Category Archives: Britain and Ireland

Communiqué: New Decisions of the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church

Published by Andrei Ursulean

On Thursday 29 February 2024 a working session of the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church took place in the Great Hall of Theoctist the Patriarch in the Palace of the Patriarchate, under the Presidency of His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel.

The main decisions of the Holy Synod are as follows:

  1. The declaration in the Patriarchate of Romania of 2025 as the commemorative year of the centenary of the Patriarchate of Romania and the commemorative year of the Romanian Orthodox priests and confessors of the 20th century.
  2. The establishment of a Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Great Britain, based in London, for the more than the 1 million Romanian Orthodox believers in this part of Western Europe.
  3. The establishment of a Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Ireland and Iceland, based in Dublin.
  4. We recall the position of the Romanian Orthodox Church with regard to political life and electoral campaigns that, in the context of the 2024 electoral year, the Church is not involved in party politics, because, according to Article 7 Para. 1 of Law No. 489/2006 on religious freedom and the general regime of cults, recognised cults are factors of social peace and any attitude of public enmity in society, of political partisanship, of attacking persons or straining relations with public authorities are contrary to the spiritual mission of the Church in society.
  5. Approval of the December and January volumes of the Synodal Lives of the Saints of the Romanian Orthodox Church.
  6. Approval of the Akathist of the Holy Unmercenaries Cosmas and Damian of Asia (November 1).
  7. Approval of the Akathist of Saint Gerasim of Cephalonia (October 20).
  8. Approval of the Service to the Holy Unmercenaries Cyrus and John (January 31, June 28).
  9. The organisation from 1-31 March 2024 of a collection in the Romanian Patriarchate to help build homes in Armenia for Armenian refugees from Nagorno Karabakh.
  10. A reminder of the fact that, through the Financial Control and Audit Body of Dioceses, Metropolias and the Patriarchate of Romania the Church authorities audit the financial and property statements of parishes, dioceses and metropolitans and, in the event that deficiencies are found, they adopt measures to remedy them, for the correct application of which the Metropolitan Synod, respectively the Permanent Synod, are responsible; the respective Financial Control and Audit Bodies must be staffed with experienced specialists (economists and financial auditors), who are characterised by fairness, professionalism and faithfulness to the Church.
  11. We bless, encourage and support the initiatives of Romanian Orthodox communities in Ukraine to restore communion with the Mother Church, the Patriarchate of Romania, through their legal organisation in the religious structure called the Romanian Orthodox Church of the Ukraine.
  12. We reaffirm the fact that all Romanian Orthodox clergy and pastors from the Republic of Moldova who return to the Metropolia of Bessarabia are canonical clergy and blessed believers and any disciplinary sanction directed against them on the grounds of their membership of the Romanian Orthodox Church is considered null and void, according to the Synodal Decision No. 8090 of 19 December 19 1992.
  13. We appreciate the rich social and charitable activity of the Romanian Orthodox Church during the year 2023, which have had visible positive effects in Romanian society.

Chancellery of the Holy Synod

On 35 years of Service at the Altar in France, Portugal and England

46 years ago, in 1974, after six years of waiting, I was at last able to move to a town which had a Russian Orthodox church: at that time there were only two permanent Russian Orthodox churches and four chapels in the whole of England. Later I worked in Greece and studied at seminary in Paris. Exactly 39 years ago I was tonsured reader by Metropolitan Antony Bloom at the Ennismore Gardens Cathedral in Knightsbridge. In the last 35 years since being ordained deacon at St Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Paris on 27 January 1985, God has allowed me to serve His Church in many countries in Western Europe, in France, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and Portugal, by the grace of God setting up the first ever Russian Orthodox church in Lisbon and then some the first ever churches and communities in Eastern England.

