Category Archives: Episcopate

Q and A Spring 2026

We do not want to go to Rome, Constantinople or Moscow, we want to go to Heaven! We want Archpastors, not Archpoliticians!

The Nature of the Church and its Governance

Q: With the schism between Greeks and Russians, some say that the Orthodox Church does not exist. What would you say?

A: Of course, it does not exist and never has done. But this is nothing to do with the current political dispute, created by the CIA. The words ‘the Orthodox Church’ are abstract, but the principle of the Church is concrete, it is the Incarnation. The Church it is not an abstract idea, as in the minds of Protestants, it is real in places. Concretely, we think of the real Local Orthodox Churches, of Orthodox Christianity, of the Orthodox Faith. Such was the situation in the New Testament, with the Local Churches in Corinth, Ephesus, Colossae, Philippi, Galatia, Thessaloniki, Rome. Today there are sixteen Local Churches, double the number 150 years ago. In 150 years’ time, that number may well double again to 32 Local Churches, in any case reaching at least 24. What is One and creates Unity is the Orthodox Faith, shared by all the Local Churches.

Q: Can the Church be corrupt?

A: If you see ‘The Church’ as a group of upper middle-class Anglican bishops appointed by an atheist or Hindu Prime Minister, as I think you do, then it is corrupt. However, that is not the Church, that is a mere human organisation, founded by a corrupt and evil King out of lust and some of whose properties were ‘privatised’ and handed out to his cronies, and which is run by accountants. In reality, the Church is the Body of Christ (in the words of the Apostle Paul), and it is run by the Holy Spirit. This can be seen clearly in the case of the Church in heaven.

As for the Church on earth, I think it can be likened to a huge Ship, carrying to Paradise those who sail in it, the captain, the navigator, the senior officers, mechanics, cooks, waiters, cleaners, plumbers, doctors, as well as the very many passengers, who are baptised. Some of these help the crew greatly, some do not, in fact they hinder. Sometimes some passengers decide to leave the Ship on lifeboats, which get lost or sink, others follow in the wake for a time and some from them get back on. Some passengers jump off, others come in new boats and climb on board. If the latest captain is bad, so what? Sooner or later the Owner of the Ship will come and change course, appointing a new captain. In the end, all are only passengers, who follow the Owner.

Q: Is the Church hierarchical or congregational?

A: If you are Roman Catholic, especially a traditionalist, then it is hierarchical. If you are Protestant, then it is congregational. If you are a normal Orthodox Christian, it is both. However, if you are some sort of old calendarist / ROCOR convert and you dream of dressing in clerical or monastic garments and hats and having a long beard or, if a woman, of dressing as a nun, then it is hierarchical. And if you are a liberal modernist, then it is congregational and you ignore and despise bishops.

Q: What happens in a Church if there is a shortage of suitable candidates for the episcopate?

A: We recently had the visit of a Romanian bishop. He told us how he and the Metropolitan are the only bishops in the Metropolia of Iasi of over 1,200 parishes. The Metropolia is in fact run by 15 deans, married priests. This system of delegation works very well. And that is in a Local Church which has a lot of active monasteries.

I remember in Moscow in 2007 being told that the Russian Church had 2,000 candidates to be bishops. This was quite untrue. They had in reality 2,000 single men who had an interest in a career in the Church. In fact, over 300 of the 2,000 became bishops. The results have been catastrophic and many have already had to be defrocked; many others will be. Single men with an interest in the Church do not make bishops! When will this common sense fact be understood in Moscow and Constantinople?

If there is a shortage of good bishops, then delegate! Thus, in the Russian Church exhausted bishops rush around at the end of Lent and in Holy Week doing long unction services, whereas in the Romanian Church priests can do unction services every month, if they wish. Such things are delegated. Only ordinations are not delegated.

Q: What sorts of bishop are there in your experience?

A: There are the real bishops, who are shepherds and love their flock, who loves them: St Spyridon, St Nicholas, St Nectarios, St John of Shanghai. The rest are lovers of themselves – administrators, narcissists, intellectuals, careerists, thieves, sadists, bullies, sexually disturbed homosexuals, pedophiles and psychopaths.

Q: What is more important, frequent confession or frequent communion?

A: Both. There should be frequent communion and confession, together with frequent prayer, the prayer of the heart and prayer from the prayerbook. This is different from the heterodox world, which has only frequent communion.

Q: Ever since the incidents in Amsterdam in 2022, the Russian Church has been known as ‘the Persecuting Church’ and lost most of its credit. How did a Persecuted Church become a Persecuting Church?

A: Persecution certainly was not present until 2008, when Patriarch Alexis was there. Then tens of millions of newly baptised and sometimes very zealous people and clergy worked enthusiastically hand in hand to rebuild the Church. The change came afterwards, with the spirit of centralisation (an old Soviet hangover), Papalisation (all those visits to the Vatican were a sign of this), bureaucratisation (the paperwork which was suddenly demanded by the Centre and detested by the priests), the military-style clericalisation (literal uniformity in dress, but also in political opinions), the closeness to the State and the Armed Forces, ‘blessing’ tanks, bombs and guns, and the insistence on rigid discipline, ritualisation and the use of archaic and little understood Slavonic.

All I can say is that the Persecuting Church developed in a process between 2008 and 2022. Let us take the mid-point of 2015 as a symbolic date for its appearance. And the essential reason for all this is that by then State politics, raison d’etat, had been put above pastoral love and above the support for Orthodox teaching. Schism followed. Schism always follows politics, that is why we speak of party (part) politics.

Q: Has your parish ever produced a monk?

A: Yes, we had one. However, he went to a monastery in the USA, where he was ‘touched up’ by a monk. He fled and came to complain to the bishop here, who had already turned down the offer of a free monastery, which had involved me in a lot of hard, but wasted, work. That bishop in turn made homosexual advances to the monk. The result was that the monk fled from him too. Later, others fled.

Q: Where do you think ROCOR is heading today?

A: In 2007 it had the opportunity of bringing its liturgical and ascetic heritage to help in renewing the life of the ex-Soviet Russian Church and the Local Churches in the Diaspora, as the late Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware) insightfully urged. Instead of making a positive contribution, however, ROCOR gradually began developing into a negative exclusive sect and cult, especially after 2017.

