The Church of Scandals?

Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.

Psalm 145, 3

Moscow refuses to give independence (Autocephaly) to the Churches in the Ukraine, Moldova, the Baltics, Western Europe, and so its churches empty. People vote with their feet. Reality takes over. In Latvia even the State grants the Latvian Orthodox Church Autocephaly!

Some are scandalised by this. Why? Nobody should be surprised at this. In the 19th century Protestant British politicians gave the Church of Greece its Autocephaly and later the secular and nationalist Bulgarian government gave its Church Autocephaly. It took time for others to recognise it, but eventually those who objected just had to face reality and recognised it. In the last century the Churches of Poland and Czechoslovakia went through similar trials and in Brno in the Czech Lands the tribulation continues to this very day. The recent case of the Serbian Church and the Church of North Macedonia is just one more example of politicians declaring Autocephaly and a Mother-Church just having to accept a fait accompli after 60 years. Reality is always stronger than any theory or ideology, just as the pen is always mightier than the sword.

Bishops closed churches because of State orders regarding covid. Some faithful were scandalised by such bishops. Our church, like others, just went into the catacombs and we remained secretly open, faithful to Christ. ‘Woe unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for you neither go in yourselves, neither allow them that are entering to go in’ (Matt: 23, 13).

In the USA many are scandalised today by the actions and words of Archbishop Elpidiforos. Others are scandalised in the USA by the actions and words of Metr Joseph of Antioch, by his mistresses and his money. In England a bishop stays at a hotel with his boyfriend. They spend the Saturday evening drinking beer in the bar before going up to their rooms. They did not know that the hotel manager who saw it all was Orthodox, a parishioner of the local church. The scandal was endless. Ordinary people are better than bishops. That is how it seems to so many simple believers, who are certainly not saints, but neither are they hypocritical pharisees. But we still pray for the salvation of all of them.

As one commentator put it: ‘It seems that bishops impose one set of standards and canons on clergy and laity, but they do not observe those standards and canons themselves and even cover up for each other’.

The number of well-known bishops of ALL jurisdictions whom I have known personally over the last fifty years who stole money, were freemasons, had boyfriends, had mistresses (and children), or caused schisms is almost endless. So what? Why are you scandalised? They will have to answer for their souls at the Last Judgement. As for us, we should be working on the salvation of our own souls and our answers at the Last Judgement.

For decades I have said that either bishops should be real monks, who have spent a minimum of ten years living the monastic life day in, day out, and learning how to love others through poverty, chastity and obedience, or else they should be allowed to be married, as in the first six centuries, indeed in some parts of the Orthodox world, for the first twelve centuries. You cannot have it otherwise. The Church is not a Californian cult. To paraphrase the bishop St Basil the Great: ‘O self-proclaimed Princes of the Church, your skulls pave hell’.

What can be said to the people who are scandalised by all this?

First of all, just remember that of the Twelve one was called Judas and he was a traitor. Do we celebrate him? Of course not. But we do celebrate the Eleven who remained faithful and Matthias, making again the Twelve. Stop looking at the negative. The negative you will always have with you if you keep looking at it. And look at the Positive, Christ, Who is always with us.

I will not throw away my basket of apples, just because one of them is rotten. And even though there are a thousand baskets of apples and in each basket there is one rotten apple, I will still not throw away the thousand baskets of apples because of a thousand rotten apples.

I go to church to meet Christ because He is there. I have no other reason to go to church. As for those who have other reasons to go to church, all we can do is to pray for the salvation of their souls.

The Church of Scandals? No, the Church of God.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The New Cold War Also Affects the Church

America is a great country, but it will fall because of money and lust.

St John of Shanghai

Introduction: Compromised Elites in Two Local Churches

Over the last century the elites of the two most important Local Orthodox Churches, the Patriarchate of Constantinople (the most prestigious) and the Patriarchate of Moscow (by far the largest), have often fallen victim to various secret services. This was the case of Constantinople already in the century before last, and even before that, when under Ottoman oppression British and French ambassadors corrupted it with their paid-for candidates for Patriarch. However, political interference, threatening the independence of Church life, has become especially apparent over the last three generations since the end of the Second World War. This political interference has been directed from the USA, notably by the CIA, with the left-wing aiming especially the Church of Constantinople and the right-wing aiming especially the anti-Communist Russian emigration. As for the Russian Church inside the old USSR, it became a victim of KGB manipulations and all its bishops were despite themselves given KGB code-names – as also were Western leaders like Thatcher and Reagan (though nobody suggested that Thatcher and Reagan were KGB agents!)

On the other hand, since 1947, with the aid of Truman, the Patriarchate of Constantinople has become the favoured church plaything of the CIA: (https://orthodoxhistory.org/2019/12/11/ousting-the-ecumenical-patriarch/). Moreover, various Russian Orthodox immigrant groups in the USA in particular were infiltrated in the same way, some were recruited into the CIA and received large amounts of money in order to oppose Communism (for instance, the Grabbe group). With Papist attitudes put into the heads of some inside the Local Churches of Constantinople and Moscow, some there even began to think that all the 13-15 other Local Churches should be subject to them! This is instead of behaving pastorally and creating new Autocephalous Churches, as missionaries should. Such money-hungry and power-hungry individuals can always be exploited by State-run secret services. Here is why we have always avoided and opposed such money and power hunger, carefully protecting the people and steering the ship of the Church away from the reefs of geopolitics and political meddlers. We are pastors and protectors, not wolves in shepherds’ clothing.

The New Cold War

Old enough to recall the illusions of the old Cold War, we now face those of the new Cold War. Nothing essentially has changed today, the manipulations are just as strong and devious. The CIA continues to run the elite of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, which today loves to be photographed with Biden, and it also tries to corrupt the elites of the Russian immigrant groups inside the USA, and even elsewhere, from within, through its ‘assets’. These assets are carefully vetted (a father who worked for NATO is recommended) and their handlers are to be found inside the appropriate US embassies under their Pontius Pilate governors.

What do the governors care if Christ’s Church is crucified? Hand the Church over to the Pharisees – their only concern is the greatness of their ‘Roman’ Empire. Thus, today, we see once more the purely political opposition between the left and the right, both sides operated by the same CIA puppeteers, their slogan the same old ‘divide and rule’. Thus, two groups of ‘useful idiots’, as they are seen by the spies, are financed and manipulated by them. Thus, they fund the Orthodox Times (romfea) website and orthochristian. Both sites censor opposition and commentaries and none appears to have the honour, nobility or integrity to leave them. There are now other groups too.

The Extreme Left

On the one side, we now have a group called ‘Public Orthodoxy’. This is a typical CIA-conformist name. It means a form of Orthodoxy which is acceptable to the secular and secularist Western public, zombified by the State-run Western media. Apart from a majority of naïve and misled idealists, it has liberals, syncretists, feminists, ecumenists and woke ‘scholars and theologians’, with Jesuit links. In fact, it does not really have any scholars or theologians, just politically-minded left-wing activists from the professions. Its ethos is deliberately anti-Russian, to the extent of racial prejudice and with no respect whatever for the piety of Christian Civilisation. The only standard they know is aggressive Americanisation. Bidenite and pro-LGBT, it is difficult to see anything other than left-wing secularism in the values of this small group. This is politics, not the spiritual.

Whereas our task is to be Christians, spiritual, without being wishy-washy and disincarnate, their task is to swim with the tide. With this group we are in the virtual world. This group has built no churches, has no churches. Where are its families and its children? This is an intellectual fantasy, the desire to feel fully integrated into the American/modern Western way of life, yet still claim an Orthodox identity. Christ stands outside and above their political correctness and woke ideologies, which are the mere intellectual fads of those who have lost their anchor in the Faith. The two things are in fact irreconcilable. You cannot be with Christ and Mammon. Christ was not a contemporary American, He was an Asian. If you want to go and preach secularism, go and join some political party or social organisation. Do not try and drag the Church of God into it.