Thus, this church began in tiny temporary premises in Felixstowe, which then moved to my native town of Colchester, as soon as I had raised the funds to buy the first suitable property which appeared, here in Colchester. I then did the same in Norwich, raising the funds to buy, convert and equip premises. I have also served and serve in Bury St Edmunds and Wisbech and made missionary travels all over Eastern England, including to Kent and Yorkshire. Others have been brought back into our Church in the East of England from suspension and schism, notably a reader and two priests, and I have also obtained three new priests for our Diocese, Fr Ion here, Fr Spasimir for Norwich, Fr Yaroslav for London and, God willing, very soon a fourth for our church here. After 22 years of struggle, I was honoured when the Synod awarded me the gold cross for this tenacity in the face of every discouragement. I thank God for everything, as He has done all these things using us all as His instruments. Glory to God for all things!

Archpriest Andrew Phillips

The Baptism of the Lord, 19 January 2020

 

Freedom in the Air

The refusal of the British Establishment with its unrepresentative Parliament, the Metropolitan elite, including the Labour Party which obtusely ignored the voice of its electorate and so paid the price, and the BBC State propaganda mouthpiece, to continue not to implement the will of the people is over. For the UK election results make Brexit inevitable. And that makes the eventual collapse of EU tyranny inevitable. That makes those of us who have always fought against that tyranny ever since Conservative treachery forced us into the historic deviation of joining the then Common Market in 1973 happy. Who will be next to quit the failed EU? Hungary? Ireland? Slovakia? Denmark? Sweden? Freedom is in the air.

However, the results also show that not only is the collapse of the European Union inevitable, but also that of the British Union, forced by Establishment-organized violence, bribery and corruption on England in 1066, on Wales in 1282, on Scotland in 1707 and on Ireland in 1800. England is perhaps at last on its way to recovering its independence from the Norman-imposed London ‘British’ elite, Wales may follow, Scotland’s independence must be restored – however without aggressiveness towards the victim of England, and Northern Ireland, artificially cut off from the rest of Ireland for almost a century, will certainly be reunited with the South. From that point on the Four Countries will have to work out arrangements for a new, Non-Unionist, Confederation of the Isles.

As to whether the new government can find the correct path out of the EU and at that same time create social justice, investing in the almost Third World UK infrastructure of the drastically underfunded Health, Education, Police and Prison services, restoring the at present pathetic road and rail networks and creating a modern broadband network, and at long last bring the Wild West privatized utilities under government regulation for the benefit of the long-suffering public, remains to be seen.

May the Lord have mercy on us all.

Chamberlain or Churchill?

Political parties are always made up, on the one hand, of people who actually believe in something (conviction politicians) and, on the other hand, of careerists and opportunists, some strong, some weak, but for all of whom the money and power of business sponsors is the main thing. The latter use their chosen party as a mere springboard for (and victim of) their personal ambition and narcissism. They are always willing to sell out on principles for personal gain. In France, for example, no-one can become President without his personal political party, usually set up specifically to fulfil his ambition. In the UK, the division between conviction and career has always been the case in history in both the Conservative and Labour Parties.

In the latter case, this careerism has been clearly visible in recent times in the case of Prime Minister Blair. His policies led to the deaths of thousands as a result of his meddling in several countries and also to tens of billions of British pounds being wasted, in the end bankrupting the country. In the former case we can clearly see the same opportunism in the career of Prime Minister Cameron, in part responsible for the deaths and misery of a great many in Libya. (However, he who opened Pandora’s Brexit box already had as his ancestors both slave-traders and bankers, who financed the Japanese War against Russia 115 years ago).

Some eighty years ago we can see the same thing in the career of the Conservative Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. When, eighty years ago, on 3 September 1939 the UK finally took the decision to stand up to Hitler, his fate was sealed. For years before Chamberlain had been dilly-dallying with Hitler, cruelly betraying Czechoslovakia, carved up by Nazi Germany, Fascist Hungary and Fascist Poland (many forget the ruthless Polish persecution of Non-Poles and the German-Polish non-aggression pact of 1934). Thus, eventually, even Chamberlain had to stand up for principles, though he proved far too weak to lead, unable (like Theresa May?) to stand up to traitors and collaborationists like Lord Halifax, and he had to be replaced by Churchill.

