"The defenders of Sergius say that the canons allow one to separate from a bishop only for a heresy which has been condemned by a council. Against this one may reply that the deeds of Metropolitan Sergius may be sufficiently placed in this category as well, if one has in view such an open violation by him of the freedom and dignity of the Church, One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic."

"If you are helpless to defend the Church, step aside; clear the space for someone stronger than you."

"... You are nothing other than a continuation of the so-called 'Renovationist' (Living Church) movement, only in a more refined and very dangerous form ...

"All this imperatively compels us to boldly raise our voice and cease our now already criminal silence over Your mistakes and incorrect actions and, with the blessing of Dimitry, Bishop of Gdov, to disassociate ourselves from You and those who surround You. Leaving You, we do not depart from the lawful Locum Tenens, Metropolitan Peter, and we shall give ourselves over to the judgement of a future council."

"As for me, acknowledging my responsibility before God for the flock entrusted to me, I have declared on January 10/23 of this year to Bishop Sophronius, who has been assigned to the See of Great Ustiug by [Sergius'] Synod, that my flock and the clergy of Nikolsk -- except for the cathedral clergy, who have been rejected by the people -- cannot accept him because we have separated from Sergius and his Synod. And on the other hand I have informed Metropolitan Joseph that I canonically join to him the clergy and laity of the Diocese of Great Ustiug, in accordance with the blessing of Vladika Irinarch, whose lawful Substitute I am at the present time for the whole Diocese of Great Ustiug. ...

"... I propose that my epistle be read and considered at assemblies of the faithful, so that all might know the way the matter stands and freely enter into unity with me, remaining faithful to the Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal See, Metropolitan Peter, and to the entire Orthodox Russian Church; concerning which I request you to send me a written statement.

Only the clergy of the Cathedral of the Lord's Meeting in Nikolsk ... are in a state of excommunication from me until they shall show sincere repentance in the form established for Renovationists, or until a complete council of bishops shall judge the case of Metropolitan Sergius and those who are with him (10th Canon of the Holy Apostles)."

I place before you these hirelings, who see the wolf approach and flee; do not follow them, my brethren and children ..."

"After the historic Petrograd Delegation Metropolitan Joseph, then already banished, raised Bp. Dimitry to the rank of Archbishop and temporary head of the Petrograd Diocese. Metropolitan Sergius thereupon placed Archbishop Dimitry under interdict ...

"Archbishop Dimitry, fearlessly following in the footsteps of Metropolitan Joseph, refused to accept this or any other decrees coming from Metropolitan Sergius, recognizing that by his 'adaptation to atheism' he had placed himself in schism from the Russian Church."

"... I accept you into communion in prayer with myself and under my archpastoral leadership .. until such time as a complete Local Council of the Russian Church, at which there will be represented the entire active episcopate -- i.e., the present exiles-confessors -- shall justify by its conciliar authority our way of acting, or until such time as Metropolitan Sergius will come to himself and repent of his sins not only against the canonical order of the Church, but also dogmatically against her person ... "

"But if the temporary substitute of the Patriarchal Locum Tenens will stubbornly continue in his scheme, and will not free his post, we will depart from him as a whole Church, for the episcopate has the right and the foundation to deprive him of the authorty in which it clothed him for building up and not destroying (II Co. 10:8) the life of the Church. ...

"But if Metropolitan Sergius disobeys the voice of the Church and will stubbornly continue in his policy and pretend to the authority of the chief hierarch, then he of course will turn out to be a church rebel and schismatic."

"We, the bishops of the Yaroslav church region, acknowledging the responsibility which lies on us before God for those things which have been entrusted to our pastoral guidance -- the purity of the Holy Orthodox Faith, and the freedom for the ordering of the inward church-religious life which Christ has given us as a testament -- in order to calm the disturbed conscience of the faithful, having no other way out of the fatal situation which has been created for the Church, from this time onwards separate from you and refuse to acknowledge for you and your Synod the right to the higher administration of the Church."

"Bishop Philip (Gumilevsky) [was] shot to death in the Krasnoiarsk prison in 1934 for refusing to accept the authority of Metropolitan Serge."

"Let the whole visible world perish; let there be more important in our eyes the certain perdition of the soul to which he will be subjected who presents such outward pretexts for sin.