The Extreme Right

On the other side, we have extreme right-wing, ex-Protestant crazy converts, for ever quoting the ‘holy’ canons. Some of them, operating under the so-called ‘Russian Christian News Syndicate’ (an invented front name), have attacked ‘Public Orthodoxy’. The pseudo-Russian group, none of whom appears to be Russian (the only one we know of speaks the most appalling Russian) appears to consist of the usual majority of naïve and misled idealists, but also of incels, conspiracy theorists, closet homosexuals and misogynists (unlike open homosexuals, closet ones are always misogynists). They adore their imaginary idol of President Putin, though the real Putin cannot be an idol of the far right, as he is definitely not a right-winger. He is just a Russian patriot, who unites left and right, wants social justice, allows divorce and abortion laws and presides over a country where statues of Lenin are still common.

Like a number of US Evangelicals, such individuals are much concerned with money (tithing) and power, and all the external trappings of men with huge beards, women enveloped in huge headscarves, clergy with bling, all the usual convert paraphernalia associated with ‘infallible’ self-righteous sects and narcissistic cults. (Claims of infallibility are always at the core of self-worship). Deeply schismatic, they appear to be tolerated by the present (not by the next?) Russian Patriarch for political reasons. The worst ones start off mainstream, then go extremist. The danger is when such moralising conservatives, crazy converts from Lutheranism or some other Protestant sect, are ordained priests or consecrated bishops and start acting at being ‘ethnic’. Alternatively, there are those like the Antiochian Metropolitan Joseph in the USA. Another moralising and very wealthy conservative, who defrocked faithful clergy for political reasons, his scandal is all over the internet, given among others by ‘Orthodoxy in Dialogue’. Such is the fate of pharisees.

Conclusion: Standing Firm

The CIA handlers of both extremist sides must sit in their offices and rock with laughter. Non-Americans say ‘Only in America’. Indeed, the political polarity of these extremisms does not export. Americans should be aware of that, from Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Ukraine and England. We stand steadfast against all political manipulations, whether from the left or from the right. We hold the middle ground, the mainstream, because we adhere to the Tradition. The Tradition, apparently unknown to quite a few Orthodox in the USA, is very different from mere conservatism, just as it is different from mere liberalism. The Tradition for us is not a museum-exhibit, it is spiritually living, ever renewed by the Holy Spirit. We do not want either sort of Extremist American Religion. In Europe we just want to be Orthodox Christians. We do not want spiritual swamps here. Keep them in America or take them back there, where you will have to drain them. You made them, you sort them out.

Recently, I was telephoned by the BBC Radio’s ‘Beyond Belief’, on which programme I have taken part three times in the past, about the situation of the Russian Church today. I explained to them that all our parishes and people had left the Russian Orthodox Church after nearly 50 years because of its recent politicisation and we had joined by far the largest Orthodox Church in Western Europe, the Romanian Orthodox Church. It is because we wish to protect ourselves and our people from schismatic and sectarian politics beneath the protection of the largest and increasingly most multinational Local Church in Western Europe. The mainstream saves us from sectarian and political extremes.

 

 

 

Autocephaly, Autonomy, Exarchates and Missions

Introduction

There are surely many suggestions as to how the Orthodox Church can move forward out of its present state of crisis. We recall that this crisis is essentially one of disputed and also discredited authority, especially of the post-Cretan Patriarchate of Constantinople and of the post-Ukrainian Operation Patriarchate of Moscow. So many of their acts that have been ostensibly justified by the ‘canons’ have in fact been purely political acts and thus are anti-canonical. Therefore, this is a crisis of division. I have little confidence that the following suggestions will be heard, let alone acted on. But still I dare to make them, if only for the record, as one set of solutions among others put forward from the grassroots.

Three Recent Autocephalous Churches

The post-1917 Russian Orthodox Church gradually recognised that the fall of the Russian Empire, the consequent reconstruction of Poland and the inability to care for the pre-Revolutionary mission in North America, meant that new Autocephalous Churches would have to be established there. Thus, there came into being the Polish Orthodox Church (1924 and 1948) and the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) (1970). As a result of the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918, there also came into being the Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia (1951). The first and the last of these Churches, though quite small, have undisputed territories and have been revitalised by the recent arrival of many Ukrainian refugees.

However, the vaguely-named ‘OCA’ (where is America?), founded in 1970, has had many difficulties which have undermined its authority, both moral and financial. Moreover, although it is heir to the original and undivided Church in Northern America, it exists today on a shared territory and the much larger Archdiocese of the Church of Constantinople does not recognise it. As a result, the OCA has remained smaller than the Church of Poland and the Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia. Perhaps it could be revitalised by the Mother-Church in Moscow which could add to its Moscow’s now bishopless parishes in Northern America? And perhaps it could be renamed more accurately as the ‘Northern American Orthodox Church’ (NAOC)? (The term Northern America means the USA, Canada and Greenland and a couple of islands, so that Mexico and the Caribbean are excluded from its territory). The NAOC should move towards having Greek, Serbian and native-born bishops, who are therefore truly representative of the new Local Church. Only in this way could the flocks of other Local Orthodox Churches be drawn to take part.

Four Future Autocephalous Churches

Over thirty years after the fall of the Soviet Union and its division into fifteen separate States, and following the conflict between the Russian Federation and the Ukraine and the refusal of many to commemorate the Russian Orthodox Patriarch, it is clear that a new wave of Autocephalies needs to take place. The parallel between the fall of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union should be clear to all. Ecclesiastical decentralisation must follow on from political decentralisation.

We suggest that four new Autocephalous Churches may need to be founded by the Mother-Church in countries where there are large numbers of Orthodox, but where the main language is not Russian. As all of these areas have at least four bishops (the minimum number for Autocephaly), this is quite realistic. This would bring the total number of Local Orthodox Churches, counting those of North Macedonia and the above NAOC, from sixteen to twenty. In order of size, these would be:

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church. 18 million? This would look after all Orthodox within the borders of the future Ukraine, even though the precise, permanent borders of that war-torn country are yet to be established for the moment. A genuinely Autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church could at last put an end to all those nationalist Church divisions that have taken place there since 1917, including in 2018, both inside the Ukraine and in the Diaspora.

The Moldovan Orthodox Church. 4 million? This would look after all Orthodox within Moldova. An Autocephalous Church, on good terms with both the Russian and Romanian Churches, which might grant it Autocephaly together, its birth could overcome the present division there between the Russian and Romanian Patriarchates, the two largest Local Churches.

The Baltic Orthodox Church. 500,000? This would look after all Orthodox who keep the canonical date of Pascha within Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Finland. In Lithuania clergy, defrocked for purely political reasons to the scandal of many, will need to be reinstated. As in the Ukraine and Moldova, the Baltic countries should move towards having native-born bishops, who are therefore truly representative of the new Local Church. A genuinely Autocephalous Baltic Orthodox Church could at last put an end to all those nationalist Church divisions that have taken place in all these countries since 1917, as well as the Phanariot-provoked situations in Finland and Estonia.

The Western European Orthodox Church (WEOC). 400,000? Covering the 22 ex-Catholic and ex-Protestant countries of Western, Central, Northern and Southern Europe, which have no Local Church of their own (Andorra
Austria, Belgium, British Isles, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, San Marino, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland). This Church is based on the present Russian Orthodox Exarchate of Western Europe, but includes Germany, Scandinavia (a bishop is required here) and Austria-Hungary. New bishops are also required for France, Benelux and the British Isles and Ireland and to resolve the pastoral problems in the latter. The Western European Archdiocese of the Moscow Patriarchate would surely wish to take part in such an Autocephalous Church. As in the Ukraine and Moldova, the WEOC should move towards having native-born bishops, who are therefore truly representative of the new Local Church. Only in this way could the flocks of other Local Orthodox Churches wish to take part.

