ROCOR and Moscow Reunification [sic]

[Catherine5]

It's shocking about Fr Damascene but he's not my kind of monk anyway. Off-putting; grates the wrong way. On the positive, he is very interested in China, where the Monastery is trying to establish a mission it is said.

News in now that new Abbot selected by former Abbot Gerasim, according to Platina tradition, is a Fr Hilarion. Whoever he is, he will have to be better than Fr Damascene, thank God for that! Fr. Gerasim has good sense.

He has left for up to a year at St Vladimir's to gain the required seminary education for OCA Bishophood.

Meanwhile back at the Platina ranch, Fr Hilarion will be elevated in a few days, Sept 2 or 3, in a ceremony performed by their Serbian Bishop Maxim.

[Joanna Higginbotham]

That is just awful news about Fr. Damascene - St. Vlads? ugh. You seem to have hope for the new Abbot Fr. Hilarion. But, I don't see any of them having sense enough to stay out of World 0rthodoxy. Fr. Seraphim's anniversary of his repose is September 2. He was planning to leave Platina before he died, I learned from somebody who knew him at the time. This 1994 book review [link below] by Fr, Alexey Young has been erased from the 0rthodox America online offerings.

http://startingontheroyalpath.blogspot. ... -2003.html

[mtcarmel]

Perhaps they found out that Fr. Alexey started a Western rite Orthodox parish (St. Augustine's) with the Antiochians at one time.

elias

---

This 1994 book review by Fr, Alexey Young has been erased from the 0rthodox America online offerings.

[Catherine5]

What stage of Fr Alexey's ecclesiastical path was that? He started out with the strict Fr Seraphim, unlike many who went from Antiochians to more Traditional groups as soon they understood more. In his case after Fr Seraphim's death, we hear that he drifted around back and forth between ROCOR and OCA, but this is new, Antiochians? Where was it, St Augustine Florida?
At last word, wasn't he with Greek Archdiocese in the Mid-West? Any update?

Regarding the Platina monks: I'm sorry I did not make that clear. It's Fr Gerasim who's at St Vladimir's. However perhaps Fr Damascene may be tapped at some point too for a Bishop position. If for OCA post, he will presumably beat the same path to a seminary door.
One can only try to put an amusing face on upsetting news by imagining that Fr Damascene may be sharpening his abilities to advocate for Sergianism to prepare for an MP or MP-friendly hierarchical position...

Abbot-elect Hilarion's positions on Traditionalism are not clear. He is a new arrival; having moved to Platina fairly recently. He was ordained after the sad death of his wife. I think that is a noble choice for anyone to employ his or her life in service to God behind a monastery's calming walls - rather than barricading oneself behind those of self-pity and anger, as many tend to do.
Abbot Hilarion was selected due to his greater life experience; he is 62, and deemed better to counsel the numerous seekers of advice who consult the famous monastery's monastics.

The majority of the St Herman monks are more traditional than not: they threatened to walk out if their monastery joined the OCA. And too, the original first choice of Fr Gerasim was the more conservative JP, for the record. But after a trip there and meetings with the JP acting head at the time, that fell through.
Hence the Serbians; 'any port in a storm' may well have been the operative philosophy.

[Joanna Higginbotham]

Perhaps they found out that Fr. Alexey started a Western rite Orthodox parish (St. Augustine's) with the Antiochians at one time.

It is clear that Fr. Ambrose/Alexey never did "get it" about the Royal Path.

St Herman monks ... threatened to walk out if their monastery joined the OCA.

I feel bad for the Platina monks who refuse to join the 0CA. Don't they realize that they were already concelebrating with the 0CA even before the R0C0R+MP union? Probably not. Monks are spoon fed by their Abbot and not allowed to think anything contrary without feeling guilty about it.

God, save us!

[mtcarmel]

Bless his heart. Fr. Alexey wrote many wonderful things.

It may have been in the times following the death of his wife.

In any case, he eventually dropped his momentary facination with evangelicals converting to "orthodoxy" through the Antiochian jurisdiction in America.

elias

[Pravoslavnik]

Father Alexey Young (now Hieromonk Ambrose Young)--who is perhaps the closest living disciple of Father Seraphim Rose-- became involved with two Western Rite Anitiochian "convert" parishes in Denver, Colorado in the early 1990s-- St. Mark's and St. Augustine's. St. Mark's was established as a parish of Anglican converts, and St. Augustine's, as a parish of "Old Catholics." Father Aexey did not found either parish, but was associated with both for a few years before returning to the ROCOR in about 1996. Through his affiliation with the Antiochians, he travelled throughout the U.S. and even to Great Britain in a missionary capacity in the 1990s. His Matushka reposed after he had returned to the ROCOR.

Code: Select all

  My impression is that Father Alexey Young believed that the Antiochians were more committed to Orthodox missionary outreach to the the heterodox in America than were the ROCOR hierarchs, especially after the acceptance of the Evangelicals associated with Peter Gilquist into the Antiochian Archdiocese.  This missionary focus was important to Father Alexey, and may have been partly related to a specific injunction that he once received from ROCOR Bishop Nektary (Kontzevich.) As a cradle Roman Catholic, Father Alexey was also interested in the Orthodox traditions of the Latin Church (as were Father Seraphim Rose and St. John Maximovitch, of course!)

  Although I would not presume to speak for Hieromonk Ambrose, my impression is that he became disillusioned with a number of things about the Western Rite and the Antiochian Archdiocese before returning to the ROCOR.  He then entered the ROCOR Hermitage of the Holy Cross in about 2000, a few years after the repose of his Matushka.  With regard to the various jurisdictions, Father Alexey once told me that he had never found any parish or Orthodox jurisdiction in his later years which compared to his liturgical and spiritual experiences during his formative years with Father Seraphim Rose at Platina.  This was a source of some sorrow for him personally.  Father Alexey also generally shied away from political turmoil and bickering.  My sense is that he always tried to focus on maintaining a sense of inner peacefulness and an absence of malice, despite conflicts that invariably arise in ecclesiastical settings.