Tag Archives: Pastoral Matters

The Inevitable But Avoidable Transgender Epidemic

After separating from the Church in the eleventh century, the corruption of the Roman Papacy in the Middle Ages was such that the inevitable happened and in the sixteenth century the Reformation took place. The Reformation was an all-male affair, under Luther, Henry VIII, Calvin, Zwingli, Knox etc, as were the wars that resulted from it, which dragged on for 150 years in what is now Germany, England, France and Ireland in particular. Millions were murdered in the Name of God. One of the results of this all-male Reformation was the belittling of and even blasphemies against the Mother of God. The consequences of this were the loss of respect for all women which, among the strict or puritanical Protestants especially, led to the Protestant witch-hunts and the reduction of women to possessions, baby-factories and virtual slaves. There were even doubts as to whether women had souls. This had already been the case in Pagan Rome, which was so much admired and imitated by the Victorians.

Inevitably, the pendulum would swing back against such extremism, once the old male Protestant yoke was thrown off, which gave way to full secularisation. Thus, the word ‘unisex’ first became prominent in the Western/post-Protestant world in the 1960s. People would make mistakes because they could no longer tell the difference between young men and young women, especially because of unisex clothing and hairstyles. By the 1970s the ideology of ‘feminism’ had become rampant in those societies. Thus, fifty years ago ‘feminism’ was promoted there not as the promotion of the unique female and feminine identity, but as ‘equality’ and therefore as good. In the name of this ‘good’ the propaganda went out that there should be no more social conditioning to reinforce the two Biblically-founded, separate ‘kinds’ or genders. Girls should dress like boys, women like men. It was the beginning of gender blurring and so confusion.

In reality, this sort of feminism was not at all equality, but tyranny and slavery. Women had to become men, or rather imitations of men, and not just in terms of clothing and hairstyles. They had to become income-earners, ‘useful’ economic units, rather than ‘wasting’ their time being cared for and protected by men, allowing them to create homes and bring up children. This ‘equality’ was just another form of aggressive, male-imposed social conditioning. It was also the end of the family, as this had been understood up till then, the combination of the male and female principles, of a father and a mother. The belittling of the female sex as inferior to the male sex and the dismissal of traditional female roles as mothers and homemakers in Western societies has led directly to the present transgender epidemic among teenage girls, the ‘need’ for them to become boys, dressing as boys, binding their breasts and even undergoing physical alteration through surgery.

There was no equality here. For women were obliged to go out and make themselves ‘economically useful’, as well as to be at home and work there. The result was double work. On top of this, some husbands could be bad husbands and bad fathers, were drunkards or beat their wives, were no longer attracted to their working wives and were unfaithful. Seeing this, young girls said: ‘Why should I have to go through all that and be mistreated in that way? I don’t want to bear the double burden of my mother. I am going to be a boy, then I will be able to do exactly as I want. I will not have children, therefore my childbearing organs and my breasts are useless, I will get rid of them’. The bad example of fathers thus destroyed the daughters. More than this, sensitive sons, seeing the example of bad fathers and pitying their mothers, were pushed towards homosexuality. One such son  began persecuting normal families from his jealousy.

In any case, apart from the ever more widespread cases of male homosexuality as a result of family breakdown, whereas ten years ago there were a handful of cases of gender confusion and gender identity problems among teenage girls each year, now there are thousands of cases and this appears to be growing into tens of thousands. Encouraged by the conformist pressures of media and social media, government-fostered anti-female sexism and ‘sex education’ and the traumatic isolation caused by recent government-enforced covid lockdowns, why should denigrated and despised teenage girls want to grow into women? Why not become boys and men? The contemporary epidemic of self-harming, suicides and gender dysphoria among teenage girls and young women are the clear results of the anti-female and anti-feminine culture which first appeared massively in Western countries in the 1960s.

Women were imposed upon by men: they had to become like men in all ways, they had to dress like men, they had to work outside the home, they had to have abortions, they had to be childfree, they had to become economically viable, they had to drink, smoke and swear like men, they had to do sports like boxing and  football like men, they even had to be priests  – they had to become imitation men, second-class men, instead of first-class women. And all this was presented as ‘emancipation’ and ‘liberation’ and as a ‘good’. Thus, in the name of ‘equality’, the female sex had to be destroyed. The transgender epidemic became inevitable, ever since the female principle in Western religion and culture, the veneration of the Mother of God, was destroyed in the sixteenth century and the path to an anti-Christian civilisation was chosen. True, it has taken centuries to create that anti-Christian civilisation, but now it is here.

Most Holy Mother of God, save us!

Arguing With Culty Fundamentalists

We reproduce the below, as it is a clear common sense outline of the danger posed by so-called ‘Orthodox’ convert cults, which all come from the USA. These are now so prevalent in marginal, schismatic groups. Locally, we are now getting more people who have seen through one such group in London and are coming to us, refugees from that schism and cult.

 

Written by Fr. Lawrence FARLEY (Orthodox Church in America) on 07/05/2023

There are stupider things to do than arguing with a culty fundamentalist.  As the late great Jim Croce reminded us, you don’t tug on Superman’s cape, you don’t spit into the wind, and you don’t pull the mask off the ol’ Lone Ranger.  Arguing with a culty fundamentalist is, I admit, not as stupid as any of these things, but it is pretty stupid nonetheless, for it is a waste of precious time and utterly futile.

By “culty fundamentalist” I mean someone from a group which divides the entire world into a very small “us” and a very large “them”.  This “them” usually constitutes the entire world outside the boundaries of the group.  The group has very strict and well-defined boundaries, and they are very clear that they are the only people in the world who are truly saved, who know what’s really going on, and who know and have experienced God’s grace.  Outside the boundaries of the group there is nothing but darkness, danger, and damnation.

Obviously not all fundamentalists are culty fundamentalists as defined above.  The culty ones are characterized by their unshakable conviction that they alone possess salvation and that therefore leaving their group would be spiritually and eternally catastrophic.  All groups which make truth claims (groups like the Roman Catholics, the Orthodox, and the Baptists) are of course sad when their members leave them, believing their departure to be a mistake.  But these groups do not claim that those departing are thereby damning their souls or leaving the light for the darkness.  Culty fundamentalists do, and that is why they so greatly lament the departure of their members and describe that departure in apocalyptic terms.

I include in these groups organizations like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (schismatic Mormons), and some Old Calendarist jurisdictions.

