:ohvey: I recall when I first visited the Monastery of St. Antony's in Florence, AZ, how one November morning during Matins, a monk came up to me and whispered in my ear, "They opened the crypts at Jordanville today in the morning and the relics of +Metropolitan Anastassy & +Metropolitan Philaret were found to be incorrupt". And at once it was as if a tremendous consolation was granted to me. In my heart I felt such love and contrition, such a depth of sorrow for my sinfulness and my unworthiness of the miracle, but at the same time the hope that holiness still persists despite our earthly afflictions and our loss of our true selves in sin. I was granted the gift of tears for a short time thereafter. The ephiphany allowed me to understand in a way words cannot express the dictum of St. Silouan, "Keep thy mind in hell, but despair not". I felt at that time that a great outpouring of grace would come, would validate our podvig and provide us with the strength to fuel the last flowering of Orthodoxy before the end...
Then, I encountered the positions of people like the Fr. Lebedeffs and Fr. Shaws of the world, who no longer consider ecumenism heresy, who feel the calendar schism is "no biggie", who see in renovationism and sergianism a partner for not just dialogue but submission and I understand a new course has been undertaken. Our Blessed Vladyka +Metropolitan Philaret was unequivocal in stressing his confession of Orthodoxy despite the politics of men and God has sent a message to us through his relics that his is the path of Blessedness and Truth. This is the podvig we all must bear, not compromise. This is the "extremism" the other party is alluding to. Those who know me, know I have been a voice supporting dialogue without compromise and have harboured loyalty to the wishes of St. Tikhon, but the interlocutors controlling the dialogue do not share this perspective. They have made it clear that ecumenism is not an issue which makes or breaks the dialogue, the spurious "autocephalies" they welcome as partners. They wish to offer legitimacy to those who have broken the Eucharistic unity of the Church with the calendar schism. They seek accomodation of the VERY renovationism St. Tikhon anathemized and they now wish amnesties to be issued to the sergianists, the institutions the sergianists have established and their active links now to organized crime and ecumenical money for doctrinal and ecclesiastical compromise. This spits in the face of the Holy New Martyrs and CONDONES the rape of Russia. Holy Martyrs such as +Joseph of Petrograd, +Kyrill of Kazan, +Peter of Krutitsk and +Agathangel of Yaroslavl by these actions are now the "extremists" and the "schismatics", whilst the followers of +sergius, +alexis I, +pimen, and +alexis II are now the "orthodox". Indeed, the whole of ROCOR and its history is branded schismatic by this camp, the Holy legacies of such spiritual giants as St. John of San Francisco. +Archbishop Andrew of Novo Diveevo, +Bishop Nektary of Seattle, bl. +Metropolitan Antony, +Archbishop Vitaly of Jordanville, +Archbishop Averky of Jordanville, +Archbishop Leonty of Chile, +Bishop Sava of Edmonton, +Archbishop Antony of San Francisco, Fr. Seraphim of Platina, Fr. Panteleimon of Jordanville, Fr. Constantine of Jordanville, Fr. Vladimir of Jordanville, Fr. Kiprian of Jordanville et al. I recall as a seminarian a conversation I had with the saintly monk, Fr. Luke (Smith), concerning the "flowering of Orthodoxy before the end". He related to me, "Rostislav, you must be careful not to be deceived as all that glitters will not be gold. The confessors may not survive into the next generation and what may be left to receive the consolation of the last flowering will be small, fractured cells whom our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ will unite to prosper and even give increase to." So it is today.
I can affirm as a moderate that the agenda being framed is being framed in such a way as to surrender the legacy of ROCOR and trample it underfoot. Indeed, when one hears on the lips of clerics such phrases as "ending isolation" and the time of "+Metropolitan Philaret has come and gone", that, indeed, all alarms must be sounded and opposition must be raised. The reception my tentative statements receive affirm to me that a new polarism is in place. I placed myself and my wife in fidelity to +Metropolitan Kiprianos and his Synodeia while maintaining a relationship with the Serbian Church, bodies with which ROCOR still shares communion and I am greated with the catcalls of "schismatic" and "extremist". Sic transit gloria mundi.
