Dear Brother in Christ, Alexey, Greetings on the Feast of our Lord’s Epiphany! Many thanks for your letter and the tapes, and especially your transcription of the Dogmatic Theology. We’ve just glanced at the latter, and in general the idea of the footnotes is very good. Yes, such a book is very needed; I’ve just

Dear Brother in Christ Alexey, A brief note to accompany a new tape of Pomazansky — he just wrote us, by the way, that he’s happy to hear we’ve begun the translation and would very much like to live to see it completed! May it be so, and may God give us the way to

Dear Father Ephraim, Evologeite! Greetings on the Feast of the Most Holy Theotokos. We read with joy your recent letter to us, and pray that the Elder is recovering well. May God preserve him for many years of fruitful labors in Christ’s vineyard. What we’ve been hearing about the recent Sobor doesn’t strike us too

Dear Brother in Christ, Alexey, Greetings in our Lord Jesus Christ. We received the two sections on Evolution. “Christian Evolutionism” I read over hastily, and it looks good — probably we can leave any final revisions until the whole article is ready for final form. The “scientific” part, however, Father Herman and I read together

St. Athanasius of Brest Dear Sister in Christ, Nina, Greetings in our Lord Jesus Christ, and on the approaching feast of the Nativity of the Theotokos. Rejoice! We don’t know Maria [Kraft] well, and don’t know what you’ve been going through with her. But: unless you are very strong and know very well what you

Dear Brother in Christ, Alexey, Greetings in our Lord Jesus Christ. Enclosed finally is my re-doing of the chapter on “Christian Evolutionism,” incorporating come suggestions of Father Herman. I think we have finally come to the “next-to-last” version of this part. I think the whole flow of what we want to say is here, with

Dear Dr. Johnstone, Greetings in our Lord Jesus Christ. Concerning Luke Walmsley, we have received from Fr. Neketas two letters (copies) which Luke has recently written him, which are probably similar to the ones you have received. Yes, he writes of experiences which are quite “unusual” — but alas! they are quite true. I will

Dear Michael [Farnsworth], Greetings in our Lord Jesus Christ. My child, you are deceiving yourself and going the way of perdition. I will not be falsely “kind” and hide this fact from you. You talk about helping others, but you are leading them to perdition. Do you know how much John d’Anci wept when he

Dear Sister in Christ, Nina, Rejoice in the Lord! Forgive our silence. Things have been very busy. How did you know we were in San Francisco? Actually, it was just Tommy and myself, and we did nothing but pick up the printing press which some Russians gave us (mysterious people, some kind of private detective),

Dear Brother in Christ Alexey, Greetings in our Lord Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God, we spent the feast days well, joined by a pilgrim Fr. Neketas sent us, in addition to Thomas and John Kraft. (That boy has problems; what he will be in 6 years we dread to think.) We’ve looked at the

Dear Sister in Christ, Nina, Greetings in our Lord Jesus Christ. We (at least I) have still not recovered from the events of the last two weeks or so. Wednesday Vladika Nektary came to us with the Kursk Icon, a moving experience for us all; and then I accompanied the Icon to Etna, where it

Dear Brother in Christ, Luke [Walmsley], Rejoice in our Lord Jesus Christ! This will be brief, as our summer season is on and we are busier that ever — 19 pilgrims in one day! Still, we thank God, as so far all our pilgrims come for spiritual reasons and there are no “tourists.” Even though

Dear Dr. Kalomiros, Greetings in our Lord Jesus Christ. We haven’t heard from you since we sent our letter to you on Evolution. Did you receive it? Please let us know. We would very much like to hear your comments, either on the whole letter or on individual points. Since writing it, I have looked

Dear Brother in Christ, Alexey, We were glad to hear of your joyous Pascha and the spiritual profit from these holy days for the Etna Orthodox community. Do not worry about the increased responsibilities and new souls that come your way; God will not send you more burdens than you can bear, and what can

Dear Sister in Christ, Nina, Here I promised you an “epistle” in Bright Week, and I’m sending you instead half an epistle the next week. Please forgive my negligence and pray for me and us all so that we won’t be entirely fruitless servants of Christ our risen Saviour. Glory be to God, the last

Dear Sister in Christ, Nina, Rejoice in the Lord! Will try to answer your questions one at a time. Concerning particular questions like job, people problems — individually they aren’t important and they really can’t be solved one at a time. Instead, try to keep the whole picture in mind. Where is your heart? If

Dear Brother in Christ, Alexey, Greetings in our Lord Jesus Christ, We have started the new Orthodox Word, so typing on my letter to Kalomiros is just beginning. We just spent four evenings, after evening trapeza, listening to the whole Kalomiros letter and then my reply. I can safely say that the whole Brotherhood was

Dear Brother in Christ, Alexey, Greetings in our Lord Jesus Christ. I pray this has found you successfully laboring after three weeks of the fast. After the labor of fasting, what joy in the week of Pascha! (The services are also very short — how wise the Church is with our fallen nature!) I have

Dear Dr. Kalomiros, Greetings in our Lord Jesus Christ. We have received your letter concerning “evolution,” for which we thank you very much. I have read it, trying, as you said, to remove all Western conceptions from my mind. I hope, if God gives me the strength, to study your points carefully and write you

Dear Brother in Christ, Alexey, Greetings in our Lord Jesus Christ. We received yesterday the long-awaited epistle of Dr. Kalomiros on “evolution” — 40 pages long! I must confess that it is shocking beyond our expectations — giving the “evolutionary” teaching quite unadorned and unqualified, complete with the “evolved beast Adam” and “he who denies

[Fragment of letter to Alexey Young, p. 3 only]: Fr. P. mentioned a little the question of evolution (I didn’t mention your forthcoming article on the subject), enough for me to see his basic attitude and fears, I think. His concern about “fundamentalism” seems to stem from a fear that the Orthodox battle against evolutionism

Dear Sister in Christ, Nina, Greetings in our Lord Jesus Christ. From the sound of your letters, you are in need of an “epistle.” I really can’t give it, but being a like-minded American Orthodox dreamer, I must give you at least a paragraph or two. Yes, the Church situation in San Francisco is gloomy,

Dear Alexey — Just a note to go with the Teilhard article — I think it was Sarah who sent it to us, but maybe it was you; in any case you might as well keep it in your “evolution” file. It is well done but, of course, “unpublishable,” as she says. Most people will

Dear Brother in Christ, Alexey, Greetings in our Lord Jesus Christ in Whom rejoice! Here are some more notes on evolution, specifically your chapters which we are returning herewith. II. Chapter on the “context”: too broad, and in the wrong place. The study should begin with a “bang” (after the Preface, which should be written

Dear Brother in Christ, Alexey, Greetings in our Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, our mountain was rather drenched with rain also, and all that snow that Nina and Barbara trudged through was washed away in less than two days! For a day or so all the bridges between us and the Sacramento Valley were under water,