ROCOR anti-unionists in the UK... ?

[spiridon]

This Father Andrew refers to "The Church is like a swimming pool. All the noise comes from the shallow end"
The Church cannot ever,ever be refered too as anything but The church- Case closed.
it doesnt take a monk of 70 years or a teenager at 13 to know this, God the WORD as it is written, is not hidden from anybody, and Respectively speaking from unclean lips, the Holy Spirit allows anybody, Laity teen or elderly, Priest or Bishop to understand the Holy Gospel and those things from GOD...
a body of water does have alot of noise coming from the shallow end, for this is where the innocent kids, handicapped and elderly are usually at , the deep end however always has sharks ready to devour the innocent and a place that one can even drown in unexpectively.the deep end also has a higher consentration of chemicals because there is more bacteria that can build up in it, also the deep end is full of alot of show off divers and back peddlars amusing and causing a ruckus...

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           in Christ,
                        spiridon

[Benjamin W. C. Waterhouse]

The Holy Synod in Resistance continues the Narrow Path that ROCOR has now abandoned, neither falling to the left nor to the right.

I am now in the Holy Synod in Resistance,

In Him
SB

[Roman]

From: Archimandrite Alexis

To: Orthodox.Worldwide@ mac.com

Sent: Monday, January 15, 2007 3:01 PM

Subject: STATEMENT FROM SAINT EDWARD BROTHERHOOD

In ways that are beyond our understanding news that our Brotherhood has placed itself under the omophorion of Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos and Fili, Synod of Resistance, in Greece , has leaked out and diverse opinions have already been quite widely disseminated on the worldwide web. We, therefore, thought that we should make a short statement for the record.

In fact three former ROCA communities have joined the Synod of Resistance:

a) the Convent of the Annunciation in London, which was founded by St John of Shanghai in 1954, and until 1999 was under the spiritual guidance of the Ever-Memorable Abbess Elisabeth (Ampenoff);

b) Saint Edward Brotherhood founded in 1984 with the blessing of the Blessed and Ever-Memorable Metropolitan Philaret of New York and Eastern America, then First Hierarch of the ROCA;

c) the nascent Mission of St Boniface at Ryde on the Isle of Wight.

The reasons for our leaving the Church Abroad were summarised in a letter which I wrote on 13th December (n.s.) last year, namely: "In all conscience, members of the Brotherhood do not feel that we can accept the present rapprochement. The question of Sergianism does not seem to have been adequately addressed, and the Moscow Patriarchate' s involvement in ecumenism seems to be growing, although they have made some concessions on paper. More fundamentally, our acceptance of this mode of rapprochement requires us to accept that the Patriarchate is, and has been for decades, the Mother Church of Russia - this is not something that we have ever been taught. One may claim that the MP is the de facto Church in Russia, that she is established, even flourishing, - but, for a number of reasons, her canonical basis is not as firm as ROCA's was until in the last few years she has decided to allow that to be questioned."

Having thought and prayed about our dilemma and written to ruling ROCA hierarchs without receiving substantial replies, on our own initiative we opened a correspondence with Bishop Ambrose of Methoni of the Fili Synod. On 23rd December / 5th January, I wrote to Archbishop Mark, asking for letters of dismissal so that we might join the Synod in Resistance. His Eminence replied on 9th January that he could not issue such letters, saying: "I cannot grant such letters of dismissal by which I would agree to you placing yourself outside the Orthodox Church." As the Synod in Resistance had for many years been a Sister Church of ROCA, and there was no evidence that she had changed her confessional course, this response appeared to us to lack foundation and spiritual sobriety.

On 28th December / 10th January, Mother Vikentia and her sisterhood, Fr Stephen Fretwell and I were received by Metropolitan Cyprian into his spiritual and archpastoral care. I wrote to Archbishop Mark explaining why in all conscience we felt compelled to make this move:

"Thank you very much indeed for your letter December 2, 2006 / January 9, 2007 (sic). We appreciate that you did not feel able to give our communities a blessing to seek spiritual protection under the omophorion of Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos and Fili, but thank you for at least leaving the door open for us to leave, and not forbidding us to do so.