One national newspaper had on 4 September the headlines: ‘Parliament Surrenders to the EU’. We cannot help recalling that Parliament as such was founded by the genocidal tyrant Cromwell, with a million murders on his hands, whose statue actually still stands outside Parliament. Once more today, the countries which make up the UK are faced with a choice: to live by principle or to swim with the tide of Continental divide and rule drift. Eighty years ago in 1939 it was the same. Now the choice may even come on the Feast of St Andrew the Fool for Christ, 15 October.

The choice, whenever it happens and whoever the Prime Minister is, will be between national identity and lucre. For some the former is higher than the latter. For others, many of them now elderly, only thirty pieces of silver count and the national principle can be betrayed. What will happen? Will Brexit happen? Nobody knows. The country is paralysed by a Business-sponsored Parliament which refuses to implement the will of the people and lacks the courage to hold a General Election.

 

Holy Suffolk

Holiness is the Christian Orthodox ideal: we look not at rank or riches, but at holiness, for it is one of the four signs of the Church and the one which is personally accessible.  It is why all Orthodox speak of the Holy Land, the Holy Mountain, Holy Russia and of making pilgrimages to holy places, the places of the saints. Locally, in England, we speak of Holy Island, the monastery of St Cuthbert in Lindisfarne, and also of one county as holy: Holy Suffolk. What is the origin of this latter name?

When the pagan Danes invaded the Kingdom of East Anglia in the ninth century, martyring St Edmund in Hoxne, among the ‘southern folk’ of the Kingdom, later called Suffolk, they found so many churches and so much piety that they called the region ‘gesaelig’, meaning ‘blessed’ or ‘holy’. This by corruption in the Middle Ages became ‘seely’ and today ‘silly’, hence the name ‘Silly Suffolk’. Incidentally, the root of this word is the same as the Greek ‘salos’, which means foolish for Christ; any fool for Christ’s sake is known as ‘salos’ in Greek. As the Apostle Paul writes, foolishness (‘silliness’) in this world is wisdom before God.

Thus, we know that there were already 417 churches in Suffolk in 1066 – for a population that could not then have been more than 50,000: one church for every hundred or so people. Moreover, what had become known at that time as Suffolk (the region of the southern folk of East Anglia) was by the twelfth century divided into three parts: about one third in the south-east was called St Audrey’s Liberty, for this centred on Rendlesham, which had been owned by St Audrey (pedants call her ‘Etheldreda’). She was baptised by St Felix who lived there and after whom nearby Felixstowe, where St Felix founded a monastery, is named. The other two-thirds was divided into St Edmund’s Liberty or west Suffolk, centred on Bury St Edmunds, and into what was called the ‘Geldable’ (= the taxable, that is the area subject to central secular taxation). Thus some two-thirds of the modern county was dedicated to the Church, through St Audrey and St Edmund.

Indeed, a more or less straight diagonal line can be drawn from Felixstowe in the south-east corner of Suffolk, on to Bury St Edmunds and then to Ely, which borders Suffolk,  just beyond its north-west corner. The monastery in Ely had been founded by St Audrey who had been born in nearby Exning in Suffolk. This straight line forms a heavenly path for pilgrims, a spiritual way, a mystical road, connecting the three best-known saints of Suffolk: St Felix, Apostle of East Anglia, St Edmund, King of East Anglia and St Audrey of Ely. This is part of that mystical conscience of the other England, beyond modern traffic and roads, towns and shops, noise and bustle. It is a tiny fragment of holiness in today’s Suffolk, pointing us to our Orthodox destiny.

Holy, Felix, Audrey and Edmund, pray to God for us!

