Author: orthodoxaustralia

Dear Father Neketas,
Bless us, Father!

It’s Sunday and a feast day, and I have a chance to rest and catch up on correspondence. First: thank you for letting us see the enclosed letter. Indeed, it is time to apply strictness in Orthodox reading material. It just can’t be assumed that the Orthodox reader will get through a book by Schmemann etc. unaffected by the big and little discrepancies from Orthodoxy, which by now have added up to a whole new approach to Orthodoxy. As the list of pre-schism Western Saints, we recently discovered this list in an old Orthodox Russia which I will try to get around to copying one of these days. It was short — probably some 15 or so names, most of them included in our article on St. Cassian last year. Whether there is another longer list I don’t know. The Dutch Orthodox sent us a list of some 40 local (Dutch) saints in their calendar, but I haven’t yet been able to get from them a list of non-Dutch Western saints.

We are plodding on with The Orthodox Word, but it will be another week before it’s out. We resolved to make the Service to Father Herman a model in every way, including typographically, which means printing every page twice (2 colors), and we printed a number of extras to bind separately. Glory be to God, it is almost finished, and we are sufficiently full of inspiration and hope to want to print a whole series of services to the glory of God and His saints and for the inculcation of genuine Orthodox piety in this direct way. We are already dreaming of the service to St. Nectarios (if Fr. Panteleimon or someone can be persuaded to translate the Orthros) and St. Mark of Ephesus.

Of course, this presumes that we will get caught up on The Orthodox Word. Our linotype still sits unassembled, and there are several complications that await resolution—such as long-awaited parts needed for gas connections, and the problem of obtaining matrices of type. One set (Roman and Italic) if new costs almost as much as the whole linotype ($500). We have located a used set at about half that, and are hoping for word of something even more reasonable from the East. Of course there is also the problem of getting and keeping the machine in operation. One look at an operators manual persuaded me that my ignorance was just about absolute. But we trust in God, and await Fr. Alexy Poluektov in a week or two to assemble the machine and give some ABCs.

We were blessed to receive Holy Communion at the Sepulchre of Vladika John last week on the 4th anniversary of his death, and again yesterday when Vladika Nektary visited us on the feast of Sts. Sergius and Herman. Glory be to God! We noticed in S.F. that attendance at the Sepulchre declines each year, and it seems, sadly, that the Russians are forgetting him, and that when the older generation of those who knew him is gone in a few years, his memory will almost vanish among them — and will be preserved then chiefly by those non-Russians, most of whom did not know him, whose acquaintance with him is based not on personal relationships but on the attraction of his sanctity. Thus are God and His saints glorified in unexpected ways.

The report of Glebs tonsure on Father Hermans canonization day — is just another wild rumor. The day for both of us is, however, indeed drawing nigh, but it will only be after the canonization. I can’t remember how many times I’ve already been made a deacon or priest myself! In fact, a student-composer friend even composed an “Axios” which he rushed to me in time to be sung at my ordination! But everything comes in God’s own time.

Have you heard anything more from Fr. Seraphim of St. Tikhon’s? Our letter a month ago was returned “No longer at this address,” and the other day we learned from a seminarian (his co-conspirator) that he refused to “repent“ and left at the end of May to visit relatives.

We were fortunate two weeks ago to be visited by Fr. Alexander Mileant of Los Angeles — one of our finer young Russian priests. He fell in love with our place and made us realize all the more how fortunate we are to be here. Indeed, while the world relapses into anarchy and men become lower than beasts, we live in a veritable paradise where speechless creatures, our nearest neighbors, continually praise the Lord by their very existence. Three weeks ago we found a fawn lying exhausted by the side of the road. We brought it home, kept it overnight, got it to drink milk, and returned it to the hill down which we presumed it had fallen. (We would have kept it longer but discovered there’s a strict law against it.) Then two days ago our mother deer who comes every day for our garbage brought her fawn for us to see — apparently the same one, and too touching a sight to describe. She’s so used to us that she suckles the fawn only 10 or 15 feet away from us, and we hear their talk among themselves — rather like sheep’s bleating, only higher. Recently, too, we saw our first bear running up our hill — and fortunately we did not take Vladika Nektary’s advice and offer it sugar; it didn’t seem like that kind of bear, much too businesslike! Even our one local enemy, the rattlesnake, praises the Lord — such a beautiful yellow with a pattern of diamonds on his back and the bearing of a prince, albeit a sinister one! Last week we had a 15-minute battle with a huge one before we dislodged it from its squirrel-hole and beheaded it (thereby saving our squirrel family, where the father joins the mother in carrying the young from nest to nest). Of course, it is not our lot in this life to sit back and enjoy all this, but we are grateful to have a little corner where God’s order is so evident. What will be here in future — is in God’s hands, and may it be for His glory! Somehow, in the back of our minds, we keep seeing our wilderness transformed into an Orthodox refugee camp! May God’s will be done!

