ROCOR and Moscow Reunification [sic]

[Kybihetz21]

The pictures of the failed abduction of Metropolitan Vitalii (of blessed memory) were taken my one of my friends. Another one also tried to videotape the event, but only a few minutes remain (you may do a search and find the video, its all over the Internet) since the thugs sent by the “bishops” in the Synod headquarters destroyed the camera so no documentary evidence could be shown to the world. I was not present at the actual incident, but many trustworthy individuals and personal friends where, and later on Metropolitan Vitalii himself narrated to me an account of the events that took place that fateful day. The Metropolitan was dragged, hit (a cushion/pillow was used to avoid marks), lifted up and in the rush, DROPPED on the driveway, pushed around and insulted by the attorneys and hooligans of the official ROCOR, with the blessing of “Metropolitan” Laurus, and in the presence of “Bishop” Michael, “Priest” Paul Iwascewicz, and other “God loving and faithful children of the Church”. You need to keep in mind that the Metropolitan was already over 90 years old. While all of this took place, the Canadian police arrived, and put an end to this situation. As a result, the so called “Bishop” Michael was forbidden (some say under threat of arrest) to enter Canadian soil, and subsequently was transferred to the Boston Diocese (at the death of another sad figure in the history of ROCOR, Bishop Mitrophan, of whom I shall briefly comment in the next paragraph), and afterwards to Russia and Western Europe.

As regards to Bishop Mitrophan, he was just a pro Sergianist and pro MP clergyman that went as far as to allow MP clergy to concelebrate/commune in his parish and who at one point (in my presence) claimed that “Patriarch” Aleksei was a “man of great prayer” and with whom he admitted he had corresponded for years in a personal basis (this boast of friendship occurred many years prior to the physical union with the Soviet Church).

Let me give a final comment on the so called “resignation” of 2001 of Metropolitan Vitalii. During one of the sessions of the Synod, the Metropolitan was trying to talk and he kept being interrupted by the other bishops, mainly Mark of Berlin, and Gabriel of Manhattan (who even yelled at the Metropolitan and told him to shut up/be quiet). At one point, Vladika Vitalii stood up and announced that he was going to retire (leave the room where the meeting was taking place) since nobody was listening to him. He also said that “if you don’t want to obey me/listen to me, I no longer wish to be your Metropolitan”. That said, he took the Kursk Icon, and without the help of any of the present bishops, left to his chambers in the Synodal building. Once he left, Archbishop Mark of Berlin instructed Bishop Gabriel (as secretary to the Synod of Bishops) to duly enter the “wish” of the Metropolitan to retire and to prepare for the election of a new first hierarch. This, as well as the continuation of the meeting, occurred against the rules of the ROCOR, which state that no session of the Synod of Bishops shall occur and take place without the presence of the of its president, if alive, in this case, the First Hierarch of ROCOR, Metropolitan Vitalii. There is of course much more to all of this, but that will be the subject of another post.

[Pravoslavnik]

Catherine;

Code: Select all

Here is a link to some photos of the 2001 physical assault/abduction of elderly ROCOR First Hierarch Metropolitan Vitaly (Ustinov) by the MP-ROCOR thug Michael Donskoff and his KGB/MP people who have now taken over the ROCOR.  Does anyone else agree with Mt. Carmel/Elias (and MP-ROCOR priest David Moser) that these photos are not violent or "disturbing"?  

http://www.monasterypress.com/metro22FrameSet.htm

[Catherine5]

Just as we all who watched the merger closely predicted, the relics of Grand Duchess Elizabeth and Nun Barbara have become literally
"Bones of Contention".

The story of what happened at that meeting is UNBELIEVABLE, Kyb. Now we can get a much fuller understanding of the ruse used to claim that Met Vitaly called the meeting to announce his imminent retirement, the party line given out by official ROCOR-MP sources.
I can hardly believe Bp Gabriel telling the Met to shut up! He's still a bishop - ??
Fr Paul I. was close friends with Bp Gabriel people say so no wonder he was involved with all this. I didn't even know that part; I thought he and his brother were sympathetic to Met Vitaly and very close with him from the time of Vitaly's assignment to a South America Diocese. Wasn't the future 4th Met of ROCOR consecrated as Bishop of Uruguay?

Thanks for providing the actual link, Prav. I;m not one to pursue mentions of things without the link, as I guess I'm not confident enough in my computer abilities!
The pictures are beyond words. I never suspected that such cruelty would have been leveled against what should have been an elderly prelate needing assistance.