Having only a very small ethnic flock, it began recruiting crazies. The rest, as they say, is history. Therefore, today its American Synod is already in schism from most Local Churches, for which it has expressed hatred, not love. After its recent meeting at its former US church in Munich, donated to it by the CIA, I fear it may turn altogether into a Californian homosexual and pedophile sect. See: https://www.bing.com/search?q=pokrovtruth+fr+seraphim&FORM=PVSBDF&PC=PV02

The Undivided World and the Zionist World

Q: How did the Western world come to dominate the rest of the world until quite recently?

A: This is the question raised, but only vaguely answered, by the great Roman Catholic cultural historian and philosopher, Christopher Dawson (+ 1970), the English Berdyayev, in such books as Religion and the Rise of Western Culture. Here he writes that Western supremacy comes from a restless spirit, a spiritual energy, ‘a spirit that strives to change the world’. In Orthodoxy, we know what that spirit is; as a Catholic, he did not.

Before the eleventh century there was a multipolar world, as the Pentarchy of five Patriarchates was, which was not dominated by any one centre. We can see this in the life of the saintly English King Alfred the Great, who visited Europe, sent alms to Jerusalem, which he never, quite unthinkably, tried to seize from the Muslims. He also sent alms to India and despatched a mission to explore the countries around the White Sea.

Multipolarity is a sign of diversity and of unity in diversity, the sign of the Holy Trinity. The late historian Robert Moore describes in detail how from the early eleventh century on, any diversity was persecuted, in his The Formation of a Persecuting Society: Authority and Deviance in Western Europe, 950–1250.

Multipolarity was gradually destroyed by what we can call Zionism or Universalism. The First West, the West of the first millennium, was pre-Zionist, that is, diverse. The symbol and reality of this Zionism is the filioque. That heresy, adopted in the late eighth century as an imperial ideology in what is now western Germany and spread slowly until it was promulgated in Rome in 1014, is anti-Trinitarian. It dePersonalises the Trinity, making the Father and the Son into One and the Holy Spirit the mere link between them (as portrayed in many a heretical icon). This is why the Church insists on the Holy Trinity.

To the Vatican it was rather irrelevant, as the Unitarian Head of their ‘Church’ is the Pope of Rome, whom all must obey. Protestant Unitarians are like freemasons, who believe in One Architect-God. Thus, Western Europe moved away from the ascetic and grace-filled towards the legal and the moral, as seen, for instance, in Roman Catholic ‘days of obligation’ and Protestant puritanism.

Q: What is Zionism, in theological terms?

A: Zionism means universalism that is, globalism, the movement towards One World Dictatorship, homogeneity, unity without diversity, overseen by oligarchs. These think they are infallible, superior to those whom they consider to be lesser human-beings. Trotskyism is a classic example. Today’s extraterrestrial (or is that demonic?) ‘Muskism’ is another. Zionism can only exist outside the Holy Trinity, which is the principle of unity in diversity.

Here it is important to state that Zionism is by no means necessarily Jewish. By far the majority of Zionists are not Jews. Indeed, a great many Jews are anti-Zionists. For example, the last Non-Zionist US presidents were Eisenhower and Kennedy, that is, over sixty years ago. Since then, all US presidents have been Zionists, whether Democrat or Republican, but none has been a Jew. One of the greatest British Zionists was the psychopathic Churchill – he had no Jewish blood, despite what absurd conspiracy theories claim. His ancestor John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough, was also a Zionist. Other British Zionists include Cromwell, Rhodes, Thatcher and Blair, among many others.

Moreover, even among Jewish Zionists, there is huge variety of individuals, of left and right and nothing at all, for example, Rothschild and Marx, Trotsky and Zuckerberg, Freud and Spielberg, Sarkozy and Zelensky, in the UK Maxwell, Mandelson, Starmer (by his wife), Straw, the Milibands and Polanski, Milei in Argentina, or in the USA, Epstein, Witkoff, Kushner and Cohen (Trump’s mentor and friends).

Some homosexual politicians are also Zionists, for example, Mandelson (and many other Blairites such as N. Brown and Streeting), Lord Ali, the Dutch Rutte, several in the US-run Baltic States, and the US Bessent, Graham and many others.

Some pedophiles are also Zionists and are very active in the media, for example in the gagging-ordered, heavily censored (‘editorially controlled’) BBC. This perhaps should be called the ABCC (the Anti-British Broadcasting Corporation), as it appears to be controlled by Zionist journalists and pedophiles too numerous to name here, for Savile, Harris and Edwards are only the tip of the iceberg.

Today parts of the USA appear to be ruled by Zionist oligarchs and perverts, the so-called Epstein class, the majority of whom are not Jewish, but who are globalists. They run the banks, the oil corporations, Silicon Valley, the nuclear-armed military, Wall Street, Hollywood, the PR industry, the legacy media, the social media and pseudo-academia. They operate by sanctions and tariffs, instead of by encouragement and development. To drain the US swamp and not to be sucked into it must be very difficult.

Contemporary Wars

Q: Would you say that the wars in the Ukraine and Iran form one single World War?

A: Yes, but it must be understood that this World War is not only a military War and that it began decades ago. Indeed, for 35 years, since 1991, the West has been embarked on a war against the world, which has been composed of a series of campaigns to promote a ‘forever’ war in several phases, both military and social. This began in Iraq and Serbia, spread to Afghanistan, created the chaos in Libya and Syria, included the campaign against the anti-globalist Brexit, the social engineering attempts to enforce the manmade climate change and net zero myths and to poison the weak and elderly with manmade covid, and then the new phases of this one single war, in the Ukraine and Iran.

Is Today’s Rome Washington or Moscow?

Q: The US Secretary for War, Hegseth, has on his chest a tattoo in the form of a red cross, surrounded by four smaller crosses. It looks Orthodox. Is it?

A: No. This US Secretary for War wears the crusader cross. He has, after all, like the crusaders, tried to destroyed to invade West Asia and Eastern Europe. These crusades have since 1096 become worldwide. Thus, President Bush also launched a ‘crusade’ against Iraq, as he publicly declared, and that is why the current US Secretary of War wears a crusader cross tattoo. He follows a very long history.