Two Recent Autonomous Orthodox Churches

Rather than full independence (Autocephaly), there are smaller Churches in other countries which are dependent on their Mother-Church for their episcopate. Such Churches are known as Autonomous. The pre-Revolutionary missions in China (Autonomy granted in 1957) and Japan (Autonomy granted in 1970) are both such, although the latter hardly exists today on account of Chinese State persecution over the last 75 years.

Two Future Autonomous Orthodox Churches

The present Russian Orthodox Exarchate of South East Asia could become an Autonomous Church (SEAOC). True, for the moment it covers a huge territory. If its mission is successful, it could eventually form several Autocephalous Churches. However, before it can even become Autocephalous, it must first obtain native bishops.

The present Russian Orthodox Exarchate of Africa could become an Autonomous Church (AOC). Before it can become Autocephalous, it must obtain native bishops – and also resolve the territorial dispute with the Patriarchate of Alexandria. This could be overcome if, for example, the jurisdiction of Alexandria returned to its traditional territory of Egypt.

A Recent Exarchate

There are other regions which for various reasons do not wish or are unable to become either Autocephalous or Autonomous and may be particularly dependent on the Mother-Church. These are known as Exarchates. Thus, Belarus is established as an Exarchate within the Russian Orthodox Church.

Two Future Exarchates

There will soon need to be a Central Asian Exarchate for the ‘Five Stans’, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

There will soon need to be a Latin American Exarchate to cover South and Central America, as well as Mexico and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean.

Two Future Missions

Missions and infrastructure for them need to be opened for two other areas of the world. These are:

Oceania – the whole, albeit sparsely-populated Continent of Australia and all the Pacific islands, where there is already some Orthodox presence. The opening of an Exarchate here would depend on the desire of local Orthodox to become a Local Church.

South Asia (The Indian Subcontinent and Indian Ocean islands), which has nearly a quarter of the world’s population, but hardly any Orthodox.

Conclusion

There can be no new Churches if they are not Autocephalous, that is, if they are not quite separate from and politically free of Mother-Churches. Otherwise, they are compromised and discredited. History bears this out quite clearly, both in the twentieth century and well before. Of course, all are free to take part or not in the life of new Autocephalous Churches which are located on shared territories. Some, still attached to Mother-Churches will not wish to do so. Time is all that is lacking for them. Others, with a schismatic or sectarian ‘OneTrueChurch’ Pharisee mentality, inspired by the spiritual impurity of the CIA and US-Protestant nationalist politics and not on the canons of the Orthodox Church, will not take part. But such are a tiny minority and can be ignored. The future is in new Autocephalous Churches.

 

 

On the Successor of St John of Shanghai and Western Europe: The Ever-Memorable Archbishop Antony of Geneva and Western Europe

The future Archbishop Antony (Bartoshevich) was born into a pious family in Saint Petersburg on 17/30 November 1910 and baptised Andrei. After the illegitimate overthrow of the Tsar and his government by Western-orchestrated traitors from the military, aristocracy and intelligentsia in 1917, Andrei’s mother left with him for his grandmother’s home in Kiev, while his father joined the White Army. In 1921 the family emigrated, first to Germany and then to Yugoslavia. Here in Belgrade Andrei had initially thought of becoming an engineer like his father, but in the mid-1930s he abandoned engineering and chose instead to study theology.

Among his teachers was Fr (now St) Justin (Popovich) (+ 1979) and his mentors included Metr Antony (Khrapovitsky), First Hierarch of the Church Outside Russia and former Metropolitan of Kiev (+ 1936). Vladyka Antony told me himself in 1986 that if the Metropolitan had not rid Russian academic theology of alien scholastic theology and the theory of satisfaction, he would not have come to serious Church life and to study theology. There was also the influence of the fathers of the Russian monastery in Milkovo and that of the icon-painter Pimen Sofronov, who taught Andrei iconography. In 1941 Andrei became a monk, taking the name Antony after St Antony of Kiev. He was soon ordained hierodeacon and in 1942 was ordained hieromonk by Metr Anastasy (Gribanovsky). He served in the Russian church in Belgrade and taught young people how to paint icons, attracting many to the Church.

In 1945 the church in Belgrade was placed under the Moscow Patriarchate. Patriarch Alexei I himself made Fr Antony archimandrite on account of his zeal. Fr Antony wished to return to Russia to serve the Church there. However, there he was unwanted, his petitions ignored – no doubt providentially, because otherwise he would have been sent straight to the Gulag. Thus, after four years of patient waiting, Fr Antony accepted that it was God’s Will for him not to return to Russia, but to serve the Church in Western Europe.

In 1949 he went to Switzerland, where his saintly brother, Bp Leonty, was Bishop of Geneva. Fr Antony served in several parishes in that Western European Diocese of the then Church Outside Russia. He painted the iconostasis for the parish in Lyon. From 1952-57 he served in Brussels, taking care of all, travelling around and paying special attention to young people. After the early repose of his brother, in 1957 Fr Antony was consecrated Bishop of Geneva by the future St John (Maximovich), who was then Archbishop of our Western European Diocese.

Archbishop Antony was a model Archpastor, he loved the services, which he celebrated with great care and prayer, and wrote for and edited the Diocesan journal. He lived as a monk, reading or singing all the services every day, fasting strictly himself, though he was always indulgent towards the weaknesses of others, and took particular care of the young. He directed pilgrimages both to the Holy Land and also to the holy places of Western Europe like Lyon, the city of several early martyrs. In this he had been inspired by his spiritual father, the future St John, who had promoted the veneration of forgotten Western saints. Archbishop Antony always listened to the advice of others, other bishops and especially Athonite monks.

While remaining firmly Orthodox in the face of such heretical deviations as ecumenism and modernism, Archbishop Antony never fell into any extremes. At the Third Russian Church Council in Jordanville in 1974, he played a critical role in quelling the divisive passions of highly politicised right-wing extremists and sectarian isolationists in the USA, among them bishops who had put St John on trial in San Francisco. One of them, a CIA agent and future ROCOR bishop, would end up dying outside the communion of the Orthodox Church altogether. On his return Vladyka Antony said, ‘If Vladyka John had been there, we would have spoken quite differently’.

Thus, Archbishop Antony kept the unity of the Church, which had been endangered by these American extremists, who had lost their roots and been manipulated by the secret services. He asked for understanding for those who were hostages in Russia and, vitally, urged all to keep close links with the other Local Churches of the Universal Church. He asked all not to look at a few individual and unworthy clerics in Russia who compromised themselves under political pressure, but to look at the faithful there, especially the New Martyrs and Confessors, as also elsewhere. (There were no martyrs in ROCOR, only in the Church inside the Soviet Union). For Vladyka the Church inside the USSR always had grace, despite unworthy ‘representatives’ there or elsewhere.

All this time he organised the sending of spiritual literature to Russia and informed the Western world of the persecution of the Church there. He knew that the Faith there was being reborn. The canonisation of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia in 1981 under Metropolitan Philaret of New York was a great event in Archbishop Antony’s life and he played a key role in preparing their glorification, knowing that it would be a turning-point in history. For him the prayers of these new saints would give rebirth, as indeed they did. The Saints are the Unity of the Church. After the repose of Metropolitan Philaret in 1985, many bishops hoped that Archbishop Antony would become the next Metropolitan of ROCOR and indeed he received enough support to do so at the election in 1986. Never ambitious, Vladyka did not want this, and ceded all interest to Archbishop Vitaly after a lot had been cast, as he related to me with great humour on his return from New York.