These groups are characterized by a fear of the modern world with all its complexity, nuance, and ambiguity.  That is why they regard this world not only as fallen and in the grip of deception (the historical Church has always believed that), but also as sufficiently dangerous as to warrant as much separation from them as possible.  Though such groups may not always retreat to a well-defined geographical space (such as a ranch or compound), it is still well-isolated from outside influence.  The invisible drawbridge is always pulled up to protect the group from outside contamination which real inter-action with society would inevitably bring.

I remember arguing with adherents from one such group when I was much younger.  They approached me by knocking on my door when I was home, asking if they could come in and share their message.  Being much younger than I am now, I imagined that I could provide a voice of reason and sow a seed of doubt in their mind about their delusion and maybe even rescue them.  Alas, no dice, and those hours are ones I can never get back.

That was not because (I fancy) there was anything wrong with my argumentation.  It was because I was from the wrong tribe and so everything I said was of course wrong.  They were hardly listening to my words, much less trying to understand them.  What I said was of no consequence because I was not one of them.  Before they had even knocked on my door, they had neatly divided the entire world into Us (who of course had all the truth), and Them (who of course were deceived, pathetic, and had nothing valuable or true to say).  If they could not refute my arguments, contradict my history, or fault my logic, that all just proved how clever the Devil (i.e. me) really was.  They didn’t worry that my arguments were better.  They knew that whatever arguments I could muster, I must be wrong because I belonged to Them.  I never had any credibility.  I scarcely had a name.  I was simply another lost soul unaware of its pathetic plight.  I was the Enemy, Babylon the Great.  In other words, I was a part of The Wrong Tribe.

In the world of the culty fundamentalist, theology is entirely a tribal activity.  Their tribe is right, and other tribes are wrong because they are other tribes.  If someone from their tribe said the same things as I did, it would be immediately received as wise because it originated from their (i.e. the correct) tribe.

This means, of course, that real scholarship is never found among such culty groups.  Real scholarship involves humility and the willingness to learn from everyone and anyone.  Thus (for example) if the late Fr. Robert Taft provided good liturgical scholarship regarding the Byzantine Liturgy (which he did) it did not matter at all that he was a Roman Catholic Jesuit and not an Orthodox.  Truth is truth, and real scholars are willing to learn from anyone who seems to know what they are talking about.  Labels—that is, tribes—are irrelevant.  All that matters is competence.

We see this in non-theological matters quite easily.  I cared less than nothing that the doctor doing cataract surgery on my one good eye was not a good Orthodox.  All that mattered was that he was a good eye surgeon.  It is the same for matters of scholarship.  Real scholars are tribally-blind:  they will learn from any source as long as it is a good source.  For culty fundamentalists, tribe is everything, and so they remain suspicious of any information or learning that does not originate from their tribe.

That of course makes the world in which they live a very small and lonely one.  And (allow me to say) usually a stupid one as well, since they have rejected almost all scholarship that originates from another tribe or challenges their own.  If you doubt this, peruse any copy of an Awake! magazine.

Why do apparently intelligent people embrace culty fundamentalism?  Generalizations are always tricky, but I suggest that the attraction of culty fundamentalism is that it provides a safe haven in a confusing and dangerous world.

The spiritual edifices that such groups build are erected upon a foundation of fear:  they believe that if you are wrong in your choices, God is waiting to smite and damn them, and He will only restrain Himself if you belong to the “correct” group.  Once you join that group, you have the assurance of safety—but only if you remain within the group.  If you remain within the group, you have nothing to fear, including the necessity of living in a confusing world and grappling with nuance and grey areas—an arena in which you might make a wrong choice and thus incite divine wrath.

One can see immediately why arguing with such people is futile and a waste of time:  you are asking them to risk their eternal salvation, to emerge from their psychological bomb shelter and forfeit their assurance of safety.  For them, that assurance is paramount, and they will not risk losing it just because your arguments seem to be better than theirs.  The world of gray areas and nuance in which you live is just too scary for them.

What then to do with our culty fundamentalist neighbour?  For of course whatever his exasperating flaws, he is still our neighbour, and we are commanded to love him.  I suggest three things.

First (and most obvious) of all, pray for them.  If they have closed their hearts and minds, only God can open them.

Secondly, resist the temptation to imagine that if only you are learned or persuasive enough, you can bring them to sanity and sense.  It almost certainly will not happen.  Your learning and persuasiveness count for nothing so long as you remain in the wrong tribe.  Remember the words of Solomon about how we should leave a fool because we will not find knowledge in his presence (Proverbs 14:7)—or at least remember Christ’s words about Pharisees and blind guides—our Lord told us to leave them alone (Matthew 15:14).  In other words, don’t waste time in long arguments with them.

Finally, deal with their challenges and errors plainly and directly, giving an alternative vision and version to their distorted and narrow one.  If their arguments are left entirely unanswered, it may give tender and vulnerable souls the mistaken impression that the culty fundamentalist assertions are true.  This last task is mostly the job of the Church’s teachers and representatives.

As long as the world remains a dark place, the temptation will abide to sweep away the uncertainty, nuance, and grey areas with a culty fundamentalist vision.  The Church is not a cult, and so while it boldly and clearly proclaims the truth, it also knows how to discern nuance and grey areas as well and to live with it.  That is because the Church, being the body of Christ, is not afraid.  The spiritual edifice the Church erects is built on the assurance that God loves us.

Source: No Other Foundation

 

 

How To Be an Anti-Pastor in Twenty Simple Rules: The Anatomy of a Classic Case

A bishop then must be blameless…of good behaviour…not greedy of filthy lucre…not covetous…Not a recent convert, or he may be puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil (I Tim 3).

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, fierce, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, having a form of Godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away (2 Tim, 3, 1-5).

 

