Author Archives: Father Andrew

Covid-2019 at the end of 2020

And there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. (Matt, 24, 7-8)

Nearly exactly 0.1 (one in a thousand) of the UK population has now died with covid-19 (in an average year the death-rate is 0.94%, nearly one in a hundred). How many real excess deaths there have been is debated, since how many would have died anyway is unknown. Notably, however, although the death-rates in the UK, the US, Italy, France and Spain are very similar, the death-rate in Germany is about one third of them. This suggests that the definition of ‘died with covid’ is totally different there. In Germany all those who are listed as ‘died with covid’ died because covid played a major role in their death rather than a minor one.

Now that there are 35,000 infections per day in the UK, even according to official statistics, it is a matter of debate, what will happen first by next July: will all have obtained immunity or will all have been vaccinated? Last summer an immunologist from a famous London hospital informed us that his guess was that a third of the population had already been infected even by then. The degeneration of the virus into a new, more contagious, but less harmful strain is a sign that the end of it is coming; it is always like that. Normality will return next year. Clearly, only the tiny minority with very low immunity has been tragically affected.

This largely means those already dying from serious illnesses, mainly the very elderly (the average age of death is 83), sometimes as the result of a poor diet and obesity, smoking, alcoholism and drug-taking, sometimes as the result of some tragic illness like cancer or diabetes, or else, fortunately very rarely, as the result of a genetically deficient immune system. These last cases are very tragic and account for 1% of the total numbers of deaths with covid and have largely occurred among those between 20 and 40 (the under 20s are basically not affected and 90% of them have no symptoms at all). This virus is ageist and the younger have suffered much less from it.

Nevertheless, there has been much tragedy and those who are vulnerable to the virus (probably 1% of the population) should take the utmost care. Others must behave responsibly, compassionately and considerately towards them. However, during the time of covid ten times more people than those who died with covid have, as every year, died of old age, illness and accidents. Some of these have died prematurely, as their treatment has been neglected by a covid-attacked health system that as a result of chronic underfunding has been in crisis for decades. Because governments have for decades refused to fund the training of healthcare staff, the NHS relies on cheap imports.

Thus the government policy of building and equipping emergency (‘Nightingale’) hospitals has been shown to be absurd – after all, there is nobody to staff them, which is why they have largely remained empty. Many have died by suicide at the prospect of no future, offered them by totally irresponsible media which have promoted despair. The suicides and frequent depression and anxiety among the non-believing population should remain on journalists’ consciences for the rest of their lives. True, however, many people switched off the media long ago and the impression is that journalists are largely talking to themselves in an incestuous feast of gloom.

Similarly, the government which has destroyed or damaged the lives of millions through its irrational lockdowns of the national economy. Clearly, as a result of government anti-democratic totalitarianism (not allowing the individual to choose how to live), irresponsibility, incompetence and sheer panic, it will take years for the country to recover. Western democracy is increasingly being seen as the myth it is. After the crass lies about Iraq and then Brexit, media and government alike are totally distrusted on covid. Few believe liars and the government and media alike have almost totally discredited themselves. The exceptions are the elderly and naïve, who still actually believe that the BBC tells the truth!!

The only real question is: will the virus bring repentance? Because if not, other pestilences will follow. This is a warning. Accept death as the only inevitable reality of human life and learn how to deal with it through faith and everything will take on a completely different perspective. Atheists find it very difficult to deal with this reality, as death is their taboo. That is why their reality is a living death, the zombified life of the undead. The taboo can only be overcome through faith, which alone brings hope. Until then Western societies will remain crippled by joyless faithlessness, cynical hopelessness and the sorrows that inevitably come to all atheist societies throughout history.

Towards a Network of Twelve Multinational Orthodox Churches in the East of England

The Past

Non-Orthodox Western Europe is divided into 79 (NUTS-1) regions. Each has a population of between 3 and 7 million. Of these, nine are in England and our own region is the East of England, with a population of 6.2 million and consisting of six counties. In the east there are the large counties of Essex (1,417 square miles and 1.83 million people), Suffolk (1,466 square miles, but only 758,000 people) and Norfolk (2,074 square miles, but only 904,000 people), and in the west; the small counties of Hertfordshire (only 634 square miles, but 1.18 million people) and Bedfordshire (only 477 square miles and 670,000 people), followed by the large county of Cambridgeshire (1,309 square miles, but only 852,000 people).