It is all logical. Just as the Papacy used excommunications and indulgences, so his successors, the US President in his Capitol and the EU Commissars, use sanctions and tariffs. However, those ‘infallible’ and ‘exceptional’ Fascist crusaders, who are above the law, not only cannot win in the Ukraine against a Superpower like Russia, they cannot even win against a regional power like Iran. Washington is not Rome.

Q: Is Moscow the Third Rome?

A: When Archbishop Nikitas was at last appointed Archbishop of the Greek Thyateira Archdiocese in Great Britain in 2019, in order to save a Greek ethnic group from rapidly dying out, he gave a radio interview to the Spectator. In this he stated that the Moscow the Third Rome idea is absurd, that there is no Third Rome, only a First and Second Rome! In other words, he was only a mouthpiece for Phanariot ideology. As one very senior and outspoken (in private) Greek cleric from the Patriarchate of Constantinople said to me of his own Patriarch last year: ‘We are waiting for the toilet to flush’. His words, not mine.

Rome, First, Second or Third, are all an absurd and fatal distraction, worse still, a delusion and those who believe in it are delusional, whether in Washington or Moscow. We want Jerusalem, not Rome. Romes are the downfall of the Church. We do not want to go to some Rome, we want to go to Heaven. We want Archpastors, not Archpoliticians. The so-called First, Second and Third Romes are irrelevant in Church life, as they all fell, in 1054, 1453 and 1917 respectively. Why keep harping on about the fallen and disappeared past? Neither Moscow, nor Constantinople, nor Rome are of any importance or help now, as we face, potentially, the end of the world.

Hatred of Russia

Q: Why do so many politicians hate Russia, but not other Orthodox countries like Romania, Greece, Bulgaria? King Charles, for example, loves Romania, and owns properties there, tourists love Greece, yet many hate Russia.

A: The elite of the Western world hates Russia and not other Orthodox countries, because the latter are small, poor and weak, unlike Russia, which is vast, rich and powerful. In other words, it is all about jealousy and greed for resources.

The British elite especially hates Russia, because in October 1917 Russian-language, Marxist ideologues overthrew the masonic MI6 regime imposed on Russia by the British between December 1916 and October 1917. This is why they made up the Litvinenko, Salisbury and now El Money cases as cheap propaganda. In the same way, the American elite hates Cuba and Iran, because they are the only ones who successfully overthrew CIA-imposed regimes.

As regards British Russophobia, see in greater detail: The Genesis of Russophobia in Great Britain from 1815 to 1841: A Study of the Interaction of Policy and Opinion by John Howes Gleason, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, London Oxford University Press 1950.

President Putin

Q: President Putin seems to be very cold. Do you think he is?

A: I have only been able to observe him one in real life, in 2007, but I think his apparent coldness is because he is probably autistic, that is, he is someone who is brilliant at systems, but perhaps lacks people skills. He is an ultra-cautious diplomat and lawyer, who does everything by the book. He has an excellent memory and is brilliant at chess and German, but he presents a very blurred image of Russia.

Nobody quite knows where he stands. He used to be a devout Westerner, a protégé of Yeltsin, who wanted to join NATO. He has acknowledged publicly his many mistakes of naivety after 2014. Many blame him for the Ukrainian situation and not acting then, which would have been far less destructive of life and property. His present indecisive diplomacy is frustrating to some and makes him seem weak and naïve. As a result, he has led Russia into full-blown nationalism. Neither his previous Westernism, nor his present nationalism are Orthodox. We are still obliged to wait for Russia to move out of both these deviations, Westernism and nationalism, towards Christ.

Q: Who could replace Putin in this year’s Russian elections?

A: The elections in Russia next September are Parliamentary elections, not Presidential. President Putin will stay. But the influence of the former Westerner and now strong Russian nationalist Medvedev may become a lot stronger. Rightly or wrongly, he is seen as strong and decisive. Others have unflattering views about him. We shall see.

Personal

Q: Do you hope to live a long life?

A: I hope so, as there is still so much to do, or so it seems to me, but what I hope is completely irrelevant. God decides. Perhaps tomorrow I will be gone! As Chaucer wrote: The life so short, the craft so long to learn.

On Former Archbishop Welby

The resignation of the ultra-woke Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the Church of England, for covering up the crimes of a sadistic pervert is not a surprise. Anglican bishops and certain Anglican clergy have for generations been suspected of being perverts, as was finally portrayed in the 1968 film ‘If’. Surely, the Archbishop’s resignation will be only the first of many more. And there will surely be trials and imprisonments. Justice demands it.

However, their perversions are only some among the many of the whole British Establishment, for example, the pedophiles so far disclosed in the BBC – for the three so far are only the tip of the iceberg. The reason for the Establishment promotion of wokeness is the self-interested impunity of perverts. Now, slowly, the perversions and identities of various ‘queer’ members of the government are being disclosed.

Apparently, there are still as many as 25 million baptised (‘christened’) members of the Church of England, though they are rapidly dying out. However, only some 500,000 of them attend church on Sundays. This means that the proportion of practising is about 2%. This is very similar to the rates of practice in Roman Catholicism and in the Orthodox Church in England, as well as in most of the Western world.

Some Roman Catholics appear to believe that the way out of this scandal is for scandalised members of the Church of England to join Roman Catholicism. This is absurd. The Church of England is profoundly Protestant, anti-Roman Catholic and was founded on enmity towards it. And what about the profound and scandalous pedophilia among Roman Catholic clergy? What would attract Anglicans to perhaps even worse?

In any case, every bishop of the Church of England is a political appointee, not a parish priest with pastoral experience, but an Old Etonian who worked in the oil industry – like Archbishop Welby. No surprise then that Church of England bishops appear to have no spirituality whatsoever. Therefore, surely, there is even less excuse for Roman Catholic bishops, who are not appointed by atheist/Hindu/Jewish Prime Ministers of the UK?

There is even less excuse for Orthodox bishops in the UK, who are not appointed by the UK Prime Minister either. And yet some neophytes to the Orthodox Church appear to think the same as Roman Catholics, that members of the C of E should join the Orthodox Church. This is equally absurd. It is doubtful if even one in a thousand of the practising members of the Church of England (that is, 500 in all) are interested in Orthodox Christianity.