Of the names you sent, 4 are not present subscribers (Alepakos, Sims, Blackstone, Brukses, nor are the 3 Metropolia people (Magner, Dimoff, Eppler), to all of whom we will send the next issue.

Pray for us.

With love in Christ our Saviour,

Dear Father David [Black],

I was glad to receive your reply to my latest rather outspoken letter and welcome the opportunity to continue our “dialogue” — even under the somewhat strained circumstances that now prevail. t It would not be fair on my part to pretend that a tension does not exist between our Churches. From the tone of your letters, and from what I have heard of the words and actions of Bishop Theodosius, I would gather that you would like nothing better than to be in full peace and concord with Moscow and with the Synod. I can tell you frankly: impossible! There are issues at stake which cannot be solved by reference to canons. Above the canons is He Who inspired them: the Holy Spirit, Whose guidance is apprehended by the immediate feeling (not emotion!) of the believing Orthodox heart. On the question of canons there is no better example in the world today of Phariseeism than the Moscow Patriarchate, which insists on the letter of the law where its own worldly interests are concerned, while in everyday practice it is surpassed by none in laxness, as is quite noticeable in the former Exarchate.

But it is not as despisers of canons that our Church will have nothing to do with the Moscow hierarchs; and few in our midst even raise the question of whether there is grace within the Moscow Church — this is not for us to decide under present conditions. It is rather the indissoluble tie of the Moscow Patriarchate with an unquestionably God-hating and Satanic power that makes all contact with her impossible. You will find in our midst great sympathy and pity for all but the leading hierarchs of Moscow — and even for some of them you will find fellow-feeling owing to the inhuman circumstances under which they have been forced to betray Orthodoxy. (Rumor has it that Metr. Sergius was given the alternative in 1927: sign the Declaration, or every church will be destroyed and believers arrested and killed. If so, he signed out of faintheartedness, trusting more in the power of the Soviets to destroy than in the power of God to preserve the Church.) But this fellow-feeling cannot allow us who are free to recognize the Patriarchate and thereby freely place ourselves in the same trap she was forced into! And this the Metropolia has done, thus fixing the gulf between us as absolute. From my contact with our people I can tell you: with every fiber of our body and every feeling of our soul we are repulsed by this free act of betrayal, and the feeling of sympathy which we do have for all but the leaders of the Moscow Patriarchate we do not have for the Metropolia. No, we do not “hate” you, and we recognize that most of you have followed this act out of a lack of awareness of the Church situation today; but thereby the Metropolia has alienated herself from us even more than Moscow, where the Church consciousness is forcibly crushed, but not freely given away!

Do you not yet begin to see the enormous implications of the most important part of your agreement with Moscow — i.e., the unwritten part? Do you not yet see how your supposed “independence” binds you so tightly that you must now begin to do things that you would never have dreamed of before? With all our heart we would like to be one with you at least with those of you who sincerely love the Church and want to serve Her above all but we can be one with you only in the Truth, not in false friendliness. And this uncompromising attitude of ours will only inspire even more bitter feelings in some of you than Fr. Meyendorff has already shown in his slanderous attack, and men like Fr. Meyendorff will echo every last bit of the Moscow propaganda against us — not realizing that this is one of the most important “clauses” of the Autocephaly Agreement: to join in destroying the “Karlovitz Schismatics.”

I will tell you another of the unwritten “clauses” of that agreement, which you yourself are following in your arguments for Moscow: “Every bishop, priest, and layman of the Metropolia agrees to defend the Moscow Patriarchate, not merely as a persecuted organization that cannot be judged by those outside the USSR, not merely as a Church that may yet possess the grace of the Holy Spirit, but as a fully canonical, in no wise dubious Orthodox Church, entided to a role of leadership among the Orthodox Churches of the world.” One can even paraphrase the Declaration of 1927 to read: “Every blow directed against the Patriarchate of Moscow is a blow against the Metropolia, and her joys and sorrows are those of the Metropolia.”

Do you not yet begin to grasp the immensity of your spiritual bondage? Do you not see that the Metropolia can no longer look at the Church situation in the USSR with objective eyes? That it is no longer in the interests of the Metropolia to have a complete exposure of that situation? That the Metropolia cannot welcome the publication of the statements of many hierarchs in 1927 unequivocally condemning the Declaration of Metr. Sergius and the Church organization based on it? That it would not be in the interests of the Metropolia that Boris Talantov be released from prison and allowed to continue his writings on “Sergianism” as the root of the evils of Russian Church life today? That the Metropolia has taken its unequivocal stand on the side of Sergianism and against the Catacomb Church, about whose very existence the Metropolia now would prefer not to hear? Indeed, if any word can describe the Metropolia’s present state, it is surely: “Neo-Sergianism.”

