St. Alexander, who was on February 4, 2012, canonized in Munich by the ROCOR German Diocese. Masha, my wife, lived, studied, and joined the Church there. And the least to say, I have been familiar with the Munich Russian Church community since 1989. Thus, this newly-born boy became Sandrik, as we call him.
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While St. Alexander was baptized in the Russian Church and participated in the liturgical life of the ROCOR parish in Munich, all his cultural and philosophical references belonged to the German Christian world and particularly to the one of the Confessing Church, a Protestant movement, which, unlike the Russian Church Abroad during 1933-1945, did not have a privileged status in Germany (in 1935, the Third Riech gave the rights of corporation to the ROCOR diocese there). The attitude, different from that of St. Alexander, is seen in the report of Bishop Seraphim (Lade) of Potsdam at the 1938 Pan-Diaspora Council on his participation in the conference Life and Work, which took place in Oxford in 1937. It is clear from the following quote that Vladyka Seraphim participated there as a German official:
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"Of course, the conference had in mind German Catholics and adherents of the confessors of the faith in the first place [as victims of persecution] and only secondarily, the Christians in the USSR. Under the term 'non-Christians,' it follows that the Jews were assumed, whose fate was very dear to members of the conference."
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St. Alexander could have easily chosen his comfortable “ROCOR identity” over the one of the Confessing Church, but I doubt that he would have been glorified then.
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You may subscribe to daily reports like this one at https://www.patreon.com/rocorstudies
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Thank you for your continuing interest,
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Protodeacon Andrei Psarev
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Resources below help to understand the climate within the Russian wartime emigre community
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At the Twilight of Jewish Power
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This composition shows that besides an anti-Sergianist bent, there was also an anti-Semitic one among some members of the ROCOR.
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На закате жидовской силы
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Этот документ показывает, что помимо антисергианской, у некоторых членов РПЦЗ была так же антисемитская направленность
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«Часто пытаются говорить не о главном, а о каких-то своих обидах и разочарованиях»
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Жизененный опыт д-ра Троянова сформировался в русской диаспоре в Сербии и на Западе, Швейцарии и России.
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"People Often Do Not Talk About What’s Important, but Rather about Their Grievances and Frustrations"
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Dr. Troyanov's life experience has encompassed the Russian diaspora in Serbia and the West, and such different countries as Switzerland, and Russia.
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Archimandrite Nicholas Gibbes: From the Russian Orthodox Church in Exile to the Moscow Patriarchate
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An archive-based study of a figure well-known as a tutor to Tsesarevich Aleksei Nikolaevich, but quite obscure in his capacity of a ROCOR clergyman.
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Русская Православная Церковь Заграницей и холокост
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Санкт-Петербургский доктор исторических наук Михаил Витальевич Шкаровский — пионер изучения истории Русской Зарубежной Церкви. Даже не могу подумать, кто еще до него старался изучать тему так профессионально. С 1997 года он касается различных аспектов бытия РПЦЗ в разных странах и периодах. Поэтому впервые достаточно глубоко исследуемая тема об отношении представителей РПЦЗ к антисемитизму в изложении именного этого мэтра вызывает заслуженное доверие. Статья состоит …
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The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia and the Holocaust
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A groundbreaking study reveals ideological predisposition and human compassion.
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