Fr Joachim Parr & the MP Mercy House Debacle

DIscussion and News concerning Orthodox Churches in communion with those who have fallen into the heresies of Ecumenism, Renovationism, Sergianism, and Modernism, or those Traditional Orthodox Churches who are now involved with Name-Worshiping, or vagante jurisdictions. All Forum Rules apply. No polemics. No heated discussions. No name-calling.


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Barbara
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Re: Fr Joachim Parr & the MP Mercy House Debacle

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Meanwhile Deacon Konstantin Seleznev is organizing a valiant defense for Fr Parr. Fr. Dcn. Konstantin selected this 1.41 minute segment of a speech from one of Fr Parr's two Russian tours seemingly as evidence of the former elder being a 'bright speaker' :

I don't find Fr Parr's ideas deep or inspiring. Perhaps some new converts would 'cotton to' this populist preacher style of Fr Parr's. However, there is something decidedly cold about his eyes as he turns toward the camera toward the end.

Then at about 1:30, Fr Parr makes one of these strange overdone gestures, lifting his arm and waving it forcefully.

By contrast, one could never imagine St Metropolitan Philaret of New York [ Rocor ] making even a single such unseemly movement while delivering one of his TRULY bright sermons --

If one remembers back to the original video exposing Fr Parr's divergences from the truth about himself, he also goes into this same mode at about the same section, 1:17 to 1:46. This segment is where he speaks, again to a Russian audience, about his early family years. Fr Parr made wildly inflated claims, accompanied by

1 ) slouching
2 ) waving his arm in the air
3 ) gesturing in a manic way when he says "and everywhere we went...[ inaudible ] "
3 ) hands almost always in busy motion

At the end, Fr Parr looks up with a defiant gleam in his eye, as though checking to see whether his audience accepted his fabrications. And whether the viewers are suitably impressed by his august heritage.

[ to refresh readers' memories, the documentary mentioned on Page 1 of this thread which attempts to expose Fr Parr as a pseudo elder is : ]

The clip referred to in the beginning of this post is found on a new facebook page likely started by the St Petersburg Deacon dedicated to collecting favorable opinions of Fr Parr. Here is the introduction :


"The page is devoted to Father Joachim and is generally addressed to his spiritual children or to those who are interested and concerned.

Welcome!

Many people have read Father's books and listened to conversations with him. It seems that nobody argues with the fact that he is a bright preacher. But not so many has had the luck to communicate with him personally. The main objective of this site is to collect "testimony " of people who are close to Father.

I won't pretend as though nothing occurs. Yes, for Father and for all of us hard times have come. We have almost lost what we love so much. But Father accepts all things with humility as they are sent from God. As he has written to me in one letter after the suspension:

" Now I am trying to do my best to keep everyone included and at peace with each other and with the church. There are TOO MANY PEOPLE ANXIOUS to write and talk and give information back and forth without knowing what they are saying. There are those with the best of loving intentions, but they should pray and not be engaged in the exchanges on the internet, this only opens them to the chance of falling into saying things that may be a temptation from the Devil, or a chance to judge or hurt someone. There is too much of this. NOTHING is going to be made better by exchanges on the internet. Only prayer, obedience and humility will solve this problem...

Pray for me

Fr. Joachim"

Therefore on this page there won't be any fight. Just words for consolation and witnessing the truth. I hope, we will see the time when Father will serve and preach again. Maybe earlier, than in three years. But so far we have just to remember and hope that all will be restored . I hope for your help with expanding the website — and for your stories about meeting with Father or just kind words."


Source : facebook page of Fr Joachim Parr


It sounds like the MP has privately told the head of Treadwell Abbey that he is under suspension for 3 years or perhaps less, for "Maybe earlier, than in three years", writes the deacon.

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Re: Fr Joachim Parr & the MP Mercy House Debacle

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In that excerpt from a lecture in Russia cited above, the central idea evinced by Fr Parr is lacking in originality.

Here is one example from the early 1800s. That's 200 years ago ! :

Father "Herman moved to Spruce Island around 1811 to 1817. The island is separated from Kodiak by a mile-wide strait, making it ideal for eremetic life. Herman named his hermitage “New Valaam.” .... When asked how he could bear to be alone in the forest, he replied, “I am not alone. God is here, as God is everywhere."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_of_Alaska


Why does Fr Parr not preach with original thoughts ? Well, a cardinal characteristic of Narcissists of various types and of sociopaths as well is DISTINCT LACK OF CREATIVITY.

