A Lecture by Fr. Seraphim Rose

jckstraw72 · Post by **jckstraw72** » Sun 3 August 2008 4:21 pm

well i know the authority of this has already been called into question, but it says it in Fr. Seraphim's bio somewhere. i dont know the exact page since its such a massive book.

joasia · Post by **joasia** » Mon 4 August 2008 10:59 pm

jckstraw72 wrote:

well i know the authority of this has already been called into question, but it says it in Fr. Seraphim's bio somewhere. i dont know the exact page since its such a massive book.

A comment like this requires a reference. Please provide one. I'd like to follow up on this.

jckstraw72 · Post by **jckstraw72** » Mon 4 August 2008 11:22 pm

speaking of St. John: "As Eugene wrote, however, "he was absolutely above 'parties,'" and thus he could not be counted on to adhere to the isolationist position that many wished to see prevail in the Church Abroad. He had been known to concelebrate, for example, with clergy of the Moscow Patriarchate, the "Evlogite" Church, and the New Calendar Orthodox Churches, an action which many considered taboo. In 1945, while serving in Shanghai, he had also been known to comemorate the newly elected Patriarch of Moscow, Alexey I, along with Met. Anastassy during Church services. For this he was suspected by some people of having mixed loyalties and a dangerous sympathy with the Soviet-dominated Moscow Patriarchate." --- Fr. Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works, pg. 228.

speaking of the controversy when St. John was taken to court: "The strife was so intense that Archbishop John blessed several members of his flock to go to the Moscow Patriarchate church in San Francisco instead of his own church. Here, once again, he showed a lack of political partisanship and a spiritual vision of the unity of the Church that transcended jurisdictional divisions. Boris Massenkoff and other orphans were among those whom Archbishop John sent to the "rival" Russian church." -- pg. 235

also,
"The part of the Russian Church that finds itself abroad considers itself an inseparable, spiritually united branch of the Great Russian Church. It does not separate itself from its Mother Church and it does not consider itself autocephalous" -- Resolution of the Council of Bishops of the Russian Church Abroad, Sept. 1927

GOCPriestMark · Post by **GOCPriestMark** » Tue 5 August 2008 12:45 am

jckstraw72 wrote:
also,
"The part of the Russian Church that finds itself abroad considers itself an inseparable, spiritually united branch of the Great Russian Church. It does not separate itself from its Mother Church and it does not consider itself autocephalous" -- Resolution of the Council of Bishops of the Russian Church Abroad, Sept. 1927

I don't know about the rest of your quotes, but this 1927 resolution pre-dates the founding of the MP in 1943.

jckstraw72 · Post by **jckstraw72** » Tue 5 August 2008 2:41 pm

I don't know about the rest of your quotes, but this 1927 resolution pre-dates the founding of the MP in 1943.

did ROCOR make any statements concerning their relationship with the MP after 1943?

Pravoslavnik · Post by **Pravoslavnik** » Tue 5 August 2008 3:15 pm

The ROCOR Synod has made a long series of formal, public statements with regard to the MP from 1927 to the present, including specific statements in which they did not recognize the various newly "elected" Moscow Patriarchs of the former Soviet Union as legitimate Church authorities. If I am not mistaken, this was also the case with the "election" of Patriarch Alexey II, who has been clearly identified as a decorated former KGB agent. St. John was briefly in communion with the MP during World War II under the bewildering political circumstances of the time, but was not in communion with the MP during his subsequent tenure as a hierarch of the ROCOR. The historic decisions of the ROCOR Synod regarding the MP only changed after Metropolitan Vitaly (Ustinov)was deposed from the leadership of the Synod after 2000.

Incognito1583 · Post by **Incognito1583** » Tue 5 August 2008 11:03 pm

jckstraw72 wrote:
speaking of St. John: "As Eugene wrote, however, "he was absolutely above 'parties,'" and thus he could not be counted on to adhere to the isolationist position that many wished to see prevail in the Church Abroad. He had been known to concelebrate, for example, with clergy of the Moscow Patriarchate, the "Evlogite" Church, and the New Calendar Orthodox Churches, an action which many considered taboo. In 1945, while serving in Shanghai, he had also been known to comemorate the newly elected Patriarch of Moscow, Alexey I, along with Met. Anastassy during Church services. For this he was suspected by some people of having mixed loyalties and a dangerous sympathy with the Soviet-dominated Moscow Patriarchate." --- Fr. Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works, pg. 228.

From the same book:

"With his hope in the future healing of the Russian Church, Fr. Seraphim hoped in the future restoration of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad to liturgical communion with the main body of the Russian Orthodox Church inside Russia, the Moscow Patriarchate...... it had been Archbishop John who had first installed such hope in him." [p. 993].

Archbishop John had written:

"The Russian Church Outside of Russia spiritually is not separated from her suffering Mother. She offers up prayers for her, preserves her spiritual and material wealth, and in due time she will unite with her, when the reason for their disunity shall have vanished." [Orthodox Word, no. 37 (1971), p. 79].

This fact seriously millitates against some of the opinions I have read on this thread. What do we do when the alleged saints contradict each other?