  1. In general, live according to your motto: ‘Money, Property, Power and Prestige’. Remember: You are a prince, not a servant, of the Church.
  2. First of all, as you have been sent there by an Imperialist, occupying power, be as aggressive, conflictual, controlling, intimidating and insulting as possible to the local people. Do not respect them, their language, their geography, their history, their culture, their customs. After all, you are superior to them in every way, so you can force them to speak your language and ban theirs. Gag them and censor them. Impose yourself and crush them by demanding blind obedience, even in very minor matters.
  3. Cultivate your elitism, ensuring a top-down approach, putting on your show of the purely outward, even if they see through it at once, as most of them did. Have nothing to do with the ordinary people by listening to them or confessing them. Speak in monologues to them. Remember: As a true anti-Pastor you are innately superior to the people. Be as exclusive, arrogant and authoritarian as possible, threatening any contradictors with suspension. This will ensure that the Church does not expand and so becomes ever more sectarian, ensuring your total control.
  4. Be as divisive as possible. Taking a party political line will help you greatly in this. Exclude all who know more than you. Espousing extremist politics will help you alienate others. You must make sure that you are unpopular. This will help you to power, following the old adage of ‘divide and rule’. Of course you will end up in a very, very small pond, but at least this will make you a very, very big fish.
  5. Be spectacularly rude. Threaten, bully, humiliate and cultivate injustice at every opportunity, but above all accuse others of precisely your own faults, especially as you are so in love with money. Trying to make them feel guilty will help you create disunity, making you feel very good about yourself.
  6. Remember: Your aim is to alienate others, discrediting them and slandering them. You will thus isolate yourself, painting yourself into a corner. With very few friends, you will, very satisfyingly, have created a real sect and a small cult of sick and feeble-minded admirers around you who want to imitate you.
  7. Develop this personality cult, charming all with words, but not actions, manipulating the new and naïve around you. True, they will sooner or later see through you, but by then you will have found more new and naïve to replace them. Once they have seen through you, you can discard them too like old rags and replace them with new favourites. This favouritism will help greatly in discrediting you. Remember with both those above you and those below you: Manipulate, manipulate, manipulate!
  8. Make false accusations. Especially accuse people who have given all their money and lives to the Church of stealing money from the Church. This will entirely discredit you.
  9. Remember: Feelings of jealousy towards others divide. Develop these feelings in yourself, for they will destroy you, not those at whom they are directed.
  10. Never listen and never consult, especially despise age and experience. Remember: You are always right despite your youth, inexperience and lack of knowledge and training. Threaten any who challenge you with retirement, suspension or defrocking because of your personal hatred, intense jealousy and mood swings. This will ensure that you will make as many mistakes as you possibly can. Remember that when you are told that it is make or break time because of your tyrannical behaviour, you must ignore it.
  11. Reject any monastery that is offered you for free. You do not want any rivals.
  12. Refuse to open any new churches which have been bought or built and are fully equipped. The faithful must not have churches, so ignore their petitions. Remember that you must deprive the people of the opportunity to go to church. Deprive priests of myrrh and make sure they do not do too many baptisms. Therefore try and steal any church properties that exist. The devil will thank you.
  13. Doctor Diocesan Council minutes in your favour to impress your superiors. They will then offer no supervision of a chronically inexperienced individual who makes mistake after mistake. If complaints do arrive, you can then investigate yourself and report back that you are wonderful. Then you will be able to give yourself a perfect bill of health and you will be able to punish those who told the truth by warning of the coming catastrophe. This will soon turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is also important to create your own websites, writing articles about how wonderful you are, while pretending that others have written them.
  14. Lack of supervision means that you will threaten zealous clergy who justly dare to warn of the impending catastrophe with harsh and uncanonical punishments. True, you can defrock anyone you want at the drop of a hat simply because they do not agree with you. However, no laypeople, clergy or other bishops will pay the slightest attention to your hate-filled papers. Be aware of this.
  15. Surround yourself with weak, servile and fawning subordinates and use authoritarian rule, using yes-men, only marginally less ignorant than yourself. They will safely shield you from reality and all your errors for years, until what you have done blows up in your face, as it eventually will.
  16. Attempt to divide the Church and divide families, setting father against son. You must destroy happy and united families. They represent strength and opposition to you. In the same way you must also attempt with large bribes of money to set up altar against altar in the same towns.
  17. Demand money from often very poor faithful in order to fund your lavish lifestyle. This will cause great scandal among the faithful.
  18. Remember: Your principal task is to destroy, not build up.
  19. Remember your slogan: ‘Don’t save souls, invent protocols’.
  20. Remember: Quench the Spirit at all times. Be careful to crush any sort of zeal for the Faith and any talent. You must in particular destroy anyone who is more popular than yourself. This will ensure your failure.

 

All the above will be tolerated for some years by your victims, as they have already tolerated such behaviour for years before you, but as the inevitable result of all the above you will end up by creating a schism in the Church. This will be a step too far, the last straw, because it is not just against the people, but also against the Church. Your alien schismatic and sectarian mentality will cause a scandal, however much you bully the weak into supporting you. If you do all the above, you can be guaranteed that sooner or later there will be consequences, for your sins will find you out. And from that point of suffering on, you will have the God-sent opportunity to repent and so at last start becoming a Christian.

 

 

Questions and Answers March 2023

Orthodoxy

Q: It is said that Patriarch Bartholomew intends to establish a common Easter calendar with the Catholics in 2025. What do you think?

A: The Roman Catholics and the Phanariots have been talking about this for at least the last fifty years. The point is that if the people do not follow, they can say and sign whatever they want, it is all irrelevant. Thus, the first who will not obey their Patriarch are his very own monks of Mt Athos. How then could others outside his jurisdiction follow? This common calendar idea is just a recipe for more divisive schisms.

Q: Why are most German Roman Catholic bishops (38 against 21) in favour of blessing homosexual ‘weddings’?

A: Because most of them are homosexuals. Just like many an Orthodox bishop, like one recently reposed Greek metropolitan who made no secret of his support for homosexuality. (See below).

Q: Why is Scripture not the only authority for the Orthodox Church?

A: It is the Holy Spirit that is the authority and the unity of the Church. When the Holy Spirit is rejected, then the Church on earth suffers from a lack of authority and a lack of unity – as we can see today. The Holy Spirit is expressed in Scripture, Tradition, Councils, the Saints etc. As the Holy Spirit wrote Scripture, it requires the Holy Spirit to interpret it. As Shakespeare wrote over 425 years ago: The Devil can cite Scripture for his purpose (The Merchant of Venice Act 1, Scene 3, l. 96).

Q: It is said that Judas did not repent and therefore is considered to be a traitor. But in the Gospel, it says that he did repent. How do you answer that?

A: I am afraid you are reading a poor translation! The archaic meaning of ‘to repent yourself’ is to regret’: ‘I repent me of all I did’. This is why the King James translation in Matt 27, 3-5, which relates that Judas ‘repented himself’, returned his pieces of silver and ‘went and hanged himself’ is not helpful. Those who repent do not go and hang themselves, but they do regret.

Q: What happens to those who try to take advantage of sincere Christians?

A: Sincere Christians are always kind. The evil-minded try and take advantage of us because we are kind, but then discover that underneath kindness we have rock-solid principles, which we shall never abandon. If we are asked to do something demeaning to ourselves, we will obey. But if we are asked to fall into schism or heresy, we will refuse to obey. Underneath we are as hard as nails. This is humility – very different from the wishy-washy woke nonsense that the world imagines humility to be. And the enemies always break themselves on our principles, just like a ship that wrecks itself on the rocks.