A number of basically mononational, new calendar Orthodox missions exist in the East of England, some have existed for over five decades. These have largely catered for now mainly older Greeks or else, in much smaller numbers, for mainly older ex-Anglicans. Among them are for example Greek parishes in Great Yarmouth, Cambridge, Norwich and Southend and missions for ex-Anglicans in Norfolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire. There are also two new calendar Romanian missions in the region now and two old calendar Serbian missions have existed for several decades in Bedford and Letchworth.

A number of small and sometimes temporary Russian Orthodox missions have also existed. Notably, there was one which opened in the village of Walsingham in Norfolk in the 1960s and lasted for over 30 years (thanks to the pioneering work of a former Anglican, Fr David (Meyrick)). Much more recently, in order of date, there have been, or still are, small missions in Bury St Edmunds (2000-02 and 2017-18), in the village of Mettingham (founded in 2009 and with very regular services), a chapel outside Clacton (occasional services since 2010), and services in Ipswich (occasional services since 2015) and Wisbech (occasional services since 2016).

The Present

Apart from the above, from 1997 on permanent, multinational, old calendar and public-access Orthodox churches have also opened. These are, together with their dedications:

1997 – Felixstowe, Suffolk – St Felix

2002 – Kings Lynn, Norfolk – The Nativity of the Mother of God (and holding in special memory the Tsar-Martyr Nicholas who visited the town in 1894).

2008 – Colchester, Essex – St John of Shanghai (also with a winter church dedicated to All the Saints of the Isles).

2015 – Norwich, Norfolk – St Alexander Nevsky.

2015 – Peterborough, Cambridgeshire – St Olga.

2021- Cambridge-Little Abington, Cambridgeshire – St Edmund (and holding in special memory the other local saint, St Audrey of Ely).

All the above are in Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire and three of these churches, Colchester, Norwich and Cambridge-Little Abington, have their own churches. Although the three other churches are yet to obtain their own premises for the moment, it is still time to think of working elsewhere also.

The Future

We can think of founding and dedicating churches as a priority, in:

Bedford. This could be dedicated to Sts Peter and Paul, following the dedication of its first ever church to St Paul, founded in the eighth century, situated centrally on the banks of the River Ouse. This church would look after all Orthodox in the small county of Bedfordshire.

St Albans. The dedication must be to St Alban the Protomartyr and a large church here would look after all Orthodox in the small but densely-populated county of Hertfordshire.

Romford (formerly Essex, now Essex in east London). In a working-class area of great and multinational immigration, we suggest that a large church here be dedicated to St John of Kronstadt.

Lowestoft, Suffolk. The dedication in this former fishing port could be to St Nicholas. It would look after all Orthodox on the Suffolk and east Norfolk coast.

Southend. In the largest town in Essex, with a densely-populated catchment area, and as a former fishing port, we suggest a dedication to the fisherman St Andrew.

Thetford, Norfolk. Here in the centre of this whole network of churches, we suggest a dedication to the Resurrection.

Such a list of churches, open, about to open and possibly to open, does not exclude the existence of old and new chapels and churches, both present and future, in places in addition to these centres. Obvious choices would be in the large town of Harlow in Essex, a town on the north Norfolk coast such as Wells-next-the-Sea and, albeit outside the East of England, Boston in Lincolnshire. Similarly, there should be both a monastery and a convent in the East of England, perhaps one near the Suffolk coast and one in the west on the opposite side of the region.

However, this network, with three churches in the most populous county of Essex (if we include Romford as still in Essex), three in the largest county of Norfolk, two each in the very similar counties of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, and one each in the small counties of Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, would meet the needs of most Orthodox. It would bring all within a maximum 25-mile or 25-minute range of a church, the expression of our pastoral responsibility. Now we await the hand of Providence, the blessing of a bishop and the work of the people.

Spirituality or Moralism?