Further, the Metropolia remains her old self, only with an inflated title that is recognized by no one save Moscow. Therefore, her dependence upon Moscow is obvious: without Moscow’s special intercession she will have no chance to sit as a full member of any Pan-Orthodox Conference; in any court cases concerning “jurisdictions” she will have to call upon witnesses from Moscow; etc. As for the Exarchate: the Russian text of the Autocephaly Agreement (but not the English text as printed by Fr. Meyendorff!) specifies that the entire Canadian diocese of the Exarchate is excluded from the “autocephaly,” and a list is given of 43 churches in the U.S. who voted to remain directly under Moscow (this includes all but one of the Exarchate churches in the latest list I have seen). Can anyone argue that the “autocephaly,” for the conceivable future, is anything but an empty tide? And likewise, that the advantages so far are not heavily on the side of Moscow and her undoubted scheme to seize hegemony of world Orthodoxy?

Yes, our statements about Frs Schmemann and Meyendorff will be documented in The Orthodox Word. We have already two long articles waiting for space. Recent complications and delays have put us several months behind, and we have an unwritten rule that contemporary polemical material must never occupy 50% of an issue. But with God’s blessing this and other material will soon see the light in the hope of giving more precision to certain aspects of contemporary Orthodox thought. The small deviations of yesterday are already resulting in great divergences, which we hope some will yet see in time.

I assure you that all I have written here does not in least diminish our love and prayers for you and all of Orthodox Alaska. Through the grace of our Saviour and the prayers of Saint Herman, may we yet come to true unity in the undimmed Orthodox Faith.

With love in Christ our Saviour,

P.s. Yes, we still plan to print the life of St. Theodosius and will welcome the article on his canonization.

Fr. Michael Azkoul, by the way, received canonical release from the Syrian Archdiocese and so was not obliged to show that his Archbishop is a heretic!

Dear Brother in Christ, Daniel [Olson],

Many thanks for your letter and the article from America—a truly sad commentary on what can be done by “reformers” who have no love for what they’re “reforming.” One can see it coming in Orthodoxy too, and those who do not consciously stand up in defense of the Faith will most likely have the ground pulled out from under them. One can see all the more urgency in not budging one inch in the “ecumenical” direction. The new “theologians” can talk until they are blue in the face about “witnessing Orthodoxy,” but to anyone who loves Orthodoxy it is plain that their intellectual discussions and tea parties with the Protestants are simply a pleasant way of betraying Orthodoxy. Recently a group of Catholic and Orthodox “theologians” had a “dialogue” on the Eucharist, issuing in a joint statement that fundamentally the two Churches are in agreement, with a footnote to the effect that intercommunion is still premature. But how can one be “witnessing Orthodoxy” if one doesn’t even inform the Catholics that they have no sacraments and that all their intellectual formulations are a million miles from the life-saving grace to be found in the Orthodox Church? Either these Orthodox “theologians” are dishonest (and thus trying to trick the Catholics?!) or they’ve already changed Orthodoxy in their own minds to make union easier. In any case, it’s not “Orthodoxy” that is being witnessed!

We also have been continuing our correspondence with Fr. David Black. His defensiveness, I think, is an excellent example of the success of the Soviet diplomats who arranged the autocephaly. Nowhere in the agreement is it written that Metropolia clergy will now rise to the defense of the Soviet Church—yet they have to, in order to defend their own position! Truly, every blow directed against the Soviet Church is a blow directed against the Metropolia, and indeed it is now decidedly not in the interests of the Metropolia for there to be any detailed exposure of Church life in Russia, concerning the Catacomb Church, for example. In his letters to us Fr. David has tried to drag out every skeleton he can find from Tsarist times—but most of those we would never dream of apologizing for, while the Metropolia has now voluntarily placed itself in the position of defending Church figures who are involved in evils undreamed of by all the heretics and apostates of the past. One need not “judge” the Church in Russia (as we are accused of) in order to see that it is impossible, if one has a Christian conscience, to deal with such as Nikodim. We have some more comments on this in the new OW. By the way, the “dissolution of the Exarchate” is another example of a Soviet victory from their negotiations: in Canada not one church voted to join the Metropolia, and in America 43 churches voted to stay with Moscow, which includes all but one of the churches in the latest Exarchate list that we have. The priest who writes for the Hellenic Chronicle openly writes that the Metropolia and Moscow alike are perpetrators of lies who cannot be trusted.

Anyway, we are still praying for Alaska, that by the prayers of Fr. Herman the faithful there may still be awakened and saved.

This is suppose to be a short letter, as there is much to do. The service for Father Herman’s canonization, by the way, will be celebrated only in San Francisco on August 9, since that is not his feast day; all other churches will have just a pannikhida the day before and a moleben after the Liturgy on Aug. 9. We will try to get together some Orthodox information on Australia in a few days. We hope to have the service printed in English within a week—in 2 colors, not an easy job!

