Seraphim Rose on the Matthewites

[Justice]

Letters during his monastics community seem to point out that Fr Seraphim Rose thought the Matthewites were overzealous.

The “Mathewites” preach absolute “strictness”: since 1924 all New Calendarists and all those in communion with them are without grace; hence the “crisis” which caused Bp. Mathew to consecrate successors by himself—he and his followers believed that he was then the only Orthodox bishop remaining in the world. It is therefore astonishing that they could have been persuaded to have any contact with our Church at all, as at the Sobor of 1971, and Dr. Kalomiros tells us that this was because Fr. Panteleimon of Boston told them that our bishops had “repented” and now were willing to accept the Mathewite position. Once they saw that this was not so, the Mathewites resumed their attacks on our Church, and the last we heard they were almost resolved to give our Church over to anathema.

What do the Matthewites think of this letter? While it does condemn the heresy of ecumenism and the MP, it seems to critiques the Matthewites position.

Link: http://nftu.net/wp-content/uploads/2017 ... alotry.pdf

[Maria]

Having read the 1976 Genuine Church of Greece's letter addressed to the ROCOR and written by the Matthewite's Monk Kirykos (who has since been defrocked by the main synod of Matthewites), the Synod of the Genuine Church of Greece gave ecumenism as its major reason for breaking communion with the ROCOR. One of the key figures of the Church Abroad, Anthony of Geneva, was concelebrating liturgies with the ecumenists all along, but the ROCOR never revealed that to the Matthewites.

In addition, Anthony of Geneva was known to have persuaded clergy to favor union with the MP through blackmail if he could dig up any dirt on them. After such a brotherly meeting with Anthony of Geneva, Met. Anthony of San Francisco uncharacteristically changed his mind and would vote for union with the MP. This was done shortly after telling his clergy that he would never vote for a union with the MP. Two of his former priests personally confided this to me. Many other clergy and bishops also changed their minds after a sudden visit by this Anthony character.

Furthermore, Met. Philaret of New York was known to have had a very difficult relationship with this Anthony of Geneva who was a suspected KGB agent as he often visited his comrades in Russia, and whose own brother, the former Metropolitan of Geneva, also died very suddenly and conveniently made the way for Anthony of Geneva to take his position. Interestingly, Met. Philaret died of cancer, and the KGB at that time did have a means of causing cancer.

Here is the 1957 Synodal Act of Genuine Church of Greece
https://www.thegenuineorthodoxchurch.co ... of-the-goc

The letter to the ROCOR, which I cited above, was on the Internet, was taken down, and will be downloaded at a later date. The websites still need updating.

Note to self: Read the Matthewite letter at

[Justice]

Having read the 1976 Genuine Church of Greece's letter addressed to the ROCOR and written by the Matthewite's Monk Kirykos (who has since been defrocked by the main synod of Matthewites), the Synod of the Genuine Church of Greece gave ecumenism as its major reason for breaking communion with the ROCOR. One of the key figures of the Church Abroad, Anthony of Geneva, was concelebrating liturgies with the ecumenists all along, but the ROCOR never revealed that to the Matthewites.

In addition, Anthony of Geneva was known to have persuaded clergy to favor union with the MP through blackmail if he could dig up any dirt on them. After such a brotherly meeting with Anthony of Geneva, Met. Anthony of San Francisco uncharacteristically changed his mind and would vote for union with the MP. This was done shortly after telling his clergy that he would never vote for a union with the MP. Two of his former priests personally confided this to me. Many other clergy and bishops also changed their minds after a sudden visit by this Anthony character.

Furthermore, Met. Philaret of New York was known to have had a very difficult relationship with this Anthony of Geneva who was a suspected KGB agent as he often visited his comrades in Russia, and whose own brother, the former Metropolitan of Geneva, also died very suddenly and conveniently made the way for Anthony of Geneva to take his position. Interestingly, Met. Philaret died of cancer, and the KGB at that time did have a means of causing cancer.

Here is the 1957 Synodal Act of Genuine Church of Greece
https://www.thegenuineorthodoxchurch.co ... of-the-goc

The letter to the ROCOR, which I cited above, was on the Internet, was taken down, and will be downloaded at a later date. The websites still need updating.

