The Holy Spirit

Q: I am a Catholic and as I understand it, the Orthodox Churches have no Pope, because Orthodox consider that their Churches are governed by the Holy Spirit. If that is so, why are there conflicts between those Churches?

A: A good question! As Metropolitan Antony (Khrapovitsky) of Kiev put it 125 years ago: ‘The Holy Spirit rules the Church, but bishops get in the way’. In other words, all the problems in all the Local Churches are due to ‘Pneumatoclasm’, the struggle against the Holy Spirit, ‘quenching the Spirit’, in the language of the Scriptures. There are bishops who do not want the Holy Spirit, they want only to be ‘princes of the Church’, that is, to possess power and riches and they persecute the faithful to get this. Such are politicians and not pastors. However, whenever you reject the Holy Spirit, you end up being exactly like the worst of Roman Catholicism (not your sort), whatever the rite you use, for example like ‘Greek Catholic’ Uniatism, which uses a similar rite to Orthodox, but is not Orthodox in spirit, only in outward imitation.

Thus, medieval Roman Catholic cardinals, political powerbrokers, become the model for such ‘princes of the Church’. One Russian metropolitan in the 1970s even died in the arms of a Pope and several Greek metropolitans, usually issued with a doctorate from the Gregorian University in Rome, whatever their abilities, seem to spend more time in Rome than in their diocese – if they have one. In other words, the worst of Roman Catholicism is the default position for Orthodox who reject the Holy Spirit. That is why we do not confess Roman Catholicism.

However, do not be offended. As I said, this comparison applies to the worst of Roman Catholicism, and we know that there is also the best of Roman Catholicism. The Vatican machine is inherently secular because of its filioque theology, in which the Pope replaces Christ, Who for them is the source of the Holy Spirit. And that is exactly what such Orthodox confess, Orthodoxy without the Holy Spirit, that is, a mere rite.

The Orthodox Churches and the Diaspora

Q: Is there a limit to the number of Local Orthodox Churches?

A: No, of course not. For example, some six generations ago there were only 8 Local Churches, whereas today there are 16. This was because conglomerate empires broke up and new countries formed. In years to come there could be a maximum of 27 Local Churches. That number would depend on many things, for example, on the first if – if the Russian Church granted autocephaly, or else just autonomy with the right not to commemorate the Patriarch, to the Orthodox in other countries who are still dependent on its jurisdiction. And it would also depend on the willingness of all the Local Churches concerned to give autocephaly to their restless Diasporas.

Thus, the figure of 27 Local Churches would only be reached if the Church of Greece returned to Constantinople (they were quite uncanonically forced to separate by the British and the Bavarians in 1833), making 15 Local Churches, and if the Church in Moscow granted autocephaly to the Orthodox Churches on its canonical territory, in the Post-Ukraine (whatever its new name and borders will be), in Belarus, Carpatho-Rus and All Hungary, the Baltics (Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), Japan, China (vital if ever the mission is to take off there, as China will not allow foreign-based organisations, just like the Baltic States) and in Central Asia (= the five stans), making 22 Local Churches, and if all the Local Churches concerned could organise themselves and collectively grant autocephaly to Moldova (this would need the co-operation of Moscow and Bucharest), Western Europe, Latin America, Mexico-Central America-the Caribbean, and Oceania, making 27 in all. A lot of ifs.

Indeed, there are even more ifs, because for such a missionary movement to take place, first the Soviet-founded Moscow Patriarchate, would have to give up its centralised Soviet organisation, perhaps renaming itself ‘the Patriarchate of New Jerusalem’, the Soviet-founded OCA would have to become genuinely inter-Orthodox, perhaps its territory being clearly defined and being renamed the Northern American Orthodox Church (NAOC), and the Greek Churches would have to give up their no less imperialistic attitudes, creating a real Patriarchate for Africans with African bishops with the symbolic title of Alexandria, returning the Patriarchate of Jerusalem to the Palestinians, recognising the Macedonian Orthodox Church, and appointing new, CIA-free First Hierarchs in Greece and Cyprus. Even more ifs.

Q: How could Russians and Greeks get back into communion?

A: Why could the Russians not restore communion with the Greeks everywhere, except in Estonia and the Ukraine, where the Greeks have behaved like schismatics? Here is the beginning of a solution to your question. The rest would be up to the Greeks, who began all this mess.