"Personally, I could not understand your objection, that by placing ourselves under the Synod in Resistance we would be placing ourselves outside the Church. One of the decisive factors in our joining Fili was that until recently they were a Sister Church of the Church Abroad, that in 1994, the Council of Bishops of ROCOR published minutes of a meeting held on 28th June / 11th July, in which they stated that the "Synod of Metropolitan Cyprian adheres wholly to the exact same ecclesiological and dogmatic principles as our Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia," and you yourself praised the witness of the Synod in Resistance when you visited Brookwood, shortly after going to Fili in your efforts to sort out the troubles which ensued when the Prophet Elias Skete on Athos was snatched from us.…

"Again I would like to thank you for your care in the past, and express our sorrow that in all conscience we feel unable to follow Your Grace and those with you into union with the present administration of the Moscow Patriarchate. We feel no sense of triumphalism over this move, but a sadness that the Church which we have tried faithfully to serve for years has changed her course to one which we do not recognise."
I hope this notice will help you understand our situation, and the reasons for our move. We have no desire to cajole anyone into following us if they consider our present course misguided, we have no wish to enter into polemical dispute with any one, but we hope and pray that, through our unworthy ministry, the Good Shepherd will continue to nourish and care for the flock entrusted to us and those that follow us.

In the love of Christ Jesus our Saviour and Benefactor,
the sinful monk and unworthy priest,
Archimandrite Alexis,
Brookwood , England

[ioannis]

We would reassure the faithful who are scandalized by these two events and to them we say the following. The Church goes on. The Fili Synod, with its 64 priests, is faced by the worldwide family of Local Orthodox Churches, with its 64,000 priests,

And this is what it all really comes down to for people I fear - the heard mentality.

In Ft. McLeod Alberta (my uncle was mayor for many years) there is a place called the "buffalo jump". This is where the native Indians used to get a large group of buffalo spooked and when the stampede started, they would corral them to a cliff where every last one of them would follow the others off the edge. The Indians had quite a harvest of raw meat for some time.

It doesn't seem this person has read Holy Scripture at all, because then he would realize that if it was a simple question of numbers, he would most certainly be standing with the enemies of Christ.

[Benjamin W. C. Waterhouse]

We would reassure the faithful who are scandalized by these two events and to them we say the following. The Church goes on. The Fili Synod, with its 64 priests, is faced by the worldwide family of Local Orthodox Churches, with its 64,000 priests,

And this is what it all really comes down to for people I fear - the heard mentality.

In Ft. McLeod Alberta (my uncle was mayor for many years) there is a place called the "buffalo jump". This is where the native Indians used to get a large group of buffalo spooked and when the stampede started, they would corral them to a cliff where every last one of them would follow the others off the edge. The Indians had quite a harvest of raw meat for some time.

It doesn't seem this person has read Holy Scripture at all, because then he would realize that if it was a simple question of numbers, he would most certainly be standing with the enemies of Christ.

Indeed, the "Bishop" of Rome has many more "priests" than the MP...

In Him
SB

[strastnaya]

Indeed, the "Bishop" of Rome has many more "priests" than the MP...

That is what is known as a false analogy.
By no definitions is are the RC's considered Orthodox and they espouse dogmatic differences that have historically placed them outside of communion with the Church.
The Russian Patriarchal Church espouses only the Orthodox faith, is in communion with all the other Orthodox churches, is by self-definition and acknowledged by reasonable people to be an Orthodox Church.
You may wish to describe its faults and failings but comparing it to the RC's is a weak argument.
In Christ
Deacon John

[ioannis]

Dear Deacon John,

The Balamand Confession of faith is heretical, and not only are there dozens of signatures of "Orthodox" churches on that document, but at least one represents a MP bishop on behalf of their church.

Not only that, but the MP in in communion with many known heretics who have openly confessed heresy, such as the most notable - Bartholomew.

In addition, these other churches the MP is in communion with openly commune with, share clergy, build shared churches with Monophysites.

I don't think it is at all unreasonable to compare them with the RCs. I'll grant you that the RCs are much further gone, but once you are gone, what really is the difference of how much?