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Re: Fr Joachim Parr & the MP Mercy House Debacle

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The first lengthy testimonial supporting Fr Parr appeared on the facebook page.

Unfortunately, its author is listed merely as "Nun N."
-- Why is there no full name in monasticism ? Nor, importantly, at which Convent she resides ? Or a general locale provided ?

This secrecy indicates that either the sister fears active persecution by the Mercy House Abuse group, or she is trying to preserve anonymity for reasons of humility. We hope it's the latter, but the lack of any place name throughout her narrative fuels a suspicion that she dreads attack by the purveyors of 'hatred' <-- as she describes their video exposing Fr Parr.

The only clues the reader gains are that the too-trusting sister might be somewhere in central Russia as she mentions the advice of an MP Archbishop of Kostroma. And that she is not a native English speaker, probably Russian speaking.

To be completely fair in giving both sides of this debate, I am posting her protestation in favor of Fr Parr :


"I met Fr Joachim when he first time visited our convent. After his first talk before the sisters, that impressed me greatly, our Abbess proposed that every sister who wants to, can make a confession to Fr Joachim and ask him her personal questions.
There were many of us who wanted to be confessed. Almost all the sisters were making their confessions through the interpreter - Hieromonk Savvaty who accompanied Father in his journeys along Russia, Ukraine, Belorussia and the Baltic States. But I didn’t want any witness to attend my confession and conversation with the Elder. So I took a dictionary and prepared my confession and questions in English. Fr Joachim was confessing in one of the rooms in the convent’s hotel where he stayed. When there was my turn to come in I told Fr Savvaty that I was going to confess without any interpreter. He was even glad to hear it - it was a chance for him to rest a little bit, and he went to drink some coffee.

In my confession, along with other things, I told also about my failure in search for a spiritual father. I was looking for a spiritual guide in my monastic life already for a long time, and yet couldn’t find. Having met Fr Joachim, of course, I thought: maybe, this is the ONE I’m looking for and praying to find... And I decided to ask him at the end of my confession for a permission to write him letters. But Fr Joachim himself anticipated my desire saying that he can help me and proposing to correspond. He only gave me a preliminary condition: I had to take a blessing for this from the Abbess. The Abbess (God, save her soul!) gave me her blessing, and the correspondence began.

I felt myself the most happy, for I was receiving letters from the Elder, wise and much-experienced, who knew the monastic life. His letters impressed me greatly with their accuracy and depth. Nun Mastridia, the spiritual child of Fr Joachim, who is staying with him until now, and whom I had a chance to talk, she also was telling me about his depth.

Once I asked her why the sisterhood in America fell apart, and the sisters left. From her answer I understood that the reason was the temper of those sisters, unprepared to the monastic life. “But I will never leave Fr Joachim, - Mt Mastridia told me. - Because I know that I will never find for me again such a spiritual father, of such a depth”.

It could be difficult with Fr Joachim at times, I already knew it from my personal experience. And once when we were talking with Mt Mastridia, she also illustrated this to me with the eloquent gestures. Bringing her fist to her own jaw and exclaiming as if in pain, she obediently lowered her head saying: “Yes, I needed it...” And I knew that she was talking about some kind of reprimand and reproof from the Elder.
Yes, Fr Joachim is very demanding, especially to the monastics. It’s clear that not many can endure the constant tension of spiritual feats. Most likely, that this is the reason why many leave. Herewith, they are trying to put the blame for their own failure on the spiritual Father...

Letters of Fr Joachim set the bar very high. Being carefully kept by me, they serve me as a landmark: never reaching it, I can at least strive to attain. Mostly all the letters of Fr Joachim were devoted to the problems of my spiritual life. He never answered my questions about his health, and usually he wrote very little about himself. As to those few things that he nevertheless wrote about himself, I want to share some of them now.

