Canonizing a Program, Not a Man
The ROCOR canonization debate is not about piety. It is about ecclesiology
The last few days have shown that nothing reveals the fault lines inside contemporary Orthodoxy quite like the proposed canonization of Fr. Seraphim Rose. My three short posts here have already provoked an outsized reaction — including, predictably, an indignant “defense of the faith” from UOJ-USA, accusing me of not having read Rose, of “ignoring” his texts, and of engaging in lazy, ideological slander. The irony is hard to miss: my new piece at Public Orthodoxy, “Canonization and the Act of Betrayal: Fr. Seraphim Rose and ROCOR’s Ecclesiological Trap,” is precisely about Rose’s writings, the project they serve, and the kind of Church they presuppose.
I would urge anyone tempted to react to read the article itself first.
In that piece I argue that what is at stake is not the private piety of one American convert monk, but the use of his apocalyptic, anti-ecumenical, culture-war rhetoric as a template for a whole ecclesiological vision. Canonization in this context is not a neutral act of honoring a pious life; it is a public endorsement of a political and spiritual program — and I am convinced that it is simply dishonest, at the very least on the part of the bishops, to pretend otherwise. To insist that we can neatly separate “the man” from the way his texts are now weaponized is, frankly, naïve — or a very convenient form of manipulation. In the article I work not with slogans, but with documents: ROCOR’s own decision to open the cause, Rose’s published writings and letters, and existing scholarly and ecclesial critiques of his legacy.
What is becoming clear from the reactions is that there is no single “Orthodox” view of Seraphim Rose. American Orthodox are themselves divided over his legacy, and among Orthodox in Europe the range of attitudes is even wider: from deep personal gratitude for his books to serious unease about the ideological uses of his name. This is not a cultic question of “for or against Saint Seraphim Rose,” but a much larger conversation about what kind of Orthodoxy we are willing to bless in public. That conversation has only just begun, and it would be good if this new stage were a serious theological and historical discussion rather than the usual online shouting match among Orthodox fundamentalists. I am not interested in building yet another “camp” around Rose; what matters is whether his theological and spiritual project is compatible with a truly catholic Orthodoxy today. I am very happy to hear from readers — clergy, monks, scholars, ordinary faithful — who have read Rose seriously and are willing to discuss his legacy without slogans.
If you have not yet read the Public Orthodoxy essay, I invite you to do so here before joining the conversation.
The wider thought that occurred to me as I read the piece is that the fault lines you observe are wider and deeper than this single episode, wider and deeper than the fraught relationship between ROCOR and Moscow. One thing to observe is that the fault line runs through ROCOR itself; Metropolitan Philaret's "Sorrowful Epistles" were written by Bishop Gregory (Grabbe) -- and thus the strident/apocalyptic/sectarian tone represents one element of ROCOR, not ROCOR as a whole, which in part explains why the reconciliation was possible (some evidence suggests it was converts who really drove that attitude). But still deeper, the division runs through the Russian Church and through Orthodox history in general.
Fr Seraphim takes his stand -- as does the Orthodoxy promoted by Platina through the historical pastoral and theological works it has chosen to translate and republish -- in one locus of that history, perhaps one could say the Theophan/Ignatius branch, deeply ascetic, deeply suspicious of politics at the same time that it is deeply suspicious of political dissidence. We all know the other streams, the neopatristic stream which was cool towards the ecumenical movement while still participating in it; the sophiological stream (more broadly of Russian religious philosophy), the "alternative Orthodoxies" so to speak -- in genuine competition with one another. What falls apart in any case is the idea that there is any single normative Orthodoxy that decisively resolves all the conflicts to which these disparate streams are responding.
I would simply ask -- has there ever been such a thing? You at Public Orthodoxy don't use the language of anathema (perhaps the preferred term of art would be "problematization"), but your discomfort with the traditionalist, deeply ascetic, politically revanchist vision of a Fr Seraphim shows that you also have your beliefs about what the true way is, what the best way is. I can commend elements of your vision that are obviously in accord with the basic Christian humanism that is my own lodestar. But I also see that you are not, in my view, critical *enough* of the more problematic -- not to say simply "evil" -- aspects of globalism and liberalism (please forgive those vast intractable words). We ordinary Orthodox diagnose a tendency of the intellectuals who move in the elevated spaces of WCC conferences in Geneva not simply of worldliness enlightened by Christian sentiments, but something less sanguine -- perhaps a temptation to conform to the social and political and cultural dictates and tastes of global modernity. Why should *that*, after all, be our lodestar?
And this runs throughout Orthodox history. We have always had ascetic pessimism and withdrawal, and expansive speculation; we have always had simple love for the poor, and rigid adherence to authoritarian rulers; we have always in some way had Possessors and Non-Possessors! I just think both sides, viewing one another as tares and themselves as wheat, might take the Lord's advice and not be so eager to uproot things.
I wonder why you post here if you don’t intend to have substantive engagement with commenters.