Your Grace, Dear Vladyko,
Bless!
Let me first address the issue of public versus private. On the questions of
the Matthewites and the Pan-Orthodox anathemas, I believe you have known my
views for some time as expressed on this and the True Faith list.You ignored
them. Well, that’s your privilege. But you can’t say you didn’t know them.
As regards Metropolitan Vitaly and the ROCiE, do you remember mysending you a
private e-mail a few weeks ago, after your first public broadside against
ROCiE, in which I warned you that your comments had been translated into
Russian and published by “Vertograd”, whose editor added the note that this
was NOT the official position of the ROAC? Forgive me, but it seems to me
that your comments about keeping things private apply to yourself first of
all.You made this issue a public one, not me. And now that you have made the
issue public, you cannot censure all discussion of it by others in public.
With regard to the Matthewites, my “affiliation” with them ended some 21
years ago. I learned a lot from them, a lot that was good and some that was
bad. I learned to venerate the memory of Bishop Matthew, a great saint, who
cured my wife of a serious back ailment. And I learned that the issue of the
calendar was not a minor one, as you seem to think, but the beginning of the
heresy of ecumenism and the cause of the falling away of the new calendar
churches. The miracle of the sign of the cross in the sky over Athens in 1925
was a sign from God that all True Orthodox Christians had to separate from
the new calendarists now. The Greek Old Calendarists, to their eternal glory,
paid heed to the sign and separated immediately. The Russians,unfortunately,
were slower. But eventually they did, too.
I left the Matthewites because (there were other reasons,but I won’t go into
them now) I could not take their view that they were the only True Orthodox
in Greece, and that 75% of the Greek Old Calendarists were in fact graceless
schismatics. And since then I have developed a spiritual allergy, if you
like, to any group, Greek or Russian, which starts to proclaim itself the
only True Greek or Russian Church. The ROCA never made that claim, except
for a short period in the 90s. The ROAC has never made that claim. As a
matter of fact, we cannot make such a claim because our existence is based
on Patriarch Tikhon’s ukaz no. 362, which blesses the existence of autonomous
groups of bishops like ours, but does not bless any single group claiming
jurisdiction over the rest. I would respectfully ask you to read that ukaz
before you again lay claim to every parish in North America.
I don’t believe the Matthewites on this list hate you, but I do believe that
you have sorely provoked them. This is not good for you, and it is not good
for our Church in general. If our Church had proclaimed the Matthewites to be
graceless schismatics, you would at least have her authority to repeat what
the Church has said. But the Church has not said it. Or if I am wrong could
you please quote the relevant decree verbatim?
With regard to the Pan-Orthodox Councils, they actually represented several
Slavic as well as Greek Churches. They represented the Slavic Churches of
Serbia, Bulgaria and the Ukraine (which was under the Patriarchate of
Constantinople at the time). Only the autonomous Muscovite metropolia was not
represented. And yet the Muscovite metropolia was raised to the rank of a
patriarchate by the same patriarch, Jeremiah II, who condemned the new
calendar. There is no record of the Muscovites in any way contesting the
decisions against the new calendar. And if they had they would have been
wrong, since the mind of Church has been expressed with complete clarity on
this point many times.
As you correctly point out, the Pan-Orthodox Council of 1583 anathematised
the new, papist menaion. So the present-day new calendar churches fall
directly under that anathema, which has never been revoked. And the sign of
the cross in the sky proved it.
You write that “when Saint Philaret, I say, said that our Russian Church
looks upon the New Calendar as a mistake but not serious enough for us to
break communion with those who have accepted it, this is my position also”. I
know of no such statement by St. Philaret. Please give the exact quotation.
If this is your position, then I have to say that it is wrong. It contradicts
the whole basis of the Old Calendarist movement throughout the world (in
Romania and on Valaam, as well as in Greece), which unanimously – whatever
position was taken on the question of grace in the new calendarist churches –
agreed that it was absolutely necessary to break communion with the new
calendarists. I believe that even the Cyprianites agreed on this necessity.
The views you have expressed seemed to echo that of your former spiritual
father, Abbot Panteleimon of Boston, who considered that the new calendar
church had grace until he left it(in 1965). I hope this is coincidental…
Yes, St. John Maximovich allowed some covert parishes to continue using the
new calendar temporarily. This was an act of economy which didn’t work (for
long), since the parishes left True Orthodoxy after his death. However, the
very fact that these parishes came under the omophorion of a TrueOrthodox,
Old Calendar bishop means that they came (temporarily) out of the schism of
the new calendar and into the True Church. For the mortal sin of the new
calendar schism consists not in the 13 days’ difference, but in the schism
that it created. If a parish keeps the new calendar but remains under an Old
Calendar bishop, it is sinning, but at least it is not sinning through
schism. Of course, when these parishes returned to World Orthodoxy after
St. John’s death they returned into schism…
You write: “We have the example of the Irish Church, which obstinately kept
to their own Paschalion, despite the decree of the First Ecumenical Council.
They were not considered outside the Church.”
