Well, thank you both Fr. Anastasios and Joasia for your kind words. I heartily agree with both of you that suspicions about the private struggles with shameful passions of certain persons should not be discussed. In the case of someone like St Mary of Egypt, however, which does go into something more than vague allusions regarding her sins in the world, but rather gives a fairly detailed account of her sins which are exclusively sexual for the most part, the details of her struggle - as far as it goes, cannot be called tasteless or unnecessary. It is meant to be, and indeed provides the encouragement and hope to the struggling among us who have not kept a clean record after baptism, as indeed St Mary also fell after baptism since there is no record of baptism in her life recounting to St. Zosima following her repentance and departure into the desert until Holy Communion and unto her death. I do not know if there is any proof that Seraphim Rose had the issues that I have sometimes heard claimed by people. If that is something he admitted to in his public writings, then we could say that that was done to encourage people who come to Orthodoxy with that struggle in their background and perhaps have some lingering struggles against being drawn backwards and can draw strength and hope from his successful struggle on that front. I don't see how that particular case would be inappropriate since we have the aforementioned example of St Mary of Egypt which is well within the celebrated Orthodox Tradition of one of the great Trophies of Repentance. If this claim about Seraphim Rose is not something he admitted to publicly and is an unconfirmed surmising, then, agreed, it should not be discussed.
As for why I wrote this article about Puhalo, I think it is important that when the truth is publicly attacked by a so-called Archbishop of Orthodoxy, or by anyone for that matter, it behooves us to sound a clear alarm to oppose the victory of evil over good, of lies over the Truth. Especially when someone slippery like Puhalo tries to badger the broader worldwide audience into believing that we are sinning if we do not adopt his point of view. What is shocking most of all is that there has been, to my knowledge, NO disciplinary response of ANY kind to his two public statements. I did hold my peace the first time he went public on this matter, but when he went and confirmed it with a followup video that was actually even more adamant and even angry in tone against people like us, I felt I ought not to hold my peace any more. So, I did not bring this up to offend anyone, as Puhalo had already done plenty on that score, but because I felt that something had to be done to expose his cheap methods of disarming and confusing younger people or those of less stable faith, because Puhalo is quite good at what he does, namely disarming people and intimidating them in public debate.
Above all, please accept my request for forgiveness if I have said anything wrong at any time. I thought I was being helpful to the cause of our True Orthodox Faith and maintaining the honor of all that constitutes a pure and holy Orthodox confession, which Puhalo was denigrating. If I should not say anything in future about this or any other matter, be it because of my own unworthiness or simply that the subject is questionable for public discussion, then I pray God will illumine me in my darkness.
unworthy Symeon