The MIchael Donskoff group acted like assassins!
I bet at least one of them was trying to kill the inconveniently anti-MP Metropolitan Vitaly but had to call it off and settle for the beating up when unanticipated witnesses opposed their assault on the fragile old man. No matter what he had done wrong in his life, his agonized expressions, caught so well by the camera, inspire intense pathos. I will have to check around for the video, which would bring the scene even more to life.

I would like to see what all those ROCOR-MP parishioner-groupies, the "Meg Lark" types with MP stars in their eyes, would come up with to airbrush this over? "Oh, well, Bishop Michael MUSTA had a blessing for that, so it's all right, anything is OK as long as one can conjure up a blessing, even cold-blooded murder of the former Metropolitan of your Church! Now let me go back to this sweater I was knitting for my nephew when you interrupted me with a tiresome question".

Well, have you all by now seen this appalling news of Mr. Donskoff back on stage again in his next performance as ROCOR-MP's Thug-in-Chief?

Excerpt from the shocking letter published by NFTU this weekend follows below. The content is mouth-dropping and the conclusion powerful.

It was written by a courageous ROCOR-MP priest, one of the 4 they have for the two Holy Land convents, protesting the latest action of Mr Donskoff stamped with the Mark of Berlin Omophorion of Approval. [Nobody could persuade me that this man, M.D., is not a willing accomplice with the forces over there. Clearly he was neither blackmailed or intimidated into going with the union. Rather it seems he and the KGB, etc. are close cronies.]

"An Open Letter to the ROCOR(MP) Hierarch Metropolitan Hilarion.
"With sorrow in my soul, I nonetheless decided to describe what I witnessed at the Gethsemane Convent on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. The Abbess of the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent in Moscow, Natalya Moliboga, flew into Jerusalem in the first week of June, 2009. She met with Hegumena Elizabeth, the Abbess of the Gethsemane Convent. She has tried in the past to convince the Hegumena to give her a large number of relics of Elizabeth Feodorovna for the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent in Moscow, explaining that the Mayor of Moscow, Yuriy Luzhkov, has demanded to take all of the relics of Elizabeth Feodorovna.

In the middle of June, Yekaterina [former wife of oligarch Anisimov] suddenly arrived in Jerusalem by private jet... Bishop Mikhail (Donskov) of Geneva arrived with her in the plane. He declared that as a bishop of the ROCOR(MP), he has a blessing from Archbishop Mark (Arendt) of Berlin and Germany, who cares for the Russian convents in the Holy Land, to transfer a significant part of the relics of Elizabeth Feodorovna to the nuns of the convent. All attempts by Hegumena Elizabeth to contact Archbishop Mark were unsuccessful. He would later say that “unknown forces” disconnected his cell phone and he was unable to use it for five days.

The two demanded that they be given the head of the martyred Saint Elizabeth Feodorovna. The Hegumena and the nuns categorically refused to fulfill this demand. Bishop Mikhail (Donskov) insisted that since he had received the blessing of Archbishop Mark, they should voluntarily give what is asked to avoid any conflicts with Mayor Luzhkov. Yekaterina Anisimova also insisted that transferring the relics was a personal request of the Patriarch. The most amazing thing was that neither Bishop Mikhail nor Anisimova could provide Hegumena Elizabeth any document or letter signed by Mayor Luzhkov, Patriarch Kirill, or at least Archbishop Mark.

After many hours of heated and harsh negotiations, Hegumena Elizabeth eventually did agree to let them have a piece of Elizabeth Feodorovna’s arm, on the condition of a written agreement, which was drafted and signed. The agreement states that no one from the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent or any representative of the Moscow Patriarchate will ever again request all or any part of the relics of the Grand Duchess. The agreement also states that this matter will never be discussed again.

The visitors kept saying that Mayor Luzhkov will continue to use any eans he can to transfer all of the relics of Elizabeth Feodorovna to Moscow. They said that he has all the necessary paperwork. When asked by the nuns how Bishop Mikhail happened to arrive in the plane with this delegation, he answered that they “just happened to meet me in Rome and took me along.” It was an unbelievable tragedy for those nuns who were present and witnessed to see how the piece of the forearm was broken off and taken away as the agreed-upon relic....

It is well known that the centennial of the founding of the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent in Moscow will be celebrated in September of this year. One of my spiritual daughters, who had been in Moscow, told me that a crypt for the relics of the Grand Duchess has already been prepared in the Church of the Protection of the Most Holy Theotokos in the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent. Apparently, it contains the vestments of the Grand Duchess and her pectoral cross. Even though it is known that these items were not on her, when Sokolov, the investigator, exhumed the body of Grand Duchess from the mineshaft near Alapaevsk...

