I answer: In your previous questions, you call those who oppose the Holy Church and disobey her commands not schismatics, but certain Christians; In your present question, however, you openly ask about the one who died in schism, as if the latter were incomparably worse than those mentioned above. We do not separate the above-mentioned from the schismatics in any way. If this one who died in schism is worse than those mentioned above, then is he not one of those who are called Khlysts or self-immolators, and whom we no longer call schismatics, but completely atheists? But whatever the schismatic nature of the deceased about whom you are asking, in order to resolve this question I will quote to you the answer of His Holiness Macarius, Patriarch of Antioch, to His Holiness Nikon, Patriarch of All Russia (from the book "Tablet" at the end): "We have received the tradition from the beginning of the faith from the holy Apostles and Holy Fathers, and the holy Seven Ecumenical Councils, to make the sign of the honorable cross with the first three fingers of the right hand, and which of the Orthodox Christians does not make the cross in this way, he is a heretic, and we have him excommunicated from the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and anathematized." Notice from this answer of His Holiness the Patriarch that if any Orthodox Christian does not make the sign of the honorable cross on himself according to the tradition of the Holy Apostles, then for this alone he becomes a heretic and is anathematized. And he who died in schism, of whom you ask, is not exactly the same as he who is not baptized with three fingers? If the one who died in schism is the same as this one, then judge for yourselves, is it possible to bury and commemorate him according to the Christian rite?

Further, you ask: some priests, indulging human self-will, confess and marry according to the old trebnik and please the schism contrary to Church tradition; Will this not violate the law or hinder the action and performance of the sacraments of the Church? For even those who are ecclesiastical, both spiritual and temporal, are deceived by this through self-stumbling and self-conceit, and for us there is great sorrow, temptation and doubt.

I answer: Such priests as schismatics are more than those man-pleasers "whose bones God has scattered," mortally sin before God: for by indulging human self-will and pleasing schism contrary to Church traditions, they dare to perform the church sacraments according to the old trebnik. Such, if they do not repent with all their hearts before God and do not refrain from these actions of theirs, will be put to shame on the day of God's dreadful judgment. If the above-mentioned priests are true Christians and have received ordination from an Orthodox bishop, then although they, indulging human self-will, perform the sacrament according to the old trebnik, nevertheless the holy sacraments remain perfect sacraments, and of this there is no need to doubt; and the priests, as seducers of many Christian souls, will be guilty of the judgment of God. For according to the word of the Lord: "If any man offend one of these little ones that believeth in Him, let him not eat, let the millstone be upon his neck, and be drowned in the depths of the sea" (Matt. 18:6). These priests, appointed by the Holy Church as pastors and vigilantes of the verbal flock of Christ, should obey the Church in everything, as their true mother, use the corrected service book in the celebration of the sacraments, and not perform them to the great sorrow and temptation of the Christian people, contrary to the Church decree, according to the old service books set aside by the Church. They should also have fled with all their hearts and avoided all communion with the schismatics, and with tears persuaded others to do the same. For such teaching and instruction of the Christian people they would have been worthy to receive a reward from Christ God on the day of His righteous recompense.

Further, you ask: some priests have separated themselves from the Church and from their bishops and live with schismatics; whether any sacraments can be performed from such priests, i.e. baptism, confession, wedding, etc. church shrines, or will grace not follow in any case? Be pleased to inform me of this also, for the sake of the catholic truth itself.