In the beginning I showed some impatience, not receiving an answer to my letter for a long time, and being unaware of the reason for this delay. And later Father explained me, that he simply didn’t have the time to sit down and answer my confession:
“When I returned from Russia there were many things to tend to. As soon as I got into the house there were people there for help. I went to the parish on the weekend, served Saturday and Sunday, then drove three and a half hours to the monastery in the mountains. There was a group of Romanians who came to be confessed, the brotherhood, and then there was my prayer.
I had to go to Philadelphia on Friday and come home today, to serve in the morning, and then to do vigil this afternoon. I have Liturgy and then the return drive to the monastery of 3 ½ hours tomorrow afternoon.
"... I am trying to pray and to get the time to answer you correctly. On top of your e-mail, there were 19 confessions, and at least 30 long letters of need. You are not neglected, you are just a little impatient.
I shall try to get to you as soon as possible. In the meantime, pray and repent.
Father Joachim”.

When Father got into hospital with severe appendicitis, all worried and prayed for him. In his first letter after the hospital he thanked us for the prayers and concern for his well being and wrote:
“Many wonder people prayed for me to the Lord God that I should recover from this illness, and the Lord has answered the prayer. I am grateful”.
It was a long and very informative letter. Nevertheless, in the end of it Father expressed his regret that he couldn’t write more, and that he couldn’t respond as quickly as I had desired. And then he asked me for prayers, continuing, already in another way, to edify me:

“Please pray for me. As I get older, I see how much time I have wasted on my sins and on myself, and how much there is to do for the Glory of God and for His Holy Church. Pray that I have the strength to give myself to the Lord in some small measure as to the magnitude that He has given Himself to all of us”.
Later Fr Joachim also wrote, in the end of a long letter, a few words about his health:
“I am getting better each day. It is very slow. The wound from the surgery is still open and it needs to be dressed with new bandages each day. I will go to the doctor this weekend and I will get a progress report. I do not know how long it will take to close the wound, but I am ready to have it done now. All have been very kind to me. I am most grateful for all of the prayers. Let the sisters know that I am on the mend and that I hope to visit you all in the Fall”.
In the next letter, written before the feast of Dormition of the Mother of God, Fr Joachim informed me that he came home from the hospital on last Monday, and experienced a difficult time:
“I seem to have a lot of pain and this makes any attempt at getting around next to impossible. Tomorrow is the great feast of the Mother of God and I want to be in the Liturgy, pray for me”.
Then, in response to a new manifestation of my impatience, he briefly depicted to me all his life:
“You must understand that I have a great number of people who contact me by email, letter and phone. There are a great number of visitors. There are many priests seeking help through confession and advice. I have nuns and laity that I serve as spiritual father and there are the needs of our parish in New York, the needs of the brotherhood here and the sisters and then there is the need for me to take care of my own prayer life and my soul. On top of all of this I have to deal with my poor health. I have much traveling that I have done and must still do. There are many requests for help from all over the places that I have spoken, more and more ask that I come and talk, speak at colleges, universities, monasteries and seminaries. I do not have the time to do all I asked to do, and yet I try to help where I can”.

Two weeks later, Father wrote to me again that he was very busy:

“We have many visitors here at the monastery from all kinds of places. This is one of the problems living in an international city that is famous and large. Many people want to come to New York. Since New York is such an expensive city, many people ask to stay in the monastery. It is too much some times. It is good that your monastery is so far from the tourist path, only those seeking the monastery come to see you.
Summer is coming to an end here, the weather is cooler and the days are beautiful but they are shorter. I hope that Mother Mastridia is doing well there and that you are all enjoying her. Please give Mother our love from all the monastery.
Fr Joachim”.

Before his second visit to our convent, Fr Joachim informed me in a brief note that he had received my letter, but had no time to respond:
“I have a house full of visiting monks and I am travelling to New York City tomorrow and then back up here to Treadwell on Monday. I will get to you.
I will be seeing you in a very short time. Give my love to Mt Mastridia, tell her to enjoy the wonders of winter, we have no snow at the moment and they are predicting that we will have very little snow this winter. The times are all crazy, one never knows what to expect.
Father Joachim”.

Having visited us the second time and returned to America, Father soon began to make plans about his next trip to Russia and Ukraine. As usual, he visited only those places where he was persistently invited to. He wrote to me that he didn’t go to monasteries or anywhere else if he was not asked to come with a blessing.