Converts

Q: Will Non-Orthodox be saved?

A: Ask God.

I would be very cautious in even asking such a question. Why do some experience a need to condemn others because of their own choices?

Q: What are the characteristics of convert churches in the USA?

A: The first is tithing. It simply does not happen in Orthodox churches, though the voluntary custom is not wrong in itself. Then there are reader services. Again it does not exist in our churches, although in itself there is nothing wrong with it. The problem is rather that it leads to clericalism, whereby for example, when you ask someone their name, he may tell you ‘Reader John’ etc. We do not use this title and certainly readers should never wear cassocks outside the services.

Russian Psychology

Q: A Russian has told me that if children are disabled, it is because their parents conceived them on a fasting day. What should I think?

A: You should think that this poor and unchurches Russian soul has plumbed the depths of phariseeism.

Q: Why are Russians so divisive?

A: On this subject there is the old Russian émigré story about a Russian who has been shipwrecked and lives alone on a desert island. When after many years he is rescued, his rescuers are astonished to see that he has built three churches on his island. When he is asked why, he answers that he built three churches so there would always be two which he did not have to go to.

I think such sectarian divisiveness comes simply from the fact that some unChurchly Russians  confuse politics with Church life, rendering to Caesar what is God’s, putting the personalities of this world above Christ.

Q: Is it true that Russian Orthodox are superstitious? A Protestant friend told me that in his view that are not Christians?

A: Well, is your Protestant friend Christian?!!

You have to remember that today’s Orthodox in Russia are nearly always converts from Sovietism. Therefore, they often bring with them superstitions, ignorance, prejudice and hangovers from the Soviet period, which betray a almost magic, ritualistic phariseeism, belief in the letter over the spirit. These include: clericalism such that you should not pray for yourself, for only a priest is allowed to pray for you, belief that the evil eye is stronger than the cross, a ritualistic and magic understanding of confession before communion, a superstitious belief in the power of holy water, that it is greater than holy communion, that baptism is important only because it prevents babies falling ill etc

Q: Given the evil of Western governments, their encouragement of sexual perversion and even Satanism, would you think of moving to Russia?

A: I have often thought of it over the last fifteen years for myself. If I were single, I would have done it long ago. But only as I speak the language. For others I would certainly not recommend it, if you do not speak the language. And certainly not if you have older children who do not speak the language. (Who will your children marry?). And not if you do not work in Russia and get your income locally (living in a virtual world, getting income by working on computer is harmful spiritually).  In principle, God put us where we were born for your salvation. We should beware of the romantic fantasies of escapism. I know too much about the harsh realities of life in Russia, especially in the Church, to entertain any illusions. Why do you think so many Russians take refuge here?

The Gay Mafia

Q: Do you really think that your battle against the ‘lavender mafia’ of homosexual bishops can be won? They are so powerful.

A: Yes, of course it can be won. Because God is on our side. This is not arrogance, this is simply a fact. Surely you don’t believe that God is on the side of the homosexual and bisexual bishops in the Church?!!!! And the Patriarchs are with us, because they have protected us. This is a Conciliar process and history is on our side. We never sought this battle, but we obey God, Who put us in front of this scourge. The Church must be cleansed of them. We, like others, must take part in this end-time battle.

For years I recall how we tried to fight against their takeover – it all began in 1994. I remember how the latest phase of the battle began two years ago. Our profound suspicions from the beginning had been undermined by the fact that we could not prove anything. Then, one of our parishioners heard about the case of the Russian bishop Ignaty who had been found out by parishioners who were convinced he was homosexual. So they went on to an international homosexual dating app called ‘Grinder’. There they found compromising photos of him. The Patriarch deposed Ignaty at once and sent him off to a monastery.

So to check on the bishop in question, of whom this parishioner, like us, had had the same bad impression, though no proof, he put the ‘Grinder’ app onto his mobile phone. Apparently, this app shows at what distance you are standing from a member of the dating site. It went off only once – when that notorious bishop visited us, indicating that the dating app had picked up that he was standing just two metres away from the phone. There was only one person it could have been. We had received the confirmation of our impression. We could clearly identify him. Since then he has gone on to scandalise many, destroy the church, supported by another seven homosexual and bisexual bishops and priests, rejecting the offer of a monastery, scandalising a monk to whom the bishop made an advance and who then, quite naturally, ran away, tried to close churches, and ordained a homosexual and a bisexual. And yet such people are actually defended by others in the same mafia. But God is not mocked. You will see.

English History

Q: In your opinion, who was the best and who was the worst figure in the history of England?

A: The best: The holy King Alfred the Great, the Truthteller, England’s Darling.

The worst: Either Duke William the Bastard, or else Cromwell. It is difficult to choose between them. One was a Catholic tyrant, the other was a Protestant tyrant. Both killed hundreds of thousands.

 

 

 

IMPORTANT: A NEW CHURCH?

Fifteen years ago, in May 2008, we bought our church in Colchester. Although people laughed at me at the time for even buying the church, I said that one day the church would be too small. They mocked even more. Since then we have had to set up two small churches, one in Norwich and the second on the edge of Cambridge for those who came to us. Both have their priests, one of them is a former Colchester parishioner, the other is a priest who first celebrated here. In Colchester itself we now have a second priest and two deacons. However, now we are facing a real problem. Our church is getting too small, with 300-400 people every Sunday. What we really need is another church in a town further down the A12 nearer London.

In 2008 I had a conversation with the then Bishop Elisei in London, as at that time Orthodox immigrants were getting off the trains from Europe at Stratford and had no church to go to. The women got jobs cleaning offices, the men on building sites. As a result of my missionary conversation, Bishop Elisei arranged for a service for these people once a month in an Anglican church in Romford. This has not been successful, as the liturgy takes place only a few times a year on a Saturday, when many work, and it is for Russians only. The congregations number only about 20. The majority of Orthodox living in the Stratford-Ilford-Romford area are in fact Moldovan, Romanian and Ukrainian, not Russian.

What are we going to do for the 20,000 Orthodox of East London, in the three fords: Stratford, Ilford and Romford? And the 10,000 who live nearby, in Hainault, Hornchurch, Upminster, Brentwood, Basildon, Billericay, Grays, Tilbury, and to the north, in Harlow? We have identified a church for sale for £1.3 million. Such a sum seems like a dream. Perhaps we can find something cheaper? In any case, the question is: Can you help or do you know someone who can help? I have been told that a Moldovan billionaire lives in London. Please put me into contact with him! With the support of a few rich people, we can do it. We have a Charitable Trust to look after funds. Our Metropolitan Joseph is a missionary-minded bishop. These are not the problems. Finance is! CAN YOU HELP?