 

 

 

 

Brexit: The End of the Norman and Frankish Empires and the Return of the Nations

The Viking-founded British Empire was without doubt one of the most horrible and barbaric empires in the history of the world. We can think of brutal, State-sponsored Tudor privateer-plunderers like ‘Sir’ Francis Drake, slavery in Africa and the exploitation of the Caribbean which made the wealth of merchants in London, Liverpool and Bristol, the genocides in North America, in India under and after the thieving rogue Clive, in China (the opium wars) and in Oceania (the extinction of the Tasmanians). We can think of the 1854 invasion of Russia, the later occupation of Cyprus, the ruthless carve-up of Africa under the racist thug Rhodes, the genocides against the Sudanese and the Boers, and two European Wars, which Britain helped to create and spread worldwide, with their 70 million murders.

The British Empire traces its history as far back as the anti-English Viking looters, the Normans, who in 1066 ruthlessly conquered England (100,000 dead and the English elite exiled), then Wales, Scotland and Ireland, setting up what eventually became known as the British Establishment. Whatever their racial origin, those who have been co-opted into the elitist Norman Establishment look down on the people as ‘plebs’. The Establishment revived the word Britain, harking back to the bloodthirsty Romans. The foreign Normans engaged ‘the plebs’ in almost continuous and bankrupting wars with France during the Middle Ages. In the 16th century the foreign Tudors turned away as losers from Western Europe and continued plundering, now overseas, yoking the native peoples of many more lands.

In the next century, the Puritans under the tyrant Cromwell murdered the Christian King and ‘developed’ this empire, slaughtering a million Irish people. However, what would become the worldwide British Empire only took form after the notorious acts of bribery called the ‘Union’ with Scotland in 1707.  After this, only now ruled by German puppet princelings, the plundering mercantile Establishment occupied India, Canada (and nearly all of North America) and Australia. That eighteenth century was that of the notorious East India Company, with its destruction of India, the age of the racist anthems, ‘Rule Britannia’ and ‘God Save the King’, the age of interventions in Europe to prevent others rivalling the Establishment (the Seven Years War, later the Napoleonic Wars and two World Wars).

It was also the age of the destruction of the Four Nations of the Anglo-Celtic Isles. (Union with Ireland was declared in 1801, again through bribery and corruption). Masses of impoverished English, Irish, Scots, and Welsh fled to the New Worlds as emigrants to avoid starvation (in Ireland famine), as native agriculture was annihilated, or to avoid early death in the appalling factories and slums of the Industrial Revolution. The future collapse of this nightmare began in the 1870s as Britain was little by little overtaken by Germany and the USA. One hundred years ago, in 1919, with the disastrous terms of the post-War Versailles ‘agreement’ dictated by the USA, it was clear that indebted Britain and its Empire were fading. This was evidenced by the independence finally ceded after war to most of Ireland in 1921.

Humiliated by the equally ruthless Japanese and American Empires in the Second World War, that bankrupting affair caused by the injustices of the Versailles Treaty, the British Establishment was forced into returning freedom to its colonies. As a result, the internal British Empire also began to collapse, with Scotland and even anglicized Wales and many in Northern Ireland and England seeking freedom from the London Establishment elite. The culmination came in 2016, 950 years after the Norman Invasion, when the ‘plebs’ were finally allowed by the Establishment, which had deluded itself into thinking that the plebs would never vote against them, to vote against the elitist European Union project. The real England wanted its freedom back, for Brexit is in fact also freedom from Norman England.

The democratic genie had finally been let out of the bottle in 2016: 950 years of Norman plunder was rejected. Despite the fact that a large majority of the population had been totally brainwashed by generations of the State-run BBC and other media, populated by journalists all carefully vetted by the Establishment, and many of them not racially English and so serving alien causes, freedom was dawning. However, the existence of Norman Britain is only a small part of the problem; the greater problem is the existence of Frankish Europe, which has spread its tentacles all over the world and of which Norman Britain is only part. However, as President Putin implied on 27 June, the Frankish European Union, with its social and economic liberalism – the worst of both worlds, will die just like the Soviet Union.