Here were in midsummer and suffering—but probably nothing like you. 95 degrees is about as high as it goes, though it’s close to 115 degrees in Redding, where we go as seldom as possible. I’ll have to tell you our animal adventures some other time—we’ve seen our first bear, kept a fawn for 24 hours, and saved our squirrel family by killing a huge rattlesnake. Gleb sends greetings.

Dear Father David,

What is there to say: The Metropolia has gone through with its coup, which for the present involves only itself, but obviously has possibilities for a future union of all those who think a “unified Orthodox Church” is the answer for American Orthodoxy. No, it is not the answer, and is the product of very superficial thinking on the question. The answer is a return to real Orthodoxy, so sorely diluted in this century in America. The Metropolia move, I believe, is the watershed of 20th-century Orthodoxy — from now on there will be two “Orthodoxies” in America: the real one (of which no one can doubt that our Synod has become the beacon-light) and the imitation, the product of the Protestantized-academicized Paris school joined to the practical indifference and secular Protestantism of American life. The proof of the case against the Metropolia (and the other like-thinking jurisdictions) lies not in its dubious tactics or even its criminal negotiations with the Soviets, but in the fact that its leadership is not preaching Orthodoxy but a cheap surrogate thereof. Yes, some priests still try, but the future belongs to Frs. Schmemann and Meyendorff, who are not Orthodox, and the future generation is being raised on the blasphemous parody of Orthodoxy contained in the official publications, from Young Life to Concern. These people doubtless mean well, but they have been drastically miseducated, and now they try to enforce their abysmal ignorance of Orthodoxy upon the whole Church.

We assumed, in our last letter to Bp. Theodosius, that he would understand that unity with the Synod involves rejection of Moscow and vice versa. It is not only Metr. Anastassy but our own Archbp. Anthony of San Francisco and many other hierarchs who have pleaded for the restoration of this unity, to which the Metropolia always turned a deaf ear. Now, of course, the Metropolia’s schism is complete, and no further communion is possible. But now we may at least thank God that the air has been somewhat cleared, and those still able to choose can do so. The issues are critical: Orthodoxy vs. non-Orthodoxy. In worldly terms the Metropolia has all the odds on its side: numbers, prestige, publication of wide circulation with an editor who, frankly, is not to be accused of fairness or honesty. But the Metropolia does not have principle or truth on her side, nor can she be considered any longer as within the Church. The official representatives of the Metropolia either do not know the facts of Church history of the last 50 years (Fr. Schmemann has admitted to Fr. Michael Azkoul that he doesn’t know the facts about the Synod!) or else they are deliberately distorting them. The “ship” of the Metropolia, as a Church, has come to shipwreck; from now on individuals can still be rescued, but the judgment of the whole body can only be given over to the free Russian Church of the future.

The Synod’s position of truth and principle, of what Orthodoxy is and what it is not, will be presented in detail in future publications. Our Orthodox Word will soon print Fr. Michael Azkoul’s excellent reply to Fr. Schmemann’s attack on the “Sorrowful Epistle” (Fr. Meyendorff turned it down, predictably), in the hope of setting straight Fr. Schmemanns distortions and faulty theology. Fr. Michael has now come to the Synod — not because he thinks that Metr. Philip is a heretic, but because in not breaking of with Moscow over the issue of giving communion to Roman Catholics he enters also into crypto-Uniatism, as the Metropolia already has done far more decisively. “Global Orthodoxy” has not listened to the Synod’s pleas, and therefore those who wish to remain Orthodox have no choice but to leave “global Orthodoxy.” In the 15th century those who were not with St. Mark of Ephesus were not in the Church — and this situation is being approached today.

Alas, the basic Church issues of today are disguised in clouds of rhetoric and academic half- truths. The capitulation of Orthodoxy today comes not in the forms of signatures to a pseudo-Union, but as a gradual series of acts of apostasy. Those who love the truth must now separate themselves from this relentless and soul-destroying process. The Church as seen through the eyes of the Metropolia presents a timid voice to the world, ever ready to apologize for its deviations and to accommodate itself to the times and to the powerful of the world. Not such is the Church of Christ! And there is precious little time left for us to thunder the truth to an indifferent world!

You cannot imagine our sorrow at hearing of the doings of Bp. Theodosius and the visit of Juvenaly to Alaska. May Fr. Herman yet save Alaska, and enlighten and guide us all in the path of Orthodox truth!

With love in Christ our Saviour,

P.s. Is it really true that not one parish of the Exarchate decided to enter the Metropolia, as reported in the Romanian newspaper Credinta? That would make the celebrated “dissolution of the Exarchate” imaginary indeed!

Dear Fr. Neketas,
Bless us, Father!