Always a man of unity, Vladyka worked hard to bring back the Rue Daru group, centred in Paris, from its division. Thus, he concelebrated at the funeral of Metropolitan Vladimir (Tikhonitsky) and always concelebrated with others of the group, as had St John (Maximovich). Indeed, when he was still Bishop Antony, he offered not to take the title ‘Archbishop’ which had been proposed, and to cede that title to the Archbishop of the Rue Daru group once it had returned. At the Third Russian Council in 1974 he authored a message to the group, calling all back to unity. In this Vladyka was well ahead of his time. As we know, the Orthodox part of the group, some 60% of what then remained of it, did indeed return to the Russian Church, but only in 2019.

Just like St John, his predecessor as Archbishop of Western Europe, Archbishop Antony was a Russian patriot, but he was not some narrow nationalist or political bureaucrat. For him the Church was universal, as it was for his mentor Metr Antony (Khrapovitsky). He would serve in the Romanian and Serbian churches in Paris (the Romanian church was under him and kept the new calendar) and loved to hear services in Greek. He was also very open to Swiss, Dutch, French and others who had embraced the Orthodox Faith and he served in French for them.

He blessed the composition of the service to all the Saints of Switzerland for local use. He is remembered for his missionary work in Western Europe, keeping peace and love in his multinational Diocese, which he expanded to Portugal in 1992. True, he was let down by some. But when in 1987 a small group of extremist French intellectual converts left him to join a sect, he said to me, with a shrug of his shoulders, ‘ We’ll just have to start again’. Perhaps his missionary consciousness was partly due to the fact that his grandfather was a Polish Roman Catholic.

Almost exactly one year before his repose, the Archbishop had said that he had only one year to live. Just two weeks before he passed away, he consecrated two new bishops to replace himself, Bishop Seraphim and Bishop Ambrose. He fell asleep in the Lord on 19 September/2 October 1993, the day when Orthodox who use the new calendar commemorate St Andrew the Fool. He was laid to rest inside the Cathedral next to his brother, Bishop Leonty. Perhaps the greatest witness to his missionary efforts was the presence of ten different nationalities among the twenty-two priests who bore at various moments his coffin at his funeral: Russian, French, Swiss, Austrian, Serb, Romanian, Dutch, English, Spanish and Slovak, many of whom he had himself ordained since becoming diocesan bishop in 1963. Sadly, most of them had been forbidden by a certain Archbishop to concelebrate at the Liturgy before the funeral. It was an ominous sign of things to come.

Vladyka Antony is remembered for his faithfulness to the end to his Diocese, his wisdom and openness to others, his love for the young, his personal generosity, warmth of character, humour, pastorship, his love of his homeland and also his efforts to spread Orthodoxy in Western Europe. Nor can we forget his efforts to rekindle the fire of uncompromised Orthodoxy inside Russia, where he was never able to return, though he often spoke of visiting, especially Kiev, where he had family. St Paisios the Athonite (+ 1994) said of him: ‘Your Antony is a hero. He is neither with the ecumenists, nor with the others’ (the sectarian zealots).

This Archpastor’s very rare values, which coincided with our own and inspired us, were:

  1. To keep the purity of Holy Orthodoxy free from political meddling and bureaucracy, from love of power and money, from both the left (modernists and syncretists) and from the right (nationalists and sectarians), keeping to the royal path of the unity of Truth and Mercy.
  2. To be faithful to the best of Imperial Russia and the spirit of the Imperial Family, who stood above petty nationalisms, narrow-minded factions and personality-cults, confessing the Faith as protectors of the unique Civilisation of the Orthodox world and standing up to be martyred when required.
  3. To remain multinational, inevitable in the Western European context, carrying out the missionary task of the Russian emigration assigned to us by Providence among the peoples of the world, in faithfulness to the words of Christ (Matt, 28, 19-20).

A spiritual son of Archbishop Antony, I was proud (in the good sense) that he before me had also been named Andrei. I have a reflex of asking myself: What would Vladyka have done? What would Vladyka have said? Those who have been fortunate enough to have a spiritual father no doubt all have the same reflex, when their spiritual father leaves this world.

Today, as we approach the 29th anniversary of his passing, it is my thought, and that of others with whom I have checked, that he would have been heartbroken by the horrible demise of parts of Russian Orthodoxy, which have failed to keep the purity of Holy Orthodoxy free from political meddling, bureaucracy and love of power and money, they have failed to be faithful to the best of Imperial Russia and the spirit of the Imperial Family, to stand above petty nationalisms, narrow-minded factions and personality-cults. and they have failed to remain multinational, carrying out the missionary task of the Russian emigration assigned to them by Providence among the peoples of the world. They have been taken over by the American spirit, exactly as Vladyka and so many of us in the 1980s and 1990s feared, which before him St John had already prophesied: ‘America is a great country, but it will be destroyed by greed for money and lust’.

Vladyka always believed in Russia and the Russian people, but he would never compromise with Sergianists, for whom he did have compassion while they were under the Soviet yoke, but he would absolutely despise those who still behave in that way when they are in freedom.  As regards the Ukraine, he said that the eastern three quarters was Russian. As for the far west, it should be handed back to Poland, from which Stalin had stolen it, causing all the problems.

Today, Vladyka’s former flock is scattered to the four winds, betrayed by those who failed to remain faithful to the traditional Russian Orthodox ethos.

To the Very Reverend and Ever-Memorable Antony, Archbishop of Geneva and Western Europe, Eternal Memory!

2 October 2022

29th Anniversary of Vladyka’s Repose

 

 

 

‘They (The West) clearly did not expect such insubordination. They simply got used to acting according to a template, to grab whatever they please, by blackmail, bribery, intimidation, and convinced themselves that these methods would work forever

Extracts from the Speech by President Putin on 30 September 2022 on the arrogance of the US, UK and EU elites, with which we have become so familiar over the last four years:

…We will defend our land with all the forces and resources we have, and we will do everything we can to ensure the safety of our people. This is the great liberating mission of our nation….

…The West is ready to cross every line to preserve the neo-colonial system which allows it to live off the world, to plunder it thanks to the domination of the dollar and technology, to collect an actual tribute from humanity, to extract its primary source of unearned prosperity, the rent paid to the hegemon. The preservation of this annuity is their main, real and absolutely self-serving motivation.

…I want to underscore again that their insatiability and determination to preserve their unfettered dominance are the real causes of the hybrid war that the collective West is waging against Russia. They do not want us to be free; they want us to be a colony. They do not want equal cooperation; they want to loot. They do not want to see us a free society, but a mass of soulless slaves.

…I would like to remind you that in the past, ambitions of world domination have repeatedly shattered against the courage and resilience of our people. Russia will always be Russia….

Russia is a great thousand-year-old power, a whole civilisation, and it is not going to live by such makeshift, false rules.

…The West does not have any moral right to weigh in, or even utter a word about freedom of democracy. It does not and it never did.

Western elites not only deny national sovereignty and international law. Their hegemony has pronounced features of totalitarianism, despotism and apartheid.

…We have never agreed to and will never agree to such political nationalism and racism. What else, if not racism, is the Russophobia being spread around the world? What, if not racism, is the West’s dogmatic conviction that its civilisation and neoliberal culture is an indisputable model for the entire world to follow? “You’re either with us or against us.”

…It is worth reminding the West that it began its colonial policy back in the Middle Ages, followed by the worldwide slave trade, the genocide of Indian tribes in America, the plunder of India and Africa, the wars of England and France against China, as a result of which it was forced to open its ports to the opium trade. What they did was get entire nations hooked on drugs and purposefully exterminated entire ethnic groups for the sake of grabbing land and resources, hunting people like animals. This is contrary to human nature, truth, freedom and justice.