I answer: priests who have separated themselves from the Church and from their bishops and live with schismatics, become one with the schismatics, and together with them they blaspheme the Orthodox faith and the entire Church of God and the Most Holy Mysteries of Christ and all the sacraments of the Church and the entire hierarchical and priestly rank. Such priests are no longer worthy to be called priests for all these blasphemy, but they are false priests, or rather, not priests. They are excommunicated from the Holy Church, alien to it, expelled from the priesthood by their bishops, and therefore how can they perform the holy sacraments of the Church, or how can the sacraments of the Church be performed by such people? This is absolutely impossible, for the Holy Spirit does not perform the sacraments of the Church through obvious opponents of God, who are connected not only with their own bishops, but also with the entire Church. The power of the episcopal bond can be understood from the following: the reliquary of a certain holy martyr stood in the holy altar, and every time the deacon exclaimed: "Come forth ye catechumens," by the invisible power of God it proceeded from the Church and remained in the narthex of the church until the very dismissal, after which it returned to the church again and stood in its usual place. The reason for this was that this holy martyr was bound by his elder for some kind of disobedience. When the elder came and gave him permission, the martyr's shrine immediately ceased to leave the church and stood unshakably in its place on the altar. Oh, how powerful is the divine obedience, when the very blood of the martyr, the disciple of the elder, poured out for Christ, could not resolve the binding of the elder, until the elder who bound him himself had loosed it! Thus, if the bondage of the elder, who was not a bishop, but a simple monk, was so strong, then how much stronger was the bond of the bishop! For only the Apostles and their successors, the bishops, were given and are given the most supernatural grace to bind and loose from Christ the Saviour, Who said to His disciples: "If you bind on earth, they will be bound in heaven, and if you loose on earth, they will be loosed in heaven." Thus, being bound from their bishops, the above-mentioned priests are bound eternally both on earth and in heaven; and expelled from their bishops, they have become alien and alien to the grace of the priesthood and all priestly rites, and cannot perform a single sacrament. Orthodox priests, justly expelled from the priesthood for great sins, are ordained in the place of the laity and together with them are participants in church prayers and commune of the Divine Mysteries. And if they dared to serve the Divine Liturgy or perform other sacraments of the Church, then, like rotten members, they are completely cut off from the Church according to the twenty-eighth canon of the Holy Apostles.

In the book of rules, printed in the Moldavian language, I found one question and an answer suitable for my answer to this question of yours to me. The question of St. Methodius, Patriarch of Constantinople: "If a priest is ordained by a deposed bishop, can he serve priestly services or not?" Not having a bishop, he cannot give the priesthood. And if he does ordain someone, he remains unordained and cannot serve either the Liturgy or other sacred rites, for he is a simple layman. A man who has a thing can give it to another; but if he does not have a thing, how will he give?"

From the above-quoted answer of St. Theodore the Studite it is clear that it is just, according to the sacred rules, that deposed priests, if they dare to perform priestly services after this, are completely cut off from the Church.

Your further question is as follows: is it possible to bury according to the Christian rite and commemorate a Christian person who suddenly died in the drinking of wine? For among you, as you say, many priests, counting such as suicides, do not bury with Christian burial, and do not commemorate them. You ask me to answer this for the sake of Christian love and benefit, and to resolve this perplexity according to the rules. I answer: I had a great desire to resolve this perplexity of yours according to the sacred rules, but due to my lack of skill I could not find it in the sacred rules, and therefore I am perplexed how you can answer this. In the two Saturdays of remembrance, Meatfare and before the Sunday of Pentecost, when all the departed Orthodox Christians are commemorated, various images of sudden deaths are mentioned, with which the Catholic Church commemorates the dead Christians and prays to God for the salvation of their souls. The same image of death, i.e. those who died suddenly from much drinking, is not mentioned, and from this we can conclude that the Holy Church does not pray for such. Of these, I think, the Holy Spirit says through the Apostle Paul: "Or do you not know, that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Neither harlots, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor covetous, nor thieves, nor drunkards, shall inherit the kingdom of God." A person who suddenly dies while drinking wine, without confessing his sins and without communing of Christ's Holy Mysteries, is he not guilty of causing himself a sudden death? If he had drunk a little wine with abstinence, he would not have died such a terrible and terrible sudden death. It seems that such a person is not far from a suicide, which is why your priests do not dare to bury them according to Christian custom and commemorate them. Therefore I beseech your love not to be troubled by this: for this thing is under great doubt and perplexity. If anyone could find a definition of this thing in the sacred canons of the Church, then no one would have any doubts about it, but would follow the Church's decree with full confidence.

Your further question is as follows: can a priest absolve a humble penitent for his infirmity without imposing an epitimia and allow him to commune of the Holy Mysteries, or is this impossible?