Q: How can the various parts of the Diaspora be joined together, especially in view of the current enmity between Greeks and Russians?

A: Clearly, men do not want unity, they prefer disunity because they are absorbed not by Christ, but by nationalist politics, which are always divisive. I suppose the only answer to this question is to say, ‘Unity is only possible by the grace of God’.

As regards Orthodoxy in Great Britain, there are some glimmers of hope after first the Greeks messed up through their nationalism in the last quarter of the last century and then the Russians messed up through their nationalism in the first quarter of this century. Take, for example, the parish of Durham. It went through the Greeks, then the Russians, and nothing worked. Today it thrives under the Romanians. The same is true of all the parishes that left the American ROCOR schism in 2022 to join the Romanian Patriarchate, having received canonical letters of leave from the Moscow Patriarchate to do so.

Take monasticism. Over the last fifty years there have been countless, divisive, eccentric priests of all jurisdictions who have tried to set up monasteries without first having been a novice and monk in someone else’s monastery! They all failed, closed down and sold up, and ended up as lonely old men living alone. True, Tolleshunt Knights has prospered, but since the repose of St Sophrony it has greatly changed. ROCOR used to have a small monastery in Brookwood and a convent in London, but, like so many other unconverted converts in ROCOR, they both ended up in an old calendarist sect and the convent died out.

Only the Romanians have a monastery and a convent, all in English, separately in Mull and Iona, under Archimandrite Seraphim Aldea. The Church moves forward! I cannot help feeling that our Romanian Church can provide the glue here to bring all the divided Orthodox together. For 47 years we laboured in the missionary field in the highly politicised Russian Church. We received mainly discouragement, persecution, humiliation, bullying, betrayal, isolation, jealousy, hatred, pathological sectarian nastiness and never received a single apology! In the Romanian Church we have only ever received positivity, encouragement and thankful appreciation. What a difference! Night and day.

Q: Why are we Orthodox not in communion with Catholics and Protestants?

A: You mean, why are Catholics and Protestants not in communion with the Orthodox Churches, that is, with the members of the Orthodox Churches? Put simply, it is because those people fell away from the Orthodox Christian Faith, by changing the Creed and so falling out of communion with the Orthodox Churches, the Churches of the Councils and the Fathers.

By abandoning the Faith, they became Catholics and some of those later became Protestants. Put very crudely, Catholicism replaced the Holy Spirit with the Bishop of Rome, the Patriarch of the West. And Protestantism replaced the Pope with everyone. Everyone is a Pope for them. If Protestants do not like one of the tens of thousands of Protestant denominations, all they have to do is to start their own, becoming its Pope.

Of course, this does not mean that we cannot be good neighbours with the mass of Catholics and Protestants, whose leaders took them away from the Orthodox Faith. Like their ancestors, they themselves are quite unconscious of this. We judge no-one. We have to save ourselves first of all, God will look after others. We do not interfere, bully and busybody in the lives of others.

Q: Can you have Non-Orthodox godparents at an Orthodox baptism? I have been searching for a church that allows this and cannot find one.

A: I was brought up in the old Russian ROCOR. And our universal practice was to insist that the godmother of a girl be Orthodox and the godfather of a boy be Orthodox. This means that the godfather of a girl and the godmother of a boy do not absolutely have to be Orthodox, providing that they have been baptised by water in the Name of the Holy Trinity, for example, if they are Roman Catholics or Anglicans.

Of course, the new fanatical convert ROCOR has abandoned this Tradition, which is that of the Tsar’s Orthodox Church, which we belong to. Its abandonment of the Tradition is the new ROCOR’s problem.

Convertitis

Q: Why have there been problems with converts?

A: There are two types of converts. The first type is converted converts. These are called ‘Orthodox’. The second type, a very small but noisy minority, consists of unconverted converts. And there are problems with them, especially if they have been made priests and, far worse, bishops, because they are pathological, not theological. They bring impurity, known as sectarianism, either of the left or of the right, into the Church.

Q: What is Protestant Orthodoxy?

A: This concerns Diaspora unconverted converts with a Protestant/sectarian mentality. They may be in any jurisdiction, though the two jurisdictions that have mostly lost their connections with their homelands are far more concerned than others. Protestant Orthodoxy attracts pathological case extremists, who think they are being ‘more Orthodox than the Orthodox’. Unfortunately, some of these Protestant Orthodox, without experience or seminary training, have been made priests and even, one or two, bishops. There they form sects within the Church because they do not want to belong to the Church and live a Christian life. They want to belong to a sect and curse others, feeling self-justified, their hearts swelling with priggish self-admiration.