…To emphasise, one of the reasons for the centuries-old Russophobia, the Western elites’ unconcealed animosity toward Russia is precisely the fact that we did not allow them to rob us during the period of colonial conquests and forced the Europeans to trade with us on mutually beneficial terms. This was achieved by creating a strong centralised state in Russia, which grew and got stronger based on the great moral values of Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism, as well as Russian culture and the Russian world that were open to all.

…They called us friends and partners, but they treated us like a colony, using various schemes to pump trillions of dollars out of the country. We remember. We have not forgotten anything.

Western countries have been saying for centuries that they bring freedom and democracy to other nations. Nothing could be further from the truth. Instead of bringing democracy they suppressed and exploited, and instead of giving freedom they enslaved and oppressed. The unipolar world is inherently anti-democratic and unfree; it is false and hypocritical through and through….

Recall that during WWII the United States and Britain reduced Dresden, Hamburg, Cologne and many other German cities to rubble, without the least military necessity. It was done ostentatiously and, to repeat, without any military necessity. They had only one goal, as with the nuclear bombing of Japanese cities: to intimidate our country and the rest of the world.

It actually continues to occupy Germany, Japan, the Republic of Korea and other countries, which they cynically refer to as equals and allies. Look now, what kind of alliance is that? The whole world knows that the top officials in these countries are being spied on and that their offices and homes are bugged. It is a disgrace, a disgrace for those who do this and for those who, like slaves, silently and meekly swallow this arrogant behaviour.

They call the orders and threats they make to their vassals Euro-Atlantic solidarity, and the creation of biological weapons and the use of human test subjects, including in Ukraine, noble medical research.

…In effect, the American elite is using the tragedy of these people to weaken its rivals, to destroy nation states…..

The West clearly did not expect such insubordination. They simply got used to acting according to a template, to grab whatever they please, by blackmail, bribery, intimidation, and convinced themselves that these methods would work forever, as if they had fossilised in the past.

Such self-confidence is a direct product not only of the notorious concept of exceptionalism – although it never ceases to amaze – but also of the real ”information hunger“ in the West. The truth has been drowned in an ocean of myths, illusions and fakes, using extremely aggressive propaganda, lying like Goebbels. The more unbelievable the lie, the quicker people will believe it – that is how they operate, according to this principle….

I want to make special note of the fact that there is every reason to believe that the Western elites are not going to look for constructive ways out of the global food and energy crisis that they and they alone are to blame for, as a result of their long-term policy, dating back long before our special military operation in Ukraine, in Donbass. They have no intention of solving the problems of injustice and inequality. I am afraid they would rather use other formulas they are more comfortable with….

…The current neocolonial model is ultimately doomed; this much is obvious. But I repeat that its real masters will cling to it to the end. They simply have nothing to offer the world except to maintain the same system of plundering and racketeering.

They do not give a damn about the natural right of billions of people, the majority of humanity, to freedom and justice, the right to determine their own future. They have already moved on to the radical denial of moral, religious, and family values.

Let me repeat that the dictatorship of the Western elites targets all societies, including the citizens of Western countries themselves. This is a challenge to all. This complete renunciation of what it means to be human, the overthrow of faith and traditional values, and the suppression of freedom are coming to resemble a “religion in reverse” – pure Satanism. Exposing false messiahs, Jesus Christ said in the Sermon on the Mount: “By their fruits ye shall know them.” These poisonous fruits are already obvious to people, and not only in our country but also in all countries, including many people in the West itself….

…Today, we are fighting for a just and free path, first of all for ourselves, for Russia, in order to leave dictate and despotism in the past. I am convinced that countries and peoples understand that a policy based on the exceptionalism of whoever it may be and the suppression of other cultures and peoples is inherently criminal, and that we must close this shameful chapter. The ongoing collapse of Western hegemony is irreversible. And I repeat: things will never be the same….

Today, we are fighting so that it would never occur to anyone that Russia, our people, our language, or our culture can be erased from history. Today, we need a consolidated society, and this consolidation can only be based on sovereignty, freedom, creation, and justice. Our values ​​are humanity, mercy and compassion.

 

 

The Russian Orthodox Church and the Tragedy of Soviet Centralisation

Introduction: Soviet Centralisation in Kiev = The End of the Ukraine

I was recently asked a strange question: Do you think that the Ukraine has a right to exist? To which I answered: Obviously, yes! The Ukraine is for Ukrainians! And that is precisely the problem, the Ukraine is for Ukrainians, not for Non-Ukrainians. I believe in self-determination. What the Soviet-style Kiev government did not have the right to do is to ban and oppress the languages and cultures of others and even ‘ethnically cleanse’ the non-Ukrainian minorities. Sadly, that is what has been going on since 1945, starting in what Kiev still calls ‘Transcarpathia’, even though it is Kiev which is Transcarpathian. And in the last three decades that were supposedly ‘post-Soviet’ the centralising Soviet-style oppression has got worse everywhere.

Clearly, the independent Ukraine after 1991 either had to become a loose Confederation, as suggested by the leaders of Germany at the time, or else it had to change its unnatural borders, returning to its pre-1922 borders, returning land to Russia, Poland, Hungary and Romania. Instead, it rejected both options, rejecting democratic referenda, remaining a centralised Soviet State. So now it is being forced to return to its natural borders by the drama of military action and appalling bloodshed. Therein lies its horrible tragedy, all so avoidable, the tragedy of all those who have not thrown off the atheist Soviet heritage with its disregard, plain lack of love, for others. It is all so typically Soviet: close the churches and padlock their doors, so people cannot go to them. ‘Hate your neighbour’ is our slogan.

Soviet Centralisation in Moscow = Autocephaly in the Ukraine

In the Russian Church, unlike in other Local Churches, there is a tradition of praying for not just the diocesan bishop, but also for the Patriarch. If you are in the Russian Church, you should do this. However, over the decades, there have been inside and outside Russia, numbers of bishops and priests who have refused to do this. Thus, after the fall of the Russian Empire in 1917, the Church in the Polish part of the former Empire received autocephaly and the parishes in Finland left for Constantinople. This was also in order to avoid praying for a Patriarch who was under the orders of atheists.

Then, for over 80 years, bishops and priests in the émigré Church, ROCOR, refused to commemorate the head of the Russian Church because they considered that the Metropolitans and Patriarchs of the Moscow Patriarchate were slaves or hostages of the atheist Communists who were persecuting the Church, and therefore they were not Orthodox. Indeed, if they had commemorated the Russian Patriarch, the people would have walked out, so not to pray for him publicly was a pastoral necessity. And in the neophyte 1990s there were protesters inside Russia who also refused to commemorate their Patriarch. These non-commemorators justified themselves as they considered that the Patriarch was an ecumenist and so was not Orthodox.

Today, in the Ukraine clergy have stopped commemorating Patriarch Kyrill for the same reason as ROCOR, because they do not consider him to be Orthodox and therefore, at the mention of his name in churches, the people walk out or else they refuse to go to church anyway. Rightly or wrongly, they consider him to be the slave of the post-Soviet State, a politician and not a churchman. As a result, the canonical Ukrainian Church has had to declare itself ‘fully independent’. It had no choice. The decision was forced on it by the people. Far more importantly than this, however, is the fact that when the conflict in the Ukraine is over, and whatever the outcome, there will be an independent/Autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church. It will not return to centralised, Soviet-style Moscow. Moscow is still in denial about this, but this will not change the reality. Indeed, arguably, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church should have been given Autocephaly decades ago.

Soviet Centralisation = Autocephaly Elsewhere

I have always been opposed to ‘Autocephalitis’, the idea that all problems can be solved by the granting of autocephaly to groups of Orthodox, however small, in any country in the world. Autocephaly can only be justified, when there are sufficient numbers of Orthodox with spiritual maturity in any particular location. However, after the fall of the Soviet Empire in 1991 and the formation of many new independent states, it should have been clear that new independent (Autonomous or Autocephalous) Churches would have to follow. Probably the time for partial independence (Autonomy) is over – it is already too late. Full independence, Autocephaly, is now on the cards for virtually the whole Russian Orthodox world outside the Russian Federation and the Russian Orthodox Exarchate in Belarus. Autocephaly means precisely that His Holiness Kyrill, the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, will no longer be commemorated at services.