Converts and Envelope-Converts

 Foreword

First I must explain the title of this essay. The Russian word ‘konvert’ means an envelope. And there is an old joke, told me about 30 years ago by a ROCOR bishop from America, that ‘the problem with ‘konverts’ is that sometimes they are empty and sometimes they come unstuck’. Beyond jokes, the real question is why can converts to the Faith sometimes be empty and why can they sometimes come unstuck? In other words, what is the difference between ‘converts’ and ‘envelope-converts’? Below we attempt to answer this question.

Introduction: Converts 

The psychology of converts is universally the same. I remember about 40 years ago meeting a Jewish man who had married a woman who, some years before meeting him and converting to Judaism, had already converted to Catholicism. When she had been a Catholic, she had been a traditionalist, a Latin masser. The husband complained to me about his wife, who had become Jewish in order to marry him, and had then started to impose very strict, zealot Jewish observances on him. Since he had always been a very secular, non-practising Jew, he found it very troublesome and it was breaking up the marriage. From his wife’s behaviour, I realised that convert psychology is universal. Someone who has psychological problems will carry them over into any religion. There is no theology here, only psychology and, worse still, pathology. Beware.

For instance, a few years ago I met an Englishman who had chosen to become a Muslim. What he had been before, I have no idea. Of course, as a recent convert he forced himself to dress like a Muslim from Afghanistan, had changed his name from Bob to Mohammed, grown a long beard, insisted that Muslim women wear a veil and interspersed his cockney speech with badly-pronounced Arabic words. He was the opposite of the other Muslims around him, all immigrants, whose only desire was to conform to English models of behaviour, to integrate and not stand out. In other words, Bob was what is popularly called a ‘beardy-weirdy’. I later heard that he had gone to live in the Middle East. Someone even said that maybe he had gone to fight with ISIS.

Some Eastern European Examples

In Russian the word for ‘convert’ is ‘neofit’, a neophyte. Since virtually all Orthodox in Russia are converts from over the last 30 years, there are also pastoral problems with some of them, who, for example, collect Orthodox books (they must have all of them, read or unread), dress in black and go off and live in forests or caves and then think they are being Orthodox. In fact, they are destroying their lives and those of their children. I have seen the same thing with Greeks and Romanians, those of an intellectual type. Baptised Orthodox as babies, they had all gone through some deep experience in their twenties (one Greek man had become a Buddhist) and then returned, chastened, to Orthodoxy. However, in countries with millions of Orthodox, such eccentrics are very, very few.

There were already such repentant spiritual tourists in the Russian emigration. Thus, Metr Antony Bloom had been an atheist until he was 14. And twenty years before him Fr Sophrony Sakharov had become a Hindu and was deeply attracted by the concepts of gurus, ashrams and mantras. Before him there had been the case of Fr Sergei Bulgakov, who had been a Marxist revolutionary. All joined, or rejoined, the Church after experiencing life. There is nothing extraordinary here. After all, all the apostles were converts. We recall how fishermen decided to follow Christ, and then a tax collector followed them. It is all related in the Gospels. As for the Epistles, these are simply letters written by converts to groups of converts in various parts of the Roman Empire. If you read those letters, you will find that some of those converts got up to some very strange things (they were ‘envelope-converts’), which is why they received instructions on how to behave and what our Faith actually is. Perhaps the most famous case of a convert is the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus (Acts 9).

As for the Fathers, many of them were also ‘converts’, who had studied in some pagan school, for instance in Athens, and then got baptised. The Three Great Hierarchs, St John Chrysostom, St Basil the Great and St Gregory the Theologian, come to mind at once. And yet nobody would think of calling the apostles or these Fathers ‘converts’. Let alone ‘envelope-converts’ who were empty or who came unstuck. So what is the difference? Why do some simply become Orthodox Christians and others cause tragedies to themselves and to others? Below I describe why converts become ‘envelope-converts’.

Joining the Church and Becoming Orthodox

Regularly, about six times a year I am phoned by someone who wants ‘to join the Church’. Having read something, usually on the internet, or seen a youtube video or, even worse, a podcast, they are attracted. However, they are not attracted to Orthodox Christianity, only to the idea or theory of a marginal form of Orthodoxy. My answer to them is always the same: ‘Come to the service next Sunday’. Of course, they never come. The point is that they have no desire to know that Orthodox Christianity is about living a way of life, at the heart of which are the Church services. That would mean them changing their way of life. They may as an idea wish to join the Church, but they do not want to become Orthodox. And that is no use at all.

In general, it can be said that there are two sorts of candidate to join the Church. Those who want to join the Church and those who want to become Orthodox; those who come with baggage and have expectations, and those who do not; those who want to change what the Church is and those who accept the Church as it is. This is rather like some young people who think they have fallen in love, but want to change the characters of the objects of their infatuation: ‘Oh, I know he did that, but I’ll change him’, says the silly young woman who is full of her imagined abilities to change a criminal, and, ‘She’ll change once we’re together’, says the silly young man, who is pretentious. It always ends up in tears. If you love someone, you love their faults too. And if you don’t love their faults, or do not know what their faults are, or, worse still, imagine that they do not have any, you are in for a big surprise. As the old joke says: ’The only time a woman changes a man is when she changes his nappies as a baby’.

It can be said that these two sorts of candidates are either those who love themselves (they tend to egomania and weird ego-trips of garden shed Orthodoxy) and those who love God and love others. The first want to impose their pride and their proud theories because they do not love God and love others. The second accept in humility and learn. Love is the key. The first lack love, and can be singularly unloving, the second show love and so readiness to learn. This explains why so many ‘envelope-converts’ never become Orthodox Christians, but come unstuck and lapse, either into what they were before or else into some new obsession. These are the serial lapsers, who demand baptism umpteen times and drift from one ‘religion’ to another. They are empty, they take but do not give, they destruct but do not construct.

Pride

I remember serving at a Russian church in Brussels about thirty-five years ago. There were perhaps 250 people there. I immediately spotted two converts among the crowd. How? One was a woman dressed in what seemed to be ballgown with a huge headscarf/tablecloth on her head and the other was a man dressed all in black and with a huge beard. All the other women were dressed normally in knee-length skirts or dresses, most had no head covering at all. As for the men, they were all clean-shaven and I do not think any of the clergy had a beard anything like that of the convert.