I remember one such small group in Paris in the early 80s. They all dressed in black and when they visited a normal Russian ROCOR parish, the Russians called them ‘the crows’. They left into schism in 1987.

Protestant Orthodox, ‘Orthobros’, are characterised by long beards and long hair, extreme fasting, personality cults, fanaticism towards Non-Orthodox, and sectarian jealousy and hatred towards normal Orthodox. Whatever their jurisdiction, such unconverted converts also believe in rebaptism. This is most insulting to others and to the Holy Spirit. He gathers all who wish into the Church, including those who have already been baptised by water in the Name of the Holy Trinity.

These people do not want to belong to the Church, they want to belong to a sect. They just use the Church as an excuse to shield and justify their sectarian pride. It is all pathology instead of theology. If it is a permanent pathology, then such people will remain for decades, though always in sectarian groups on the fringes of the Church. If it is a temporary spiritual affliction, then such people will soon burn out, like flames which flare up as they burn paper and burn out when the fuel has been consumed, leaving only ashes.

Q: What do you think of the convert movement in the West today?

A: The present convert movement began with the pandemic. For me it is all a repeat of the convert movement of the 1970s. I have seen it all before, the same problems, the same questions, the same anxieties, the same insecurities and the same lapses. For example, at that time in this country, in 1976, there was the scandal of the Guildford rebaptisms, when Russian Orthodox were rebaptised by a newly Americanised ROCOR (the US-trained Ukrainian priest responsible was soon after defrocked); that has now been repeated. The same old absurd controversies and doubts, ridiculous at the time, are now being repeated, with ex-Catholic and ex-Protestant converts being nasty to Catholics and Protestants. It is all very tiresome and lacks love. Some people never learn.

Q: How did the ROCOR, which during the period of the persecution of the Faith in the USSR was so widely respected for its confession of the Faith against the inability of Moscow to canonise the New Martyrs and Confessors and rejected canonical compromises, fall away from the Orthodox Church?

A: The downfall of ROCOR came after the move of its Synod from Europe to the USA and then its CIA infiltration, ensuing politically-motivated convert pride and greed for dollars. It was tragic, because as the late lamented Metr Kallistos (Ware) truly observed, ROCOR’s task was to keep and spread the liturgical and ascetic heritage of the Tsar’s Church, taking a lead in uniting the future new Local Churches in the Diaspora through that heritage. But instead of uniting, the new ROCOR divided, disobeying God’s Will.

They lost their organic roots in the Russian Church. They were absolutely sure of themselves because they cut themselves off from the sources of the Faith, from the traditional clergy and people. Even when what they were doing was so obviously wrong to all, they did not heed the views of their clergy or of others, for as ‘princes of the Church’ they considered that they had a sort of feudal power by Divine right and could trample on everyone, pumping out as much money as they wanted from the parishes, charging 10 euros per person per month or establishing Televangelist-style, Old Testament tithing! Thus, ROCOR the Persecuted Church became ROCOR the Persecuting Church, the Church of the Confessors and Martyrs became the Church that creates Confessors and Martyrs.

And so after the official reconciliation with the Mother-Church in 2007, key CIA elements in American ROCOR double-crossed Moscow (how naïve they are in Moscow, just like President Putin used to be), there gradually appeared a schismatic Russian-American sect. By 2021 there had appeared a ghetto, out of communion with all, which rebaptises other Orthodox against the words of the Creed. It also takes Moscow to court over the possession of its church property in France and like a spoilt child with a tantrum threatens to leave communion with Moscow if the latter opposes it!!

One of the guilty actually publicly proclaimed that Patriarch Bartholomew is ‘possessed’, and that this ROCOR recent convert ‘doesn’t like Romanians and only half-likes Moldovans’. And so they broke communion with the Moscow Patriarchate. So declared in public one responsible for Inter-Orthodox relations…

He surrounded himself with a few jealous yesmen, who had not achieved anything as missionaries and did not even speak Russian, who only added to his spiritual blindness. Just wanting to take over the property belonging to others, described by a solicitor as ‘a property grab’, he made false accusations, even trying to force others to Americanise their speech, because he did not know any other languages. Russians had to depend on the corrupt Moldovans, whom no-one else wanted for obvious reasons.

