Tikhon and Metataxis

The most conflicting rumors in regard to the religious situation in Russia agree on this: the Patriarch Tikhon, of Moscow, was unfrocked by the recent " All-Russian " council of the Greek Orthodox Church. The council was captured by radicals, and the Patriarch Tikhon, who was in a Soviet prison at the time, was unfrocked without a hearing. No man was put in his place, the church radicals believing in a more democratic form of church government. Tikhon, according to one report, was poisoned in prison. More recent reports assert that he has made his peace with the Soviet Government, and that he has been released by them to weaken the Russian Church by making a factional fight. Many of the peasants and clergy are behind the old order of things in the patriarchate. They have a strong point of canon law in their favor in the fact that no patriarch can be deposed without the written consent of his peer. This written consent the radicals failed to obtain from Tikhon's peer, Meletios Metataxis, Patriarch of Constantinople, and from him the quasi Patriarch of Moscow is now said to be seeking aid and comfort. But the Most Rev. Metataxis is himself in trouble, owing to the Turks, and to those Greeks who wish to see a rapid peace at Lausanne. Metataxis (TIME, May 12, June 11), is unalterably opposed to the Turks, yet resides in their capital city. It is as if the Dalai Lhama lived at Canterbury, while the British were seeking to check Tibetan influence in Northern India. On July 4 the Patriarch Metataxis was to be summoned for trial on charges of defamation of character of certain Greeks who had tried to oust him in order that the peace might come at Lausanne, and whom he promptly excommunicated. He is also charged with entering the country on a foreign passport. Seeing the storms on his horizon, Patriarch Metataxis turned over his ecclesiastical authority to the Holy Synod of Constantinople, and, according to British reports, has left the city. It is impossible for him, therefore, to help his fellow Patriarch in distress, the Most Rev. Tikhon. And if possible, the Turks will prevent Constantinople from becoming the seat of any other Greek Orthodox Patriarch. The Greek Orthodox Church has ancient patriarchates at Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem, but these are all cities in foreign hands. The Tzar, who used to have an authority in Greek Orthodox circles somewhat less than the Roman Catholic Pope, is dead. To whom can Tikhon go for help ?