Category Archives: Convertitis

On the Third Anniversary of our Freedom from Persecution 2022-2025: The Thirteen Reasons Why We Took Canonical Refuge in the Romanian Orthodox Church after Nearly Fifty Years of Faithfulness to the Russian Orthodox Church

Blessed are you, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake (Matthew 5,11) 

Foreword

Although the statement below concerns the 5,000 of us directly, it could also be used as part of a more general study in order to understand the process of how a Persecuted Church became a Persecuting Church, how an organism for Love became a narrow and judgemental sect which professed Hatred which enjoys trying to close churches. It is a psychiatric tragedy.

Some Recent History

https://roarch.org.uk/parishes-england/

The Romanian Orthodox Church is not much bothered by PR and websites. It updates its website once every ten years. For some reason, this cyberworld information is highly important to newcomers, whereas the well-circulated photographs of our letter of acceptance of 16 February 2022, issued by the Chancellery of our Metropolia on 18 February 2022, and of our antimension, signed by Metropolitan Joseph and issued to our parish on 27 February 2022, and our belonging to the Romanian Orthodox Church, witnessed to by the multinational crowds following the litanies and the Great Entrance at every Divine Liturgy, are not adequate evidence of which Local Church we belong to!

The fact that a certain bishop broke his promise to a Metropolitan that he would issue letters of release and then told people publicly that we had not been received into the Romanian Orthodox Church, when we clearly had been, despite that bishop’s clerical maladministration, is on his conscience, not on ours. Similarly, the mistake of those who believed that ‘error’, without checking to find out the truth, and then supported and repeated that ‘error’, is also on their conscience, not on ours. Shall we be kind and just say that they had been misinformed? This is why we have had so many instances of myrrh-giving icons in our main church since the Feast of the Ascension in 2022, as has been recorded in our monthly newsletters. Our God is the God of Mercy and Justice.

Thus, at one fell swoop, a newcomer to ROCOR hounded out of it one of its largest families, 28 people of four generations, who had devoted their lives to ROCOR. The scandal became international, discrediting ROCOR. Among those expelled was one of the ten speakers of the 2006 Fourth All-Diaspora Council in San Francisco, whose speech had been so warmly greeted then and who had belonged to the Church before that newcomer was even born. However, since the newcomer had not belonged to ROCOR in 2006, but instead was then actively supporting a move by the Russian Church to join Constantinople, he would not know that.

None of this should be a surprise, since the New ROCOR had already excommunicated another of the ten speakers and yet another had left to join the Moscow Patriarchate. Seven to go. Who is next? How many more of the remaining faithful will be expelled by the New ROCOR for the ‘crime’ (that is what they called it) of remaining faithful to the Old ROCOR? They persecuted St John of Shanghai and Western Europe, suspended him and put him on trial. Why not do the same to his spiritual grandchildren as well?

It seems as though the New ROCOR is reneging on our long and hard-fought fight to enter back into canonical communion with the rest of the Russian Church, which culminated in our victory of 2007. With its history of support for Nazism in the 1930s and 1940s, support for the Vlasovtsy, those Russians who fought with Hitler against Russia, with its CIA bishops and priests, and now with their support for the CIA-orchestrated Kiev regime, which so persecutes Metr Onufry, should we be surprised? I am sometimes asked if I support Moscow or Kiev in the conflict in the Ukraine. I always answer the same thing: I support Metr Onufry and the Ukrainian and Russian peoples and always have done.

The Thirteen Reasons

  1. The principal reason why we were forced to leave and take refuge in the Romanian Orthodox Church, is simply so that we would no longer be in an unthinkable schism from the Russian Church, specifically from the Archdiocese of Western Europe of the Russian Tradition, in which we have had so many close family and friends in Paris for many decades. (It is also true that in the Romanian Church, we are no longer in schism with the Greek Churches either. We shall probably never recover from the shock of that bishop’s accusation that Patriarch Bartholomew is ‘possessed by demons’ Was he talking about himself?). His schism from the Russian Church, is exactly what we wanted to escape by taking canonical refuge in the Romanian Orthodox Church.

For nearly fifty years we had fought for the unity of the Russian Church, very actively and very successfully and were thanked personally by the Russian Patriarch for doing so. And then we saw it all destroyed by a very young and inexperienced convert newcomer from far away, who, a creator of schism, accused us of being schismatic and then of being senile! We have once more been able to live canonically, following the theological royal way and the canonical golden mean, away from all extremes.