For them Orthodoxy is unProtestant, and ‘full of foreigners’, as one of them told me. (It seems that he did not know that Christ is also ‘a foreigner’ – a brown-skinned Asiatic from the Middle East. He thought that Christ is a middle-class Englishman and Rotarian – like himself). And then there are all the perverts among the bishops of the Orthodox Church. Take the one decades ago who used to ordain his boyfriends.

Then take the one who decades ago was sacked from teaching in Edinburgh for his perversion and was forced to teach in Glasgow. Or the one in Europe who was exiled to Siberia (though his priest-boyfriend went unpunished). We will not go into detail about the two who were deposed in Russia and sent to monasteries. Nor will we say anything further of the recent scandals in Paris and Budapest on the part of bishops of two different Local Churches.

The real problem here is the gay mafias of Orthodox bishops, not just in Eastern Europe, but also in Western Europe and the USA. As gays, they will punish any whistle-blower, who discovers that his bishop has the ‘Grindr’ app (like one of those in Russia too) and spends Saturday evenings drinking in bars with his boyfriend. When the whistleblower discreetly asks for the Grinder addict to be removed, the mafia punishes the whistleblower. It was ever thus.

Their hatred for you comes from the fact that you are more popular than they are, because you have compassion for the people, you are a pastor, a shepherd. Their jealousy comes from the fact you have a normal family life, whereas they are perverts and so do not and cannot have a normal family life. We have had enough of wolves in shepherd’s clothing. Archbishop Welby is only the tip of the iceberg. Orthodox – sort out your own house first before you criticise others.

Nationalists or Christians?

Introduction: Two Generations Ago

When I at last (I had been waiting for five years) managed to find an Orthodox church to attend, exactly fifty years ago, it was a Russian church. This was because in those days there were very few churches and all of them, except some of the Russian churches, were completely closed to other nationalities. Hardly any English people had any attraction to Greek, Serbian, Ukrainian or Romanian churches. (There were no others at that time). They were all, in other words, nationalist ghetto churches. Moreover, the Greek churches were well-known for being compromised politically through the alliances of their bishops with Western politicians and freemasons. However, there were a few Russian churches which were open to others. Moreover, at that time the Russian Church was very attractive as it was the Persecuted Church, the Church of the Martyrs and Confessors. For any who sought food for their souls, here it was.

Failure

Despite the large number of churches here fifty years on, the situation is in some regards even worse. Here is what the internet reports about one very senior Greek bishop.

His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America Delivers Historic Address to the US Intelligence Community at The National Intelligence University in Washington, DC – Ορθοδοξία News Agency (orthodoxianewsagency.gr)

Of course, we draw no conclusions about ordinary churchgoers and clergy of Greek churches, but this is what one, among others, of their ‘leaders’ does. It does not bode well.

Some would say no change here as regards the Greek Church run from Constantinople, but the various branches of the Russian Church have now also fallen. The Russian Church is no longer the Persecuted Church, but the Persecuting Church. Who wants to support that? Unprincipled yesmen and careerist clergy on the make? In Russia they have now ‘defrocked’ Archdeacon Andrei Kuraev. We never agreed with his ultra-liberal, almost eccentric and really unspiritual views. But that is not the point. ‘Defrockings’ now take place because of different opinions. However, you cannot take grace away with bits of paper. The bishops who issue such bits of paper only defrock themselves. They alone lose grace by their own political actions. This is all control freakery.

Given the behaviour of Greeks and Russians alike, persecuting the humble, the devout, the zealous, the apostolic, today the biggest Orthodox jurisdiction has increased in size again. It consists of those who do not go to any church. Why should they, when Greek and Russian bishops behave like this?

Success

However, not all is black. Here is a report from one parish:

‘Our life in … is unfolding in a surprisingly peaceful way, despite the upheavals of the last year. Perhaps a quarter of a century of stubborn insistence on openness to all cultures, services in many languages, welcoming minorities and so on has achieved some modicum of success: we managed to alienate all the partisans of various national ideas, who fled and that left an open field to those interested in Christ and the Gospel’.

This repeats our own experience, except that we have been doing the same thing not for a quarter of a century, but for nearly forty years. And the partisans of various national ideas have fled. Thank God!

Conclusion: Real Bishops

Today the Church is dominated by bishops who choose to live in posh suburbs in the rich world (sic), loving bling and power, constantly trying to grasp property and demanding with threats and slander from their faithful clergy and craving ever more money. They try and close down churches like vulgar Communist commissars, despise and mock women and children (for obvious reasons – it shows what sort of ‘men’ they are), and cannot be bothered to listen to the confessions of the faithful. We know such bishops only too well. The Persecuted Church has indeed become the Persecuting Church. But we the new New Confessors fight against them, and unto blood if it takes that. We are not afraid of you, for God is with us.

There is a story from seventh-century Orthodox England of how a certain bishop, known now as St Chad, used to visit the faithful on foot, not on horseback, and had to be lifted onto a horse so he could continue his ministry more effectively. Such was his humility.

In our own sad twenty-first century, it is related how just a few years ago the late Patriarch Irenei of Serbia, who was presiding a Synod of his bishops, took a look out of the window and saw a car park full of expensive cars. When he asked who they belonged to and was told that they belonged to his bishops, he said to his bishops: ‘Just think what sort of cars you would have had, if you had not taken a vow of poverty’?

Such are the times we live in. Corrupt and persecuting bishops are now begging Antichrist to come into the world. We know your names. So does he.

Double Suicide in Lithuania

Foreword

For those of us who were brought up in faithfulness to the values of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church, the politicised captivity of any Local Orthodox Church is lamentable. Moreover, the shameful weaponisation of the canons for political, monetary or proprietary reasons not only betrays the witness of those Martyrs and Confessors, who had no love of power, money or property, but also plainly discredits those who undertake that weaponisation. We render to God what is God’s and to Caesar only what is Caesar’s.