I spoke recently to a Romanian parishioner who had lived for a very long time in the Middle East and married a charming man, originally a Muslim. Taking him to a certain Romanian elder, who is still alive, she expected whom she supposed to be a very conservative elder to condemn her for marrying a Muslim and berate the Muslim for being such. Instead the elder came out and warmly embraced the Muslim and treated him as a brother. It was not long before the Muslim had joined the Orthodox Church. The story illustrates the old saying that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

The point is that the Spiritual is not conservatism. The Spiritual is the Tradition, the ever-renewed Inspiration of the Holy Spirit over the millennia, which is quite different from conservatism. Indeed, it is precisely in the absence of the Spiritual that conservatism, with its killing moralism and dead ritualism, takes over. Moralism is a sign of the end of the living, not of life. Both modernists and conservatives (‘traditionalists’) are moralists, because neither has the Spiritual, both lack Love, the very thing that they both claim in their self-delusion to have.

We saw it in the time of Christ with the Pharisees with their censorious judgementalism. We saw it with the Calvinistic Puritans, so intolerant that they could find nowhere to live in Europe and so had to go to America, where they slaughtered the native people and hunted innocent women to death as witches. We saw it with the Jesuits who preached hatred in the Name of God. We saw it with the Zoe and Sotir brotherhoods in Greece, who turned so many against the Church. We saw it with psychopaths and fanatics who tried to turn the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia into a mean and nasty sect. None of them knew that it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.

Moralists always exploit the naïve and weak, manipulating them and making them feel guilty for not being ‘conservative’ enough. They lecture and berate others, who have experience of the inner life. This is all because the moralists themselves have no inner life. And because they have no inner life, they pre-judge and condemn all others. And they pre-judge and condemn because they have no compassion and love for human weakness, only hardness of heart which destroys both themselves and others. Moralism is spiritual death; only the Spiritual gives Life, for only the Holy Spirit is the Giver of Life.

Who Betrayed the Europeans?

Who Betrayed the Europeans?

By the geographical centre of Europe, at Dilove in the Carpatho-Russian hills, an Orthodox shepherd, clad in his embroidered Hutsul sheepskin, plays his mountain pipe and sings of all the sorrows and of all the joys of the Europeans.

 

Far to the north-west, in the wild Hebrides, where the Atlantic wind comes blowing over the sunshone and deserted shell-white strand, bagpipes play out the tunes of the old piety for Mary and her servants Brigid and Columba, whose servants in turn brought the Word of God here nearly twenty thousand moons ago.

Far to the south-east, on the dry hills of eastern Cyprus, looking across the azure sea towards the centre of the world in Jerusalem, just over the horizon, a choir sings the folk songs about Christ, whom the old ones on the island loved and revered before the times changed.

On the cliffs of Cabo da Roca, not far from Lisbon, the most westerly point of the Eurasian landmass, by the old lighthouse, where twenty-five years ago I stood with Archbishop Seraphim and our Russian parishioners sang to him Many Years, they pray for the Europe which lost its soul and still seeks it.

Far to the north-east, in Romanov na Murmane, for now still miscalled Murmansk, by the Arctic shores of the White Sea, where St Tryphon of Kola converted the Lapps, a balalaika lament and a triumphal hymn can be heard for all the churches that the enemy of mankind began to burn and for all the saints that the enemy of mankind began to make, these one hundred years ago.

 

In the Ural foothills on the border of Asia and Europe, just outside Ekaterinburg, which became the spiritual capital of martyric Europe on that fateful night of 4/17 July 1918, a choir sings in praise of the Great Martyrs, a Russian-Dane and an Englishwoman from Hesse and all their beautiful children and faithful servants, who showed Europeans the path of repentance they must take for the salvation of their souls. Let him who has ears, hear.

Who betrayed the Europeans?

Popes, Luthers, Napoleons, Marxes, Kaisers, Hitlers and all who were deluded by the promises of the evil one and went and followed them over this thousand years. They preferred the spiritually ugly to the spiritually beautiful. That is why all of them are called apostates.

 

Covid-19 Hysteria Continues

“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”

Saying Attributed to Abraham Lincoln

Although nobody dies of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19), they do die with it. It now looks as though, directly or indirectly, it will cause the deaths of more than 0.1% of the UK population, that is, more than one in a thousand. (The natural global death rate is over 10 times higher, round about 10 in a 1,000, since death is inevitable and few live after the age of 100). Worldwide, it seems as though the death toll from Covid will be far less, perhaps 0.03%. This is because in Western countries like the UK, the disease contributes to the deaths of those who in poorer countries already died long ago. In rich Western countries, where people live into their 80s and beyond and thanks to advanced medical technology can live for decades with chronic diseases and low immunity, Covid is taking a much higher toll.