He received multiple clergy from other Patriarchates without canonical releases, but then ‘defrocked’ the clergy of another Patriarchate which had received clergy with canonical releases issued by the Moscow Patriarchate! That was an uncanonical act of gratuitous nastiness, not worthy of a Christian. His ‘defrockings’ were of course done by autopen, just like Biden!

The ever smaller ROCOR has made itself spiritually and administratively irrelevant. How are the once mighty fallen! All we can hope and pray is that the still traditional Orthodox elements in ROCOR, and there are still some there, though only just hanging on, will ‘walk it back’, repenting and returning to canonicity and the Russian Orthodox Faith and Church, overcoming their schisms.

I think also ROCOR will have to review its practice of ordaining neophytes (recent converts) priests and consecrating them bishops, which is against the canons. It should also give up stealing clergy from other Local Churches without letters of canonical leave. It just does not work, as can be seen from the present disasters, when it is out of communion with the Russian Church, the Romanian Church and the Greek Churches. This puts it outside communion with 99% + of the Orthodox Church.

Thus, from being an irrelevant marginal sect of ‘Protestant Orthodox’ extremists, aggressive and arrogant ‘Orthobros’, out of communion with all, some could return to communion with the Orthodox Churches and so become spiritually relevant again. For now, it has painted itself into a corner and ignores the goodwill of others, just like Trump!

Q: Why are some converts so moralising?

A: The disease of moralism always comes when there is no spirituality. Spiritual people always have compassion. Like St Silouan, but all real Orthodox. Those who are not compassionate are called pharisees. They love condemning others, because that gives them a feeling of self-justification, self-righteousness and leads directly to sectarianism.

I saw it widely among French converts around the late Fr Placide Deseille in the Greek Church in France thirty-five years ago, saw it again among some French converts on Mt Athos recently (clearly the Greek monks did not know what to do with them) and here in the last twenty years in the Antochian and Greek Churches and ROCOR, though only among converts from Protestantism. Those who are infected are all fairly recent converts and have no spiritual experience, just book knowledge. Fifty years ago the disease was modernism and ecumenism among the episcopate. Now it is this very ugly and anti-spiritual phariseeism. The other extreme.

Such people love long beards and dressing up in big cassocks, in which they go shopping. It gives them the imagined feeling of superiority to others. In reality all it leads to is others either mocking them or else insulting them as ‘weirdos’ and ‘beardy weirdies’. It certainly attracts nobody at all to the Church. This disease is delusional and stems from convert pride. Such people accuse others of their own sins in self-justifying hatefulness. They do not confess Orthodoxy, but ‘Orthodoxism’.

These people have nothing to do with Christianity and spend their time in tiny, incestuous (usually, all-male) ghettoes on the internet and in zooms. They want to be isolated in irrelevant little fringe groups of ‘holy huddlers’. They do not live with ordinary Orthodox or anyone, cutting themselves off, and even do not dress like us. They want their own uniform, their own strange universe. They do not want to come to the Liturgy, but only to ‘coffee hour’. It is a repeat of what went on in California in the 1970s. It all ended up badly. You know them by their fruits.

Q: Would you ever take part in an anti-abortion march?

A: I do not personally take part in political demonstrations, but if laypeople wish to take part in such an event, I would not withhold my blessing. However, I am personally concerned by the middle-class phariseeism and priggish self-righteous moralism that sometimes accompanies that movement. For example, the only ‘practising’ Orthodox I have met in Western Europe who carried out an abortion were two very respected Russian lay members of ROCOR. If a girl is pregnant, help her financially, take her into your home so she can have her baby. Stop condemning others in self-righteous pride. The other problem is that Roman Catholics who dominate such marches are against any form of contraception, in obedience to their Pope. Orthodox have different views.

The Orthodox anti-abortion movement consists of giving practical help to pregnant women who are tempted to have an abortion for financial reasons. No condemnation, no judgement, just show them love. Put your money where your mouth is. Otherwise, it is all too easy. This is what the ever-memorable Archbishop Antony of Geneva said and did, saving a child from abortion by adopting her.

Q: What is the origin of long beards for clergy?

A: Christ was bearded, so clergy are bearded. However, if you look at icons of Christ, He did not have a long beard. Look at icons of St John Chrysostom or St Ambrose of Milan, they had short beards too, again in honour of Christ. Long beards, and also long hair, came in with hermits from the Egyptian desert. Monks had long beards and long hair, because they had no way of shaving or even trimming them, so these were signs of unworldliness.

