Archbishop GREGORY of Denver and Colorado

[OrthodoxyOrDeath]

Yes Joe, I can see your point too. This has all been repeated before, only the names, dates, and internet address of Dormition Skete seem to change.

[user_344]

Letter from Metropolitan Valentin of Suzdal and Vladimir to Archbishop Gregory of Denver

No. 130

June 3/16, 2004

Your Grace!

After spending approximately two months in the Denver diocese, and meeting with you and your clergy on several occasions, I was greatly amazed by your behavior, reasoning, megalomania, and uncanonical actions, to wit:

1) During a conversation, in the presence of three witnesses who are priests, you insisted repeatedly that you should be appointed as ruling bishop over all Churches, not only in the USA, but Korea, Bulgaria, China, and other countries as well, stressing that you are the only Orthodox bishop in the whole world and promising to "help" me in the amount of forty thousand American dollars, completely forgetting about the sin of simony;

2) You repeatedly and insistantly suggested prayerful communion and eucharistic union with a synod of the Greeks, getting those of your people who are close to you to support your idea, for which they also promised to "help" me in the amount of thirty thousand American dollars;

3) You repeatedly attempted to interfere in the administration of clergy not belonging to your diocese, demanding the removal of a venerable archpriest and other servants of the altar who were of no less importance, besmirching their honor and dignity, which is a canonical offense;

4) As witnessed by some of the clergy and laity alike, you do not recognize the uniqueness of baptism, and have the practice of rebaptizing and rechrismating those who come to you. In all probability, you have forgotten the Creed where we confess "One Baptism";

5) You have suspended some of the members of the clergy who served you ufaithfully and truly but had no desire to share in your dubious pretentions, and who dared to stand up against your irrepressible pressure;

6) After being admonished in the presence of three witnesses of priestly rank, instead of repenting of your sinful actions, you wrote a report to the Synod of Bishops of the ROAC, demanding an emergency meeting during the absence of its president. In your report, you, in essence, repeated your claims and personally confirmed your mindlessness and inability to rule over a diocese or lead souls to salvation;

7) With premeditation, you attempted to lead members of the Synod of Bishops into error, slandering me by saying I was a thief and "stole" a monk away from you (Igumen Fr. Andrei Maklakov), who candidacy for the episcopacy was put forward by none other than you, and whereby you transferred him to the authority of the Synod of Bishops;

In your report, you indicated that you incurred large expenses in connection with my medical treatment, and that you had taken care of all of the bills amounting to over a quarter of a million American dollars, when in actual fact, you didn't even pay one cent, and, to the contrary, presented me with a bill for my plane ticket for my trip from New York to Denver, and for room and board, in the sum of four thousand dollars;

9) While looking over your documents, I discovered that you had been using my forged seal (which I later took away from you), which is a capital crime punishable by law.

From everything that has been said above, I have concluded that you are incapable of ruling a diocese, and I am therefore constrained to remove you temporarily from your diocese of Colorado as the ruling hierarch, and to place you in retirement, living in Dormition Skete, without the right to serve or perform any sacraments, until such time as the Synod of Bishops can decide your case.

I consider ther clergy, monastics, and faithful living un the Denver diocese as being under the direct authority of the Synod of Bishops of the ROAC (also temporarily).

I would hope that you would be reasonable and would not dare to countermand my earlier recommendations and good advice, so that you might avoid being judged in a spiritual court by the Synod of Bishops of the ROAC.

President of the Synod of Bishops,

M. Valentine

(with seal)

[Alexis in Alaska]

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Lord, Bless.

Dear God; well I want to hear Archbishop Gregory's response. This Ukase seems to be very retributive in a sense. I wonder the intent behind it. There is no doubt H.E. Gregory will need to leave ROAC to preserve his episcopate. I think this is all garbage; what a line....

I still support H.E. Gregory; hell, I am sure he has done less than a 1/4 of what other bishops have done; including Valentine. This is all about control and I am not sure H.E. Gregory is at fault here.

Lord, Bless!