Thus, those who in Western countries survive for decades with chronic underlying illnesses are very vulnerable to Covid and must take great care. On the other hand, the vast majority, who have strong or just normal genetic immunity have little to fear. However, the way in which all Western and many Non-Western governments have dealt with this relatively minor epidemic is extraordinary. Their reaction will have effects that will last for decades, long after mass immunity to the virus has been obtained, either naturally, or else through the many different national vaccines, of which the Russian was the first.

After all this virus is not the Kansas flu (the so-called ‘Spanish’ flu) of over 100 years ago, let alone the bubonic plague, which killed tens and hundreds of millions. And yet governments have blighted the lives of tens of millions. State lockdowns – not the ‘pandemic’ – have caused widespread mental distress, depression and suicide, as well as suicidally bankrupting whole sectors of the global economy, making tens of millions unemployed and bringing mass poverty. It will take decades to recover economically and pay off the debts.

All seems clearly to point to a situation in which the remedy has caused far more problems than the disease. This is especially the case in the more totalitarian States, like France, and also in the region of Scotland. These have virtually become police states. In England it is extraordinary to see a Conservative Party creating the ultimate nanny State. The consequence is that few now listen to the State-run scare propaganda of the BBC and other State mouthpieces. Widespread anti-lockdown demonstrations of up to 30,000 are not reported, except on the still free social media. In some parts of the country many refuse to wear masks, as they are seen as totally ineffective.

The official State propaganda media all blame the situation on the pandemic, not on the real cause, the State lockdown. In the first UK lockdown which officially lasted for three months, many, often elderly or ill, were bullied and intimidated and actually believed the media hysteria of atheist journalists. Younger and healthy people (the under 60s) were generally much more sceptical and felt extremely annoyed by State interference in their lives. This is why the second lockdown was largely ignored. It was always ironic to sit in huge traffic jams beneath signs saying ‘Essential Travel Only’. You cannot fool all the people all the time. Many will never listen to or watch State media again; the loss of trust is enormous.

Such a drastic ‘remedy’ as a lockdown merely slows the absolutely inevitable spread (you cannot stop nature) of the virus. Together with widespread censorship, this has spawned countless conspiracy theories. Most are completely absurd. Usually, conspiracy theories never account for the reality of human incompetence. No, the ‘pandemic’ did not happen because someone plotted it; it happened because governments reacted with panic and incompetence to a new virus. New viruses appear regularly throughout history. However, conspiracy theories also confuse cause and effect. No, giant online companies did not invent the virus to bankrupt small shops. The online giants simply took advantage of State lockdowns.

The real reason for drastic lockdowns, imprisoning people in their homes and gagging their mouths, causing depression, suicide and mass bankruptcy, is a spiritual reason. It is the fear of death. Once again we are the victims of the atheist elite which rules over us. Just as the tragedies and atrocities of the twentieth century, whether committed by Capitalists, Communists or Nazis, were all the work of atheists, so this present tragedy, is also their responsibility. Those who believe do not fear death. Those who, incredibly for us, actually believe that this life is all we have, dread death. And so they gag us and bankrupt us.

 

 

The Spiritual Meaning of the Scourge of Covid-19

Too much evil has gone on for too long and with impunity. For over 100 years the sons of men have openly mocked God and openly scorned piety. Did they really think that they could continue like this, with their new Sodom and Gomorrah, without grave consequences? Did they really imagine that, having cast off the protection of God’s grace, they were not opening their doors to let the demons in? Did they really learn nothing from the World Wars? Now is the time when the nations have to pay for this impunity. Now is the time of crisis.

In Greek the word crisis means judgement, so now is the time of the judgement of the nations. Judgement is here now in the form of covid. God has allowed this scourge, the mildest of scourges when we think of the scourges of the last century, as one of a series of last warnings. Either repent, or else the hordes of demons, waiting with gleeful malice to come up from the fires of hell to join their many minions already wreaking destruction and death among humanity on earth with other scourges, will set on you much more viciously.