Thirty years ago, 75 years after the outbreak of the First World War, we began to see the long-awaited collapse of that Soviet Empire. It was the last piece of the 1919 settlement to fall. Next year will mark 75 years since the end of the Second World War. In the coming months and years we shall in turn see the collapse of the 1945 settlement. This includes the collapse of the American Empire, meaning the NATO-ized European Union and its vassals around the world, from Saudi Arabia to Georgia, from Japan to Lithuania, from Israel to the Ukraine. As for the Norman British Establishment, it is over: England, a reunited Ireland, Scotland and Wales are all returning. The only question that remains is: Will these and the other restored nations remain pagan as now, or will they repent and return to their Christian roots?

 

Wanted: A New Guy Fawkes

A great political struggle on the Brexit issue is going on in the United Kingdom. It is not the political struggle between the elite of the EU and the UK. It is not the struggle between Leavers (‘Brexiteers’) and Remainers (EU worshippers). It is not the struggle between the Prime Minister and Parliament. It is not even the struggle inside the two main political parties, which, true, are completely divided on Brexit, and always have been. No, the great struggle is between the Parliament and the People, for the former refuses to implement the wishes of the People, even after almost three years (some might say ever since 1973). ‘Representative democracy’ has once again failed to be either representative or democratic, but has shown itself to be an elitist tyranny – as the whole British Establishment construct and the whole EU project always have been.

Historically, Parliament as we now know it came into being in the seventeenth century. This was at the behest of wealthy and power-hungry aristocrats and capitalist businessmen (‘merchants’), interested in colonialist exploitation and slavery, and also rich farmers. Together they usurped and then murdered the Christian King, the defender of the People, so that they could gain even more power and make even more money on the backs of the exploited and enslaved. (Indeed, incredibly, a statue of one of the most bloodthirsty capitalist farmers, he who murdered the King and then killed a million Irish men, women and children, still stands outside Parliament unchallenged to this day). Thus, the utterly corrupted Members of Parliament were simply the puppets who carried out the orders of the moneyed elite. Many, it seems, still do the same.

Guy Fawkes, born in York in April 1570, was the son of Edward and Edith Fawkes (the names of our Old English saints). He was a provincial and devout, but naïve and idealistic Roman Catholic who challenged Parliamentary tyranny. However, he tried to do this by violence, by blowing up Parliament with gunpowder. And that was his undoing. For he was betrayed on 5 November 1605 and then tortured and in January 1606, aged 35, murdered. His name is the origin of the word ‘guy’, meaning man or person. It seems to us that we now need a new Guy Fawkes, a non-violent ‘guy’ who will blow up Parliament with words, as the pen is always mightier than the sword. Guy Fawkes has been described as ‘the last man to enter Parliament with honest intentions’. We would say ‘the last man to enter Parliament with honest intentions so far’.

 

 

On the Legal Status of the Episcopal Title ‘of London’

The ecclesiastical title ‘of London’ was established in the Roman period, though it was not in continuous use. The first recorded Bishop of London was Restitutus who attended the Council of Arles in 314. The exact site of his cathedral was somewhere in the City of London. London reverted to paganism following the departure of the Romans and the Diocese was reconstituted only in 604 by St Mellitus, a monk who had come with St Augustine. He founded or refounded St Paul’s Cathedral and was succeeded by St Cedd (+ 664) and later St Erconwald (+ 693). London was part of the Kingdom and Diocese of Essex, which then included Middlesex, much of Hertfordshire and of course Essex.

Archimandrite Nicholas (Karpov), Rector of the Parish of the Dormition in London, was consecrated with the title of Bishop of London on All Saints Sunday June 30th 1929.

All laws prohibiting the use of the ecclesiastical title ‘Bishop of London’ (or similar) have been repealed.