We’re sitting in a surprise rainstorm of two days duration, more or less cut off from the world by a slippery road. Very good for our garden, but of dubious value to our linotype, which sits under a plastic covering and a hastily-devised temporary roof. It took us four days to get it dismantled, loaded (with a fervent prayer that the lift on our rented truck would work on a 1500 pound load), transported, and unloaded. Unfortunately it will now be a matter of weeks before the building is finished, linotype assembled, gas and electricity hooked up, etc., which also interferes with our sadly belated March-April issue, which we will start finally to handset in only a day or two, hoping to get it out not long past July 1st. Once the linotype is operating we will progress rapidly, but meanwhile…pray for us!

We received the officially approved service to Fr. Herman last week and have translated it and will include it in this issue, the only issue that will reach our readers before the canonization. It will be 24 pages in the middle of the magazine, and we’ll also print 1000 or so separate in brochure-form. We tried to keep some poetic feeling in the English, not with entire success, I’m afraid. The Slavonic itself is sometimes inspiring, and sometimes rather pale. The troparion is still in doubt; we stand for the old one, but there may be a completely new one…or perhaps a choice of two. This being really the first “American” service, we’ve tried to make it a model, right down to the acrostic, which worked out rather successfully in both languages. The Slavonic committee does not care much for acrostics, but we found it rather inspiring to have to work within the norms of a sacred phrase from the words of Father Herman. Jordanville is printing Fr. Cyprian’s icon of Fr. Herman in 2 sizes — 4 x 5 and 6×9. Were having our icon reprinted in smaller size — something like 2 1/2×3 1/2.

Yes, we have the text of Fr. Michael’s answer to Fr. Schmemann — it’s just what is needed today. Unfortunately, because of the service, it will have to go in next issue. It’s 15 pages long. The Synod is now getting quite a nucleus of American priests. May God grant all to flourish under her. It will doubtless take a while before the Russian psychology comes around to accepting the. Synod’s crucial role in world Orthodoxy, but fortunately there are some who understand already.

Is the Synod priest you mention in Alaska by any chance Fr. Nicholas Harris in Anchorage? He ordered a number of copies of our Fr. Gerasim issue and subscribed at that time. We hear from Fr. Elias Armistead that he is bringing his wife to Alaska to open an Inn — but still he doesn’t say a word about what he’s doing, though he notes that our richest diocese, San Francisco, doesn’t give him a dime. But for what? Our doubts about him only grow.

We read with interest your comments on the times. Alas, I fear that the free, liberal, naive America of our childhood is gone, and the increasing anarchism will only call forth a dictatorship, of right or left, depending on who can seize it. Whichever it may be, we Orthodox don’t have a bright future, in worldly terms; but doubles this will give us our chance really to confess our Orthodoxy in difficult circumstances. The “official” jurisdictions might be able to make their peace with the new conditions and “flourish” ά la the Soviet Church or the Church of Greece, in which case we who are less politically-minded would be reduced to a more or less catacomb status even under a rightist dictatorship, while under leftists we might not even be allowed to exist. Although we don’t get much news here (mainly week-old comment in US News) and aren’t really aware of the “polarization” of feelings that is going on, my guess is that rightism will install itself, leading to one last world conflagration, out of which may emerge… the beast of the last days who will finally reconcile all.

But that is all guesswork. For us what is important is to stick to our holy Orthodoxy, which is our real battle, and face each new day in a spirit of confession.

Hitler, by the way, was a most interesting apocalyptic phenomenon. Besides his insane jealously of the Jews, which led him to destroy them so that the Germans could be the “chosen race” and he the Messiah (I even recall, though I can’t find the source, that he once said that if he couldn’t be the Messiah then he would willingly be Antichrist!) he was himself basically a Bolshevik with an idol-worship of Lenin and Communist techniques who saw 20th-century world history as a battle between his National Bolshevism and Soviet international Bolshevism, and who when he saw the end of his hopes gave his political inheritance to the Soviets in the words: “The future belongs to the stronger Eastern power [nation].” In the last days of the war the Nazis organized “werewolves” who took their inspiration from the positively “mystical” broadcasts of Goebbels to the effect that since the war was lost, Germany and Europe must be positively destroyed so that the new order of the future could be built on the total ruin and ashes of everything man had hitherto valued and built. Hitlerism, in short, is only the handmaid of Communism, which in turn points to the “mystical” pinnacle of modern times: Antichrist. Hitler, also, while anti-monarchist, kept the crown and scepter of the Holy Roman Emperors “just in case” the times should change and a “monarch” should be demanded; and he once also said “if the monks of Mount Athos should ever sign a document giving me the inheritance of the Eastern Empire, by all means preserve it” for just such a change in the spirit of the times. Exactly the same features are apparent also in Napoleon, who however chose the side of the Jews and convened their Sanhedrin for the first time in 1800 years to have himself proclaimed Emperor. Napoleon also (I forget whether just in the Russian campaign or in general) had his soldiers and followers tattooed on the right hand, without which they had no right to receive food.

Perhaps these are all “minor details,” but I somehow think they will loom large when modern godlessness comes to demand its symbolic crowning.