True, it is too early for Autocephaly in the new and small Russian Orthodox Exarchates in South-East Asia and Africa, but Autonomy will have to be envisaged for both within the next ten years and then Autocephaly. Elsewhere, it is full steam ahead. The Latvian Orthodox Church has already taken the chance of Autocephaly, with the excuse of pressure from the Latvian government. However, as it has only three bishops, perhaps, as we have suggested, a single Baltic Orthodox Church (grouping all Orthodox in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, together with all Orthodox in Finland who use the canonical date for Pascha). This would solve the problems and schismatic pressures in Lithuania and in Estonia, and provide at least six bishops. (For Autocephaly, four bishops are a minimum). How long before governments in other countries also impose Autocephaly on local Russian Orthodox? 20% of Moldovan parishes have already gone to the Romanian Church. Moldova is certainly large enough to become an Autocephalous Church, indeed it would become one of the larger Local Churches.

Apart from the Baltics and Moldova, there is also considerable dissidence among multinational Russian Orthodox in Western Europe, in the Russian Orthodox Exarchate in Western Europe of the MP (potentially eight or more bishops), the Western European Archdiocese of the MP (three bishops) and in Western European ROCOR (Autocephaly impossible with its four present bishops, but clergy and people are already voting with their feet), from which many have walked out. Autocephaly in Western Europe could be envisaged, providing it was done with the co-operation of the other Local Churches, and not done, schismatically, against them. Since parts of the New York-run ROCOR have gone into schism, with the Moscow Patriarchate itself! (the Western European Archdiocese) and with the treacherous backing of politicians in the Moscow Patriarchate in Moscow!, there is no hope of this happening on the part of ROCOR. The latter has walled itself off in a schismatic bout of ‘OneTrueChurchism’, which is very American and highly political. But others are free to pursue the path of a new Local Church of Western Europe and clearly some want to.

Soviet Centralisation = Crisis

Interestingly, when Japan started a war against Russia in 1904 with a treacherous and unprovoked attack against Russia (not Russia against Japan), the Russian Bishop of Tokyo told his parishes to pray for the Japanese Emperor, the authorities and the Japanese armed forces. He locked himself away for the duration of the war. It seems to me that he, a future saint, set an example and the same should apply now. In any case, the fact is that Ukrainians consider that they cannot pray publicly for Patriarch Kyrill and the people refuse to attend churches where his name is commemorated. They see him as a politician, not a churchman.

If England were under military attack from Russia, whatever the reason, I don’t see that anyone in this country would wish to hear public prayers for Patriarch Kyrill. Either the Russian Church here would declare itself Autocephalous (as happened with the canonical Church under Metr Onuphry in the Ukraine), or else the State would declare it Autocephalous (as happened in Latvia), or else everyone would join another Local Church. Indeed, many people were forced to take the latter course by the Moscow Patriarchate itself in this country even before the war, because of the schismatic actions of some in the Russian Church, whose political support Moscow needed, even though the actions Moscow was supporting were schismatic.

In other words, nearly one third of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Non-Russian part, is in crisis. Interestingly, this ‘independence movement’ inside the Russian Church has brought no benefit to the ‘Churches’ which the US-manipulated Patriarchate of Constantinople set up in Estonia a generation ago and in 2019 in the west of the Ukraine. Most of their church buildings, stolen by violent thugs from the canonical Church, stand empty and padlocked. People know they are fake and refuse to go there. It must be depressing to be inside the Russian Church in Western Europe today. All the more so, as most ‘Russians’ here do not come from Russia itself, but are Russian-speakers from the Baltics, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Belarus and, especially, from the Ukraine.

Conclusion: New Jerusalem and All Rus

In the light of the conflict in the Ukraine, what can be said about the concept of ‘Holy Rus’? This conflict is between the largest of the supposedly Orthodox peoples of ‘Holy Rus’. Clearly, the majority are not Orthodox and indeed have not been since 1917. Today the majority still acts in the old Soviet way, with its atheistic mentality. For a long time now it has been our suggestion that the Moscow Patriarchate, a name that reminds many of the old Soviet heritage of the Russian Orthodox Church, be renamed ‘The Patriarchate of New Jerusalem and All Rus’. Physically, it could quit Moscow and establish itself in the now renewed New Jerusalem Monastery by the River Istra (Jordan) nearby, and so justify that new name and new reality.

Whatever the present tragedy in the Ukraine, the Trinitarian ideal of ‘Holy Rus’ of Unity in Diversity, remains. As to whether it will be incarnated before the end of the world, we do not know, for we do not know when the world will end. It depends on mass repentance, which has been absent since 1917. Thank God, we have been released from the post-Soviet Church, in both its Russian Federation and its American political incarnations, and are able to go on in freedom to help build up the future multinational Local Church with the free Local Orthodox Churches. These are neither American, nor post-Soviet, neither CIA, nor FSB, and so, by the grace of God, can remain outside the geopolitical games of the Superpowers, as can we.

 

Q and A September 2022

Q: Why do some people talk so much about what is canonical and uncanonical?

A: That is often the talk of converts from Protestantism who have replaced citing chapter and verse in order to try and catch out others and now cite the canons in order to try and catch out others. They love to call the canons ‘holy’, indeed they will put the word ‘holy’ anywhere: ‘Holy Church’, holy council’, holy bishop’, holy father’. This is all part of the self-justifying religion of the pharisees, they make themselves holy. ‘Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you compass sea and land to make one convert and when he is made, you make him twice more the child of hell than yourselves’ (Matt. 23, 15).

Canons are guidelines to Church administration. If they are interpreted and said without love, then they are just empty laws, ‘sounding brass’ (I Cor 13, 1), the lack of love, worthy only of the Synod-Sanhedrin, and have no spiritual meaning. We exist on earth in order to learn how to love. That is the meaning and purpose of all human life. Everything else, like the religion of the pharisees, is spiritually meaningless and even spiritually harmful. For it does not teach us how to love, but only how to condemn.

Nobody is canonical, if you actually read the canons. For example, Canon XXX of the Holy Apostles deposes all bishops who have been appointed by the secular authorities, Canon LXIV forbids fasting on Saturdays, Canon LXXXI says that bishops may not hold political office, Canon XX of the First Council forbids kneeling on Sundays, Canon XXI of Antioch forbids bishops to change dioceses etc. etc. And we have not even mentioned the widespread problem of simony…

Q: Do we absolute obedience to anyone except Christ?

A: No, only to Christ.

Q: Can we pray for Non-Orthodox?

A: First of all, we have to distinguish between private and public prayer. We can and do pray for anyone in private prayer, including for the unbaptised.

As regards public prayer, which I think is what you are referring to, we should only pray for Orthodox by name. This is why the mention of the late Queen Elizabeth II in the litanies in this country was controversial. We did it because that was what our bishops imposed on us, out of obedience. That time is now over.

However, in general, we always pray in general for the civil authorities and the armed forces (nobody by name). The Apostle Peter told us to do so (I Peter 2, 17). There are some people who object to this because they do not like the authorities and the armed forces. This is unChristian. As Christians we are told precisely to pray for our enemies, for people we do not like, though we do not do this by name in public prayer. Thus, prayer for the armed forces does not mean that we pray that they will kill lots of people, it means that we pray that they will not kill lots of people. Sadly, there are some so-called Christians who refuse to pray for their enemies in private prayer. They are not Christians. I pray for my enemies every day.

Q: Is ecumenism a problem in the Orthodox Church today?