The issue is not that ROCOR has openly condoned ecumenism, what matters is that it no longer openly speaks against it, that it is prepared to forego the CONFESSION OF BLESSED +Metropolitan Philaret to approach a union with the sergianists who have not diappeared but rather have mutated and now collaborate with those bodies robbing and pimping Russia. They, the sergianists, live in largesse, chauffered in limousines while the old babushki and djedushki sleep in cardboard boxes and die of starvation and exposure. I recall a conversation I had with a recent immigrant, a former spetnatz soldier in Afganistan, how he came to America and why he is not Orthodox, but Christian. He told me, "his friend" to survive had to join the maffia. The maffia demanded that he commit an act of loyalty to them. They asked him to kill his mother. His mother was terminally ill, suffering from cancer. In he went to her about it in tears. She told him, "Son, do what is necessary for your future and its prosperity. My life is over and I will be dead soon." She gave him a pillow and he did the deed. He hated himself for this deed and he saw the apparat of the maffia, with whom it made table. That is why he could not stomach the Russia he once loved and that is why he renounced the Holy Orthodoxy of his people, BECAUSE OF ITS CORRUPT REPRESENTATIVES. Would any of you have anything to do with people who had such a role in the death of any of your loved ones? Russia should be more beloved to you. They, the sergianists, eat caviar at ecumenical banquets and build institutions with ecumenical and vatican money, while in cities across Russia laws are passed prohibiting the eating of cat and dog flesh. They turn a blind eye whilst the last icons the soviets did not steal or desecrate or destroy are stolen from the last remaining churches of Russia and sold in the west, even appearing on ebay. They, to this day bestow upon the latin heretics THE PRECIOUS BODY AND BLOOD of our Lord & Master Jesus Christ, while condemning those who uphold the preciousness and purity of our Holy Faith as "schismatics". What has happened to you all? This monstrous counter-confession to the path blessed by the holy podvig of Blessed +Metropolitan Philaret is not the CONFESSION OF ROCOR. I am ashamed of you who now reach at compromise as a panacea with both hands while denying the crowns of suffering in Christ. The ROCOR I was formed in was a confessing church and not a Russian political maneuver. I leave because ROCOR has left me and has abandoned the legacy of St. Tikhon by pardoning the criminals responisble for his death and by entering into a dialogue without scruple, empowering voices who wish to tear down the temple we have built. St. Tikhon anathemized and threatened excommunication to these agents of the soviet order.
A clear head and a clean heart. Making this decision gives one more of an appreciation of the need for its permanence. HOCNA is mentioned by the poster, but HOCNA rightly indicted Fr. Lebedeff for ecumenism as it is now clear. TO HIM IT IS NOT HERESY AND IS NOT A STUMBLING BLOCK FOR UNION AND HE IS FRAMING THE AGENDA FOR ROCOR--NO GOOD CAN COME OF THE COMPROMISE OF FAITH HE AND THOSE OF HIS SCHOOL OF THOUGHT ENGINEER. Then a parallel between HOCNA and the Synodeia of +Metropolitan Kiprianos is drawn. When has the Synod in Resistance ruminated on the gracelessness of others, rebaptized new calendarists, and declared itself the sole messenger of authentic Orthodoxy? When has the Synod in Resistance denied fellowship to anyone who would share the Orthodox Faith?! When has the Synod in Resistance brought slander, calumny and lies down upon ROCOR?! More importantly, how is the ecclesiology of the Synod in Resistance even comparable to HOCNA?! Indeed, to call those with whom one is in Communion with "schismatics" and "extremists" whilst ones Bishops still share the kiss of peace is the act of an extremist and schismatic...
What has changed since the holy podvig of Blessed +Metropolitan Philaret? Has the mp become anymore Orthodox? No. What has changed is that a new generation has arisen to compromise and corrupt his message. No good can come of it.
I was baptized in Jordanville and revere its holy memory and its legacy. But the ROCOR arising has no time and no place for it... That is the schism and extremism I cannot abide.
When the MP is ready to anathemize ecumenism, renovationism, sergianism and campaign to undo the calendar schism, when it is ready to abolish its soviet autocephalies which were engineered to deflect criticism from the religious persecution of the Russian Orthodox people, when it is ready to lead the Russian Orthodox diasporan mission in Truth Without Compromise and provide succour to those confessors confessing the Orthodox Faith in light of the apostasy of our time, when it is ready to do combat with the forces of antichrist, then we know the All-Russian Sobor of 1918 can be reconvened. Until then the legacy of St. Tikhon, who was bitterly condemned by the sergianists, can never be fulfilled and his instructions can not be brought to fruition for the impediments of the last great apostasy have intruded and prevent it.
ORTHODOXIA I THANATOS!
Rostislav Mikhailovich Malleev-Pokrovksy