Much of the Roman Catholic/Protestant subculture of Christianity has shut down and confined itself inside, running scared of this judgement. Only the remnant of them. who have still kept some vestiges of the Orthodox Christian Faith, have resisted. Thus, Protestantism largely gave up in obedience to the secular states which created it. As for the apostates of Catholicism, Papostasy, as some have called it, they have continued not only without repentance, but even with self-justification, merging with the world which ‘lies in evil’.

However, part of the (Orthodox) Christian world has done no better and exactly imitated the apostasy of the Non-Orthodox in fear. This is all the more alarming, as the (Orthodox) Christian world has for the last 103 years been living on time borrowed from the mercy of the Mother of God.

However, the scourge has also touched the holy and righteous. In Montenegro one of the few righteous and truthful Orthodox voices in this world who had the courage and honesty to denounce the satanists, that of Metr Amfilochije, has been silenced. He knew that only the Truth sets free and always spoke fearlessly for all who seek the Truth, as I can witness from the San Francisco Council of 2006. And from beyond the grave, the blessed Fr Ephraim of Arizona has also spoken in a vision, warning all to return to Christ before it is too late.

Our common vision with them, both of whom we knew, has always been that of the Restoration of Orthodox Christianity as a United World Civilisation. Since the collapse of the foreign and alien Marxist tyranny, that poisonous import into Imperial Russia from Western Europe, it is petty nationalism, an offshoot of secularism, that has become ever more our enemy in our warfare against the powers of satanism. For Satan will do all he can to prevent the return of Orthodox Christianity as a world power, as it alone is able to stand up to him.

Now the scourge is speaking through the behaviour of Orthodox, both the faithful and those inclined to apostasy There are those who seem to be giving up in cowardice and running away into the waiting arms of the devil. And there are those who do not fear death because they only fear God. They know that if Universal Orthodox Christian Civilisation is restored, they belong to it. If not, they will go, fearless of death, to God, like Metr Amfilochije and Fr Ephraim. And you, whose arms are you running towards? Whose side are you on?

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Decline of the USA and the Peace of the Whole World

Although the British Empire can be said to have existed for the five centuries of the Protestant ascendancy from the sixteenth century to the twentieth century, in reality its domination lasted for far less. Most would probably agree that this domination began with the final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815 and ended in 1914 with the self-destructive First World War, when the sun began to set on the empire on which the sun never set.

However, its moral illegitimacy and bankruptcy were already visible in the second half of the nineteenth century with its genocides in Europe, Asia and Africa, notably with its invasion of Russia in 1854, then its massacres in China, India, the Sudan (the Maxim gun against spears) and the Second Boer War (1899-1902) (the British invention of the concentration camp). The sign of its imminent end came in 1912 with the sinking of the ‘unsinkable’ Titanic.

The American Empire has also endured for about a century. The age of its domination began, arguably, in 1917 with its entry into the First European (‘World’) War. Its decline began 58 years later with its defeat by Vietnamese peasants in 1975. This was the loss of its moral legitimacy. Will its end come 58 years after 1975, in 2033? Nobody knows. But there are those who have been wondering ever more whether it will not soon split into its component parts.

This could mean Canada taking over the north-eastern and north-western coastal states, Mexico taking back the Spanish-named south (notably New Mexico, in fact Old Mexico), the Russian Federation taking back Alaska, once more becoming tricontinental, California becoming independent, as also New York, Washington DC and the states around them, perhaps called Washingtonia, and the central states becoming a North American Republic.

Pride goes before the fall. The British Empire fell because although it claimed to preach the Bible, it did so only in words and not in deeds. As for the reason why the American Empire fell, we will leave that to the historians of the future. As we saw with the fall of the Soviet Empire, an Empire can fall in one night. Whatever the case, we must hope and pray that all may take place in peace, even in a country where the civilian population owns nearly 400 million guns.

A Prayer for the USA

O holy right-believing Alfred, Great King of Wessex and father of the English nation, hear our supplication.

Thou hast shown us an indelible example of courage and faith in the marshes of Athelney, when all England was suffering the depredation of the heathen Danes. Thou didst build up the defenses of thy kingdom as thou didst also strive to increase the Christian Faith in thy kingly heart, showing an example of true wisdom to friend and enemy alike; enlightening thy people, showing mercy to thy vanquished foes, wisely preparing for war, but striving always for a holy peace.