More than two years ago Fr Joachim stopped his trips outside USA, but not because he stopped to be invited. As I recently learned it from a comment in the internet on suspension of Fr Joachim, such was the will of Bishop John of Naro-Fominsk, administrator of Patriarchal Parishes in the USA (Moscow Patriarchate), long before the suspension, at the insistence of those who now are triumphing, having taken restrictive measures against Father. The author of that comment, who is the initiator of the so called “Mercy House Abuse Group”, wrote about the suspension with glee: “For many, it was the long-awaited day...” For us, who love Father, it was the day of sorrow, having begun then and continuing until now.

For Fr Joachim himself, it has become the way of the Cross, commanded by our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ to all His faithful disciples. The Word of God is immutable: “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (2 Tim. 3:12). This is a personal kenosis of Fr Joachim, if we’d like to express it with the language of Theology.
It is granted not to everyone - to attain in such an extent likeness of Christ on the way of kenosis, that is, the depletion, the self-humbling, the self-emptying of Christ, to experience fully all the hatred of this world, slander and persecution from the false brethren...
For all of us, who love Father, the slanderous essence of that lampoon movie has been obvious from the very beginning, from the first minute of it. It has been obvious by the spirit of hatred, which the movie is saturated with.
I recall my conversation with now reposed Archbishop Alexy of Kostroma, that happened long ago. It was about truth, slander and love. He drew my attention to the fact that Truth and Love were the Names of God, therefore the genuine Truth is impossible without Love. Therefore mathematical truth told without love is a lie and a slander. Having applied this criterion to that movie, one could understand, or rather feel its falsehood from the first glance without any investigation - by the spirit of animosity and hatred blowing out of it from the very first minute. However, if someone begins to investigate the movie (as it was done by one Deacon from St Petersburg in his videos - not professional, but made sincerely and with love and, which seems to be important, with his scientific approach to the problem under investigation), then it becomes clear that not only the Divine Truth is absent in this movie, but so is even the mere factual truth...

Father Joachim himself takes all these adversities and afflictions sent to him as from the Hand of God, just recognizing that, yes, a difficult time has come... May God give him to live up to the time when he is allowed to serve and to preach again. As many have known, he suffers from a serious cancer disease, and regularly he takes very strong medicine when he is in pain. And he’s rather old... Time is precious for him. We all, who love Father, pray that release from the suspension may happen sooner than in three years. Let God arise and let His enemies be scattered! O Lord, protect our Father Schema-Archimandrite Joachim from all his enemies, visible and invisible..."


At minimum, the close of the letter seems to confirm what I noted earlier : that Fr Parr has been told that he is suspended for 3 years only.

This letter makes Fr Parr sound more human and less calculating. It also rouses pity for the sufferer from a serious disease.
But what brings such a disease on ? While the answer is known only to God, we can take a clue from the words of Elder Ambrose of Optina. This quintessential Russian Orthodox Elder told his disciples that God sometimes visits suffering later in life for what one has erred in during his youth. Elder Amvrosy self-deprecatingly gave the example of himself. He told his questioners that as a student, he had liked to talk and joke too much. The life of the party we might call it today.
So after 40 + years of hearing confessions, being a spiritual father to many Optina Monastery clergy, receiving lay supplicants requesting that he speak with them about their problems, the Elder had nearly lost his voice.

By the way, the brief description of a few of the Elder's duties might give a hint of the vast gulf between the workload of Fr Parr and a True Elder...

The 19 confessions and 30 letters of need cited by Fr Parr as delaying his reply to the anxiously waiting Nun N. do not sound onerous in contrast with the throngs of people from all over the Russian Empire who flocked daily for 3 decades to Fr Amvrosy's waiting room at Optina.