"But if the hardness of your heart has gone far, and there remains no hope for repentance, even for this outcome we have a text to enlighten us: Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not their uncleanness; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty."

"With what joy I gave over to you my own rights as Substitute of the Locum Tenens, believing that your wisdom and experience would cooperate with you in the governance of the Church.

"But what happened? Can this fatal act really not be corrected? Will you really not find the courage to acknowledge your error, your fatal mistake, the issuance by you of the Declaration of July 16/29, 1927?"

"Concerning the modernized church or concerning Sergian 'Orthodoxy', I, a sinner, believe that, as regards such church activists, we must call them not only heretics and schismatics, but as those who have apostasised from God. After all, Metropolitan Sergius brings into the church service a heresy unheard of in the history of the Church, the heresy of modernized apostasye from God, - of which the natural consequence has been confusion and schism in the Church. Can one, after this, affirm that the declaration and activity of Metropolitan Sergius concerns only the external life of the Church, and do not touch in any way the essence of the Church's Orthodoxy? In no way can this be said. Metropolitan Sergius, by his self-wise and evil-worshipping declaration and the anti-Church work which followed it, has created a new renovationist schism or Sergian renovation, which while preserving for the 'little ones' a fiction of Orthodoxy and canonicity is even more criminal than the first two renovationisms of 1922 and 1925. And so Metropolitan Sergius has trampled on not only the external, but the very inner essence of the Orthodoxy of the Church, since his 'hosanna' to Christ and Antichrist, which is now being performed in Christian churches, touches the very essence of Christian Faith and presents by itself clear apostasy, falling away from the Faith, and departure from God."

"By his actions against the spirit of Orthodoxy, Metropolitan Sergius has torn himself away from unity with the Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, and has forfeited the right of presidency in the Russian Church."

". . . it is essential for an Orthodox Bishop or priest to refrain from communion with Sergianists in prayer."

"The chief priest of Soviet Russia, the head of the Moscow Orthodox Church, Bishop Andrew referred to as a betrayer of Christ."

"All followers of the lying Metropolitan Sergei, are themselves filled with lies and evil, and have fallen away from the truth of Christ they have fallen away from Christ's Church. The Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church-is somewhere, in some other place, but not with Metropolitan Sergei, not with 'his synod.' ...The holy Church will remember with horror the sins of Sergei and his fellow activists, having placed his name next to the names of ecumenical pseudo-Patriarchs Nestorius, Dioscorus, and other terrible traitors to Orthodoxy."

"Concerning the modernized church or concerning Sergian 'Orthodoxy,' I, a sinner, believe that, as regards such church activists, we must call them not only heretics and schismatics, but as those who have departed from God. Metropolitan Sergei brings into the Church service, a heresy unheard of in the history of the Church, the heresy of modernized departure from God, -of which the natural consequence became confusion and division in the Church. Can one, after this, affirm that the declaration and the activity of Metropolitan Sergei concerns only the external life of the Church, and do not touch in any way the essence of the Church's Orthodoxy? In no way can this be said. Metropolitan Sergei, by his self-wise and evil-worshipping declaration and the anti-Church work which followed it, has created a new modernized schism or Sergian modernism, which while preserving for the 'little ones' a fiction of Orthodoxy and canonicity is even more criminal than the first two modernizations of 1922 and 1925. And so Metropolitan Sergei has put under his feet not only the external, but also the very inner essence of the Orthodoxy of the Church. Since his 'hosanna' to Christ and Antichrist, which is now being performed in Christian churches, touches the very essence of Christian Faith and presents by itself clear apostasy, the falling away from the Faith, and the departure from God."

"If looking from afar I still supposed that there were some circumstances justifying his behavior, I have completely lost this belief."

"And we must not only teach others, but ourselves also fulfill, following the examples of the Moscow saints, whom we have commemorated today. They stand before us as Orthodox Zealots, and we must follow their example, turning aside completely from the dishonesty of those who have now occupied their throne. Oh if they could but arise; they not only would not recognize any of their successions, but rather would have turned against them with severe condemnation."

"Those hierarchs who have compromised the freedom of the Church by allowing themselves to be subservient to the State have committed in the words of Bishop Victor (Ostrovidov), one of the first Russian confessor bishops to speak out against Sergianism, 'a sin that is not less than any heresy or schism, but is rather incomparably greater, for it plunges a man immediately into the abyss of destruction, according to the Unlying Word: "Whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father which is in heaven’ (Matt.10:33)."'"

