Marvelous Series on Rocor Hierarchs Being Launched

[Catherine5]

I happened across a fabulous treasure-trove about to see the Light of day that I wanted to alert readers here about; something everyone of all generally traditional jurisdictions can enjoy and IMMENSELY profit spiritually from.

It's on a site which expresses allegiance to New Rocor under Met. Hilarion called rocorstudies.org, but don't let that stop you -! You can skip directly to the category: "Lives of Bishops", where the first bio has just appeared.

Here is the Introduction to the forthcoming series by the acclaimed expert on aspects of the history of Old Rocor, Michael Woerl. Some of his biographies of the hierarchs of the U.S. Mid-West have earlier been published in the English language publication, Orthodox America, accessible online. If anyone here knows of any old photos in the albums of friends, for example, or has historical notes to contribute, you might want to help him in this valuable work; see below for how to contact the project:

"From the Author
An interest in the Hierarchs of the Church Abroad, the gift of a few photos, and the absolute dearth of anything remotely similar in any language led me to the idea of attempting to compile such a work.

As strange as it may seem, there does not appear to be an 'official' list of Hierarchs of the Church Abroad. So, the first problem was: who should be included? It would seem that 'a Hierarch of the Church Abroad' is 'a Hierarch of the Church Abroad,' and that would be that, and there would be no problem as to which Hierarchs should be included. Apparently, this is one of those 'depends who you ask' questions.

Various lists were the product of various criteria: Hierarchs who were consecrated by the Church Abroad; Hierarchs who were serving the Church Abroad at the time of their repose; some lists included Hierarchs who participated in the 1921 Karlovtsy Council by correspondence only, with no other contact with the Church Abroad. This resulted only in confusion and a lot of questions about who 'was' and who 'wasn't.' So, the 'easy way' out was the criteria used here-if it could be reasonably verified that a Hierarch had served in the Church Abroad-even if only for a few months-they were included.

As a result, here you will find an uneven collection of biographies-some seemingly interminably long, some possibly only a few sentences. You will see some names that you are extremely familiar with, and find others that you have never seen before. Most of all, it is hoped that you will find out things about our Church Abroad that you did not know, things that will help you understand more about the history of the Church Abroad, and things that will make you want to find out even more.
When I started on this project, two important things happened that helped me more than anything else could have-first, a blessing from then Archbishop Lavr of Everlasting Memory to begin collecting photos and materials for the project-this blessing included the assistance of Andrei Psarev hunting photos for me from the Jordanville Tipografia Archives.

Secondly, Father Georg Seide gave me permission to use the biographies in his manuscript, History of the Russian Church Abroad. as a basis for the biographies I would use. Since I do not speak German, I was able to use the in-progress English translation of Fr. Georg's book, as translated by Xenia Endres and revised by Serge Nedelsky. The biographies in Fr. Georg's book were very brief, primarily because they were an appendix to the book.

When I began, finding additional biographical information was almost impossible. Other than a few articles from Orthodox Life and Orthodox Word, and the few Russian articles that I could find, it seemed that I would have to use extremely brief biographies for the most part.

Then, the 'information explosion' happened before our very eyes, and what was not there before was, seemingly, all of a sudden, there! So very much information appeared on the internet concerning many of the Hierarchs of the Church Abroad
. . . that, and the appearance of websites offering 'free machine translations,' and a majority of webpages that offered a 'translate this page' option-these have allowed me to add more information to the biographies than I ever thought possible. Individual biographies will include information as to the sources employed; the same goes for photos. When I began I wanted to use as many photos as possible for each biography-obviously, however, this site is limited in how many photos can be used, so it will be up to the publisher to decide about photo usage. I have collected over 400 photos for this project, and hope that more uses can be found for them. I also hope to continue collecting photos of the Hierarchs of the Church Abroad-please contact me through this site [he means rocorstudies.org] if you have photos that I can make copies of. And of course, any additional information about any of these Hierarchs will also be welcomed.

The order of the Biographies was to begin with the First Hierarchs in chronological order, then continue with the rest of the Hierarchs in alphabetical order according to first (monastic) name. I had always planned to have everything appear together-but one or a few at a time isnt a bad idea, either . . .

Thanks be to God that I was able to finally share this information; thanks to all who helped me collect and share this information. Thanks to all who are interested, read it, look at the photos...."