When Fr Amvrosy went to Shamordino for the last time, nuns reported that crowds of people chased his cart as he was shown the new construction work in the women's monastery he oversaw spiritually and practically. People slept out all over the convent's spacious premises

Image
Shamordino Convent as it may have appeared during the construction phase - just to give an idea of where the pilgrims had to camp out on the bare ground, sleeping under the stars while waiting WEEKS for their turn to speak with the Elder

And he did his absolute best to not disappoint any of his supplicants > "Ambrose was visited by countless people, and his love for every person was so strong that he would even see people when he had passed the point of exhaustion being forced to lay down. Even then he would not refuse to listen to people coming to him to seek his counsel..." -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrose_of_Optina

It should also be mentioned that while St Ambrose was being trained as Elder under his own teacher, Elder Macarius, and during the 30 subsequent years in which Fr. Ambrose was the main Starets for Optina and many satellite monasteries and convents, the Elder was terribly ill the entire time ! I have not found precisely what his conditions were in modern medical terms. Besides bad headaches, one serious problem which is revealed in his biography was a painful condition of his blood vessels.

Can anyone imagine carrying out this impossible work schedule while being too fragile to step outdoors most of the year ?

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Re: Fr Joachim Parr & the MP Mercy House Debacle

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Re: Fr Joachim Parr & the MP Mercy House Debacle

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Example of a TRUE Elder, St Ambrose of Optina blessing and helping suffering humanity. A painting by S. Izleva:

Image

Contrast the exalted atmosphere of that with Fr Parr's unfeeling dismissal of Deacon Konstantin Seleznev when he was devastated by bad news. These tidings must have been all the more painful when the blow was delivered in a foreign country and culture.
Fr Parr essentially kicked him out [ we hope kindly but see no evidence of that ] instead of setting up a time to discuss the future Deacon's options.
Assumedly, evening time was not convenient for Fr Parr.

But that should not have stopped the supposed elder from arranging to have an in-depth analysis of what course his disciple should take.
Note : no one expects any spiritual father today to be clairvoyant, especially not on the high scale of the Optina Elders.
But mere compassion would have helped ease the wound the disciple was obviously feeling.

If Elder Amvrosy had enough time to show caring, why couldn't Fr Parr ?

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Re: Fr Joachim Parr & the MP Mercy House Debacle

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A short 20min video at gives the true history of Fr Joachim Parr. He is neither an elder nor a greatschema monk; his parents were not diplomats; he wasn't born in England; he didn't live on Mt Athos; he was never a Benedictine monk; he never went to Rome to become a priest; and his entrance into Orthodox was never fortold by St John the Wonderworker. In fact, he has been forced out of the OCA and ROCOR.


So Fr Parr is not even a Schema-Archimandrite ? I did not imagine anyone would lie about THAT essential fact !

I would certainly like to know more about THAT fabrication of Fr Parr's.

And what an important revelation that Fr Parr was dismissed by the OCA as well as Rocor, which latter we know from the letter
http://www.euphrosynoscafe.com/forum/vi ... 889#p68986
of then-Bishop Gabriel of Manhattan, today Abp Gabriel of Montreal and Canada mentioned in the recent Monarchy Return post.

Remember from the film how then-layman John Gary Parr falsified his yearbook entry at St Tikhon's Seminary ? Perhaps the discrepancies were found out or the young Parr was discovered in some trouble-making by seminary officials. Surely the reason for his expulsion must have been very serious. Most Orthodox seminaries, one would think, would give some slack so as to graduate more students, hence produce more potential clergymen. This aspect of Parr's life needs to be uncovered as it is absolutely essential to decipher his patterns of deception over his entire life.

[ Maybe this is what the OC.net poster meant when he or she said that Fr Parr was kicked out of the OCA : from their seminary. I assumed that meant from the entire jurisdiction. ]

I wonder what Fr Parr concocted about having been made a priest in Rome ? I hope someone will zero in on that part of his ecclesiastical resume.

As for Fr Parr's Mercy House / Treadwell Abbey website, it appears this site is now back up - or has been changed - since the OC.net post was written in February 2017.

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Re: Fr Joachim Parr & the MP Mercy House Debacle

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There are two occasions which trouble me regarding Fr Parr's advice to Konstantin Seleznev.

The first time we see in Part I of the later Deacon's own video describing his interactions with his much revered spiritual father, Fr Parr. This part continues to puzzle me. Perhaps Part II will shed SOME light on this rather strange matter. For the moment, all we have to go by is the narrative the St Petersburg native relates in his effort to whitewash his preceptor's reputation after it was hit by a typhoon - the Mercy House Abuse group video.