The New Martyrs and Confessors are those Russians who were fearless and did not agree to become serfs, or obediently line up to go to Bolshevik concentration camps, or see their churches closed by today’s renegade foreign bishops, just like they now do in the Ukraine and in England, they offered resistance to Antichrist. Indeed, Canon XV of the First and Second Council, held in the year 861 under St Photius and 317 other Fathers, is quite clear that those who ‘have been diligent to rescue the Church from schisms and divisions’….’shall be deemed worthy to enjoy the honour which befits them among Orthodox Christians’. The world loves its own, but God loves His own.

Introduction: Lithuania is Now in the Diaspora

The news that the Patriarchate of Constantinople is setting up an Exarchate in Lithuania under Lithuanian (in other words, US) government sponsorship (https://d367rzjs5oyeba.cloudfront.net/_mobile_/ru/312734/) elicits sorrow in Moscow. This means that after Estonia nearly thirty years ago, then after the Ukraine nearly five years ago, and after Africa two years ago (1), Lithuania has now become yet another multi-jurisdictional Orthodox area region Moscow has lost its jurisdictional monopoly there too. However, Lithuania only joins the whole of Western Europe west of Poland, the Czech Lands, Romania and Slovenia, not to mention the Americas, Australia and Africa too, in becoming multi-jurisdictional.

Sadly then, there is nothing new in this. The real question is why Lithuania, or all the Baltic countries together, like many other countries, regions or continents, cannot simply belong to one administratively united Local Church. This would be the only canonical alternative (the principle of one bishop per city) to belonging to different jurisdictions, all moreover dependent on the ebb and flow of the political tides of foreign capitals and foreign politics. In none of this multiplicity of jurisdictions is there any intention to do missionary work, there are only vulgar and petty disputes about nationalistic power, and already existing income and property. As this is not how Christians behave, our only conclusion can only be that those who take part in it are not Christians. Can we imagine the apostles disputing in this way like children in the playground about jurisdiction over the Orthodox in Rome or Corinth or Ephesus or anywhere else? ‘This is my church, not yours’. No, it isn’t. Yes, it is’. Childishness among adults.

Politics

In Lithuania the appeal by Constantinople to Ukrainian and even Belarussian ‘refugees’ to join their new Church is clearly a political manipulation by the local US ambassador, in obedience to his employers in the US State Department. It is very likely that, as in Estonia and in the Ukraine, very few in Lithuania (where there are fewer than 100,000 nominal Orthodox anyway) will leave Moscow for Constantinople. What premises could the new jurisdiction use? Or will the Lithuanian State set about ejecting Orthodox from their churches by violence in order to establish a property portfolio of empty church buildings, as the US-backed Kiev regime does in the Ukraine? That is, few, apart from the original five priests who have left Moscow for Constantinople and were then defrocked by Moscow for purely political reasons, as Constantinople has recognised (2). It is Moscow’s suicidal tragedy which created this second suicidal tragedy on the part of Constantinople. Moscow must now be regretting its original injustice. As the proverb says, you reap what you sow. However, what will happen to all these Constantinople creations in Lithuania, the Ukraine and Estonia after the Russian military victory in the Ukraine?

Indeed, what will happen to the Ukraine, the Baltic States and indeed all of strike-bound and riot-torn Europe, Eastern and Western, including insurrectional France and its watch-loving President, after the US has to cut its losses in Europe, as it did in Kabul, and run away in order to face the war that it has been fomenting with China? Inevitably, once abandoned by its feudal US master, these countries like all the others in Europe will have to make up with Russia. However, the political and military victory of the Russian Federation will be no victory for the Moscow Patriarchate. People only go to church if it is not money-driven and if it is politically free, and that means neither to a careerist, money-driven and politically-subservient Moscow Patriarchate and its, nor to the clearly US-run Patriarchate of Constantinople. Through their politicking, both the largest (Moscow), and the most prestigious (Constantinople), Local Churches for now have disqualified themselves from spiritual leadership and the moral high ground of the Orthodox world. A double suicide. The result, after the conflict in the Ukraine is over, will surely be several new Local Churches, freed from the jurisdictions of either of the above. Notably, neither Constantinople nor Moscow with their Church structures in Lithuania ever mentions doing missionary work among Lithuanians! Only about stealing already existing flocks! What claim can either have to Lithuania?

Two Questions

Two questions arise. Firstly: Why is it that since 1900 – a long time ago now – no new, all-encompassing Local Church has been set up in any of the countries and continents where there is an Orthodox Diaspora, in Western Europe, the Americas or Australia? Then, there is a second question: Just over fifty years ago, there was a valiant attempt to do something towards building a Local Church for Northern America (the USA and Canada) with the OCA, the Orthodox Church in America, but that was a failure. Why? After all, according to the latest survey, 77% of all Orthodox parish clergy in the USA support the creation of a Local Church, either autocephalous or autonomous.

Of course, that above survey is of parish clergy, not of the episcopate or of laypeople. However, we suspect that most laypeople think the same as parish clergy. Those of the old emigration, of 50-100 years ago, especially in Western Europe, always had the intention of returning to the countries from which they had been expelled, either by Communist oppression or else by Capitalist poverty. This is no longer the case. Today’s emigrants, parish clergy and people, are here to stay. They want a better future for themselves, for their children and their grandchildren. They are establishing Local Orthodox Churches, as never before. However, their episcopate is another story.

More Politics: The Episcopate

The problem here is that the episcopate, those who have power, is often very closely attached, either for political or monetary or for ideological reasons, to a Mother-Church in Eastern Europe or the Middle East. For example, the Patriarchate of Antioch clearly allows no Non-Arab bishops. But the situation in other jurisdictions in North America, apart from in the OCA, is very similar. Clearly, only some sort of rejection of foreign candidates by the people could change that situation. But then there is the problem of candidates. It is all very well to declare that there should be more American-born bishops, but are there any suitable American-born candidates? And they must be suitable candidates, because crazy convert sectarian candidates, who live in a fantasy world, only lead to the destruction of the Church, as all have seen. The same goes for Western Europe and Australia.