For three years we have been in communion with and concelebrated with all Orthodox, including with the Russian Church, except for the tiny ROCOR, now reduced to a handful of miniscule communities here. Communion is the sign and guarantee that we are inside the Church and not outside the Church, inside some pathological, Protestant-style, convert sect and cult. For some reason this sect has been protected by ‘misinformed’, but still unrepentant and unapologetic individuals above it. That too is on their conscience, not on ours.

  1. In the Romanian Orthodox Church we do not rebaptise other Orthodox, which is a heresy.
  2. The Romanian Orthodox Church does not ‘defrock’ the clergy of other Local Churches.
  3. In the Romanian Orthodox Church we can love everyone, specifically we do not have to hate Greeks, refusing to recognise their saints because they are in ‘the wrong jurisdiction’!, ‘hate’ Russians, Ukrainians, Romanians and ‘half-hate’ Moldovans, as we were strongly recommended, but categorically refused, to do, for we strive to obey the Gospel commandments of Christ and not obey a schismatic.
  4. In the Romanian Orthodox Church over the last three years we have been able to keep all our churches open and serve our multinational parishioners in our missions at our own cost, just as we had done for decades before.
  5. For the last three years we have been allowed to speak and use in services our own childhood English language and do not have to pretend to be Americans in our speech, as we were bullied and pressured, but categorically refused, to do.
  6. For the last three years our websites have no longer been subject to rigid, word-for-word censorship and micromanagement, as we have had the wonderful basic human right to free speech, of which we had been punitively deprived for four months under a Calvinistically jealous dictatorship.
  7. For the last three years we have not had to participate in slandering faithful clergy and laypeople of other Local Churches, which we categorically refused to do.
  8. We have no longer had to deal with one who suffered in his spoilt child syndrome from violent bouts of temper and jealousy and wanted to divide and destroy solid families, setting generation against generation and hating women and children, upsetting many women with his ugly remarks.
  9. We have no longer had to pay 10% of our income and be subjected to fits of rage, shouting that we must pay even more and also hear slanders that we are thieves, all so that someone could live like a mini-oligarch. Membership of our self-governing Romanian Orthodox Metropolia of Western Europe and its local Archdiocese is free.
  10. We have no longer belonged to a small, out-of-control group, which is faced with having to pay millions of dollars in court cases which it is losing to individuals whom it has slandered, and which is also sundered by multiple scandals concerning rebaptism of other Orthodox, ‘defrocking’ clergy of other Local Churches, lack of financial transparency, the use of electronic signatures without authorisation, alcoholism and homosexuality.
  11. We have no longer had to live under an oppressive system where priestly awards are deliberately withheld from the most senior clergy for many, many years, for reasons of sadistic hatred and bullying jealousy, as though we were donkeys who wanted to follow decorative carrots.
  12. We have been allowed to be Christians, free to keep our integrity and obey our conscience. We have been able to act according to our Orthodox Christian principles, as for nearly fifty years before, in the old and noble Western European ROCOR Tradition of St John of Shanghai and Western Europe, which they have all but destroyed, except inside the Romanian Orthodox Church, where we faithfully conserve it. This freedom comes from the fact that our Romanian bishops are, like us, also Christians, and do not punish or persecute us.

Why to the Romanian Orthodox Church?

Some people ask us, all the 15 clergy and 5,000 people in our six parishes who left ROCOR because it refused to listen to us about its schism, punished us for telling them the truth about it, and refused to listen to us who endured this shameful betrayal of the best friends that the Russian Church has ever had, why we joined the Romanian Church specifically. The answer to this is simple:

The Greek Church of the Patriarchate of Constantinople was for us not an option, despite some wonderful clergy and people there, not least on Mt Athos, as certain members of its episcopate had compromised themselves through their uncanonical actions in the Ukraine and through their ecumenism. Joining the Greek Church would therefore have been very divisive among our flock. As for the Serbian Church, we greatly respect it, as we do all other Local Churches, but we did not think of joining any of them, as we could have done, because we do not have any direct connections with their bishops, only with their priests.