I believe that a desecration of the relics of Elizabeth Feodorovna has occurred on the eve of the celebration of centennial of the founding of the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent, and that it can be compared only to her murder in 1918."<

---

I bet that that agreement will be torn in shreds by MP functionaries within about 5 years.
There was nothing to do after reading this but to play my CD of Pierre de la Rue's "Mass of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary"...hope that doesn't offend anyone
Katie

[Pravoslavnik]

Well, I'm not surprised to hear about Monsieur Donskoff's latest international intrigues. What can one say about a man who was once photographed while attempting to strangle his own elderly Metropolitan by an automobile? He reminds me of the men who threw grenades down the well where St. Elisabeth (Romanov) was thrown with the Nun Barbara...

[Catherine5]

Yeah! Seems there's a bad run of Boston ROCOR bishop for decades...maybe that's why that post has been left to languish.
God was outraged so much that the ROCOR-MP lackey circles can sense this even through their thick lizard-like skins...!

I was looking up Bishop Mitrophan of Boston, reposed 2002; strangely today, August 17, happens to be his birthday in 1909, so I guess it may be Mitrophan discussion day!
I was interested in what Kyb. had to say above.

Reading over his bio, cryptic is mention is made of Vitaly supporters and ROAC supporters as having criticized him. The biographer, a Priest Andre Papkov who was Bp Mitrophan's protege, makes sure to sound indignant at this persecution which he implies was baseless.
I'd like to know what the accusations actually were: probably just what Kyz says.
[But it's perplexing that Bp Mitrophan was the spiritual father of Met Vitaly. That doesn't add up.]
Priest Mitrophan is billed as a favorite of Metropolitan Anastassy, ROCOR's First Hierarch; but is unable to use his superior talents due to outcry by those who later "left the Church" with the "schisms", which is for the biographer, sufficient evidence of how wrong they were about his ecclesiastical champion.

I would like to understand better what was going on.
To give credit due to Bishop Mitrophan, he taught without pay at Jordanville, helped the sick, etc.
But I find I don't care for something in his expression in either the 1940's photograph from German DP camp where he served as priest, or those of him as an elderly man. He looks a bit unstable emotionally -- and something fake in his gaze.

For a clue, let's look back to a possibly suspicious time in Fr Mitrophan's 11 year tenure, during the height of Cold War times, as head of ROCOR churches in North Africa.
Why was he posted there, one wonders? To keep him away from ROCOR Central? Who assigned him?

According to a very knowledgeable source, all Russian clergy who were in that region were somehow or another working for the kgb. At the least, they were beholden somehow or blackmailed to the Soviet intelligence service.

This was the absolute "rule" there and in most all Arab countries.

Why do we never hear anything about those parishes in Morocco, Tunisia, etc> They are almost forgotten. Some former North African parishioners do survive today, but they are reticent and offer nothing to gain insight into the church life of emigre Russians.

Then after the bungled attempt on Met Vitaly's life, M Donskoff was tucked away in the quiet Boston post. Jokingly, there are small shades of Carlos the Jackal dropping off the radar until the coast was clear before swooping down for a lightning attack of international piracy from his convenient base in Geneva, or wherever the ROCOR Bishop of Western Europe resides.
Convenient place to mix with Russian oligarchs and others.
I'm sure to establish their credibility as real jet setters, they all take ski trips to St Moritz, or vacation in the Alps to get away from the pollution made by their industrial concerns in Russia. Meetings between them and Monsieur Michael wouldn't have a pretence of any religious nature.
Oh, except when it comes to conniving with suspicious elements to literally pry relics away-- from one's own convent.

Orthodox reporters might examine Mr M.D.'s wrist to see if he is newly sporting a toned-down model of the Breguet watch as his reward from his cronies...

So what's next, we are just waiting to hear
In fact, stories are being whispered that the Kursk Icon will be confiscated when it arrives in Russia on its upcoming "visit". Persons who know about the type of deception done by East bloc countries with Icons or valuable art are suspicious.
They direly say there's a distinct possibility that the Kursk Icon may be sold on the black market in Russia, or kept. Only a copy will make its way back to the shores of America, these ROCOR people warn.
Is this theory cynical distrust based on Cold War mentalities; far-fetched bordering on paranoia --or something to be alarmed over ??

[Kybihetz21]

I would like to provide some insight information and to answer some of the questions posted by some of the members of this forum.