On the other hand, in the recent Antiochian scandal, it was revealed to naïve Americans that most Arab bishops are in fact married. Thus, what the former Metropolitan was doing was not so unusual in the old country. We have known this for decades. It is common knowledge in Europe. There are plenty of (unofficially) married Orthodox bishops of all nationalities, we will not tire readers with a list. The first case we came across was that of a Greek bishop over forty years ago (3). And Orthodox parish clergy much prefer dealing with such married bishops to dealing with repressed homosexuals, who pretend that they are not what they are. The latter can be sadistic on account of their jealousy of married clergy, who have everything that they have chosen not to have, in order to further their power-driven careers.

On Being Broad-Based

Now we come to the oner attempt to set up a Local Church, the question of the failure of the OCA, the Orthodox Church in America. Why has it not achieved unity in Northern America after over fifty years? It was after all set up as autocephalous. Here, those of us who met and knew the pragmatic Fr Alexander Schmemann, the main inspiration behind the OCA, and remember the events of the 1970s will recall how the newly autocephalous but very controversial OCA episcopate immediately tried to impose a new calendarist ideology on all. This was suicidal. Immediately, the they failed to recruit anyone who was faithful to the old calendar and lost many who wanted to continue in that faithfulness. Secondly, its equally aggressive policy of nationalistic Americanisation discouraged anyone who was not US-born and had an attachment to another culture from joining it or even staying with it. It led to many a rather harsh quip at the time about ‘the Coca-Cola Church’.

In other words, our suggestion is that a Local Church in any part of the Western world must not be narrow and intolerant, but broad-based, inclusive of all Orthodox, ignoring political and nationalistic ideologies, accepting all, whatever their ethnic origin, and accepting both the calendars that Orthodox use. It is notable that the least broad-based, least tolerant and so smallest jurisdictions in Northern America, are those who do not want to belong to a Local Church, as they have a suicidal policy of sectarian isolationism. Its error is the opposite of the OCA’s. The first went to the new calendarist extreme of ‘almost anything goes’ and ‘we’re as American as apple pie’. On the other hand, smaller groups go to the old calendarist extreme of ‘hardly anything goes’ and experiencing an attack of sectarian ‘One True Churchism’.

Conclusion: The Answers to Two Questions

Extraordinarily, although their practising flock numbers fewer than one million out of perhaps five million nominal Orthodox, there are now 55 Orthodox bishops in Northern America. This is far more than in all Local Churches, except for Moscow (419 bishops for a nominal 144 million), Constantinople (much over-bishoped with 128 bishops for a nominal three million), Greece (over-bishoped with 100 bishops for a nominal 10 million) and Romania (59 bishops for a nominal 19 million). It can be said that Northern America is over-bishoped. Something similar can be said about Western Europe.
If you are interested in prostitutes of Bishkek, you can find in bipopka.

Here there are probably about one million practising Orthodox out of about seven million nominal, but over 30 bishops. The above number of bishops is again greater than in many Local Churches. But there is still no Local Church. Indeed, the only Western European Metropolia which even has autonomy is the Romanian, though that does have most of the faithful in Western Europe. Why is there no all-encompassing, autocephalous Local Church anywhere? We repeat: Any Local Church in the Western world must be broad-based, inclusive of all Orthodox, ignoring political and nationalistic ideologies, accepting all, whatever their ethnic origin, and accepting both the calendars that Orthodox use.

Notes:

In 2021 Moscow received parishes in Africa into its jurisdiction as a result of the betrayal of Moscow by the Patriarchate of Alexandria (a US gun was being held in its back) on the issue of jurisdiction in the Ukraine. Since Moscow opened its Exarchate in Africa, the flock there has been divided between US-backed Greek Alexandria and Moscow. However, all this is against the background of the huge political, economic and military struggle between the US and Russia-China to dominate the African Continent. In other words, the whole affair is highly political.
The canons are quite clear about defrocking. The cases in Lithuania have nothing to do with the personal morality of the priests defrocked, only about the twisting of the interpretation of the canons for purely political ends. In another case, a bishop uncanonically received several priests from the Patriarchate of Constantinople and yet objected when other Patriarchates received and canonically protected those whom he had unjustly treated. Like St Nectarios, who formed a Trust to protect the Convent he had founded, they also formed a Trust to protect the Church property they had founded and did not hand over the keys to those who wanted to destroy the parishes that had carefully been built up over the decades.

Those events certainly sounded like hypocrisy to all observers, including to onlooking bishops. The mass reception by Constantinople of bishops and priests in the Ukraine and the mass reception by Moscow of priests from Alexandria in Africa has done nothing to alleviate this impression of hypocrisy and once more undermines the authority of the episcopates concerned. It is clear that once this new Cold War is over, all these absurd decisions will be rescinded, just as those taken during the old Cold War were also rescinded by a mere stroke of the pen in the recent past.

The open and well-known existence of married bishops sounds like one rule for the rulers and another rule for the ruled. In any case, once again it does nothing to give the bishops in question any authority or credit.

All Around Treason and Cowardice and Deceit

Introduction

The above are the words spoken by the future martyr Emperor Nicholas II, after he had been treacherously stabbed in the back by almost all of the intelligentsia. That word defined the then deChristianised upper and middle class of Russia, made up of generals, aristocrats, including Romanovs, politicians, industrialists, lawyers, teachers and, sadly, many clergy.

As a result of the betrayal of the Christian Russian Empire by its internal enemies, keenly supported by its external enemies, the British, German, French and American elites, the Empire fell to the most vicious genocide known to human history. ‘Holding victory in his hands, he fell to the earth alive’, as Winston Churchill wrote of his betrayal in his work ‘The World Crisis’ (Vol I, p. 476). This betrayal was the Emperor’s Gethesemane, when he prayed for the cup to pass, but also ‘but may Thy will be done’. So his crown was removed and he went up to his Cross willingly, saying: ‘If Russia needs a sacrifice for its salvation, I will be that sacrifice’.

Those who still today, incredibly, write that the Tsar and his Family and friends were weak-willed, inept, debauched or stupid are still stabbing him in the back in the same way. And so they are still preventing the Church from implementing Her Providential and Apostolic mission and destiny of Christianising and reChristianising the world. But the Tsar forgives them: they know not what they do. Worse still, however, they do not want to know what they do. Only God can forgive that, if they repent. So much for them, but whose side are we on? There are some, hopefully very few, among the international clergy of the Church, who number nearly one hundred thousand, who also still behave as traitors, cowards and deceivers to the Church, who are the enemies of the Church. Among them we can discern three types, often mixed together:

Treason: The unprincipled careerist and the faithless bureaucrat.