There used to be an Act of Parliament, the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829, which prohibited the use of the episcopal titles already used by the Church of England (‘Bishop of London’ being such a title). In particular, section 24 of that Act imposed a penalty of £100 on any person, not authorised by law, who should assume the title of any archbishop, bishop or dean. Section 24 read as follows:

“And whereas the Protestant Episcopal Church of England and Ireland, and the doctrine, discipline, and government thereof, and likewise the Protestant Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and the doctrine, discipline, and government thereof, are by the respective Acts of Union of England and Scotland, and of Great Britain and Ireland, established permanently and inviolably, and whereas the right and title of archbishops to their respective provinces, of bishops to their sees, and the deans to their deaneries, as well in England as in Ireland, have been settled and established by law, be it therefore enacted that if any person after the commencement of this Act, other than the person thereunto authorised by law, shall assume or use the name, style, or title of archbishop of any province, bishop of any bishopric, or dean of any deanery in England or Ireland, he shall for every such offence forfeit and pay the sum of £100.” 

This prohibition was extended by the Ecclesiastical Titles Act 1851 which prevented the assumption of episcopal titles in respect of any place in the United Kingdom (whether or not already used by the Church of England). This Act was adopted because there was some doubt as to whether section 24 of the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 was wide enough to prohibit the assumption of a title not already used by the Church of England. Section 2 of the Ecclesiastical Titles Act 1851 read as follows:

“… if any person, other than a person thereunto authorised by law in respect of an archbishopric, bishopric, or deanery of the United Church of England and Ireland, assume or use the name, style or title, of archbishop, bishop or dean of any city, town or place, or of any territory or district (under any description or designation whatsoever), in the United Kingdom, whether such city, town or place, or such territory or district, be or be not the see or the province, or co-extensive with the province, of any archbishop, or the see or the diocese, or co-extensive with the diocese, of any bishop, or the seat or place of the church of any dean, or co-extensive with any deanery, of the said United Church, the person so offending shall for every such offence forfeit and pay the sum of £100…”

Crucially, both section 24 of the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 and the Ecclesiastical Titles Act 1851 have been repealed:

  • Section 24 was repealed by the Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1978 as it was considered to be obsolete. (Note that the State Law (Repeals) Act 1978 was subsequently repealed by the Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1998, but this was only because the 1978 Act was itself considered to be obsolete; this does not affect the repeal of section 24 of the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829, as confirmed by the Law Commission in a report (pp 103-105)).
  • The Ecclesiastical Titles Act 1851 was repealed by the Ecclesiastical Titles Act 1871 because it was ineffective, or more specifically because it wasnot expedient to impose penalties upon those ministers of religion who may, as among the members of the several religious bodies to which they respectively belong, be designated by distinctions regarded as titles of office, although such designation may be connected with the name of some town or place within the realm”

 

 

How a Church Was Divided

Introduction

Sadly, here have been several cases of decadence among Orthodox clergy in the Diaspora, especially since the 1950s, no jurisdiction excepted. Clerical scandals have at times turned people away from the Church. People have said: ‘If that is how certain clergy behave, then the Church is no different from the world’. Certain bishops and those ordained and then supported by such bishops have shown a lack of love through weakness of faith or even absence of faith. Such a weakness of faith or absence of faith has resulted in spiritual catastrophes.

Unprincipled careerist political compromises, simony, theft of Church money, moral iniquity and narcissistic jealousy leading to the persecution of honest priests and people, we have seen them all. As a result, the Church on earth has not been able to witness to the world as it could have. Terrifyingly, the culprits will have to answer at the Last Judgement. Thus, in this period, God gave an opportunity for all English-speaking Orthodox in the British Isles at least to be united, but the opportunity was lost. Where did those rejected go in order to survive?