I answer: Your question seems to me incomprehensible: does this man repent of great sins, or of small ones, and does he have spiritual or bodily weakness? Let it be that he has bodily infirmity. If his bodily infirmity is such that he is already approaching death and does not have time to bear penance for his sins, then, even though he has great sins, he humbly repents of them, the priest must absolve him of his sins without penance and commune him of the Holy Mysteries. If he is not in such extreme weakness and can suffer an epitimia, then without an epitimia the priest should not absolve him, for an epitimia is the third part of the sacrament of repentance. And one should not leave it without mortal need. What is an epitimia and how it is prescribed for sins, this should be explained in more detail. The canons of the holy Apostles, which St. John of Damascus places on a par with the books of the Divine Scriptures, all the sanctified are expelled for sins from the priestly degrees, while the laity are excommunicated from communion in church prayers and from communion of the Divine Mysteries. On the basis of these apostolic canons, the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church corrects the entire multitude of Orthodox Christians, both sanctified and unsanctified, if it should happen that any of them should fall into certain sins, guided by the Holy Spirit, from their sins in the following way: the sanctified, i.e., bishops, priests and deacons who have fallen into minor or major sins, she either suspends them from the priesthood for a time for minor sins. or for great sins he forbids him to perform the sacrament until death, but does not excommunicate him from communion of the Divine Mysteries. Monks and lay Christians are excommunicated from communion of the Divine Mysteries for a short time for minor sins, but for great sins for a long time; the Holy Church does not assign any other rule or any other epitimia for sins to the unsanctified. The reason for this is as follows: from the days of the Apostles, the ancient Christians for a long time throughout the Church of Christ very often communed out of their ineffable love for Christ the Savior. When they happened to fall into minor or great sins, then for a short or long time they were excommunicated from Divine Communion and from standing in the Church with the faithful, and were placed in places of repentance determined by the Church: at first they stood before the doors of the church and, falling down with tears, asked all who entered the church to pray to God for them, that God would forgive their transgressions; in time they were allowed to stand in the great narthex at the church doors, and they listened to the singing and reading of the church, but they did not enter the church itself; after that they were allowed to stand in the church itself behind the ambo at all church services, and only during the Divine Liturgy after the Gospel, when the deacon exclaimed: "Catechumens, depart," they went into the church narthex and remained there until the end of the Liturgy. Then they were vouchsafed to stand with the faithful, but they did not commune of the Holy Mysteries. Finally, having received permission from the epitimia, they were allowed again, as before the sin, to commune with faith and love of the Divine Mysteries. How did they behave during the penance? They always sighed from the depths of their hearts, wept and wept, shunned all evil, forced themselves to every good deed, to every diligent fulfillment of the Gospel commandments.

Anticipating such sincere repentance in Christians excommunicated for sins from communion, the Holy Spirit did not legitimize in His Church any other punishment and penance for sins.

It should be known that the Church has given the power to bishops, seeing the worthy fruits of the repentance of the penitents, to shorten the period of penance determined by the sacred canons. I also inform you that in all the sacred canons I diligently searched for whether there were any epitimias without excommunication from communion of the Holy Mysteries, and could not find them. But it is frightening to think how terrible and formidable is the rebuke imposed on those who dare to commune sinners without excommunication from the Holy Mysteries, and who commune without such an epitimia: the Church likens both of them to Judas the traitor.

Your further question is as follows: when at the proskomedia particles are taken out for the living and the dead, do they have the same power and benefit, both when a separate particle is taken out for each commemorated person, and when one common part is taken out for many? We ask you to bring us who are bad to reason with this.

I answer: the particles taken out at the proskomedia for the living and the departed, uniting with the most pure Mysteries of Christ, immediately partake of the holy things and the grace of the Holy Spirit, and give the same benefit and grace to those for whom they are offered, whether a separate particle is taken out for each, or one common particle is taken out for many. And this is clearly seen from the very rite of the proskomedia: for, having received the fourth prosphora, the priest takes out from it only one particle for the entire consecrated rite, for all living Orthodox Christians in the entire Church of Christ. Likewise, from the fifth prosphora for all the departed Orthodox Christians, he takes out one particle. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, believes and confesses that although one particle is offered for all living Orthodox Christians and for all the departed, one and the same benefit is brought to them by the grace and holiness of the Holy Spirit, as if a separate particle were offered for each Orthodox Christian: for the almighty grace of the Holy Spirit does not fail, being one and the same, bringing one and the same benefit in the bloodless sacrifice and one particle for each separately and one particle for many.