There was only one obvious solution, the Romanian Church. We have always valued our contacts with the Romanian Tradition of Life via Fr Raphael Noica and others. Since 2001 we have had Romanian parishioners and these have increased in number since. As a result, we had a Romanian parishioner ordained priest and a Moldovan parishioner ordained deacon some years ago. We are pastors, not nationalists, and are here to serve the Orthodox people, whatever their nationality, English, Russian, Ukrainian, Moldovan, Romanian or other.

We do not conduct passport checks at the door. Perhaps that is why the number of our parishioners of all nationalities has doubled in the last three years since we left ROCOR. Nor are we capitalists, who sell vastly overpriced candles, icons, prayer books and other Church items to their own, often poor, people. We run the cheapest Church shop in the country. It is a service, not a source of excessive profit. We do not exploit the Orthodox people.

In the last 12 years 1 million Romanians have come to live in this country. Today at least 70% of all Orthodox in this country are Romanians. Go to any church in this country and the children are almost certain to be Romanian. Children are our future. And young priests have been temporarily loaned by the Romanian Church to the Patriarchates of Constantinople and Antioch, which are both desperately short of young clergy.

Moreover, the Romanian bishops have a clear pastoral sense of how important it is to keep the children in the Church and are very happy to use the local languages to do so. All our bishops speak Western European languages fluently – unlike most Russian bishops. Clearly, if we believe in a future Local Church, as we always have done, it makes sense to be part of by far the largest group of Orthodox, as long as it is politically free, which was the case of very few Local Churches 35 years ago, but which is no longer the case today, except for two of them.

It also makes sense to belong to a Local Church which allows us to conserve the Tradition and calendar of the Old Western European ROCOR, as we are able. The view of the late Metr Kallistos (Ware) ten years ago was quite rightly that ROCOR’s ascetic and liturgical heritage should be valued. Sadly, it has been ignored by them and taken over by ritualism and the pharisaical condemnation of others, turning this heritage into an opportunity for even further spiritual pride and censoriousness. As for us, we keep to the saints of the Old ROCOR of the Confessors, like St John of Shanghai, whom they now condemn, as he did not dress in expensive clothing and footwear and did not live in an elite apartment.

In 2022 we left the Russian Church to its nationalism, where the earthly kingdom is higher than the heavenly kingdom and Caesar’s is tragically confused with God’s. It has indeed renounced the multinational ethos which it had in the past. Too bad for it. We pray that Moscow, like Constantinople, will recover. Providentially we were integrated into the Romanian Orthodox Church exactly eight days before the longstanding Ukrainian-Russian conflict reached a new level of militancy on 24 February 2022. Thus, we avoided the Russian-Ukrainian division and so were able to answer all the threats of violence and hatred that were sent to us after that date, as well as the unnecessary offer of police protection, as well as invitations to support the Nazis in Kiev, by simply answering that we in the Romanian Orthodox Church have nothing to do with internal conflicts and politics inside the Russian Church.

With the result that our many Russian and Ukrainian parishioners can and do pray for one another side by side. Precisely from within the Romanian Orthodox Church, the second largest Local Church and which speaks a Latin language and uses the Latin alphabet, we can perhaps play a role in healing the schism between Russians and Greeks, which stems from the fact that neither is politically free. We are neutral. For we are pastors, not politicians.

We recall how the Greeks started the schism in the Ukraine by opening churches on Russian canonical territory. Then the Russians made it worse, firstly by cutting off communion, a very radical act which made the Russian Church look schismatic, then by poaching churches, priests and people from the Greek jurisdiction without letters of release, and then, in revenge, by opening churches on Greek canonical territory in Africa. This is like two little boys fighting. When will this end?

Afterword

Can we, in concert with the other politically free Local Churches, be intermediaries and help to bring sense and peace, in the spirit of the catholicity of the whole Orthodox Church? We pray so, through the prayers of all the New Martyrs and Confessors, of the Russian, Ukrainian, Romanian and Greek Lands and of all the Lands of the Earth.

16 February 2025

Rebaptism and Pathology

Fifty Years of Recent History

Nearly fifty years ago, in 1976, a scandal took place in the Orthodox Church in Guildford, England. A very young, poorly educated and inexperienced Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) priest, married off to the first woman come so he could be ordained at the uncanonical age of 22, rebaptised a group of recent converts. The converts had previously been received from the Church of England into the Moscow Patriarchate in the usual Orthodox way by chrismation. Here they had been receiving the sacraments for some time until they had been told by a rather fanatical priest that they needed to be rebaptised! The local Moscow Patriarchate bishop, supported by all other canonical Orthodox, complained.

