ROCOR

OrthodoxyOrDeath · Post by **OrthodoxyOrDeath** » Wed 28 April 2004 8:45 pm

Nicholas,

Not that I doubt your friends sincerity, but we have plenty of people in our synod and in our own local Church who are very familiar with the monks.

One of the psaltis in our Church was there over the summer and another has a brother who is a monk there. I can go on...

I have never heard of such an absurd thing. Perhaps your friend misunderstood or exagerrated?

btw, I heard an even crazier expression of throught...The Thyateira Confession.

ania · Post by **ania** » Thu 29 April 2004 10:52 am

<<Sigh>> as far as ROCOR & what stands between it & reunion w/ the MP:

Sergianism-- This issue is actually become less & less important lately, though of course renunciation of Met. Sergy's declaration is of course needed.
Ecuminism-- The MP has been moving further & further away from it. As explained to me by a MP priest, during the communist era, the MP was pretty much mandated by the governmetn to join the WCC to prove that there was no religious persecution in the Soviet Union. Of course we know that's not true, but at the time, image was important to the Communist government. Now that Communism is gone, the MP is slowly but surely seperating itself from the WCC. BTW, the same MP priest told my dad, when asked about ecuminism, that "Yes, there is a commity set up to investigate our further participation in the WCC, but of course nothing will come of it." "Why not?" dad asked. "Because I am on that commity," the priest replied.
Administration-- Probably actually the biggest concern for many priests, clergy, etc. Who would be in charge or ROCOR if union was to occur? That's why the push right now is toward concelebration, rather than administrative union.
Of course, the ideal would be, the MP gets our holdings in Russia (since cononically we shouldn't have any holdings in Russia, & we're the Church Abroad or the Church Outside Russia, and had generally left inside of Russia to the Catacomb Church, before the fall of communism), and any and all MP holdings outside of Russia would go to ROCOR. Nominally we would commemorate the Patriarch, but have a pretty much sperate governing body of heirarchs outside of Russia. Of course comes into play human emotions, greed, nastalgia, whatever, and because of this, it probably won't happen like that, at least not for a long time. However, I do hold out a hope for seeing our Metropolitan someday serving in St. Nicholas Cathedral on 97th St.
And that's my babble for the morning. See Ya!

Justin Kissel · Post by **Justin Kissel** » Thu 29 April 2004 1:58 pm

Anastasios,

Just curious, did you weigh the witness of Fr Seraphim on this site about his trip to Esphigmenou? He had a rather strange experience there and his opinion ended up being that the Fathers of Esphigmenou were not healthy zealots.

I very much appreciate Fr. Seraphim's willingness to share his experiences here at this forum (which he has done a number of times). I always try to take them into consideration, even if I seem to differ with him in what he is saying. Information from a Priest speaking from actual experience is much more important than information gathered by an egg-headed layman, I think.

Having said that, in the case of Esphigmenou, while not at all doubting that Fr. Seraphim's story happened as he said it did, I would perhaps lean more towards what OOD gave as an explanation to why the monks were acting as they were. This is not to say I accept OOD's explanation and forget about Fr. Seraphim's experience; I guess I see the reality of the situation as something of a combination of both. There are lots of examples of what seems to be rudeness and bigotry and so forth in the stories about the Desert Fathers, but I think we would all read those stories looking past the rudeness for the reasons behind the seemingly bad behavior. I sort of took the same approach with Fr. Seraphim's story.

Seraphim Reeves · Post by **Seraphim Reeves** » Thu 29 April 2004 2:31 pm

Ania,

3. Administration-- Probably actually the biggest concern for many priests, clergy, etc. Who would be in charge or ROCOR if union was to occur? That's why the push right now is toward concelebration, rather than administrative union.

This is very strange, if we are to take the "two parts of one Russian Church" talk seriously. If the MP really is one part of that "Russian Church", then it would follow (by her own mandate) ROCOR would have no choice but to submit to the MP, returning to it's "mother Church".

Of course, the ideal would be, the MP gets our holdings in Russia (since cononically we shouldn't have any holdings in Russia, & we're the Church Abroad or the Church Outside Russia, and had generally left inside of Russia to the Catacomb Church, before the fall of communism), and any and all MP holdings outside of Russia would go to ROCOR.

I'm surprised/disappointed that this issue is paid very little attention by those supportive of ROCOR's post-Cyprian orientation.

Obviously there was a time, relatively recently, where the leadership of ROCOR saw nothing inappropriate (indeed they saw this as being a moral duty) about going into the "MP's turf" and consecrating Bishops, and taking entire communities in Russia under ROCOR's care. Perhaps I only become more and more dense as the days fly by - but how can such act be licit (particularly in an officially post-communist Russia), in the territory of a body which allegedly forms the major part of the "Russian Orthodox Church"?

There would seem to be only two conclusions that one could get from this - ROCOR had involved itself in the creation of schisms and is worthy of the slander she had been subjected to for so many years (ROCOR = "un-canonical" or "schismatic"), or she was operating under a set of principles which her leadership for whatever reason has decided to cast aside. In either case, one thing remains the same - a change has occured in the ROCOR...given this, I'm puzzeled at the much protesting that such has not in fact occured.

Seraphim

Justin Kissel · Post by **Justin Kissel** » Thu 29 April 2004 2:35 pm

There would seem to be only two conclusions that one could get from this - ROCOR had involved itself in the creation of schisms and is worthy of the slander she had been subjected to for so many years (ROCOR = "un-canonical" or "schismatic"), or she was operating under a set of principles which her leadership for whatever reason has decided to cast aside.

Well stated.

bogoliubtsy · Post by **bogoliubtsy** » Thu 29 April 2004 3:10 pm

seraphim reeves wrote:
There would seem to be only two conclusions that one could get from this - ROCOR had involved itself in the creation of schisms and is worthy of the slander she had been subjected to for so many years (ROCOR = "un-canonical" or "schismatic"), or she was operating under a set of principles which her leadership for whatever reason has decided to cast aside. In either case, one thing remains the same - a change has occured in the ROCOR...given this, I'm puzzeled at the much protesting that such has not in fact occured.

Seraphim

Or, perhaps there was a change in direction under the former Metropolitan to a more "hardline" stance. Perhaps now ROCOR is moving back towards its original stance.

Seraphim Reeves · Post by **Seraphim Reeves** » Thu 29 April 2004 3:43 pm

Or, perhaps there was a change in direction under the former Metropolitan to a more "hardline" stance. Perhaps now ROCOR is moving back towards its original stance.

Perhaps. In either case, a change, and a very significant one - and still a rebuke of those pretending that this is precisely what has not occured (a "change".) ROCOR, the flip flopping "semi-canonical" (thanks Al Green) fishy? I don't believe this, but I suppose it's a possible interpretation.

Seraphim