This obsession with externals is typical of the ‘envelope-convert’. Eccentric dress, beards and long hair for men, wearing prayer-knots around the wrist, lapel or even pectoral crosses, icons, incense, books, fasting. Just so as you know: This disease of convertitis will not save you. This confusion between means and ends is a kind of idolatry, as it confuses creation with the Creator. No externals will ever save you, even if, when accepted in humility, they can help you. Only humility will save you. I always say to such strange dressers: look at the others in Church. They have been Orthodox for decades, for their whole lives, as their ancestors for centuries before them. None of them dresses like you. Dress like them. None of them bothers about fasting from vertebrates and invertebrates (what are they anyway?), none of them reads the ingredient labels on foodstuffs. Stop being different. Salvation is not there. Salvation is in humility.

The root of this idolatry, as that of all fantasies, is the same: pride. It is pride which is behind all envelope-converts. This can be seen in their open self-justifications for weirdness: ‘I am better than the others’; ‘I am not like them’; ‘they haven’t read the books that I’ve read’; ‘they don’t understand’; ‘they haven’t been to Mt Athos’. (These are all actual quotations). These are the people who want to be ‘more Orthodox than the Orthodox’. And they all end up being less Orthodox than the Orthodox, that is, they all end up outside the Church. Such converts always want to give advice to others, as they know everything. Yet they know nothing, apart from externals and their desire to condemn others. It is sad.

More Pride

Such envelope-convert laypeople, sometimes married with families, want to imitate monastics. However, to live in a monastery, you first of all need obedience. And that is precisely what they do not have. I remember one such family in France. They went off to live in the Cevenne mountains, living in a ruin, getting water from a stream and without electricity. The nearest shop was six miles away. After a time the fed-up wife left the fanatical, hippyish husband who spent his time ‘meditating’ and had forced her and the children to live back in the Middle Ages. (Apparently, he thought this was ‘Orthodox’). As for the children, they left with her and never set foot in an Orthodox church afterwards. The husband died a few years ago, a lonely and embittered old convert. And precisely a ‘convert’, because he had never actually become Orthodox.

Convert pride is often manifested in idealism, as was the case above. Never think that idealism is good. It forces others. Lenin was an idealist. So was Hitler. Beware. Convert pride makes the convert think he is ‘special’ and ‘different’. This is not only in outward appearance, but also in speech, in the use of words such as ‘a temple’, instead of ‘a church’, or they will tell you that they are ‘under the omofor’ of someone. Ordinary lifelong Orthodox never tell you that, indeed they often do not even know whose diocese they are in, still less, care.

Then there are the converts who go on and on about their ‘spiritual father’ or, worse still, ‘starets’, who is probably just a very ordinary parish priest. But they want to belong to a cult. Here we encounter the problem of ‘guruism’. Twice in my life I have come across converts, one English and one Russian, who wanted me to become their ‘spiritual father’. I refused to play at being a guru. They both went elsewhere and ended up outside the Church, one lapsing completely, the other joining a cultish sect from America. The pride here is that they want a guru so as to make a saint out of him and can then flatter themselves that, as their guru is a saint, they too must be saints. ‘I am special, I have a spiritual father’, is their secret mantra.

Yet More Pride

The obsession with books can also play a role here. The ‘envelope-convert’ must have an ‘Orthodox library’. When asked to recommend an Orthodox book to read, I always reply the New Testament. This really puts them off, as what they want is some piece of exotica (because they are ‘special’, ‘not like other men’ (Lk. 18, 11)). If they reply that they have already read the New Testament, I answer: ‘You may have read it, but you haven’t understood it’. The difference between Protestants and real Orthodox is that the Protestants have read it and not understood it and therefore do not live it, whereas the real Orthodox have generally not read it, but understood it and therefore live it.

Pride is not just unpleasant, it is also extremely dangerous. Some may have read the warnings given by St Ignatius (Brianchaninov) and St Theophan the Recluse, both of the century before last, about pride. For example, there is the convert who became crazy through the prayer of the heart. How is this possible? Simply because he said the prayer without love and humility. His intention in repeating it thousands of times a day was to become a saint, that is, to become ‘better than others’. It was not to become humble. He became mentally ill not through a prayer, but through his deluded pride. The source of most mental illness and all delusion is precisely pride. I have seen this happen. This is real. If you have no love and humility, this can happen.

Some may be shocked by this, but think about what the Apostle Paul wrote nearly 2,000 years ago. ‘Whoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord…For he that eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep’ (I Cor 11, 27-30). They become ill not through holy communion, but through pride. The danger is when such ‘crazy converts’, as the Americans call them, or ‘novices’, as the Apostle Paul calls them, become clergy. And yet the Apostle is clear: ‘A bishop then must be…not a novice, unless being lifted up with pride, he falls into the condemnation of the devil’ (I Tim 3, 2-6). Such clergy create whole cultish sects full of their clones.

Conclusion: Conversion Without Pride

Christ speaks of ‘envelope-converts’ in the Gospel, the ones he calls pharisees and proselytes: ‘Woe unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites! For you compass sea and land to make one proselyte and when he is made, you make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves’ (Matt. 23, 15). The problem is not of course with converts who have really converted, but with non-converts, those who claim to have converted, when they have not. I have met such people who, even after fifty years, have not actually converted. Some are indeed ‘children of hell’. When someone says that he is a convert, I always ask him: ‘A convert to what?’

Every time we go to confession is a conversion. Indeed, if you do not go to confession, you will not be converted, but will always remain at that selfsame primitive level of: ‘I haven’t done anything wrong’, or, ‘I haven’t done anything different from everyone else’. I have met several Orthodox like this. Every Sunday for decades they have taken communion, but have never ever been to confession. And this from lifelong Orthodox in their fifties. There is nothing wrong with conversion. On the contrary, there is everything wrong with unconversion. But conversion is not a point, it is a process. In order to become (Orthodox) Christians, we have to convert every day. Otherwise, we shall just remain ‘envelope-converts’, empty through lack of zeal, or else come unstuck, as the Apostle writes, through ‘zeal not according to knowledge’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Q and A October 2022

Q: Why do all the Local Orthodox Churches accept the baptisms of Non-Orthodox, but not give them communion?

A: Baptism is the first sacrament and the only one that can be given by laypeople, that is, by those who have been baptised by water in the Name of the Holy Trinity. All other sacraments are different, as they require a priest, such as chrismation and confession, only after which can communion be given.

As regards the form of baptism, the norm in the Church is by immersion (different from submersion!), but emergency baptisms by sprinkling are also accepted, as in countless Orthodox baptisms of new-born babies in hospitals and in homes. Here it is the intention that is important, not the ritual.

Q: Can Non-Orthodox receive a gift of the Holy Spirit?