His petition went to the then still Orthodox ROCOR Synod in New York. Its leader, Metropolitan Philaret, whom no-one would ever suspect of liberalism, commented that this rebaptism was a form of Neo-Donatism. The priest was rebuked – later he divorced the woman that he had been ordered to marry and left the priesthood and the Church. Sadly, the bishop who had had him ordained and had preached the ‘theology of rebaptism’ to him was not rebuked. However, some years later that bishop also ended up outside the Church and then died. An extreme right-winger, he had first created several more scandals, including consecrating as bishop a pedophile in Russia, outside his canonical territory.

Two years later, in 1978, there took place the rebaptism of the late French Catholic monk Fr Placide (Deseille) in the sea at the foot of the Athonite Monastery of Simonopetra. Fr Placide was very well-known in Roman Catholic France and had great respect as a scholar. Later I met him. However, he had already transferred to the so-called ‘Byzantine rite’, as the Roman Catholic rite had been deformed after the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. Fr (now St) Sophrony the Athonite, whom I knew very well, was very upset. For him this rebaptism was not only quite unnecessary, but also a provocation. He expressed the Orthodox theology of the sacraments, as practised by our 1,000 bishops.

This is that there are no sacraments outside the (Orthodox) Church, but there are sacramental forms or rites. The grace that is missing from them is made up for, completed, by contact with the Church and Her life. Thus, a rite of baptism with water (triple immersion is not compulsory – for Orthodox emergency baptisms are conducted without this) in the Name of the Holy Trinity outside the Church is acceptable as a valid sacramental form. The grace that is clearly missing from it to make it into a sacrament is communicated by reception into the Church. To repeat the sacramental baptismal rite is a type of fundamentalism, formalist literalism, which is actually typical of Protestantism.

Pathology

Today we are seeing again this same Protestant ‘Will I be saved?’ neurosis among some converts from Protestantism to the Orthodox Church. In this there is always the sectarian desire to condemn others, which is why Protestantism consists of a myriad of warring sects. This ‘OneTrueChurchism’ is a typically Protestant reflex. It is pathological because, like all pathologies, it is based not on Christian love, but on hatred for others, not on theology, but on pathology.

There are those who want to prey on the insecurity of neophytes in order to make such new converts doubt in their own Orthodoxy, using jurisdictions just as Protestants use denominations. But why do they want to prey on their insecurity? Simply because they want neophytes to become dependent on them. Creation of dependency is again typical of sectarianism, which is always associated with cults, that is, on guruism, personality cults, lust for power.

There is also a need among these cult leaders or gurus to recruit others. With very small flocks and so lacking money – given their anti-pastoral fanaticism, that is understandable – they are desperate to fill their near-empty churches. Without ethnic groups to attend their ‘temples’ (as they call churches), their only audience is naïve, young people, including the lonely, incels, closet homosexuals and others with problems. They make easy prey for the spiritual vultures.

Thus, one young Englishman I know is on his third rebaptism now. He lasted three years in a parish of 200 in the canonical Church, then went off to a tiny ROCOR community (nowadays they are always tiny) for about one year. However, that group of ten individuals was not good enough for him, so he went off to another tiny old calendarist group, which rebaptised him. He stayed with them for only about one year but they were not exclusive enough for him!

Six months ago he was rebaptised in a group, numbering six worldwide! The latest news is that he is dissastisfied with them, for they too are not strict enough for him. Here is the map of his way out of the Church, because that is how it will end – and it always does end in that way, outside the Church. This ‘anabaptism’ (Greek for rebaptism) is typical of Protestantism, whose underlying mentality and reflex is clear from the outset. It is not Orthodox, for it is not Love.

 

Is this the End of ROCOR?

Despite the very strong opposition of the CIA, in 2007 the New York-based émigré Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) at last entered into canonical communion with the Mother-Church, 99% of the Russian Orthodox Church (‘MP’), which is based in Moscow. At the end of the last century ROCOR had been strongly tempted by a politicised, ghetto-style, sectarian and isolationist position. It had been out of communion with the MP for over 80 years for political reasons, as Communist-enslaved Moscow had not been politically free until the 1990s. However, after this period the ROCOR position no longer made any sense.

