khomes wrote:Thanks. I really liked the article. It made a lot of sense. So right now. I am deciding between ROCOR-MP, the GOC- Metropolitan John and the GOC-K. Any help would be great. What made everybody here chose to join the Traditional/ True Orthodox Church? I seem to be in a lack of reading material on the subject if anyone could suggest some things to read up on. Again. Everything so far I agree with you all, I'm just not sure if we're ready to make the leap.
You won't find any debate about which synod is best on this part of the forum, and I don't really plan on debating this anyways. While I would never recommend ROCOR-MP, I would suggest that if there's a TOC church near you, to visit it before deciding which synod to join, because it would be great if there was a TOC church that you could attend regularly rather than joining a TOC church that you could only visit a few times a year. Even though this site hasn't been updated in awhile, it provides links to all of the TOC synods that have a presence in America, and all but one of these websites provides a church directory. If you have any problem finding a certain synod's church directory for any reason, let me know: http://trueorthodoxdirectory.us/
I definitely would stay away from ROCOR-MP, due to its neglect of St Philaret's anathema against Ecumenism and the general corruption which led to its union with Moscow. If anything, consider the other ROCOR synods that did not enter into communion with Moscow. You can find Vladimir Moss' history of ROCOR here: http://www.orthodoxchristianbooks.com/d ... 0_2007.pdf
Obviously I'm partial to my own synod. I sent you a PM about a week ago, I think, about some of this stuff. I'm not sure if you received it or not. Basically I'm in Metropolitan John's synod because this is where God led me. But also, Fr Seraphim Rose spoke about how we should maintain connections with holy elders, even if they may seem "liberal" to us. He wrote this when addressing some super-correct people in his own synod that were following their own super-correctness rather than following their elders in ROCOR who knew Orthodoxy in their hearts. I'm not saying that Metropolitan John is "liberal" in any sense that I can think of, but his spiritual father, Vladyka Theodore, was a very holy man who will eventually be glorified as a saint, and you can tell that Metropolitan John has learned much from him. You can read about Vladyka Theodore here: http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-562277
You can also read about the history of the Milan synod, as well as a current synod, in a book written by Dcn Joseph Suaiden titled Lux Veritatis in PDF form or in a paperback book: http://www.lulu.com/us/en/shop/joseph-s ... 80670.html
http://www.lulu.com/shop/joseph-suaiden ... 26478.html
I'm not aware of any detailed book or article written about the GOC-K, other than some of an explanation from HOCNA's book The Struggle Against Ecumenism which was a great and detailed book, but there was a HOCNA bend to it. I can tell you that when I visited a GOC-K monastery for a few days a couple of years ago, I really enjoyed talking to some of the monks there.