In the Russian Church, which was created by Greek and Bulgarian monks, monastic influence was so strong that not only monks, but also married priests and even laymen usually had long beards and sometimes long hair. However, in other Local Churches, where there is a parish tradition as well as a monastic tradition, it has always been common for married clergy to have short or trimmed beards, indeed laymen almost always shave. Their wives do not want husbands with beards, especially long ones. We should not confuse monasticism with Orthodoxy in the world. Two different things, but newcomers to the Church often confuse them.

The Scriptures

Q: What is the difference between history and prehistory, from an Orthodox perspective? What do we make of what is left from prehistory, for example fossils? The archaeologist Graham Hancock also claims that the remains of prehistoric civilisations exist, for example, beneath the sea. What do you think?

A: Prehistory is the history of the Pre-Flood world, the world before the Flood of Noah. This is recorded in Chapters 3-6 of Genesis, between the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden and the Flood, which was followed by the Ice Age. The Flood happened in 3,252 BC, according to traditional Orthodox dating, in other words, nearly 5,300 years ago. Whatever date you prefer for the Flood, traditional or non-traditional, history is what happened after the Flood and we are all descended from the eight people who were on the Ark. As regards prehistory, fossils record its existence. There have been no fossils in history.

Is there anything human left from prehistory? Apart from the accounts of civilisation, agriculture, building and metalworking recorded in chapters 3-6 of Genesis between the Fall of Adam and the Flood of Noah, I don’t know. Hancock makes lots of claims, but there is no scientific proof that what he found as an amateur archaeologist is actually prehistoric. It all seems to be much more recent, or else natural, like the straight splitting of basalt, which is natural, not human. His dating appears to be wildly inaccurate, even if you do not accept traditional Orthodox dating.

I think in theory something may remain from prehistoric human civilisation, but so far there is no proof of it. The Flood was such a cataclysm that probably all human constructions that came before it was destroyed, or else was buried hundreds or thousands of feet beneath the present surface of the Earth.

Q: Did St Paul write the Epistle to the Hebrews?

A: No, the Holy Spirit wrote it, as He wrote all Scripture, that is why Scripture is called Holy. Those who read the Bible without the Holy Spirit commit idolatry. In the case of this Epistle and others, the Holy Spirit wrote through the heart, mind, will and hand of the Apostle Paul.

I know some German Protestants think otherwise, and that he was not the author, but their views relate to ideas thought up as recently as the sixteenth century. The Church goes back long before this, to Pentecost, the coming down of the Holy Spirit. Once again, their theory proves that you cannot understand Scripture without the Holy Spirit Who wrote it.

The West

Q: Are the barbarians at the gates of the West?

A: The barbarians are not at the gates of the West, the barbarians have been in control for a millennium, which is why ‘the West’ is a fake West – the True West came before them. The proof of this is in the Crusades, in the Inquisition, in ‘Wars of Religion’, in the massacres by Europeans in the New Worlds, accusing the ones they massacred of being ‘savages’, in two so-called ‘World’ Wars and in the Third One in the Ukraine today. We reject the barbarians and praise the saints instead. We will say that it is the saints who are at the gates, trying to bring the Barbarian West who sit in the seats of Western authority to repentance.

Personal

Q: What is your favourite Orthodox book?

A: The New Testament.

Q: What do you do if you are insulted as a priest?

A: You pray for those who insult you and walk away because they are sick in mind. The only time you stand up to them is if they insult the Church, and not yourself, by preaching heresy or schism, for example by refusing communion with the Church or practising rebaptism. Then you must defend the Orthodox Faith. We defend others, not ourselves.

Q: Who influenced you?

A: In all twelve Christian people have influenced me. In order these have been:

Joan Phillips, Harry Norman, Maud Saunders, Fr Raphael Noica (the only one who is still alive), an unknown priest and old lady in Krasnodar in 1976, who both shone with the Divine Light, Fr Lev Lebedev, Elder Seraphim of Belgorod, Elder Ephraim of Arizona (1979), Fr Alexei Knyazev, Archbishop George Tarasov, Archbishop Antony Bartoshevich, Fr Alexander Trubnikov (who mortgaged his own home in order to build a church), and Elder Nikolai Guryanov.