Interesting note about Fr Ambrose Mooney (ROCOR-MP)

[Suaidan]

Hello all,

Apparently, through the message being sent to me, I made a fascinating discovery.

During the period leading up to the ROCOR schism of 2007, Fr Ambrose (Mooney) was agitating-- heavily-- for union with the Moscow Patriarchate online. Indeed, his pro-unionist stance and at times ridiculous behavior has gained him somewhat of a following. Many, including myself, suspected that he joined the ROCOR specifically to agitate for union; it made no sense that rather than join the MP, to which he was fully sympathetic, he joined ROCOR instead, and had been pushing for union with the MP vocally for years.

Then today I read the following:

"Suspension is a ghastly and emotionally churning time for a priest but it need not bring his world to a total end. I know. I have been suspended once by my former Serbian bishop for, of all things, not wishing to leave the Serbian Church and move into the Russian Church!" (The thread is apparently here, a discussion about the Protestant sympathizers in ROCOR's new Western rite grouping.)

Father Ambrose went into ROCOR under orders from his Bishop. It was not a suggestion, clearly, but an order. How many ROCOR-MP clergy, both present and former, were "ordered" to go into ROCOR to push for union?

Just an interesting thought.

[Suaidan]

Fr Ambrose Mooney has apparently placed the whole of this post above on the Paradosis list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/orthodox- ... age/142202

saying "Placed this here because I am banned from e-cafe, and so if the MAB deacon Joseph wishes to interact with me on this it has to be a venue where we may both write

Hierom. Ambrose"

What he fails to mention (but I am sure he knows) is that I am heavily moderated on that list, so I am, in effect, banned without grounds unless I fit within what World Orthodox are trying to accomplish there-- which is, as a long term goal, to embarrass us by blocking us from responding in a timely manner at certain points.

So, unfortunately, I am banned where he wants me to write. But he knows that. Most people don't though. Useful info for reference, folks.

[JHunt777]

What he fails to mention (but I am sure he knows) is that I am heavily moderated on that list, so I am, in effect, banned without grounds unless I fit within what World Orthodox are trying to accomplish there-- which is, as a long term goal, to embarrass us by blocking us from responding in a timely manner at certain points.

Dear Fr. Dcn. Joseph,

Are you being serious when you say that you are "in effect, banned" or "heavily moderated" on that list? I would find that very surprising. I just noticed a post from you there last week. This month you have posted there a few other times, and since January you have submitted over 200 posts to that list. Have you submitted other posts that have been rejected? I'm not the moderator, but it doesn’t seem that the list is moderated hardly at all. Vladimir Moss freely posts all of his new articles, which do not exactly "fit with what Orthodox are trying to accomplish", so your explanation seems a bit far-fetched. I have noticed that very few actually post on that list (though perhaps there is more activity than on E Cafe), but if this minimal activity is from "heavy moderation" I would be interested to know, since I had no indication that such was the case.

Regarding Fr. Ambrose, I am surprised that you think that he played a major role in the reunion between MP and ROCOR. He certainly favored the union and expressed his desire for the reunion on various Internet lists, but his position is not at all surprising since he was from the Serbian Patriarchate which was always in communion with both ROCOR and the MP. The fact that he was sent by his Serbian bishop to ROCOR (with the agreement of the ROCOR bishop obviously), and years later on Internet lists he expressed hope for the reunion between the MP and ROCOR (and commented on how relations between ROCOR and the Serbian Church "always were" from his experience), this is a very far stretch from saying that he was "'ordered' to go to ROCOR to push for union". As far as I know, his "push for union" consisted only of comments on Internet discussion boards. I am pretty sure he was never part of any "joint commission" between the MP and ROCOR, nor did he have any other official position in the dialogue between the two parties. Furthermore, if you were going to "plant" a priest in ROCOR to play a critical role in making the reunion between the MP and ROCOR possible, would you send him to New Zealand? Such a move would not make any sense strategically.

