From the letters of Holy New Martyr Joseph, Metropolitan of Petrograd

I am not at all a schismatic, and I do not call for a schism, but for the purification of the Church from those who sow real schism and provoke it.

Pointing out the errors and wrongs of another person to him is not schism, but, plainly speaking, it is putting an unbridled horse back into its harness.

The refusal to accept sound reproaches and directives is in reality a schism and a trampling on the truth.

In the establishment of ecclesiastical life, the participants are not only those at the head, but the whole body of the Church, and a schismatic is he who assumes rights to himself which exceed his authority and presumes to say in the name of the Church that which is not shared by his colleagues.

Metropolitan Sergius has shown himself to be such a schismatic, for he has far exceeded his authority and has rejected and scorned the voice of many hierarchs, in whose midst the pure truth has been preserved.