Faterh Alexey Chesnokov was ordained to priesthood in Suzdal on Great Thursday, 11/24th of April. He was born in Suzdal and helped in Church from his early years. In 2002 he married the handmaid of God Marina. Father Alexey will serve in the Church of Saints Boris and Gleb in Suzdal.
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Moderator: Mark Templet
Father Ludmil Petrov was ordained to presthood by Bishop Gregory in Dormition Skete in Colorado. Father Lyudmil was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 1971 to an Orthodox family. In his lineage on his mother's side, there were seven priests and one archimandrite. This archimandrite was named Irenaios, and he, in 1945, was killed by the communists for the Faith. He was the proto-syngellos of the Metropolis of Sofia. He had published the well-known book in Bulgarian, Christianity and Communism. He also did extensive preaching against the atheistic communists. Because of his publication and his preaching, he was martyred one morning when the communists came and kidnapped him. He was never found again.
Father Lyudmil was one of two sons, and went to high school at the Spiritual Seminary in Sofia. Then he studied at the University of St. Clement of Ochrid in Sofia. After five years, he received a Masters Degree in Philosophy. He is now a PhD student majoring in Philosophical Anthropology at the Bulgarian Academy of Science, at the Institute for Philosophical Research. In 1992, he married the handmaid of God, Christina Radkova, who also had a Masters Degree of Theology from the University of St. Clement of Ochrid in Sofia. From 1993 to 2000, he was a teacher in the seminary in Sofia. During this time, he and his wife, along with three other people, translated the Philokalia from Russian into Bulgarian. This translation is now published in five volumes by the Bulgarian Monastery of Zographou on Mount Athos.
Father Lyudmil is an accomplished Byzantine chanter, and is proficient in chanting in Slavonic and Greek. He speaks Bulgarian, Russian, Greek, and is almost fluent in English. He was "ordained" in 1998 in the state church, and then joined Photios, a bishop of the Cyprian group for Bulgaria, in the year 2000. After understanding that the Cyprianite ecclesiology is faulty, he and his faithful followers did extensive research, studying all of the old calendar, or traditional, anti-ecumenical churches of Greece and Russia. Those with him also had theological training, and they decided to join Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church.
Father Lyudmil will be starting a church in the capital city of Sofia, commemorating the Sunday of All Saints. He has many devoted faithful who are of one mind with him, and their Godly desire is to establish true Orthodoxy in Bulgaria. May God bless their efforts and multiply them, that the glory of God may also shine once again in their God-loved country.
Arkady Iliushin, reader of Church of Tzar Nicolas and All New Martyrs of Russia in Moscow, was tonsured to monasticism of the 18th of March. The was ordained to priesthood on the 23rd of March 2003 by Archbishop Theodore. After servin his 40 Liturgies, Hieromonk Arkady will become the third priest of ROAC parish in Moscow.
Father Oleg Borodenkov was ordained to priesthood by Archbishop Theodore on the 22th of March 2003. Father Oleg is the member of parish of St. Tzarevitch Alexey in Mytishci, Moscow region, where an old catacomb priest serves. Father Alexay is 43 years old, he is medical doctor by profession, he is marries and has a son.
Father Alexey Gorin was ordained to priesthood in Tzar-Constantine Cathedral in Suzdal by Metropolitan Valentine. The ordination was performed on the 8th of October, the day of St. Evfrosinia of Suzdal. Father Alexey Gorin will serve in the city of Belorechensk, Krasnodar region. He was the head of community in Belorechensk, where they were performing readers services, going to the liturgies to at Otradnaya, there Protopriest Nicolas Hirnij serves.
Father Alexey is married and has four children. His community hopes to build a church in Belorechensk.
CHURCH OF ST.OLGA IN DANGER
Theophan (Ashurkov), the new bishop of Mosocw Patriarchate in Stavropol suddenly came into ROAC church of St.Olga in the city of Zheleznovodsk. He attentively looked at the interior, then went to church lodge and announced that women there should take a blessing from him and "return to mother-church". He made off when he was suggested to talk to priests.
Later it became known that on the MP clergy meeting this bishop Theophan promised to do all his best "to return" the church of St.Olga to MP (this church was built by its Rector Father George Novakovski and it is a copy of Tsar-Constantine church in Suzdal, some time ago they had to beat off several serious attacks of previous bishop of Moscow Partiarchate). Bishop Theophan of Moscow Patriarchate already prepared some documents for court to seize the building, also he is planning to start publishing different dirty articles in the local press.
THREE CHURCHES ROBBED IN SUZDAL
THREE CHURCHES ROBBED IN SUZDAL
In the middle of May new acts of blasphemy and sacrilege with respect to the churches of the Russian Orthodox Church in Suzdal were committed by unknown criminals. Some icons and pieces of church plate were stolen from the church of New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia which was constructed in 2000 on the initiative and under the guidance of Metropolitan Valentine in a new district of Suzdal; the bell tower of the church of St. Anthypa in Teremky street - which is near the building of ROAC Synod of bishops -- was left without its bells.
The citizens of Suzdal consider those crimes resulting from provocative statements of the former archpriest Andrew Osetrov on Vladymir TV. This person who slandered the Head of ROAC and initiated his prosecution claimed that Metropolitan Valentine was concealing "innumerable treasures" which should be passed to the parishes. As a matter of fact, the former archpriest called for the expropriation of those mythical "treasures" - that caused a new wave of crimes in Suzdal.
Several days later, in the night of May 23-24 four icons dating XIX century were stolen from Tsar Constantyne Cathedral in Suzdal, total value of which is estimated approximately at 40 thousand rub. The burglar penetrated into the Cathedral in the interval between 2 and 4 a.m., having bitten metal window bars with the help of hydraulic cutting pliers and having sawed a piece of the window frame in the side-altar in honour of All the Saints of Vladymir. The thief managed to get into the church through the Holy Gates.
At 4.30 the candle-lighter revealed burglary and called for the police who reached the spot in more than an hour. Judging from the remaining tracks and prints the expertize came to a preliminary conclusion: the crime was committed by two persons at least, one of them being a child or a lean juvenile who entered the temple through the window. The thief was gloved. In order to get inside the temple the criminals climbed over the fence. The burglars had to be in a hurry - it seems that they knew what to do and which pieces could be taken away.
It is the second burglary of Tzar Constatnyne Cathedral - which totally repeated the attempt of burglary undertaken a year ago on August 27. That time the burglars succeeded to bite window bars and got into the side-altar but were scared off by the presence of the candle-lighter and ran away having left a military radio transmitter and camouflage. The malefactors still remain undiscovered. The parishioners use to note that the number of crimes sharply increased during the period mayor Ryzhkov being in power. Local authorities remained indifferent to the declarations of Church representatives earlier, and it seems that at present they don't have any inclination to carry on criminal investigation and to punish the guilty. It seems that the outburst of crime admitted by the present Suzdal administration and ineffective activity - or inactivity - of the police which refuse to provide safety of ROAC believers and their temples will continue being part of the campain the aim of which is to discriminate ROAC.