But again, such speculations carried too far tend to divert our attention from the one important thing: Orthodoxy. World and national politics will take their course without us, but few indeed are they who care to stand up for Orthodoxy. For ourselves, we feel even more pressingly the need to print whatever we can of solid Orthodoxy while there is still time. May God help us all to work while there is still light!

Thank you for letting us see the letters to John Harwood, which we return herewith.

Please pray for us in these crucial days.

With love in Christ our Saviour,

Dear Father Michael [Azkoul],
Bless us, Father!

We received your manuscript safely, also the corrections. Definitely, we will print it. It is just what is needed—completely fair and objective, but right to the point, and raising just the right questions for Orthodox at this crisis point. We only wish it could get an even wider circulation.

We had hoped to print the article in our new issue, but further complications added to our usual belatedness make this probably impossible. Our “March-April” issue is now so late that it will be the only one to be sure to reach our subscribers before the canonization date of Father Herman; and last week the Slavonic text of the service to Father Herman was finally approved—and so we have dropped everything else to translate it and put it in this issue, where it will take up probably half of the pages. On top of that, we just bought a linotype in a special arrangement requiring us to transport it here by June 1—into a building which is still only half-finished. The linotype is still in a hundred pieces, taking up some of our printing room, and can’t be put into working shape for some weeks, so we find it to our exasperation a short-term liability which won’t start justifying itself until “May- June.” But glory be to God for all things—in a month or two, God willing, we will be doubling our production. In the meantime, we ask your prayers that we will be able to get the present issue out safely. Your article then will go in the May-June issue, together with another long and important article on the Catacomb Church, about which all too little has appeared in English. The anti-Sergianist texts of 1927, which we also hope to start printing, have a quite contemporary relevance; as with the Greeks and the Calendar-modernist question, so in the Russian Church the basis of today’s disorders dates to the ‘20 s, and was already answered then.

Truly, may God grant peace to His Church! But judging from the pace of contemporary apostasy, our immediate prospect is for much battle. May God help us.

Trusting in your prayers,

With love in Christ our Saviour,
Eugene Rose

P.s. We were happy to hear of your official acceptance into the Synod, about which we would like to make a brief note at the beginning of your article. May God strengthen you in your chosen path. If you happen to see Bp. Laurus, please give him our warmest greetings; we have close ties with him.

Mr. Alex V. Cattell
St. Tikhon’s Society, Inc.
598 15th Ave.
San Francisco, Calif. 94118

Dear Mr. Cattell,

Last Friday evening we returned to Platina with our new linotype and put it safely in place. We then opened our mail and found the check of St. Tikhon’s Society for $400. You can imagine our feelings. Truly, everything is given by God — in the right way and just at the right time. With this money we have already been able to pay some important expenses connected with the purchase of the machine.

Please extend our heartfelt gratitude to the St. Tikhon’s Society for its most generous and thoughtful gift. And please pray for us that we may bring forth fruits worthy of the love which you and others have shown us.

With gratitude and love in Christ our Saviour,
Father Herman of Alaska Brotherhood
Br. Gleb Podmoshensky
Br. Eugene Rose

CHRIST IS RISEN!
Dear Fr. Panteleimon and Fathers and Brothers in Christ,

Bless us, Father!

We send our sincere gratitude for the $200, which was safely received. As it turns out, this was precisely the sum we needed for completing the purchase of the linotype itself, which is now accomplished. Truly, God sends us just what is necessary and just at the right time. Next week we are transporting the linotype here, which will be an enormous task, but Fr. Alexy has promised to come here and get it back in working condition for us. We’ve built the floor for it and hope to get enough of the walls and roof on at least to keep the rain off, within the next few days. By now, of course, we’ve gotten so far behind with the new OW that we would like to put the new machine into operation immediately, despite our inexperience, but it remains to be seen how easy this will be, what things have yet to be bought for it, etc.

Enclosed is a check for $10 from a girl in San Francisco (non-Orthodox, a potential convert) who recently informed me that my godson Michael Bain had died; she wishes this sum to be used in his memory, so I send it on to you and beg you to remember him at the Divine Liturgy. His is a very strange story which I do not entirely understand. He was received into the Church at the S.F. Cathedral about 4 years ago when he married a Russian girl, a zealot for Orthodoxy who has turned her whole family into zealots (her brother is now studying at Jordanville after overcoming his period of rebellion). I talked to him once or twice and gave him literature, and at the last moment I was called in to be his godfather. He was to be received with Chrismation, coming from Anglicanism, on Saturday night after the Vigil. He couldn’t produce his Anglican Baptism papers, and Vladika John, who was present, after a brief examination which the poor boy didn’t pass at all, found him unprepared to be received into Orthodoxy. However, the wedding was next day. For the next half hour Vladika sat in a chair, then walked around a little, in silence, appearing to be completely absorbed in thought (but probably, rather, praying), while the rest of us stood quietly in the darkened church and an unusual thunderstorm broke out, the lightning visible through the windows — a very eerie experience. At the end he decided the boy could be received then through Chrismation, and would produce the Baptism papers the next day. I don’t know much what happened after that, except that there was an obvious conflict between the quite ordinary jazz-loving American boy and his cultured, zealous Orthodox wife. But after several months there was some kind of incident, revealing some kind of psychological disturbance, and he was in the hospital with a badly cut hand and never completely recovered the use of his fingers. Vladika John visited him in the hospital and told the family that the devil was fighting for his soul. He nonetheless recovered and was attending school, until now I am informed that he has died — how, from what, I haven’t been informed as yet. There may be some lesson from it all in the end. Anyway, I beg your prayers for the repose of his soul.