Thou didst love learning and render into English many holy books, sending them out to all thy people, raising up their minds and hearts in the light of true knowledge.nThou didst renew the ancient laws of England, becoming a new Justinian, showing an example of the righteous judgment required by God of all who are in seats of power.

We, thy spiritual children in America, ask now thy strong intercession before the King of kings; help us in our time of trouble.  Be like Elijah and grant us a double portion of thy spirit that thirsted after these virtues of courage, faith, steadfastness in the face of uncertainty and fear, the love of the Lord that brings holy wisdom, and righteous and merciful judgment in the fear of God.

O Alfred, wise king, do thou entreat Him to guide us steadily, as He guided thee, and to grant order, justice, peace and tranquility to our native land.

In the name of the Father to Whom thou drawest nearer every day, the Son Whose Love thou didst teach to all, and the Holy Spirit Who fillest thy heart, now and ever and unto the ages of ages.  Amen.

Priest Christopher Johnson

 

A Life in the Day of an Orthodox Priest

7.10 am. Leave for the church in Essex where at 8.00 I have to meet an engineer about a fault in the sound system in the church. I get there early and he too. We shall need one new microphone and two extra speakers.

8.30 am. I have time to tidy the church and then see a Bulgarian woman who has problems with her son who is studying medicine.

10.00 In September a drunken man crashed into the perimeter wall of the church at 3.20 in the morning. He managed to get out of his car unharmed though the car was a write-off. Having found out the car registration from the police, now I have an appointment with a builder who is to give a quote to our insurance company to repair the wall. It will cost them several thousand pounds. For some reason he wants to see me and not the caretaker. He turns out to be an Irishman who wants to talk to a priest.

10.25 Get the church caretaker to be present for the fitting of a new smart meter for the electricity in the church.

10.40 I call on two parishioners in Colchester, originally from Saint Petersburg, a mother and daughter. The mother, born during the German siege in the War, has dementia.

11.30 Visit a parishioner in Colchester whose husband is Turkish and hesitating about being baptised. We already have three Turkish parishioners and I want him and his wife to come tomorrow where I will be baptising another Turkish man. Once he has accepted baptism, I will be able to marry him and his civil wife.

12.15 Visit the graves of my parents and my brother fifteen minutes away. Tidy them

12.40 Phone call from a parishioner in Thetford in Norfolk whose friend’s mother has just died. I will serve a panikhida tomorrow, St Dimitri’s Saturday. O Lord, give rest to Thy servant Larisa who has fallen asleep.

2.00 pm. Despite the covid lockdown, I have to go to one of the prisons in west Suffolk, about an hour away, where I am the Orthodox chaplain for an emergency, to see a Russian man on suicide watch. He is clearly suffering from severe depression. I manage to listen to his first ever confession and give him communion. He says he feels better.

4.00 Call in on a parishioner about forty minutes from the prison. She obtained British nationality two years ago, but her foreign-born daughter still does not have it. She is panicking and tells me that her daughter may be deported. I reassured her and telephoned an advice centre, who inform me that there is no hurry and that the daughter will obtain a British passport within six months, after payment of just over £1,000. The problem is only financial, not worse. We read the akathist to St Nicholas together in her icon-corner.

6.00 Get home which is thirty minutes away. Answer two letters and pick up messages from parishioners left on the landline.

7.30 E-mail the lists of parishioners with a circular about arrangements for confession and communion during the forthcoming new closure of churches. A rush of phone calls on my mobile starts.

8.00 Tell the cleaner that she need not come in next week because of covid-19.

8.05 Phone the second and third priests about the new arrangements.

8.15 Phone-call with the future deacon about service-books.

8.20 Phone call from a couple whose marriage at crisis point.

8.40 Order a mantle for the Bishop from the Ukraine.

9.00 Phone call from a Moldovan woman in East London: Please pray for my uncle and aunt, Sergei and Elena. They were climbing in the Himalayas when they fell into a crevasse on a glacier. Their bodies cannot be retrieved for burial, at least not for some centuries. She is in tears.

9.10 Answer e-mails, including an e-mail from a family who have had to move to a place on the other side of the country where there is no church. I tell them that if they can find other Orthodox there and premises, we can ask the Bishop about the possibility of starting a mission. But we are so short of priests; we need at least three more just in our area.