A: Frankly, nobody ever talks about it. It appears to be a dead duck. To me it seems like something from the last century. Most Orthodox do not even know what it is. We live alongside Non-Orthodox as we always have done. The main problem today is to keep the Faith despite the oppression of militant secularism/atheism all around us. It is not some mysterious and non-existent ‘ecumenism’.

Q: Your life’s work was to promote Russian Orthodoxy. As you were forced into leaving the Russian Church for the Romanian Patriarchate because of the schismatic activities of the Russian Orthodox bishop, do you feel that your work has been wasted?

A: First of all, let me correct your statement. My life’s work has NOT been to promote Russian Orthodoxy. That is a fundamental misunderstanding. My life’s work has always been to promote a Local Church in the British Isles and Ireland and in Western Europe. True, the Russian Church for decades said that this was its objective and therefore I supported it. I have always opposed those of any nationality who opposed that aim for either racist (Greek, Russian etc) or else ideological reasons, that is, sectarianism of both left (new calendarism) and right (old calendarism).

Many bishops of both parts of the Russian Church, and indeed Patriarch Alexis II at one time, very actively promoted in words and deeds our vision of multinational Russian Orthodoxy and, in particular, wanted a Local Church of Western Europe. My loyalty to the Russian Church was based uniquely on that shared vision. As long as that was the policy of the Russian Church, I supported or, as you say, ‘promoted’, the Russian Church. When, alas! the Russian Church renounced that shared multination vision of spreading the ideal of ‘Holy Rus’ and become Russian nationalist (or American nationalist), at least for the time being (repentance is always possible) and so renounced all of us, we could no longer support that.

In this way the Russian Church is becoming like the Patriarchate of Constantinople, which was and in most places still is – mononational or nationalist. We consider that the Russian Church is committing a kind of spiritual suicide, renouncing the views of its own best Diaspora bishops of its recent past and of Patriarch Alexis II, going into reverse by falling prey to nationalism. That is too bad for the salvation of their souls. It is their loss.

As a result, they have lost most of the Non-Russian Church, in the Ukraine, in Latvia and now this movement is spreading to Lithuania and may spread to Estonia and Moldova and all though the Diaspora. (Not to mention the opposition to the conflict in the Ukraine shown by the Russian-founded OCA in North America). As for us, we shall continue in the footsteps of all the saints of the Ancient West and in the footsteps of St John of Shanghai, continuing to work towards the multinational Local Church, for the time being without the Russian Church, which has excluded itself from this process for its own perdition. But it may all come back.

Remember, Russian Church, that those who live by the ghetto will die by the ghetto. In other words, you will lose all your children, all over again, and die out, if it really is your choice to be a mononational Church for Russians outside Russia. But that is your choice.

Q: Has the parish in Colchester grown in recent years?

A: With immigration over the last 15 years as a result of Eastern European countries joining the EU (the Baltics in 2004, Romanian and Bulgaria in 2007), all parishes in this country have grown or should have grown. In our own case, we witnessed a slow and gradual tripling of numbers between 2008 and 2019, as word got round that we exist. Then came covid, which brought an extra 50% of people, as we remained open, when others closed. A simple witness to the fact that we consider faith greater than fear of some virus was enough. Then when persecution began in 2021, we saw another 50% increase. People identify with a church that is persecuted. True, a few left, but they were the ones who were weak in faith, swam with the tide and had to be carried. Those who were more solid joined us.

Now we are facing the challenge of new Ukrainian parishioners. As we are outside the Russian Church, we have a great opportunity here. Every Sunday we see new Ukrainians in church and soon we shall have a Ukrainian priest for them. There are 400,000 Romanians in the UK, who nearly all came here between 2007 and 2020 and now 100,000 Ukrainians, who have arrived here since April. There is an immense amount of pastoral work to be done here and new churches to set up.

Q: I couldn’t help noticing that Queen Elizabeth II died on the Feast of the Birth of the Mother of God and that her funeral was on the Feast Day of St Theodore of Canterbury, new style.  Do you think there is any message for English people in that?

A: As neither of those feasts would have entered her consciousness or had any significance for her, I rather doubt it. What I find more instructive is the rainbow that appeared over Windsor on the news of her passing.

Q: What is the strangest thing you have heard from a Protestant?

A: There are two things. The first is something that was said to me almost fifty years ago, which was: ‘We don’t have saints’. I took this and take this as meaning: ‘We don’t have the Holy Spirit’. For me that means that Protestantism is not part of the Church, as the Church is founded on the saints who follow Christ. The second thing was four years ago, when a Protestant visitor asked me: ‘Are you an inclusive Church?’ I was thrown by such a strange question at first, but then answered: ‘All our churches are inclusive, on one condition, which is that people who come here are repentant. This is the condition set by St John the Baptist. Those who do not repent exclude themselves from the Church.

What happened to our parish was the work of the devil, and those who dared to lay hands on God’s temple and God’s people are acting like bandits.

Below we report the latest news from our dear friend of over 30 years, Fr Joseph Feysak. in Brno in Moravia, who for two years now has been under persecution from his ‘bishop’. Sadly, this is a familiar story. Clearly, the work of closing a church is the devil’s work – and also the work of this ‘bishop’, who claims he is doing God’s work!

Today’s Sunday holy, divine liturgy was held contrary to the customs at our historical church of St. Wenceslas, because it was not possible to hold services in our temporary shelter on Karásková náměstí.

Although the prospects for Sunday morning did not sound too favorable in terms of weather, in the end we were in for a pleasant surprise.

Father Jozef started the holy liturgy with his helpers and singers even in light rain. However, no one was deterred by these small drops and moisture from above. Believers and their children came throughout the holy liturgy so that they could confess and later receive the Pure Gifts of Christ.

The Holy Liturgy was held in the same place where a similar big event took place this year before Easter – on Palm Sunday.

The green color of the surrounding grass and leaves on the trees also colored the pleasant impression of today. We felt as if the sky had come down to earth and turned into the purple of the green branches.

The conclusion of the holy liturgy was a sermon by father Jozef, followed by a 40-day panichida for the innocently killed brother in Christ, Ruslan. All those present were moved to join in the common prayers, sympathizing in their hearts with the relatives of the slain young man.

Father Jozef’s sermon today was no less significant. With its content, inner message and open confession, it awakened in each of us a fiery faith, hidden in our hearts. It was so clear and true that in all of us, the flames of our faith began again powerfully, encouraging us to remain in unity and love regardless of the heavy adversities and discomfort that each of us suffers, most of all our spiritual shepherd himself.

Father Jozef quite clearly and openly described the injustice that has been going on for a long time on the part of vicar bishop Izaiáš and his priests, who illegitimately and anti-churchly occupied our holy temple here in Brno.

This occupation of our temple was something illegal, unchristian and impious. It was a barbaric act of violence. And whoever committed such violence in the Church, against God’s people, could not have acted out of God’s love. Or do you think so?

No, no!

What happened to our parish was the work of the devil, and those who dared to lay hands on God’s temple and God’s people are acting like bandits.

The famous elder Gabriel Svatohorec told father Jozef clearly that he must separate himself from such people. He must not serve either with the vicar bishop Isaiah or with those who support him, because such people have fallen away from God and His love.

Today was sad and happy at the same time, as it usually is.

However, our grief and dismay, as well as the initial rain, eventually gave way to joy and sunshine. God remembered us. As a reward for our perseverance and steadfast faith, He sent us His gracious caress in the form of God’s blessings from above.

May the Lord bless all our parishioners, may he have mercy on our enemies.

The Lord is with us!

And we hope that it will continue to be so!