Indeed, there were those of us who for years since the 1990s had battled for the establishment of this canonical communion in our struggle to reclaim ROCOR from sectarianism. Finally, we were present at our victory over the ROCOR temptation of sectarianism in Moscow in 2007, rewarded at last. Clearly, from 2007 on, ROCOR was called on to merge with other Orthodox in the Diaspora, contributing the liturgical and ascetic heritage of the old ROCOR to others, especially, but not only, to Non-Russian Orthodox who often lacked it. The later Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware), who like the rest of us loved the old ROCOR of St John of Shanghai, whom he had met, was just one of those to call on it to do so.

However, to our enormous sadness, ROCOR refused these invitations and overtures. Instead of contributing to a solid basis for the establishment of new Local Churches in Western Europe, Northern America and Oceania, the new ROCOR gradually allied itself with extreme right-wing, ex-Protestant neophytes. These were isolationist sectarians with very, very little idea of the real Russian Orthodox Tradition and the Russian language, history and culture, let alone the general Orthodox Tradition. Such individuals were called ‘crazy converts’ by ordinary parishioners, Russian and Non-Russian alike. Moreover, to our profound shock, racist hatred was openly expressed by this new ROCOR for Non-Russian Orthodox, and by at least one new American ROCOR bishop. He also publicly declared that’ the Patriarch of Constantinople is possessed’. We were all horrified.

With the increasingly serious dementia and physical ailments of the then ROCOR First Hierarch, Metropolitan Hilarion (Kapral), ROCOR gradually began to drift away from the Church, to whose communion it had returned in 2007. Certain extremist individuals, seeking revenge for our victory over sectarianism in 2007, and perhaps regretting the cutting off of generous CIA subsidies to ROCOR, usurped the Metropolitan’s position. They began using his electronic signature on very harsh documents which favoured their extremist positions.

Thus, a whole series of utterly anti-canonical actions took place, quite noticeably from 2016 on. These included the ousting of well-respected traditional ROCOR priests, even one of its old archbishops, all those linked with pre-Revolutionary Russia. Then there was also the Fr Alexander Belya affair. In this affair, a Ukrainian hieromonk, selected to be a bishop by ROCOR, was abruptly accused of extraordinary and still unproven crimes and then ousted and ‘defrocked’ by American ROCOR bishops, even though he, like many others, had already taken refuge in a canonical Orthodox jurisdiction.

What was the reason for this? We cannot be certain, but we can imagine the opposition to and jealousy of a seminary-trained, fluent Russian and Ukrainian-speaking episcopal candidate in ROCOR on the part of non-fluent speakers among certain members of the episcopate and candidates for the episcopate. As clergy of the old, traditional ROCOR were ejected, there had followed the consecration of extreme right-wing convert bishops and the ordination of extreme right-wing convert priests, all of Protestant backgrounds. They were now taking over, pushing those of the Tradition out according to plan.

The new ones wanted to replace grounded Orthodox like Fr Alexander Belya and senior clergy of the old ROCOR, who had nothing to do with sectarianism. The main interest of the new American ROCOR clergy appears to be in attracting extremist right-wing Protestants to their supposedly Russian Orthodox ROCOR jurisdiction. They certainly despised ordinary Russians, who were told (in front of me) to learn English! As supposed members of the Orthodox Church, these converts would quote out of context and misunderstood canons instead of quoting out of context and misunderstood chapter and verse. The dark and depressing spirit of the Puritan pharisees and of Calvinist New England witch-hunters remained the same.

As a result of such intrigues, in England there began the scandal of a very young and very inexperienced ROCOR convert bishop, received into the Church from Lutheranism by chrismation (!), who had only been in ROCOR for a few years (!). Under the influence of a newly-received old calendarist priest, he dictatorially (no discussion, let alone disagreement, would be allowed) even forbade his clergy to concelebrate with an ex-Catholic priest of the MP and his people to take communion in the MP Russian Orthodox jurisdiction of this priest. This priest had been received into the MP in the normal Russian Orthodox way by confession and concelebration. This young convert bishop created a schism, but, amazingly, he was actually backed up by other convert bishops!  Clearly, the disease was already ingrained.