Let’s start with the Iwascewicz brothers (Pablo/Paul and Alejandro/Alexander). They are the children of Archpriest Valentin, of the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Buenos Aires, Argentina. By marriage they are related to other “clergy families” of both South America and the U.S. These relatively young priests studied in the ROCOR seminary in Jordanville, NY. Sometime in the late eighties or early nineties (I don’t recall exactly when) they came under the mantle of Metropolitan Vitalii. I think that Alejandro was his driver, while Pablo was some sort of secretary/assistant. How they came to be in those positions, once again, I don’t seem to recall (I have know them both for quite a few years, but because of personal differences we have not spoken to each other in about 7 years or so …). Eventually they were married and ordained as assistant priests and they all went their way. I was surprised that Fr. Paul collaborated so freely in the vendetta fuelled by the official ROCOR hierarchy against Vladika Metropolitan and all his supporters, but then, Judas was also an apostle.

Metropolitan Vitalii was originally consecrated as Bishop of Sao Paulo, in Brazil. I loved his stories about the Russian communities in South America, and how he used to minister to Orthodox families in the Amazon jungle. He also opened a few parishes in the area (Brazil/South America).

To keep within the subject of Vladika Vitalii, I remember how he was called both a heretic and a schismatic by Metropolitan Laurus and the canaille that ruled around him, but that even though he was “outside the Church”, as quoted and preached by Archimandrite Luke (Murianka) and many others, they always tried to take him back to the official headquarters in Park Avenue, and even after his dead, there were talks of Laurus wanting the body to be taken to Jordanville!!! Just to prove the laughable nonsense of their preaching, about a year after the repose of Vladika Vitalii, a funeral was served by all the members of the synod of bishops of ROCOR, for the repose of the “Ever Memorable Metropolitan Vitalii” (who had formerly been a heretic and a schismatic, wonder what they were thinking when they decided to pray for someone that was not a member of their “Church”). They had also prayed for his repose and celebrated pannihidas when news of his death reached the “ROCOR” circles … all of these events were not but machinations to legalize their unlawful and ungodly organization, which was posing as the real ROCA (Patriarch Aleksei II had instructed them to do so, in order to bring some legitimization to their schism, and to complete the façade of authenticity).

Priest Andre Papkov has been known (along with his now deceased father in law, Archpriest Roman Lukianov) as a great supporter of the MP. He had participated in numerous meetings and even concelebrated with members of the Soviet Church. He was also a great admirer of Bishop Mitrophan (Znosko – Borovsko), another Machiavellian figure in the history of the Russian Church. If I remember his words correctly, Bishop Mitrophan came from a long line of Polish clergymen, and quite a few of his relatives were priests, maybe even bishops, in the Orthodox Church. He was an interesting character, definitively one NOT to be trusted at all by anyone. He was also very smart, cunning, intelligent, witty and rather contradictory in his views and actions … I never understood how someone, from the “Old School”, as we used to call the clergy that never supported the union, or that were part of the old émigré/original ROCOR community, could be such an ardent supporter of the union with the Soviets. I could only deduce that he may had been an agent since the beginning (like Archbishop Mark of Berlin, or Anthony of Geneva, or one of the other “wolves in sheep’s clothing” that infiltrated the ROCA since its foundations). I was never fond of Bishop Mitrophan, and avoided him as much as I could, since I knew he was not part of “our” Church, at least spiritually.

Let me have a last word, regarding the parishes in North Africa and the Middle East. Although it is my understanding that some of those communities closed after certain time, I did know that even until recently, there were some churches still open in Morocco, while I believe that the ones in Egypt and Iran have been lost already (most of those churches were either taken over by the MP at some point, or just closed because of the lack of a permanent parish priest and the death of the parishioners). I had been told by a seminarian in Jordanville (about 10 years ago) that there was still a church open in Istanbul, of all places, served by a priest ordained by either Metropolitan Anastasii or Antonii, but that no one seemed to care about him, and that he practically lived in seclusion in the same compound as the church building. Maybe someone else could provide some facts about this, since I had not had the opportunity to visit Turkey to corroborate that.

[Joanna Higginbotham]

The Platina Brotherhood is due to elect a new Abbot.
--Hope it's not the high-profile Fr Damascene, who recently was reported to have been working overtime to convince a poor layman to accept the beauties of .... ready for this?
Not monasticism, not the Russian Church, not the Serbian Saints, but : Sergianism!!

Catherine, would you please elaborate on this? Abbot Damascene has betrayed us all and betrayed Fr. Seraphim's memory by his false preaching that Fr. Seraphim was headed towards World 0rthodoxy before he died. Now this!?