These will do anything to further their passion of ambition, their careers, their lust for wealth and power. They may be political appointees or secular failures, who have been found jobs through influential relatives and demonstrate great nationalism. They will steal Church money, buy property for themselves, tyrannize others with absurd paperwork (‘control and command’), and threaten, bully and transfer them, if possible. They generally make themselves disliked and even feared by alienated clergy and people who instinctively distrust them as thieves. The people see through the amoral and immoral attitudes in their souls and vote with their feet whenever they turn up. We knew one bishop in England years ago who spent Church money on equipping his mistress, other clergymen are homosexuals or moral degenerates. Such characters are very divisive and are soon forgotten when they die, but first cause great damage.

Cowardice: The cowardly diplomat and the dreaming academic

Conformists to the core, these suffer from weak faith and will always swim with the tide, failing to stand up for the Truth and defend the faithful. Often they cannot make any decision or give any concrete answer to anything, let alone do anything, as they are lost in long-winded conversations and writing long documents. Words not actions. In fact, they persecute zeal and want the Church to wither. One bishop we knew in France, where such are called ‘library bishops’, said that it was better to have fewer parishes because then there were fewer problems. A truly apostolic attitude! If they are vicar bishops they are fairly innocuous and can be left to their books and theories, even if they are homosexual. However, if given power as diocesan bishops or deans, disasters ensue. One we know had to be defrocked: the wrong man in the wrong place. That was a personal tragedy for him; not a bad man, just incompetent and ineffectual.

Deceit: The fraudulent charlatan and the self-admiring narcissist

In some respects the charlatans are the worst of all. Claiming to be ‘spiritual’, which they most certainly are not, as is apparent to anyone with Church experience, they persuade the lonely, spinsters, widows and bachelors, that they have some sort of ‘charisma’. These self-appointed ‘spiritual fathers’ are generally narcissists with a personality cult and so are manipulators, preying on and abusing the young, especially students, the naïve and the weak, making them feel guilty, taking their goodwill and money through l manipulations. Some of them are sexual predators, whether heterosexual or homosexual. Worst of all are the pedophiles. We have seen several of these charlatans in various countries: they are more common than is thought. As narcissists, they are always right, never listen to advice, never consult (though they may pretend to do so) and, if bishops, ordain disastrously because they do not ordain pastors but yes-men.

Conclusion

It is clear that creating a clergyman just because he is unmarried will lead to disasters, more precisely, to treason, cowardice and deceit. Only real monks should be consecrated to the episcopate or ordained, not single men who become monks formally merely so that they can be consecrated or ordained, but those who live monasticism, like the Russian bishops of the past.

Given the present condition of the worldwide Orthodox episcopate, with the chronic shortage of candidates for the episcopate, what can be done? The ideal solution is more monasticism. But that cannot be created artificially, only organically. You cannot somehow manufacture ‘monasticism’. And then not all good monks make good bishops, though all good bishops are good monks. And candidates for monasticism generally only appear out of parishes where zeal is encouraged. And candidates for monasticism generally come out of families who live an Orthodox life. This solution to the problem can only come in the long term. What can be done now?

The alternative proposed by some is to return to having married bishops, with tiny dioceses of ten to twenty parishes, as in ancient times. However, such a radical change, which could only be decided by a Church Council, is highly unlikely in the foreseeable future. In the meantime, with few bishops, there is a realistic and canonical compromise solution. This is for the bishops who do exist to delegate whatever they can to trustworthy deans. Though not without risks, deans could consult and request bishops to ordain as needed by the grassroots. Treason and cowardice and deceit must be overcome by all clergy. We all need to say: ‘If Russia needs a sacrifice for its salvation, we will be that sacrifice’. Otherwise we too will prevent the Church from implementing Her Providential and Apostolic mission and destiny to Christianise and reChristianise the world.

The Crisis in the Orthodox Episcopate

There are just over 1,000 Orthodox bishops in the world, although well over 100 of them are retired through ill health or extreme old age .Despite this figure, which is much greater than a generation ago, though far less than in the early centuries, there is a great shortage of bishops in certain, though not all, Local Churches. A figure more than double, of about 2,200 bishops, to care for the world’s 220 million Orthodox Christians, would be far more appropriate. For example, the Russian Orthodox Church has only 400 bishops, a figure that needs to be quadrupled for the 164 million Russian Orthodox, 75% of the total. This would give one bishop for every 25 parishes, which is not unreasonable, given that the number of parishes is still rapidly increasing.

The problem in this matter is that bishops must be single, that is, celibate, specifically in most cases, they must be monks. As this severely limits the pool of available episcopal candidates, what can be done?

Some of a Protestant and modernist ilk immediately suggest that married men should be allowed to become bishops. This is absurd. It is also uncanonical. The canon forbidding married bishops (Canon XII of the Sixth Council in Trullo) is there for at least two reasons:

Firstly, there is the ever-present danger of corruption and careerism. We can think of the case of the schismatic Filaret, who appointed himself ‘Patriarch of Kiev’, who was married and allowed his wife to vet all candidates for the priesthood, according to what bribe they gave her. And inevitably, a married bishop will be tempted to find jobs for his children.

Secondly, poor wives! It is bad enough being married to a priest. When would a bishop’s wife ever see him? He would be far too busy.

However, the situation is even worse. Since a potential bishop has to be single, you will inevitably attract perverts. A single man does not make a bishop. He can, however, be a homosexual, either physically or else psychologically (psychological homosexuals are generally narcissists who persecute married clergy because the married have everything that they do not have, or, far worse, they may be pedophiles – as the Roman Catholic world knows to its cost. Thus the pool is even more limited. It has to be a single man who is sexually, and so psychologically, normal, not a dry and formalistic monk who has everything, but because he has no love, only a sadistic jealousy, he has nothing (1 Cor 13).

What is to be done, given such a very limited pool of candidates? While we are waiting for a monastic revival and so more candidates, bishops will simply have to delegate far more than they do at present, to married priests and laypeople. Ultimately, after all, there is only one thing that they cannot delegate – and that is ordination.