Forgive me, but after the Council of Whitby in 664, which decided in favour
of the Roman-Byzantine Paschalion, all Celtic Churches which kept the Celtic
calendar (by that time they were mainly in Wales and Scotland) were
considered to be schismatics. Thus St. Cuthbert of Lindisfarne (+687), who
had been brought up in the Celtic calendar but accepted the Synod of Whitby,
ordered his disciples not to allow his body ever to fall into the hands of
the “schismatics” – that is, the “Celtic calendarists”. Again, St. Columba
of Iona (+597), who lived all his life in the Celtic calendar, appeared to
St. Egbert and told him to convert his Iona monks to the Roman calendar,
since “they were ploughing the wrong furrow”. Again, St. Theodore “the
Greek”, Archbishop of Canterbury (+690), ordered all those returning from
“the Scottish schism” to be received as schismatics with appropriate
penances. If you read Latin, you will find St. Theodore’s decrees on this
subject in Haddan & Stubbs, “Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents relating
to Great Britain and Ireland” (Oxford, 1871, 1964), vol. III, p. 197.
Differences in customs, and even calendars, can be tolerated in the Church so
long as these differences are the result of ignorance or isolation, not of
stubborn opposition to the expressed mind of the Church. But when the mind of
the Church has been expressed in Council, stubborn refusal to change and
accept the Church’s decision constitutes the mortal sin of schism.So the
issue is not in the difference of days as such, but in the schismatic
mentality that continued adherence to that difference in the face of clear
warnings from the True Church expresses.
You write: “I don’t understand how you can defend and accept the Matthewite
position regarding the 16th century councils to no end, but then go and
overlook ROCE, which has violated the 1983 anathema, violated so many
Ecumenical Council decrees, and yet you still deem them as part of the
Church.”
First: my position on the 16th century councils is not “Matthewite”, but the
common position of all Old Calendarists. I am sad you do not share that
position. Secondly: immediately a competent Council of the True Church
condemns the ROCE as graceless on the basis of the holy canons, I will accept
that. But no such Council has done that, and since the ROCE is beginning to
withdraw from its previous errors, I think it is unlikely that such a Council
will be convened. For example, both you and I publicly protested against the
communion of certain of the ROCA’s hierarchs with ecumenist heretics. But I
know of no such communion inthe ROCE now. So things are getting better. Why
such rancour when there should be rejoicing? Certainly, there are other
things which need to be corrected – especially the unjust “deposition” of
our hierarchs in 1995. But give it time.Things are moving in the right
direction. The old bishops who caused most of the trouble have gone, new
bishops with a clean record have been ordained. And let us not forget that
uncanonical things have been done by every single TOC jurisdiction, including
our own.
I deem the ROCE part of the Church, because your and my metropolitan and your
and my Synod deems it part of the Church, or at any rate has not said that it
is outside the Church. If you can prove the opposite, please give an exact
quotation from the decrees of our Synod.
Now let us turn to the question of the heretic Fr. Gregory Lurye. You have
only very recently joined our Church, Vladyko, and you don’t speak Russian,
so perhaps you don’t understand what is going on here. To put it bluntly: for
at least eighteen months Fr. Gregory Lurye has been preaching a whole series
of heresies publicly, from the ambon, in printed books and journals, on the
internet, in many internet forums, etc. His views are,unfortunately, very
well known in Russia far beyond the bounds of our Church. In fact, in some
ways the rank and file of our Church, being composed to a large extent of
provincials and catacombniks who have no access to the internet, is less
informed about his activities than other churches like the MP. His influence
is spreading fast both within and outside our Church. I know of one Russian
Kallinikite priest who thinks like him on name-worshipping. And the
Kallinikites are not the only Greek TOC jurisdiction that has been penetrated
by his corrupting and evil influence. The official web-site of our Church is
owned by one of Fr. Gregory’s closest supporters. Two out of the three
priests of our Church in Moscow are close supporters of his, and one of them
publicly endorsed name-worshipping in an interview he gave for “Vertograd”.
And “Vertograd” itself is edited by another of his supporters. So basically
the whole public relations system of our Church is in the hands of the
heretics. That is what has happened in the course of little more than
eighteen months. True, none of our bishops has supported name-worshipping,
thank God. But bishops are not the only people who matter in the Church.
Arius was only a priest…
You think that this is a private matter between Fr. Gregoryand the
metropolitan, and involves nobody else. But the metropolitan involved me by
appointing me to conduct a semi-official dialogue with Fr. Gregory to find
out what his views were. And I think that every conscious Orthodox Christian
in our Church – and outside our Church – should and must be involved in what
is a serious threat to the salvation of every one of us. Publicly expressed
heresies are of public concern and need to be addressed publicly. The genie
is out of the bottle – and it was not I who let it out. I am sounding the
alarm, and will continue to sound it, as loudly and as frequently as
possible.And you very well know that the canons and tradition of the Church
are on my side on this one. Arianism was not a private matter between Arius
and his bishop…
It would at least help, Vladyko, if you would publicly condemn
name-worshipping as it was preached by Fr. Anthony Bulatovich at the
beginning of this century, as a heresy. In this you would not be going beyond
what the Russian Church has proclaimed, for the Russian Church twice – the
second time under Patriarch Tikhon in 1918 – officially condemned both
Bulatovich and his teaching. (The Ecumenical Patriarchate also condemned it
twice.) You have the relevant information because I sent it to you in my
article “The Name of God and the name-worshipping heresy”.
Since you are eager to condemn the uncondemned Matthewitesand ROCE, I think
you will not hesitate to condemn the already-many-times-condemned heretic
Bulatovich and his teaching.
I look forward to your striking a much needed blow against heresy and in
defence of Holy Orthodoxy.
Asking for your holy prayers,
Yours in Christ,
Vladimir Moss
April 11/24. 2002.