After up to 50 years of faithfulness to the old ROCOR, over a dozen clergy and thousands of people left the new ROCOR because of this convert bishop’s schism. They wanted to be in communion with their families and friends. Thus, the convert bishop’s schism from the MP led to the loss of well over half his diocese, the vital and living part, which did not serve in tiny ghetto-groups of converts in small rented chapels, backrooms and garden sheds. Although warned well in advance of exactly how many clergy, real parishes and people he was going to lose, he, backed by the American Synod, still went ahead with this insanity, to the distress of the MP, which looked on in disbelief and whose Patriarch told him not to do it. Some in the MP called for a ‘psychiatric ambulance’. Instead of obeying his own Patriarch, the young convert bishop proceeded to ‘suspend’ and then defrock’ clergy of another jurisdiction!

Although the MP were sympathetic to the ex-ROCOR group, who were only supporting traditional Russian Orthodox theology and practice, the MP could not take in the group who had petitioned the MP to do this. This was because the MP was frightened of upsetting political relations with the increasingly deviant and aggressive ROCOR, which was blackmailing the MP: ‘If you do this, we shall not attend your Council of Bishops and we shall go into schism with you all’. This fear of blackmail will not last. For the moment distracted by the Ukraine, from which affair Moscow will clearly emerge triumphant, as has always been obvious, though Moscow’s attitude in the Ukraine have repeatedly been condemned by the anti-Russian American ROCOR (!), as also by the CIA (a coincidence?!), sooner or later the MP will call ROCOR’s bluff. Enough is enough!

Now the convert bishop has, contradicting himself, concelebrated with an Antiochian bishop, who has just defrocked one of his priests, who had objected to the standard Antiochian (and Orthodox) practice of receiving converts by chrismation, and not rebaptism. This priest, who openly calls his bishop and all Antiochian bishops ‘heretics’ (!), had also objected to the long-standing local Antiochian practice of giving communion to nominally Miaphysite Syrians, Copts, Ethiopians and Eritreans. The defrocked Antiochian priest has received the sympathy of many ROCOR converts in the USA. After all, as they logically point out, in the USA ROCOR there even has one bishop who openly, and he claims with an official blessing, rebaptises unrebaptised converts who have already been members of the Orthodox Church for many years! (He calls this by the unknown and heretical term ‘corrective baptism’).

The Antiochian bishop in question, Metr Silouan (Oner), has specifically declared that he will defrock any priests who carry out such ‘corrective baptisms’. He has also said that any jurisdiction that does this has ‘schismatic tendencies’ and these people are ‘extremists’. As well we know. But you have to suffer, be persecuted and slandered for proclaiming the Church Truth. Logically, ROCOR will have to fall out of communion with yet another Local Church, the Antiochian, painting themselves ever more into their sectarian corner. Or else it must renounce the practices of its own bishops in England and in the USA.

Clearly, once the distraction of the Ukraine is over, the MP will have to intervene and bring order. As just one example, Fr Alexander Belya and his large group of parishes, mainly ex-ROCOR, could be made bishop for the MP parishes in North America, if Moscow were to take him in from the Greek Church, where he and most of the others were forced to take refuge from ROCOR Protestant sectarianism and, presumably, from clerical jealousy. It looks as though we are seeing the death rattle of ROCOR, which has been riding roughshod over the canons and obedience to the Mother-Church.

ROCOR will have to make up its mind whether it accepts the Orthodox Tradition of the Mother-Church, or if it wants to be just another weird American old calendarist sect, a ROCOR, Russian Old Calendarists Outside Russia, made up of crazy converts from Protestantism and of children of immigrants who long ago lost their roots. Moscow will no longer tolerate the persecution of Orthodox inside ROCOR. A split inside ROCOR, between the increasingly fewer actual Russian Orthodox and the new sectarians now looks inevitable.

It is all so tiresome. Again and again the same indiscipline and ignorance on the part of ROCOR. Just when you think it is back in the saving fold of the Church, its American wing again rejects canonical Orthodoxy. This is all a repeat of baptism controversies like that of Palmer in the 19th century and more recently those in ROCOR in the 1970s and 1980s. We have seen it all before. Is ROCOR condemned to repeat the same extremist, old calendarist-type errors in every generation? If so, it is time that it was brought to heel by Moscow, which alone can instruct it to stop persecuting Orthodox. If it refuses, then Moscow will be forced to step in to protect the persecuted, saving them from the schisms, anti-canonical acts and anti-Christian persecutions of ROCOR.

