Washington, D.C., June 14, 2023
Photo: becketlaw.org
The Supreme Court rejected on Monday the call from the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia to hear its objections to lower court rulings allowing the case of the defrocked Alexander Belya to be brought against the Church jurisdiction.
ROCOR, represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, “had argued that the First Amendment’s jurisprudence and ministerial exemption, which bars legal claims brought by religious employees against a church, require courts to dismiss the lawsuits, leaving the internal dispute to the church,” reports the Washington Times.
However, the Supreme Court declined to hear their case. It would have required four justices to vote in favor of hearing the dispute.
The defendants made the same argument last year to a federal appeals court, that Belya’s suit violates the “ministerial exception,” which blocks courts from settling disputes involving Church employment of ministers, and the “church-autonomy doctrine,” which prevents courts from ruling on Church operations.
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty explained in its appeal that Belya’s case focuses on an internal ROCOR document that contested his supposed election as Bishop of Miami and called for his investigation on a number of serious charges, which he argues constitutes defamation.
As OrthoChristian reported in July 2022, 14 states from across the nation filed an amicus brief calling for Belya’s case to be dismissed, citing its serious threat to religious freedom.
In the summer of 2019, Belya sent a falsified letter from His Eminence Metropolitan Hilarion (Kapral), then the First Hierarch of ROCOR, to the Holy Synod of the Moscow Patriarchate, requesting that Belya be confirmed to become a bishop. However, the ROCOR Synod hadn’t actually nominated Belya, and he was subsequently suspended from priestly duties.
Refusing to abide by his suspension, he instead fled to GOARCH without a canonical release from ROCOR. He was defrocked by ROCOR in February 2020, and thus is canonically only a lay monk.
GOARCH created a “Slavic Vicariate” and placed Belya at its head. The Vicariate is largely made up of defrocked and suspended clerics.
The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America was forced to postpone its plans to consecrate Belya to the episcopate last summer after the hierarchs of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of America threatened to quit the Assembly if he became a bishop. The hierarchs affirmed that they recognize his suspension and subsequent defrocking by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, and also pointed to issues with the former cleric’s moral fiber.
On January 11 of this year, Belya sent a letter through his attorney Oleg Rivkin to the heads of the Orthodox jurisdictions in America, threatening legal action against them for their stance against him. Copies of the letters were also sent to the primates of the Local Churches represented in America.
As soon as he learned of Belya’s actions, Archbishop Elpidophoros instructed him to withdraw the letters, but the Assembly hierarchs noted that the whole episode only reaffirms and highlights their serious opposition to Belya ever becoming a hierarch.
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