Q and A May 2019

The Corruption of the Constantinople Episcopate

Q: What do you make of the appalling allegations against certain members of the episcopate of Constantinople, which are now making their rounds on the internet? Is this fake news? Or, if is true, is it time for us to have a married episcopate?

A: When I first saw the allegations, clearly not fake news, I wondered what the fuss was all about: these stories have been well-known for decades, though, true, they have never been issued on the internet. The corruption of Orthodox bishops in the Diaspora is well-known. There was the Russian bishop in Paris, sent to Siberia, when Moscow actually got to realize it was all true, the Serbian bishop who had to ‘retire’, the episcopate of a certain group in the USA known as ‘the gay mafia’, who therefore fell under the thumb of a certain priest who had the dirt on them, the Greek and Russian bishops in Europe with their boyfriends or multiple mistresses, the one they called ‘Johnny Walker’ (we know how he died) and the chain-smoking bishops from the Middle East and the alcoholic Slavs. All this has been well-known for decades and generations. However, the latest stories with Rolex watches worth 400,000 euros and all the sordid details worthy only of British gutter tabloids, do bring it down to a different level (or depth).

Of course, the Protestant-minded immediately call for married bishops. I am completely opposed to this. First of all, it would be completely unfair on their wives. It is difficult enough for the wife of a priest to have her husband. The wife of a bishop would never see him. Then, secondly, it would introduce nasty careerism among married clergy. It is bad enough among certain hieromonks and archimandrites, without polluting the married clergy.

There is only one solution: to stop electing bishops from among candidates who are candidates simply because they are not married. Otherwise you will simply end up, at worst, with pedophiles and homosexuals who only have contempt for married priests, women and children (as among the Catholics) or, at best (?), with narcissistic professional bachelors who have no love for anyone except themselves and their favourites and operate a mafia against real pastors. We have seen enough of both sorts and suffered enough from them during 40 years. They are the only enemies of the Church and always have been. They wreck dioceses and ruin lives. There is only one solution: monastic renewal. If you are not living a monastic life in a monastery and you have no pastoral experience and love for the people, you cannot become a bishop.

As for the sort of bishops described in Constantinople, they must all be defrocked asap. We have had enough of them. All they do is bring the Church into disrepute and upset and persecute the sincere parish priests and the pious faithful. And, above all, they can be corrupted by the US State Department which has all the dirt on them all and so can blackmail them – just like the KGB did in the days of the Soviet Union, just like the CIA does in the Ukraine today.

Q: What do you think of the appointment of Metr Elpidiphoros as the new Greek Archbishop of America?

A: His name means ‘bearer of hope’. However, he is the bearer of despair. Expect schisms in the Greek Church in the USA, Australia and Great Britain. Indeed, they have already begun, with priests and parishes leaving them for canonical Orthodoxy. It is the beginning of the end for the rule of Constantinople. Sad though it is, it is inevitable and, ultimately, this will be a positive event. God is not mocked. We have to live for the future, not for the corrupt past. All will be providential. And Providence is God’s Love in history.

Russian Orthodox Church Matters

Q: I recently visited Russia and saw and heard some strange things from some people. For example, someone told me he knew an Orthodox man who was sure that Stalin will one day be canonized. An Orthodox woman I met said that she thought the Russian Church should become like the Catholic Church. Are such views widespread?

A: Today’s Russian Church is 90% a Church of converts, so inevitably you do occasionally come across extremes and marginals, or to put it very frankly, ‘weirdos’, nationalists, ecumenists and what have you. On top of this, you can also encounter among some clergy the hangover from the Soviet period – centralization and bureaucracy (though this was to some extent also present before the Revolution). I should not worry about it. This will all pass, it is all a phase of growing up. And it all only affects some; most are solid. Remember to look at the wood, not at the trees.

Q: The Russian Orthodox Church has for several months now an Exarchate in Paris. You had written a lot about this before it happened. Why does the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (including yourself) not participate in it?

A: The Russian Exarchate is for the moment very much on paper only. It is centralized, bureaucratic, missing bishops on the ground in Italy and Scandinavia, which like Germany is not included in it. The Exarchate is so far not real, not local, not skilled, not pastoral. And I know this from concrete contacts at the very highest AND the very lowest level. It is not at all ready to operate like the best of the Church Outside Russia (where it exists) and does not even want us to take part in it! Our offers of help have been rebuffed, several times, as they prefer to take orders from Moscow, where they understand nothing of the situation on the ground. It is not ready – by far!

When the Russian Exarchate is ready to be pastoral and to become a real Exarchate of (and not merely in) Western Europe, then we shall see changes. For now it clearly lacks the necessary pastoral skills and local knowledge, being a disincarnate export from Moscow. It will need several years to grow up. The task, duty and mission of the local Church Outside Russia in Western Europe are precisely to prepare the terrain for this moment, filling the largely empty infrastructure created by Moscow, going before, like St John the Baptist.

Speaking as the only priest in the Russian Church who has ever been awarded a jewelled cross by Patriarch Kyrill (seven years ago) and a second such cross by Metropolitan Hilarion of New York (three years later), I believe that the Exarchate is not viable without ROCOR.

Pastoral Psychology

Q: What is the difference between low self-esteem and humility?

A: Low self-esteem comes from being humiliated, insulted and bullied. The victim of humiliation and bullying stops believing in themselves and doubts everyone and everything and can hate themselves and even self-mutilate. However, this is in contradiction with the last two words of the commandments, to love God and love our neighbour as ourselves. We must love ourselves. Not because we are anything other than sinners, but because God loves us. Anyone who believes or has experienced that fact that God loves them, will not fall victim to low self-esteem, but will become humble. Low self-esteem is the result of believing in the opinions and actions of nasty narcissists and sadistic bullies, whatever rank they may hold, more than in God.

Q: Is it true that there are only two choices in the Church, marriage or monasticism?

A: Only as an ideal. I would say, and I think I have said this before, that in reality there are two and a quarter choices. The quarter choice is for all those who for some reason do not fit in to either of the main choices at present. In other words, we must always be prepared for exceptions and exceptional circumstances. For example, there are, though they are very rare, celibate priests, neither married, nor monastic.