When I was last in California, in 2006, as a speaker at the Fourth ROCOR Council, I expressed surprise at the bizarre things I saw in San Francisco. A priest from the East Coast explained to me with a smile: ‘When God made America, he tilted it slightly, so that all the oddballs ran down to California’. In England, Russians, Romanians, Greeks, French, Germans and those of other nations behave themselves and are polite. They are welcome here. It is only certain Americans who come here, swaggering around like Mormons, Scientologists and members of other US sects and cults, trying to change the way you speak!, as though they owned the place, and are spectacularly rude and insult the local people. They do not behave as gentlemen. You are not welcome here and you should go home. American ROCOR: You have become a laughing-stock throughout Europe. Your time is up, the farce is over, take the psychiatric ambulance and go. It is time for mismanaged ROCOR to hand over to the MP, who are competent. It is what we have been saying for years.

 

The Difference Between Orthodox Christians and Converts

The Orthodox Christian Man

He may be called Nick, George, Sergei or Jim (= Dimitrios, Dmitry, Dumitrou, Dima) and he works as a builder, carpenter, plumber, electrician or car mechanic (if Serb). He did not go to church very often, apart from to stand outside to smoke cigarettes and talk with his friends, who have the same name as him, until he turned 50, then he started seriously. He once spoke to a convert. The latter told him that his parents were not Orthodox so ‘they will not be saved and will go to hell’. Nick/George/Sergei/Jim said afterwards: ‘He talk crap’ (this sounds more effective when said with a rolled ‘r’ in an Eastern European accent). He added that ‘he look like he need good meal. That make man of him’. He tells everyone that he is the boss (his wife told him so), but he actually knows that his wife is the boss and, secretly, he prefers it that way, but would never admit to it in public.

The Orthodox Christian Woman

Her name ends in ‘a’ (for example Maria), or in ‘na’ (for example, Alina, Arina, Carolina, Ekaterina, Galina, Inna, Irina, Karina, Nina, Marina, Nina, Paulina, Valentina, Christina, Ioanna, Oana, Oksana, Svetlana, Tatiana, Elena) or else in oula (for example, Coula, Foula, Poula, Roula, Soula, Toula). She did not go to church very often until she turned 40, then suddenly she started and now she never misses a service. She is an excellent cook and like her husband is slightly overweight. Her husband says that ‘she comfortable’, which is his word for ‘plump’. She has to be slightly plump for the sake of her many grandchildren, who like sitting on her lap.  She never argues with her husband because she arranges it so he always agrees with her. Her sons, who are builders, fear her and she made sure they all got married before the age of 30. Her daughters, who are beauticians, hairdressers, nurses or teachers, spend as much time as possible with her. She encourages them to have as many babies as possible.

The Male Convert

Although his real name is Bob, Tom or Tony, he calls himself Seraphim, Moses, Vladimir or Silouan. He is single and tends to be frightened of or even despise women (which is why he is single). He has very long hair, tied into a bun at the back, and a very long beard (the parish priest has short hair and a short beard and no-one else in the parish has long hair or a beard). His favourite colour is black and he is very thin. He has a huge number of icons, many ‘Orthodox’ books, several tiny wrist-size rosaries (which for some reason he calls ‘ropes’) and watches podcasts given by gurus who look like him. His favourite word is ‘holy’, and adds it to everything: ‘holy liturgy’, ‘holy canons’, ‘holy icons’, ‘holy tradition’, ‘holy fast’, ‘holy fathers’ etc. He has very right-wing views. He litters his speech with words like ‘prelest’, ‘schema’, ‘stichar’ or ‘omofor’, which he mispronounces and which no-one else in the parish or anywhere else knows anyway. He is not at all practical and gives the impression of being rather autistic. He works part-time and has problems holding down a job. Thank goodness nobody would ever think of making him a bishop. If they did, the power would go to his head and make him crazy.

The Female Convert

Although her real name is Sue or Pam, she calls herself Seraphima or Anastasia. She is single. Although she comes from a well-off family, she usually dresses in long and old skirts. She does not look after her long hair, would never dye it, and never wears any make-up. Her favourite colour is black and she appears to wear tablecloths over her hair, though she calls them headscarves. She is to be found in food shops examining the ingredients of various foods to make sure that they contain no non-fasting foods, the slightest amount of which could cause her to sin mortally. She is vegan and very thin and pale. She does not feel confident with children and may never have any.