A: Obviously, yes! Why else would people come to the Church asking to be received, when they are still outside the Church? The Holy Spirit has called them, they have had some spiritual experience. The Holy Spirit can come to us from God the Father in two different ways, through (but not from) the Son (= through the Body of Christ, in the sacraments of the Church) and directly and independently, as to the Apostle Paul on the Road to Damascus and to so many others.

Q: What do you think will happen in the Ukraine and in Church life once the war there is over?

A: Let us look at reality. Rightly or wrongly, 87.5% of the world either supports the Russian campaign or else remains neutral towards it. This shows the increasing isolation of the USA/Western elite. In Italy, Germany, France, Moldova, the Czech Lands, Romania (the former Defence Minister), Bulgaria, Serbia, even in the UK, dissident voices are protesting. For God’s sake, negotiate with Russia! The Ukraine is their business, not ours. We want gas and food! This Hell-begotten war must end. Europe needs a common economic home, from Reykjavik/Dublin/Lisbon to Vladivostok. The USE (United States of Europe, that is, the EU) has been USED. It is over.

There are very many and very unanimous Orthodox Christian prophecies on the war, like those of the very well-known and quite recent St Laurence of Chernigov, St Kuksha of Odessa, Elder Zosima of Donetsk, Elder Nikolai (Guryanov) and also Elder Jonah (Ignatenko) of Odessa (+ 2012). The latter, who said that Odessa will be liberated last, said: ‘After President Putin there will come a Tsar and there will be peace for a time’. The same prophets say that the new Tsar will then cleanse the Church of its unprincipled careerist-bishops, so disastrously corrupted by the Western money of the 1990s, exactly as St Seraphim of Sarov prophesied 200 years ago. According to him the Persecuted Church would become the Persecuting Church, the Church of Altruism would become the Church of Mammon. Exactly as it has turned out.

After this momentous Battle for the Holy Spirit, could then the whole Russian Orthodox Church be cleansed and transformed into the Patriarchate of New Jerusalem and All Rus? The at present Fifteen Local Churches of today could become Twenty-Four, with new Autocephalous Churches in the New Ukraine, in the three Baltic States plus Finland, with the restitution of those unjustly defrocked in Lithuania, in Moldova, an NAOC, Northern American Orthodox Church, including all Orthodox there, excluding none, and a WEOC, Western European Orthodox Church, including all Orthodox here, excluding none, a South American Orthodox Church, a Central American Orthodox Church, and a Mexican Orthodox Church, with a Metropolia for the Caribbean, and an Oceanic Orthodox Church for Australia and the Pacific Islands.

Q: What is the significance of the Battle of Hastings in the European context?

A: The Norman Invasion and Hastings was only a detail in the whole apostasy of the Church of Rome in the eleventh century. What began with the expulsion or persecution of Orthodox from Moravia, Hungary, Mozarabic Spain, Sicily, Southern Italy and Croatia ended with the same in England, Milan (the Ambrosian rite) and later in Scotland and Wales, then spreading to Scandinavia and Ireland.

Let us take just one example, the persecution of the Church in Croatia, which happened on the very eve of Hastings. (I quote from ‘The Early Medieval Balkans’ by John Fine): ‘In the mid-eleventh century the Slavonic liturgy became an issue in Croatian Dalmatia.

Written in Glagolitic, it was widely used particularly
in northern Dalmatia, where its chief centres were on the islands
lying in the Gulf of Kvarner, formed by the Istrian peninsula. In this
regard the island of Krk was the most important. In the 1060s, when
the Pope was demanding general Church reform, many high clerics in
the old Roman towns of Dalmatia, which had always used the Latin
liturgy, wanted to prohibit Slavonic and standardise church practices.
Kresimir IV, a religious man who had founded a Benedictine monastery
at Biograd, his favorite residence, sympathized with the Latinisers.
One wonders why: perhaps he wanted papal support; perhaps he
sought support from the Latin Dalmatian cities, toward which he may
already have had ambitions; perhaps it was a result of his Venetian
upbringing. (His mother was a Venetian and he had been educated in
Venice).

In any case the reformers or Latinisers were upset by the situation
in the Croatian Church; many priests (like the Greeks) married and
wore beards. Many of them did not know Latin. A Council was held in
Split in 1060 which declared that priests must know Latin and declared
it the language of the church. The Council condemned Slavonic. It also
banned priestly beards and marriages. Some churches were closed as a
result and there seems to have been a degree of unrest. Parties developed
for and against Latin, with the high clergy and nobles tending to
support Latin. In 1063 the Pope demanded application of these decisions
and he too called Slavonic heretical.

In 1064 a rebellion for the Slavic church broke out on the isle of
Krk under a man named Vuk. He set up an autonomous church under
its own bishop and wrote to the Pope. Various misunderstandings followed
and envoys from each side were rebuffed by the other. Kresimir
then sent a naval expedition against Krk (whose church was branded
heretical by the Pope). By the end of 1064 Vuk’s rebellion was crushed
and Latin clerics were in control of the church of Krk. Thus the national
Church organisation suffered a further blow and its organisation
rapidly died out. Surely, however, in inland villages Slavonic priests
continued to function over the next several centuries, owing to the lack
of an educated clerical class there. In addition, though the established
church opposed it, Slavonic seems to have survived in places along the coast presumably because the local population wanted it. Glagolitic
manuscripts from Croatia survive from each subsequent century
throughout the Middle Ages. But as an established accepted movement
the Slavonic Church collapsed and the main reason for its collapse
was that the leading Croatian political and religious figures opposed it.
In 1074 a second Council was held in Split which reissued the edicts of
1060 against Slavonic. This second Council also re-established the bishopric
of Nin’ (Pp. 280-281).

 

 

 

 

Will the Russian Orthodox Church Be Forbidden in Western Countries?

At the Peace Forum in Rome on 23 October, President Macron of France spoke in front of an audience of many Church leaders, including Metr Antony (Sevriuk), reckoned to be the No 2 of the Moscow Patriarchate. The President stated that the Russian Orthodox Church (both the Moscow Patriarchate and ROCOR) is manipulated by the Russian State.

https://www.cath.ch/newsf/selon-e-macron-la-religion-orthodoxe-est-manipulee-par-la-russie/

This was said in front of many other Orthodox clergy, including our friends from the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church and our own Metropolitan Joseph (Pop) of the Romanian Orthodox Church, whose Autonomous Metropolia numbers 4 million Orthodox in Western Europe. (This makes him the bishop with by far the largest Orthodox flock in Western Europe, far larger than the total flock of many Local Orthodox Churches). Is the Russian Orthodox Church manipulated by the Russian State, as President Macron claimed? Whether it is true or not is irrelevant, the fact is that this is the Western Establishment perception – and has long been. For them the Russian Orthodox Church is no more independent of the Russian State than the Church of England is from the British government, whose new and entirely expected Hindu Prime Minister will nominate all its bishops.