We hear that Fr. Michael has come to the Synod and has written a reply to Schmemann — who truly deserves to be brought down from his ridiculous pedestal. We’re firing one shot in this direction with our new issue. We’re anxiously awaiting Fr. Michael’s article.

The Metropolia coup is over, and after it I think the air is clearer and our own consciences clean; we did what we could, and the good ship Metropolia has shown it doesn’t want to be saved from shipwreck. Let us therefore fish out the survivors and go to war in earnest for our Holy Orthodoxy!

Warm weather has come to the mountains, and we go to our nearby creek (a mile from the post office) two or three times a week to get enough water to keep our garden growing. Our mother deer had offspring last week (I think the nest is in the tall grass to the east), and we are waiting for her to display it (or them). Our squirrels drive us crazy, and one of them is also expecting. Truly, all creatures praise the Lord, even our snakes (of whom we have faintheartedly killed several). We’ve heard nothing from Hieromonk Seraphim. We are gradually building up our “skete,” in full expectation of having it turn one day into an Orthodox refugee camp. We aren’t too close to the news here, but what we get a week later (from U.S. News) is enough to evoke suitable comparisons with 1917. The whole Metropolia affair seems to fit very nicely into the political pattern of the times; I guess that’s what comes from having your “theologians” so well attuned to the spirit of the times.

Pray for us, dear Fathers,

With love in Christ our Saviour,

Dear Father Michael [Azkoul],
In truth Christ is risen! Bless us, Father!

Many thanks for your letter. First of all — yes, we would most certainly like to see your answer to Fr. Schmemann, the sooner the better. We might even be able to substitute it for our already prepared article on Fr. S’s “liturgical theology,” which has no particular timeliness — depending on length. We ourselves thought of writing something by way of reply to that, as also to Fr. Meyendorff’s attack in Orthodox Church, but we couldn’t find the time and concentration, and then Fr. George Grabbe’s replies came out. Fr. Grabbe’s replies, while always sober and factual, are really addressed to Russians who can’t get excited about people like Frs. S & M. because they’ve long recognized them as apostates and just don’t listen to them any more. But for English-speaking people there should be a more fighting approach, I think; in English these people are “theological authorities,” and it’s up to us to prove that they aren’t. We heard just yesterday from Fr. Neketas that you had written such an article; he plans to print it together with Fr. Schmemann’s original to give the complete picture and avoid any charges of unfairness. But our circulation is probably at least double his, although I’m sure none of our outlets can come close to The Orthodox Church, which I would imagine must be 5-10,000. Diaconia does make an effort to get the whole picture and present opposing viewpoints, though I get the impression that they cull Orthodox publications and pick out the newsworthy articles rather than taking manuscripts as such.

It was our good fortune to be blissfully unaware for several years of what was being printed in The Orthodox Church, but with the Metropolia scandal we decided we had better see what they are saying. We’ve seen the last 6 issues now—and such a brand of shady, second-rate journalism is just about without peer in the Orthodox press. Quite apart from his attack on the Synod, even poor Athenagoras isn’t allowed to be represented, and then his letter is finally presented in a footnote as some kind of “mystery,” by implication a forgery. Fr. Meyendorff is apparently aware of addressing a very limited audience who can’t be trusted to distinguish the “right” point of view (evidently the party line) from any others. We’re still hoping to get the time to write him an Open Letter on this subject, with a note on its implications for their new “American Orthodoxy.”

You have confirmed our own general impression of Metropolitan Philip as a well-meaning man who unfortunately wishes to be at peace with everyone. So many of our young American priests of almost all jurisdictions go through a vague and mostly external Orthodox education and then gain parish experience mostly in how to get along with people, and they simply aren’t equipped to stand up and fight for Orthodoxy. But now — 1970 being perhaps the very year of decision, our American “watershed” for Orthodoxy — those who don’t stand up and fight, knowing what they’re fighting for and against and having the weapons to do it, just won’t be Orthodox any more.