In case you aren't familiar with the book, or haven't looked at it in a while, you may be interested to check out Fr. Michael Protopopov's "The Russian Orthodox Presence in Australia", which can be accessed at: http://dlibrary.acu.edu.au/digitalthese ... 2whole.pdf. If you search for "Mooney", this will lead to relevant information about Fr. Ambrose. He was from New Zealand, later was received into the Serbian Church, became a monk at the monastery in Zica, and was sent back to New Zealand in 1980. In New Zealand, he initially established a monastery but it seems that the needs of the parishes there were too great, and so he was sent to serve several parishes instead. He wasn't sent to ROCOR until 1996, but even before 1996 he served both Russian and Serbian parishes. Since he was from New Zealand, had studied Russian, and spent a few years in Serbia as a monk, he was probably considered a good fit for New Zealand where Russians and Serbians were without a priest. In 1996 he was formally told to go under the ROCOR bishop, but from this book it doesn’t seem that his roles or responsibilities changed. The change from the Serbian Church to ROCOR seems to have been merely administrative.

As far as "agitators" for the reunion are concerned, I would think Fr. Alexander Lebedeff and perhaps other priests in America, who were much "closer to the center", played a more significant role in defending ROCOR's discussion with the MP and the eventual reunion. Unlike Fr. Ambrose, Fr. Alexander was actually involved in the joint commissions, though with his lengthy history in ROCOR, including his time as cell attendant for Met Philaret, Fr. Alexander is even less likely to have been a "plant".

In any case, I found your conspiracy thinking on this subject to be quite ironic considering the facts that are available.

In Christ,

Jason

[Suaidan]

Dear Fr. Dcn. Joseph,

Are you being serious when you say that you are "in effect, banned" or "heavily moderated" on that list? I would find that very surprising. I just noticed a post from you there last week. This month you have posted there a few other times, and since January you have submitted over 200 posts to that list. Have you submitted other posts that have been rejected?

Yes.

[searn77]

Fr Ambrose Mooney has apparently placed the whole of this post above on the Paradosis list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/orthodox- ... age/142202

saying "Placed this here because I am banned from e-cafe, and so if the MAB deacon Joseph wishes to interact with me on this it has to be a venue where we may both write

Hierom. Ambrose"

What he fails to mention (but I am sure he knows) is that I am heavily moderated on that list, so I am, in effect, banned without grounds unless I fit within what World Orthodox are trying to accomplish there-- which is, as a long term goal, to embarrass us by blocking us from responding in a timely manner at certain points.

So, unfortunately, I am banned where he wants me to write. But he knows that. Most people don't though. Useful info for reference, folks.

Yea, I only made one post on that list and it took about 5 days for them to put it up. Not sure what the reasoning for for the delay was though.

[Pravoslavnik]

For the record, on the subject of the MP and internet censorship, something happened to me a few years ago which I never mentioned publicly, as I recall. It was around the time of the ROCOR-MP union in 2006 or early 2007. At the time, I was trying to find information, and to engage in an on-line discussion about the Act of Canonical Union, on a Yahoo group website for members of the ROCOR, moderated by the pro-union ROCOR-MP priest, Fr. John Whitefield.

Code: Select all

 I was somewhat surprised when Fr. John Whitefield abruptly banned me from this Yahoo group after I tried to post some questions and concerns about the Act of Canonical Communion.  It was obvious to me at the time that this Yahoo "ROCOR" group was not the least bit interested in engaging in an honest, civil discussion about the impending union.  In fact, it was downright creepy-- like something out of George Orwell's novel [i][u]1984[/u][/i] or the Soviet Union in the Stalinist era.

[jgress]

I keep hearing this thing about how ROCOR was "always" in communion with the SP. But Vladimir Moss in his article about the fall of the Serbian Church includes much evidence that many in ROCOR, including Met Philaret and Abp Averky, did not see it this way. In particular, the concelebration of priests under Abp Anthony of Geneva with the SP (as attested also in Fr Basil Sakkas' book on the calendar question), was clearly a matter of controversy. It was certainly not as if everyone in ROCOR was happy to continue concelebrating with the Serbs, after they had already ceased concelebration with the new calendarists and entered into communion with the old calendarists.

I think the most parsimonious explanation is that, while there may have been no "official", i.e. Synodal declaration on continuing communion with the SP, the practice of the majority of the Synod was to avoid concelebration with the Serbs, just as with the new calendarist churches. The actions of priests in Western Europe, of which Fr Ambrose was a member, were thus the exception in ROCOR practice, not the rule.