Dear Dr. Kalomiros,

Please forgive our long delay in replying to your last letter, which we read with great interest. Yes, these are very dangerous times for all of us, and no “jurisdiction” can regard itself as “safe” from the many temptations which the devil is preparing for us. From the latest issue of The Orthodox Word (Nov.-Dec.) you will see the latest temptation which came to our Russian Church Abroad. Some of our bishops, being under the influence of Solzhenitsyn (who says many good things but is certainly not very aware of church matters), suddenly got the idea of “uniting” with the two schismatic groups in America and Paris. Several bishops have told us themselves that the epistle sent to these groups was very poorly and hastily done, without even mention of the necessity to be one in the Truth. As a result, the Metropolia in America jumped at the opportunity to seduce us into having communion with them, and we really feared (at the time we wrote the article on the Catacomb Church and Metropolitan Theodosius) there might be some kind of hasty “union,” which would be disastrous for the cause of True Orthodoxy, and would have caused a schism, even if perhaps only a few would have been bold enough to separate from this “union.” Now, glory be to God, our Metropolitan Philaret has come out with a strong statement that communion is impossible; but the Metropolia certainly won the propaganda battle in the Russian newspapers by showing how lacking in “love” we are for refusing to have communion with them — as if we hate Christ Himself? The ordinary Russian people are unaware enough to fall for that kind of propaganda; but alas, this whole thing was the fault of our well-meaning but unaware church figures who are very much under the influence of intellectual fashion. Others of our bishops are aware, however, and there was even one case where one bishop who was in favor of union with the Metropolia was not allowed to serve in the dioceses of another bishop.

We ourselves are greatly pained to see such unawareness of what is happening in the world and the Church. It would really be best for us if the Moscow Patriarchate would “excommunicate” us and the whole of “world Orthodoxy” would cut us off; then some of our people would fall into apostasy, but the rest would be stronger.

We are sending you separately our new publication, Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future. Soon we hope to have another book finished, and God willing we will be producing more in these critical times. We ask your prayers for us, and very much look forward to receiving your letter on “Evolution.”

With love in Christ,