We rejoice in your coming to the Synod. In The Orthodox Word we’ve tried not to push any too-exclusive idea of the Synod, but the logic of church history itself is forcing the role of “guardian of Orthodoxy” upon the Synod. Diaconia already speaks of the forging of a Synod-Old Calendarist “ultra-conservative alliance” against the rest of Orthodoxy, a rather politically-toned appraisal, but perhaps even useful if it leads some to investigate that there is something worth conserving in Orthodoxy. Probably you do not know many of our Russians in the Synod; my own acquaintance with them, from laymen to bishops, has persuaded me — as I just wrote to Dr. Johnstone — that they are in the main of a caliber you just don’t meet in the world, or in other Orthodox Churches, today. The stamp of faithfulness to Christ and His Church, and confessing these, is on them. Experience of the Soviets has given them an awareness, also, that you just don’t find elsewhere.

About Athenagoras-Iakovos, we have nothing at all except their occasional sermons and epistles in the Orthodox Observer. Fr. Panteleimon is undoubtedly the best source for material here. Yes, perhaps a “theological” analysis is too flattering to them, but certainly we have the right to analyze those statements and actions by means of which they are changing Orthodoxy, and show what they mean and where they lead. Perhaps this is a big order, but it would be nice to have some kind of coherent appraisal of them.

Within a week or two, God willing, we will have a linotype, and hopefully the worst part of our tortuous hand-setting days will be at an end and we can start producing more. Please keep us in your prayers.

With respect and love in Christ our Saviour,
Eugene Rose

Dear Dr. [John] Johnstone,
In truth Christ is risen!

Many thanks for your letter, the enclosed article, and the two checks for $15. The excess above your renewal we have applied to missionary-library funds; trial subscriptions have been entered for the three libraries whose addresses you sent.

We surely sympathize with you in your very difficult situation and pray that you will soon find a solution to your uncertainties. My own experience as a convert is rather the opposite of yours, as almost all the people I know in the Synod are Russians — and in the main I have found them to be such a caliber of people, from bishops to laymen — Orthodox through and through, aware of what’s going on today, and ready and willing to suffer and die for their unashamed faith — that there are just no words for it. The world does not know these people. Of course, most of them have known the Soviets at first hand, and that seems to make a difference that most “free” Orthodox just can’t imagine.

There is, of course, a language problem, but with time that is resolving itself. I was surprised recently when I stopped and counted some 30 converts at the San Francisco cathedral in the last three or four years (exclusive of those who marry into the Church) — at a cathedral where there are no English services or sermons, no priest who speaks fluent English (they all speak “passable” English, however), and no “convert” program whatever. And almost all of them are being successfully rooted into the faith. Here the language problem is obviously secondary to something else — which can be seen also in the fact that several of the most recent converts have come from the Greek Archdiocese and the Metropolia.

About the Moscow Patriarchate, by the way, contrary to common impression our Synod has never “condemned” it, reserving that judgement to a future All-Russian Sobor; but the Synod’s position is unbending that until such a Sobor there can be no communion or contact with such a dubious ecclesiastical organization. Speaking of the 1920’s, we’ve printed almost nothing yet of the available material on the schism of 1927 — when the majority was anti-Sergian, and the “Soviet Church” triumphed only because its opponents were imprisoned, murdered, and driven underground. And now the Metropolia, for the sake of the “Patriarch’s” signature, has prejudged the case of the Soviet Church and found it “canonical” — because everyone else says so! Our Synod has yet to issue its final statement on the matter, but certainly the situation of the Metropolia has become now so dubious that no further communion with it is possible. Spiritually and theologically, also, its direction is already clear — with the current of the times; and we will print several critiques of its theologians to point this out in detail.

By the way, do you know Hieromonk Seraphim of St. Tikhon’s Monastery? After his outspoken letter which Fr. Neketas published he was immediately suspended by Bp. Kiprian (on Passion Monday), who seems to be trying to exploit his monastic “humility” and “obedience” in order to extract a full retraction of things which are, after all, true! Please pray for him.

We hope to hear more from you.

With love in Christ our Saviour,

P.s. Platina is on most maps, I believe — some 45 miles west of Red Bluff on Hwy 36 (some maps show only Beegum, 5 miles east, which is no longer on the hwy). It is a wilderness area, and our conditions are appropriately “primitive” — two small cabins with no conveniences. Our former bookshop remains in San Francisco. Under such conditions we of course are not too anxious to have merely casual visitors, but those who really want to see us are welcome; but those had better notify us in advance, as we are sometimes in San Francisco for several days at a time, and it is a 100-mile round trip from the main hwy to find this out (no telephone, either). We can put up an occasional rough- and-ready male visitor overnight. As you see, we are “escaping”! If God blesses our venture, of course, there will be more provision for visitors in future.

Fr. Panteleimon visited us for several days last November, and we are just now taking advantage of his generous offer to help us buy a linotype. It’s so old that I’m afraid Father will have to pray for us every time just to get it started! Glory be to God for all things!