New to America and not yet proficient in English, Konstantin is perplexed at a certain event. In the beginning, regular bills are sent to him for assumedly rent and other costs. Then they cease. He inquires not at the companies on the bills' mastheads, but to Fr Parr, assuming this born American can field any such question. This mistake is understandable. Unfortunately, Konstantin should not have reposed such confidence in his newly met spiritual father.

Fr Parr brushes off the new member of his Moscow Patriarchate Mercy House/ St Mary of Egypt church group. The archimandrite tells him not to worry about it. If no bills are sent to a person in this country, Fr. Parr reassures the young Konstantin, it means that he does not owe anything to his creditors.

That cavalier attitude struck me as quite strange the minute I heard this story. For, anything could have happened : a mixup of addresses or a temporary problem in the accounting department of the concerns. It is not wise to shrug off debt on such a flimsy basis.
Yet this is precisely what Fr Parr callously counseled his earnest spiritual follower to do.

What, I wondered ever since hearing that part of the Konstantin Seleznev version, does this say about Fr Parr ? Could the slippery archimandrite be financially irresponsible himself ? Many people fit the same paradigm of pathological lying and failure to keep other people's secrets -- itself a serious form of abuse if by laypeople. But when the person in question is an Orthodox clergyman and an Archimandrite at that, he can not divulge any person's confession according to the canons. Fr Parr could possibly be a classic abusive person who delights in embarrassing those who trust him most by confiding their personal flaws or struggles to other humans. This characteristic is a one of the foundation traits of the entire syndrome of a sociopath or heavy abuser.

Another symptom is financial disaster. Often the abusive person causes that monetary catastrophe for others ; sometimes he creates his own muddle. For example, by running up credit cards, or by refusing to pay costs incurred. These both are extremely common. The narcissism which is always at the core of sociopaths dictates that the person is so 'special' that he is not obligated to pay his day to day bills. Someone else will take care of these, or simply, if they are sent to a collection agency, who cares ? He reckons he can always charm his way out of that unsavory situation. He of course is above all that : an exalted personage cut out for greater things than the mundane responsibilities. Only ordinary people deal with such trifles. Never him !

Women, of course, can be every bit as arrogant. Once a young woman sulked to me, "I have received so many traffic and parking tickets. I have accumulated a pile of them now. I have not paid one. The fines keep getting bigger, but I don't care. Why should I be liable for such pesky things ? That is not MY job to pay for these ", she exclaimed with a dismissive toss of her head. She didn't feel the slightest responsibility to pay for her tickets the way everyone else does for theirs.

If we knew Fr Parr well, we might discover that he routinely deflects blame for his own wrongdoing onto other people. This is one of the cardinal characteristics of narcissists, sociopaths and all abusive types.

Thus, in Fr Parr's own life, perhaps he felt no need to pay some of his personal bills : he might well have twisted things around with sociopathic logic that someone else MUST BE to blame for them. Therefore, these were simply not his obligations. [ Now, this part is all my conjecture.
Those who have been around Fr Parr closely could give a better opinion about this point. ]

Surely, though, no financially responsible 60-year old American clergyman would tell a vulnerable foreigner, "Skip your bills. If they didn't arrive in the mail, you don't owe anybody. That's how it is done in the U.S. Now go and eat a nice trapeza meal and forget about this problem." [ I am assuming Fr Parr might have been in that age range at the time his parishioner Konstantin was living in New York. ]

This is a blatant misuse of Fr Parr's authority.

The archimandrite of Mercy House gave his trusting disciple the WRONG INFORMATION : 100 % off the mark. Whether Konstantin had to suffer as a result, we have not yet heard. We can assume that hefty fines might have been tacked on. Unless he hired a lawyer at Cravath, Swain & Moore or Davis Polk to extricate him from the bills, he must have been liable for some large amounts of money. Not fun when one is alone in New York City, which is not known for multitudes of caring people stopping their frantic rush to help a stranger with a kind word or advice. Yet, had any random New Yorker of any religion been posed the same question that Konstantin asked Fr Parr about the cessation of his bills, it is likely he or she would have given the right answer. Whereas the MP so-called elder offered his Orthodox parishioner a Siren's song which lured the poor man into inactivity, assuming all was well.

Imagine his rude awakening when the bills started rolling into his mailbox again, this time with substantial penalties added for months without even a minimum payment made...

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