Note to self: Read the Matthewite letter at

I suppose Fr. Seraphim Rose went along with ROCOR's position on the Matthewites. He was definitely anti-ecumenist as he opposed Anthony of Geneva, but he still thought that the Matthewites were too strict.

[Barbara]

You mean Abp of Geneva, Maria. Abp Leonty [Bartosevich].
I was wondering actually just yesterday whether bp anthony, the brother, was a bishop under Abp Leonty.

Also I want to say something I read last night in this regard. After St John Maximovitch, who was head of the Western European Diocese, left for SF to quell the storm there,
the seat of that diocese was mysteriously moved to Geneva. I did NOT realize this.
To me that is key. I would like to know the circumstances. Was this the maneuvering of bp anthony behind the scenes to wrest
control from the former seat of Brussels, I felt ?

Also, bp anthony HATED St John. So the 2 major Rocor Saints were heavily opposed by this creep.

[Maria]

Recently, whenever I click NFTU.net, I get a blank page. Then it times out.

However, I can read the NFTU PDF document that Justice inserted in his initial post here.

The last bolded quote from page 24 of this pdf document is posted below:
I have included some information within brackets to make it more understandable.

... Our Church [ROCOR] as a whole (and certainly almost all bishops
and priests, apart from the Boston wing) does not believe Moscow and
New Calendarists to be without grace. Those who wish to believe this as their
personal opinion are not persecuted for it, but they certainly cannot make
such an opinion obligatory on others. The two cases you mention would have
caused no problem among any non-Boston clergy; our Church’s policy of
non-communion with Moscow is certainly not threatened by an occasional
death-bed communion of someone who is unaware of the jurisdictional
differences, and no issue need be made over it. Unfortunately, the whole
Boston approach to such questions seems to remain very “academic.”

It was this indifferent attitude expressed by Fr. Seraphim Rose that caused
the Matthewites to break communion with ROCOR in 1976. The Matthewites
had entered communion with ROCOR in 1971 and thought that ROCOR was
strictly adhering to a policy of non-communion and non-concelebration with
the Greek and EP New Calendarists. Then the Matthewites discovered that
Anthony of Geneva had been concelebrating with New Calendarists all along.
This left a taste like vomit in their mouths.

You must remember that the Matthewites had been subjected to much
humiliation in coming over to the ROCOR. They had accepted HOCNA's and
Archbishop Auxentios' humbling demands because the Matthewites favored
peace and reconciliation and truly wanted to live as brothers with ROCOR.
Alas, the Matthewites realized only too lately, that they had been lied to when
the hierarchs in ROCOR convinced the Matthewites without any written
documentation that ROCOR did not practice inter-communion with the
New Calendarists.

When the Matthewite's priests were brutally murdered, the contents of the chalice
tossed on the floor, and the chalice flattened by the New Calendarist bishop's
foot, which are all sacrileges, how could the Matthewites ignore the sacrileges
committed by the Greek New Calendarists?

[Barbara]

Absolutely I don't like what fr rose wrote there. Perfect word that Maria described his attitude as : indifferent.

OF COURSE this is not the image of the supposed charismatic figure that many sectors wish to portray to the Old Calendarist and conservative Orthodox world in their not-very-subtle campaign for the Platina hieromonk's canonization.

In that one paragraph quoted by Maria above, fr rose is unveiled as wishy washy. Or let's say, he paints Rocor's Synod as more tolerant of the MP than one feels that most of the hierarchs were. Outside of the party of Abp Anthony of Geneva and his followers, such as Bp Paul of Stuttgart, later of Australia, I doubt that so many Rocor Bishops believed that the MP had grace as fr rose contends.

Now that is horrific about the EP treatment of the Matthewite clergy !! This shows how false was the New Calendar takeover in Greece : it produced brazenly diabolical behavior. Plus, this barbaric treatment of Old Calendarist clergymen must have been strongly suppressed by the EP machine so that none would find out beyond the circle of Matthewites.

[Archimandrit Nilos]

Anthony Bartocevic from Ginevra was a great ecumenistic heretic; I knew him personally.