[Kybihetz21]

I have a couple of hundred photos of hierarchs of ROCOR (those that were consecrated before the 90s) and of the Catacomb Church. I also have pictures of the new bishops that are still alive and were part of ROCOR in the 90s up to the present time. I have read some of Mr. Woerl’s accounts on Orthodox America (and elsewhere on the Internet). He shouldn’t have a problem finding old photos, since the archives in Jordanville have hundreds of old pictures, most of which are really priceless. I also remember that Archbishop Laurus had numerous albums with pictures from his travels and liturgical celebrations. The same could be said of Vladika Metropolitan Vitalii, but I doubt he will have access to those archives. I know about this because I saw every picture there was in all of those archives

[joasia]

Yes, the strength of faith of the first hierarchs of ROCOR were our foundation. What a shame how it turned out. Now Vladika Hilarion et al. want to justify their choice by linking themselves to those who were righteous in faith. It doesn't wash. Only the blind will follow. New ROCOR?? :ohvey:

There is only one ROCOR...that of those very hierarchs that risked their lives to continue the faith in this land. The "New ROCOR" is a disgrace. And the fact that this term is used expresses exactly the mindless and sterile mentality of the "New ROCOR" hierarchs that brought us into this crisis. They are a fraud.

So is that what you are calling yourselves now...New ROCOR? Get passed that and call yourselves what you really are...the Moscow Patriarchate Church Abroad (MPCA) or Moscow Patriarchate Church Outside of Russia (MPCOR). Stop trying to convince people that the MP is legitimate. That's like the Pope trying to convince people that he is the head of the Church.

[priestmark]

The historical archives of the biographies of the bishops of the Chicago and Detroit Diocese of ROCA complied by Michael Woerl are available again at http://www.roca.org

The links to these biographies were removed from the diocesan website even before the new website (and management by Fr John Shaw) eliminated the files themselves. Fr Victor Bowldeskul said that they were removed because they needed to be updated to correct errors (history had changed), but they were never restored, so with Michael's permission I restored them intact.

Regarding Archbishop Seraphim you can read: "In 1960, in a brotherly effort to aid the Greek Old Calendar Church, Archbishop Seraphim and Bishop Theophil (lonescu), a Romanian hierarch who belonged at that time to the Church Abroad, consecrated Archimandrite Akakios (Pappas) to the episcopate. At that time, the Greek Old Calendar Church was without any hierarchs, and Archimandrite Akakios had been selected as a candidate for the episcopate by a council of 100 Old Calendar priests in Greece."

I converted to Orthodoxy in 1983 under Archbishop Seraphim. In 2007 I was released by his successor, Archbishop Alypy, to the Church whose episcopate he restored - the GOC under Metropolitan Pavlos.

priest Mark Gilstrap
Owasso, Oklahoma

[joasia]

Fr. Mark,

FYI. There's a mistake in the information on this website. There's mention of the feast of St. Peter and Paul, but the date given is June 28/July 11. That is incorrect. The proper date is June 29/July 12.

[GOCPriestMark]

I know this is a bit off-topic, but since Fr. Mark brought it up :

Regarding Archbishop Seraphim you can read: "In 1960, in a brotherly effort to aid the Greek Old Calendar Church, Archbishop Seraphim and Bishop Theophil (lonescu), a Romanian hierarch who belonged at that time to the Church Abroad, consecrated Archimandrite Akakios (Pappas) to the episcopate. At that time, the Greek Old Calendar Church was without any hierarchs, and Archimandrite Akakios had been selected as a candidate for the episcopate by a council of 100 Old Calendar priests in Greece."

Firstly, Bp. Theophil was a new-calendarist, a state that the deposed Akakios Papas had previously anathematised in 1937. Secondly, to say; "the Greek Old Calendar Church was without any hierarchs" is an interesting statement at best and seems to be an excuse to meddle in another's jurisdiction, since the "Matthewite" position was that they were the true hierarchy, but according to Chrysostom of Florina the "State Church" was the true hierarchy.
For more in-depth on this situation see: http://genuineorthodoxchurch.com/histFl ... kakian.htm

[priestmark]

Fr. Mark,

FYI. There's a mistake in the information on this website. There's mention of the feast of St. Peter and Paul, but the date given is June 28/July 11. That is incorrect. The proper date is June 29/July 12.

Thanks for seeing that. It has been corrected.