In Christ,

Alexis

(Edited)

[user_344]

He was in Greece last week begging to be received by a certain Synod he has an affinity for, even while he remains a member of the ROAC Synod... Gregory is an extremely sad individual who has done little but confuse simple-minded faithful and lead souls astray.

[CGW]

In all honesty, I think too much is being said, and it is to the detriment of all - particularly to those who are entirely outside of this situation, and are already coming to this with their own axes to grind.

How did you manage to end up without an axe to grind?

The situation seems clear enough: Met. Valentine arrived in Colorado, was dismayed at what he found, and now his/Bp. Gregory's various followers are having to position themselves on either side of the dispute. Meanwhile, it appears that Gregory is not in the Skete, where he is supposed to be remaining. It appears that the matter needed to be made public because Bp. Gregory continues in disobedience. And naturally, your own allegiance is being put to the test.

[CGW]

There is no doubt H.E. Gregory will need to leave ROAC to preserve his episcopate.

That may well be true-- but it would be schismatic, even vagante.

I still support H.E. Gregory; hell, I am sure he has done less than a 1/4 of what other bishops have done; including Valentine. This is all about control and I am not sure H.E. Gregory is at fault here.

Well, it could be all about control all right. I speculate-- note, speculate-- that the present crisis arose out of communication difficulties due to distance and language, resulting in a lack of supervision. We already know that other bishops in the synod were complaining about Bp. Gregory some six months ago, at least if you believe material cited in a thread here at the time. So when Met. Valentine appears on the scene, distance evaporates and language barriers are lowered drastically. At point-blank range it is not hard for Met. Valentine to exert control.

This is just my speculation. But to me it seems more plausible than your theory of the wronged bishop.

[Seraphim Reeves]

CGW,

How did you manage to end up without an axe to grind?

Oh, I have many, but not in this matter.

The situation seems clear enough: Met. Valentine arrived in Colorado, was dismayed at what he found, and now his/Bp. Gregory's various followers are having to position themselves on either side of the dispute. Meanwhile, it appears that Gregory is not in the Skete, where he is supposed to be remaining. It appears that the matter needed to be made public because Bp. Gregory continues in disobedience. And naturally, your own allegiance is being put to the test.

By the admission of at least one person who did make the matter public, they did so without permission (though were not punished for doing so after the fact.) Another person keenly involved in the publication of this, as far as I can tell (unless he can demonstrate otherwise, and he hasn't that I'm aware of) has also acted on his own initiative in this matter, and right or wrong, has a history of bad blood with Archbishop Gregory and the Skete Fathers.

As for your scenario of events, I still insist it remains to be seen. I'm waiting for it to be aired out and discerned in the proper context. I also hope, whether they have a good foundation or not, that Archbishop Gregory's accusations against Metropolitan Valentin will be examined so that there will be no doubts left - and such is only proper to begin with.

There is plenty which is not clear right now, from where I'm sitting - after spending a significant amount of time with Bp.Gregory (apparently when the Metropolitan was getting a "bad taste in his mouth" over the Bishop of Colorado), he on behalf of the Synod elevated Bp.Gregory to the title of Archbishop...if Bp.Gregory really was guilty of the "meglomania" and mischievous activities in the accusation, then I have to wonder why on earth he was given said title so shortly beforehand. That the accusations against Archbishop Gregory come so close on the tail of Gregory's own canonical accusations against Metropolitan Valentin, while not necessarily proving anything, gives me reason to pause.

OTOH the accusations made against Archbishop Gregory are very grave, and if true are certainly censorable.

Things like this make me believe that this may not be as straight forward as it's being published as being. Hence, why I'm willing to wait until Archbishop Gregory get's his "day in court" before I join in on the tarring and feathering.

As for the disciplinary action already taken against Archbishop Gregory, I'd like to see Archbishop Gregory's side on that - whether or not he was aware of the measures taken against him (though last I checked you cannot "retire" a heirarch), and also I suffer from some ignorance here, since I am not familiar with all of the canonical issues involved in suspending clergy or members of an episcopal synod.

Seraphim