The only exception to this possibly true claim of subservience to the Russian State is the small but much-persecuted Russian Orthodox Western European Archdiocese under Metropolitan Jean of Dubna. There clergy are allowed to commemorate or not the Russian Orthodox Patriarch. The Archdiocese is where we were not allowed to stay by Metropolitan Antony (Sevriuk). Thus, highly providentially, we were safely received into the above-mentioned Romanian Patriarchal Metropolia of Western and Southern Europe eight days before the Special Military Operation in the Ukraine began on 24 February 2022.

Meanwhile, the Russian Orthodox Patriarch has been banned from visiting his flock in four countries through a personal ‘sanction’. These countries are the Ukraine, Canada, the UK and Lithuania. As well as this, the Russian Church has had to withdraw its bishops from Northern America (the USA and Canada) and from the UK. Bishopless churches are churches that will die out. What is to be done? You can sit it all out and wait till the war in the Ukraine is over. This appears to be the policy of many. However, that does not solve the pastoral problems in the here and now or the problems in the future, which will be even greater.

The Russian Orthodox Faith first came under persecution in the Ukraine in 2018, when the CIA with the help of Poroshenko and certain Greek Orthodox individuals who set up an uncanonical Church, so that Ukrainian Orthodox would not belong to the Russian Orthodox Church. Few fell for this trick and the new ‘Church’ failed. This year the canonical Church in the Ukraine has come under even greater persecution and was forced to declare itself ‘fully independent’ of Moscow. Of its 12,000 churches, 2,000 have been taken away from it by force and nearly all of them now stand locked and empty. The US-sponsored Ukrainian nationalist persecution resembles very closely that of the Bolsheviks.

Only recently a curious though different fate has befallen the Russian Orthodox Church in Latvia, which was declared independent by the Latvian government. It has no choice other than to accept this imposed independence. It looks as though the same is about to happen in Lithuania and Estonia. However, we note that the Russian-founded Orthodox Churches in Poland, the Czech Lands and Slovakia, and in the USA (the OCA) are not suffering from any persecution from their States because they are associated with the Russian Orthodox Church. Why? Because they are all ‘Autocephalous’, i.e. canonically fully independent.

Surely this is the way out for the whole of the Russian Church, which is not inside the Russian Federation and Belarus? In any case, the difference between Orthodoxy and Papism is surely that we do not have a Pope, that we do not claim some sort of universal jurisdiction. When a Local Church sets up a mission in another country or a country becomes politically independent from the one where the Local Church is based, and that mission is successful, inevitably, that country ends up having its own Local Church. And the new Local Church is independent of political pressure from foreign governments (and from its own government).

A Patriarch is not a Pope. We ignore any ‘Eastern Papist’ temptations or claims of any Patriarchate (e.g. the deliberate misinterpretation of Canon 28 of Chalcedon, for instance). We know that the hubris of power is always punished. We do not confess any universal jurisdiction, but missionary autocephalies, as in the Local Churches of Rome, Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, Philippi, Colossae and Thessalonica. Let us be frank: There is room for very many to stand on the moral high ground in the Orthodox Church. If some want to compromise themselves politically or have little integrity or conscience and do not wish to stand there, that is not our business. We shall continue to stand there, waiting for others to join us, whatever the stones they cast at us.

 

 

The Future of the Ukraine and the Church

What is going to happen in the Ukraine? Some say that the Russian winter campaign in the Ukraine that is due to start in November will result at the very least in the provinces of Nikolaev and Odessa being taken by Russia, as foretold by Elder Jonah of Odessa (+ 2012). That might bring this nightmare conflict to a swift end. It will mean that the remaining Ukraine will become a landlocked state.

Others refer to another prophecy of Elder Jonah of Odessa that there will be a ‘bloody Easter (= 2022?), a hungry Easter (2023?) and a victorious Easter (2024?). It means that the war will continue for another eighteen months yet. Others refer to the prophecy of St Seraphim of Sarov: ‘Towards that time the bishops will become so impious that in their impiety they will surpass the Greek bishops of the time of Theodosius the Younger (401-450), so that they will no longer believe in the main dogmas of the Christian Faith’.

We should recall that all prophecies are conditional, dependent on repentance – or lack of it.

Whatever happens in the war in the Ukraine, and there are many predictions, it is clear that the canonical Church in the Ukraine will have to become autocephalous. Russia can, and we believe will, win militarily, but that does not solve the pastoral problem. No mother, father, aunt, uncle, wife, sister, brother, children of a dead Ukrainian soldier will frequent a church where the Russian Patriarch is commemorated. Many in the Russian Church are in denial about this: we are not.

At the mere mention of the name Patriarch Kyrill in churches in the Ukraine or here, people walk out. Russian Orthodox churches, Moscow or ROCOR, all over Western Europe, as in the Ukraine itself, have lost a great many of their flock. If we had been under the Russian Church (by Divine Providence we got out exactly eight days before the Special Operation began), we would certainly have lost half of our parish. At present, under the Zelensky government, any Ukrainian priest who concelebrates with the Russia Church in Western Europe (either branch) faces five years of prison on his return for ‘collaborating with the enemy’.

In the Moscow Patriarchate in Lithuania four priests have been defrocked for not commemorating Patriarch Kyrill. And yet in the Western European Archdiocese of the Moscow Patriarchate, priests are free to commemorate the Russian Patriarch or not. Patriarch Kyrill is banned by sanction from visiting Canada, the UK, Lithuania and of course the Ukraine. He would not be welcome anywhere else in Europe outside the Russian Federation and Belarus. If he cannot visit his churches, then independence must be granted to them.

It has come to our knowledge that there are those in Russia who are praying that Metr Onufry of Kiev will become the next Patriarch of Russia. No doubt his first act will be to grant the Ukrainian Orthodox Church autocephaly. The same is surely inevitable in the Baltic States (today the Latvian Orthodox Church has officially asked Patriarch Kyrill to grant it autocephaly). We think that autocephaly, or at least autonomy, will have to be given to the Russian Orthodox churches in Moldova and also in Western Europe. As for the Moscow parishes in Northern America, they have no bishop and so no future at present. Here too a solution is required.

The situation is chaotic, Nothing, indeed, will be as it was before.

 

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.