Open Letter of Fr. Victor Melehov to ROCOR-MP Bp. Jerome

[Priest Siluan]

Please, read or download it from the link below:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gk4rb6zet7osf ... 202012.pdf

[Maria]

Please, read or download it from the link below:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gk4rb6zet7osf ... 202012.pdf

Before reading this well-written letter, I did not realize that ROCOR began to get involved with the ecumenists back in 1986.

St. John of San Francisco, pray for us.

[Matthew]

Very revealing and seems to ably set the record straight. I wonder what the story behind that photo of John Shaw is where he is dressed as an anglican or catholic bishop.

[Maria]

Very revealing and seems to ably set the record straight. I wonder what the story behind that photo of John Shaw is where he is dressed as an anglican or catholic bishop.

Is he a Western Rite ROCOR member?

[Priest Siluan]

He (as Fr. John Robert Shaw) always used in the ROCOR "normal rite" or "Russian Orthodox style", just like all of us, but also he always was interested in the "Western Rite" matters, and just now, as a ROCOR-MP bishop began more active in this and is the "head" of the ROCOR-MP "Wester Rite" parishes, he disguises like that picture for them, while usually dresses like a "normal" Orthodox bishop...

[Priest Siluan]

Resolution from the 1978 ROCOR Council of Bishops about "Western Rite":

RESOLVED:

The Western rite in its present form was introduced after the apostasy of the west from the Orthodox Church and is not in accord with the liturgical life of the Orthodox Church with which it had been united for the course of many centuries. It does not reflect the Orthodox Church's liturgical tradition.

Thus, it does not satisfy converts to Orthodoxy when they familiarize themselves with it to a greater degree, and has nowhere enjoyed success. In consequence of the above, the Council of Bishops does not recognize it as possible to permit the Western Rite in the Russian Church.

As we can see the new "ROCOR" or ROCOR-MP neither has nothing to do with the old and true ROCOR with regard to this point ...

[jgress]

Polemics about the Western Rite need to be made with caution, since we have at least one Western Rite True Orthodox member here. I suggest continuing this conversation in the private forum, but I'll leave the current thread here, as it's not about a TO church.