ROCOR

Despite being brought up outside the Church, some of the most zealous and principled, with a sense of Truth and of the Tradition and missionary impulse, joined ROCOR. This was, after all, always part of the Russian Orthodox Church, where they would not have to compromise themselves. However, here, as non-Russians, they were sometimes treated as second-class citizens and also faced petty persecution by those who, under political and sectarian influence, wanted to make ROCOR into a sect. Today, such elements have mainly left ROCOR for their full-blown sects. Freed of them, the new ROCOR can return to normality, to being the old ROCOR with its pre-War roots in the Tradition, abandoning the theological and canonical absurdities of post-1945 Cold War polemics. If ROCOR can show leadership and love, repenting for the injustices and errors of the past, it will bring hope. In the meantime, as a result of the past, others went elsewhere.

The ‘Greek’ Church

As a desperate compromise rejecting ROCOR, Anglicans such as Timothy Ware joined the Church of Constantinople and, after a serious argument in 1965, Fr Sophrony (Sakharov) and his then three monks followed him. As well as them, others, living outside the London-Oxford corridor, were usually turned away and told to ‘go to the Greeks’. This was the result of the refusal to commit to Orthodox missionary work. Today, however, those who made these forced compromises are having to face canonical isolation, the consequence of the contemporary actions of the Phanar, which has trampled over canon law in the Ukraine. Here we see the results of compromising consciences, taking ‘the middle way’ (which is definitely not ‘the golden mean’), the way between Truth and lie, so ending up with Halfodoxy.

Serbian, Romanian and Bulgarian

Only very few joined these other Balkan Churches, realizing that they are mononational, so not for English speakers.

Belarussian and Ukrainian

A few joined uncanonical groups, Belarussian and Ukrainian, in protest at mistreatment. In general, they did not linger long, realizing that there was no place for them in temporary nationalist groups, which were the results of the Second World War.

Antioch

When in 1995 ten or so unhappy Anglican vicars with some 300 disillusioned Anglicans approached the Church, they were rebuffed and so set up their own ex-Anglican jurisdiction. But here, as they have told me themselves, they had difficulty learning the Tradition and so integrating the Church, remaining on the margins, often not learning how to think, act, serve and sing like Orthodox, still trapped in alien Anglicanism.

Sects

A few sectarian-minded individuals left for various curious sects, Greek or Russian, usually because their unrealistic idealism was dissatisfied with the mass of Orthodox who were ‘not strict enough’ for them. Cut off from the Tree of the Church by their own perfectionism, judgementalism and lack of forgiveness, they left themselves to die out.

Exarchate

The final result of compromise was a schism, when in 2007 some 300 joined the Russophobic Paris branch of Constantinople. This had itself been founded through schism by the selfsame aristocratic émigrés, who had betrayed the Tsar and the Christian Empire in 1917. This group now finds itself pitted against the rest of the Orthodox Church and the canonical foundations of Church life, as a result of current bribery and blackmail in Constantinople.

Conclusion

Do we belong to Paul or Apollos or Cephas – or to Christ? Whenever a strong personality, regardless of whether he is talented or not, takes the place of Christ, there is division. At the present time it does not seem likely that locally the Russian Patriarchal Church will recover. Lack of leadership and lack of love may have done long-term damage. The flock was scattered. The Mother-Church behaved like an unloving stepmother. However, if instead of compromise repentant leadership and love are shown by the Patriarchal Church, as it now faces its worst nightmare with the Phanariot schism and bloody persecution in the Ukraine, then there will be the miracle of unity. If it cannot show this, then little ROCOR, with its tiny means and sometimes still unresolved difficulties from the past, will be left to try and take responsibility for this Diaspora.

Another Step Towards a Russian Orthodox Metropolia of Western Europe

On Thursday 20 September, the six bishops of the ROCOR Synod meeting in London established the Diocese of Richmond and Western Europe. This combines the former Diocese of Richmond and Great Britain and Geneva and Western Europe. The ruling bishop is Bishop Irenei (Steenberg), former lecturer at the University of Leeds and venerator of St Irenei of Lyon, whose name he bears.