Thank you all for the prayers. Here is an article from the Rocky Mountain News. They got some of their story wrong, but interesting to see it in the papers.
URL: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/r ... 81,00.html
Altitude blamed for cleric's heart attack
By Jean Torkelson, Rocky Mountain News
April 20, 2004
Colorado's altitude is being blamed, in part, for a heart attack suffered Sunday night by a visiting head of a branch of Russian Orthodoxy.
The Metropolitan Valentine was rushed by ambulance from an Orthodox monastery in Buena Vista to Rocky Mountain Medical Center in Salida.
He was transferred Monday morning to Penrose Community Hospital in Colorado Springs and by late afternoon was being evaluated for surgery, according to his local hosts.
"The doctors think it (may) be too serious to delay any longer," said Bishop Gregory, head of the Colorado region for the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church in America, who hosted the visit. Orthodox leaders usually are identified by one name only. Metropolitan is the honorary title given a head of the orthodox church.
He said doctors surmised that the metropolitan's condition was worsened by the 9,000-foot altitude of the monastery, called Dormition Skete.
The 65-year-old spiritual leader had arrived Saturday from Suzdal, Russia, for a routine pastoral visit to the area, where about 50 church members live.
After his visit, Valentine was scheduled to fly to Switzerland for long- planned heart surgery, Gregory said.
The metropolitan doesn't have emergency medical insurance, and Colorado church members will contribute to pay for medical expenses, Gregory said.
The 1-million-member Russian church was known as a "catacomb church," and operated underground in the former Soviet Union, Gregory said. It had broken away from the existing Russian Orthodox Church.
The branch has 400 churches in Russia and six in the United States.
