This is a post from the Paradosis list that I found interesting, so I am posting it since some of you may as well.
Paradosis wrote:Peter Andreev wrote:Priest of New ROCOR States Holy Metr.Philaret is in Schism
Fr.George Lardas wrote that all those who state that the MP has no
grace have departed into schism. Saying this he includes Holy Metr.Philaret
who stated:Excerpts from St.Metr.Philaret's letter to Fr.Victor Potapov:
..."we receive the clergymen from Moscow not as ones possessing grace,
but as ones receiving it by the very act of union. But to recognize the
church of the evil-doers as the bearer and repository of grace, that we
cannot
do, of course. For outside of Orthodoxy there is no grace; and the Soviet
church has deprived itself of grace."New ROCOR no longer considers Holy Metr.Philaret one of theirs?
PA
Archpriest George Lardas wrote:On Talks with the Moscow Patriarchate:
"Now that the storm is past, some have embraced a position our Church
has never before held that the Moscow Patriarchate is without grace and its
Mysteries are invalid. These people have lost the Catholicity of the
Church and have themselves departed into schism. To embrace that position is
to go against the conciliar conscience of the Russian Church Abroad, it is
to
go against the Patristic experience and pastoral practice of the Church,
it is to go against the love that we have for our brethren, who hold the
same
Faith that we do, and have the same hope of Salvation in our Lord and
Savior, Jesus Christ. Having taken that step they have nothing further
to say to the Russian people and have become sectarians, just as the Old
Believers became sectarians. They no longer have any witness to the
Orthodox world."Yours in Christ,
Fr George Lardas, Rector
St Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church
Stratford, Connecticut
Sunday 20 June / 3 July 2005