In the true love of Christ

Your bro. Michael

ROCOR in Desperate Search of an Identity

Introduction

The small émigré Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR), which was formed after 1917 largely from White Russian refugees, has desperately been in search of an identity since 2007. Then, as it joined up with the rest of the much larger Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate or MP), at a ratio of 1% to 99% (300 parishes to 30,000 parishes), it gave up being a museum or heritage church. After all, the old  generation, adults before the 1917 evolution, had completely died out by then. Many of their children had abandoned Church life and it was increasingly dependent on people and clergy from the ex-USSR.

The traditional ROCOR position was to keep its pre-Revolutionary heritage, to stand with the New Martyrs and Confessors and to condemn the collaboration of bishops inside the USSR with the atheist State. However, once the USSR and the atheist State had ceased to exist in 1992, once the post-Soviet MP had begun canonising its New Martyrs and Confessors and reviving its pre-Revolutionary heritage in 2000, then ROCOR had to find a new role to justify its existence. There was nothing distinctive any more. Since 2007, there have been discussions as to what that role should be. Two schools of thought have appeared in the past fifteen years.

The First Choice

The first choice was to be absorbed by the Moscow Patriarchate and their immigrant parishioners all over the world since the collapse of the Soviet Union, clearly outnumbering the old ROCOR parishioners, who were dying out. Unfortunately, at the same time corruption from inside the oligarchic ex-USSR spread to ROCOR too. Bishops became corrupted by the temptations of money, prestige and property. Some ROCOR churches became virtual embassy churches for the Moscow Patriarchate and its nationalist policy in the Ukraine, others became nationalist nostalgia clubs, ghettos which are irrelevant to others. Others became tiny, inward-looking and sectarian and cultish groups for rather right-wing US Protestants with the OneTrueChurchism of some converts with their conspiracy theories, as also in England and Belgium, for example.

I have been to ROCOR churches in the USA four times since 1996, once as a speaker at the 2006 ROCOR Council in San Francisco under the ever-memorable Metropolitan Laurus (only six out of the nine ROCOR speakers there remain in ROCOR). No fewer than three ROCOR bishops (I know them all) told me since 2017 that their hero is Trump. I was told never to say anything against Trump or else face censorship! If ROCOR follows this political, indeed totalitarian, path, it will not only fall out of communion with the Patriarchates of Constantinople and Alexandria and the Western European Archdiocese of the Moscow Patriarchate, as it already has, but with all the other Local Churches, as seems highly likely. In fact one of their bishops told us that this was his aim!

The Second Choice

The second choice is to insist on ROCOR autonomy and freedom, realising the full potential of ROCOR, and remain faithful to the Russian Orthodox ascetic and liturgical tradition of the old bishops, clergy and laity, whom I knew and loved so well. Completely unmercenary, they had no love of money, prestige, power, fancy apartments and cars and of what we may in general call ‘bling’. This is faithfulness to the New Martyrs and Confessors and the Three Diaspora Saints: St John of Shanghai, St Seraphim of Boguchar and St Jonah of Hankou. It would be well if ROCOR ceased commemorating Patriarch Kyrill, as they have already ceased doing in the Ukraine and Latvia. No Ukrainian refugees will ever set foot and stay in any church that commemorates him. We know: we do not commemorate him, as we are not under him, and so plenty of Ukrainian refugees from the canonical Ukrainian Church come to us.

The fact is that the only long-term purpose of any Orthodox presence and structure in Western Europe, North America, Latin America and Oceania is to help lay the groundwork for future Local Churches in those four Continents and regions in the local languages. Witness is essential. This has been patently obvious for at least two generations. And this means inter-Orthodox, inter-calendar and multinational co-operation, being part of the mainstream, not being part of a schismatic sect or cult. Down with politics and racist ideologies! Long live Orthodox Christianity!

Conclusion

The choice for ROCOR is simple: Either to side with the Persecuting Church or else to stand with the Persecuted Church. The first way is spiritual death, as some with suicidal tendencies here have already done, the second way is spiritual life. The clash between these two visions of the Church has already taken place here. The result of this was that, because of years of persecution and being ignored, half a ROCOR diocese and most of its people left for the Patriarchate of Romania. Will this pattern be repeated elsewhere? Today we have heard that the new First Hierarch of ROCOR is Metropolitan Nicholas (Olhovsky). It was the obvious choice, since the two senior candidates had compromised themselves in politics. Metr Nicholas is a candidate of the Lukianov group, but also has many qualities, not least that he is a son from the post-1945 generation and knew Metr Laurus very well, as his cell-attendant. But some fear that this young bishop may be manipulated by others and compromise himself by obeying them again.

If Metr Nicholas wants to survive in the much contracted ROCOR (that has all but lost South America, where forty years ago it had six bishops, Indonesia and much of Western Europe), he will now have to allow parishes to cease commemorating Patriarch Kyrill, deal with the Western Rite problem, the House Springs scandal and the Belya scandal in the USA, and then all the scandals in what remains of the tiny ‘Western European Diocese’. He may be tempted to avoid many problems by doing the swap that Moscow has long wanted and exchange the ROCOR parishes in Western Europe (after, or as regards the 20 mainly small parishes of the Western European Diocese even before, Metr Mark has gone) for the bishopless MP parishes in North America. This will leave him with his American Synod in control of Russian and convert parishes in North America and Australia. Then he will have to steer ROCOR towards co-operation with the OCA. Otherwise, ROCOR will simply die out.

 

 

Does England Have a Romanian Orthodox King?

The English name Charles comes directly from the French version of the name, Charles, which is itself their form of the late Latin Carolus. In German the name is Karl, which gives the Romanian form Carol. Romania had two kings of Germanic origin, King Carol I (+ 1914) and King Carol II (+ 1953). Now, according to some there is King Carol III. There is just one thing: he is not the King of Romania, but the King of England, or rather of the UK and the Commonwealth.

King Charles III has long been a lover of Romania, and owns property there. As one who has always been interested in the Orthodox Faith, makes pilgrimages to Mt Athos every year, making a generous donation to the Serbian Monastery of Hilandari after a fire there in 2004, and converses with Orthodox clergy. Years ago the now Metr Tikhon (Shevkunov) of Pskov assured me that the then Prince Charles had been received into the Orthodox Church. Indeed, rumour has it that he had been received into the Orthodox Church by a well-known Romanian Orthodox priest. Any search of the internet will confirm this, for example, https://www.msn.com/en-xl/news/other/prince-charles-a-romania-aficionado-becomes-king-of-the-united-kingdom-after-queen-elizabeth-ii-e2-80-99s-death/ar-AA11CmGb. An internet search also reveals a photograph of Prince Charles together with our His Beatitude, Patriarch Daniel, and making the Orthodox sign of the cross.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=prince+charles+with+romanian+patriarch&view=detail&mid=CEBDB74B9EA6296D7942CEBDB74B9EA6296D7942&FORM=VIRE

and several photos of him with our dear Metropolitan Joseph of Western and Southern Europe.

https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=cWex4oBg&id=27D7F183498214B1FF35803DE8F60B52F4D40844&thid=OIP.cWex4oBgiB__KCJY1hnShQHaFS&mediaurl=https%3a%2f%2fth.bing.com%2fth%2fid%2fR.7167b1e28060881fff282258d619d285%3frik%3dRAjU9FIL9ug9gA%26riu%3dhttp%253a%252f%252fwww1.pictures.zimbio.com%252fgi%252fPrince%252bWales%252bAttends%252bRomanian%252bOrthodox%252bChurch%252b5nJA7p2Di8ax.jpg%26ehk%3dpOtgyYiSKb9DZC9ZPxUS7LNNI1E279wdyeH0%252bJ7Ai7M%253d%26risl%3d%26pid%3dImgRaw%26r%3d0&exph=731&expw=1024&q=prince+charles+with+romanian+bishop&simid=608044095423004727&FORM=IRPRST&ck=2D4EF3964D3642E9B35FA910A293A05D&selectedIndex=47&ajaxhist=0&ajaxserp=0