"Bishop Hilarion, formerly of Smolensk, was a most irreconcilable enemy of the declaration of Metropolitan Sergei of 1927; he denied the sacraments when performed by Sergites, and for a second time baptized infants and married those already married in a 'Soviet Church.'"

"We, the free bishops of the Russian Church, do not want a truce with Satan, although you are trying to obscure the question by calling our hostile relationships only a policy ...

"Here, we offer you the salutary oil of faith and loyalty in the Holy Church. Do not refuse it, but reunite with it as in 1922 ..."

"It is noteworthy that several hierarchs and their flocks, for the most part Russians, have already fallen away from the Ecumenical unity, and to the question: 'What dost thou believe?' reply with references to self-proclaimed heads of all sorts of schisms in Moscow, America and Western Europe. It is clear that they have ceased to believe in the unity of the Church ...

"Those who have cut themselves off from her deprive themselves of the hope of salvation, as the Fathers of the Sixth Ecumenical Council teach concerning this, having recognized the renegades as being totally devoid of grace ...

"Unfortunately, some Orthodox laymen, even, alas, many priests (and hierarchs) have subjected themselves to this state of gracelessness, although still retaining the outward appearance of the church services and the apparent performance of the Mysteries."

"The mystical desert-like catacomb Church has anathematized the Sergians and all that are with them."

"Since the Moscow Patriarchate initially was directed by a man like Patriarch Sergius with such undoubted intelligence, but, simultaneously, with a flexible conscience, it rejected the crude violations of Orthodoxy which could be recognized by the simple faithful. ... But Patriarch Sergius also, perhaps unwillingly in the beginning, put the Church at the disposal of apostasy."

"Why did this calamity befall Father Dimitry Dudko? ...

"Because his activity took place outside of the true Church ...

What then is the 'Soviet church'? Archimandrite Constantine has often and insistently stated that the most horrible thing that the God-hating regime has done in Russia is the creation of the 'Soviet church,' which the Bolsheviks presented to the people as the true Church, having driven the genuine Orthodox Church into the catacombs or into the concentration camps.

"This pseudo-church has been twice anathematized. His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon and the All-Russian Church Sobor anathematized the Communists and all their collaborators. This dread anathema has not been lifted till this day and remains in force, since it can only be lifted by a similar All-Russian Church Sobor ...

"When Metropolitan Sergius promulgated his criminal Declaration, then the faithful children of the Church immediately separated themselves from the Soviet church, and thus the Catacomb Church was formed. And she, in her turn, has anathematized the official church for its betrayal of Christ."

"But you know that the new church is a lawless church."

"Then the True Church went into the catacombs, into a position of illegal existence. From that time to this day the Soviet Moscow Patriarchate is liable to judgment, and until that future true council there can be no kind of contact, not even in everyday matters, as Metropolitan Anatasy, reposed in God, commanded us in his last will and testament."

"This being the case, which of us is really the schismatic?

"Of course it is not those in the spirit of traditional Orthodoxy, but those who have apostasized from the true faith of Christ and rejected the genuine spirit of Christian piety; even though all the contemporary patriarchs, who have altered our age-old, patristic Orthodoxy, may be on the latter's side ..."

"In an edict of Metropolitan Sergei, concerning Bishops Dimitry Gdov and Sergei Korporsky, it is written that Bp. Dimitry had called 'those churches which commemorated Metropolitan Sergei as "innovative"' and those Orthodox priests as without grace; and moreover, that one of such churches, he publicly called 'a temple of satan.'"

"According to many canonical rules, all of the so-called bishops, archbishops and metropolitans of the Moscow Patriarchate, being KGB agents, are apostates from Christ. The 62nd Apostolic Canon deprives them of these titles, and if they repent, it calls for them to be accepted as laymen and not to be ordained. Similar orders are found in numerous (24) canonical rules. From this, we see that the Divine Canons do not admit the Divine Gifts to apostates - KGB agents. "

"Archbishop Nikodim was approached byone of the faithful who said to him ' But Vladika, these poor people in Russia have no other Church to go to but the Patriarchal ones!' the bishop replied to her 'Better no Church than a Soviet church!'"