Dear Alexey — Greetings on the feast of our 20th-century wonderworker! I’ve been finding more patristic citations, and the “patristic notes” I sent should really be expanded into a little treatise on the Orthodox view of the creation, including the eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge — but how can you keep

Dear Brother in Christ, Alexey, Greetings in our Lord Jesus Christ. We have an extraordinary request to make of you — if it is possible and if things turn out as expected. For twenty years Fr. Herman has known a female convert to our Church on the East Coast, Nina Seco. (I’ve known her, chiefly

Dear Father Lev, Greetings in our Lord Jesus Christ. We received your note and learn with astonishment that doe Acquisition of the Holy Spirit of I. M. Kontzevitch is being printed in English, it would seem, without the widow of the author (who actually wrote half of it) even being informed of it, despite the

Dear Brother in Christ, Alexey, Greetings in our Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you for the new Nikodemos, which was full of spiritual food from first to last, including the “fillers.” May God give you the strength to continue giving this spiritual food to those who are starved for it (often without knowing it). We received

Dear Brother in Christ, Daniel [Olson], Greetings in our Lord Jesus Christ. We are glad to hear you are safe. Your letter states again your “position,” which is exactly as we understood it to be when you left. My words now, on the other hand, are intended once again, quite deliberately, to “avoid the question”

Dear Brother in Christ, Alexey, Greetings in our Lord Jesus Christ on the Feast of the Glorious Nativity of His Most Holy Mother! This is just a note to acknowledge your letters and clippings. We haven’t read the “Secret Gospel” clipping yet, so have no comments on it. Your projected “prisons” series sounds promising and

Dear Father Neketas, Evlogeite! Please forgive our long silence. This summer has been an extremely busy one for us, and our two new brothers have only increased the work we have taken on. But I will be frank and add this: your letters and attitude regarding Alexey Young have left us so shocked that we

Dear Father Ioannikios, Blagoslovite! We send you greetings on the glorious feast of our Lord s Transfiguration. Thank you for your letters and the copy of your letter to Alexey Young. We are very glad to see your sound counsel to Alexey, which I think is basically what we also have tried to tell him.

Dear Alexey — Just a short note, Fr. E s letter has sunk in a little deeper, and it makes us even more disturbed than at first. This is not an answer to anything, and is a disservice to English-speaking Orthodox Christians. Such “theology” we do not need. We thought of writing a note to

Dear Father Ioannikios, Blagoslovite! We have talked with Vladika Anthony about Vladimir Anderson, and indeed it turns out that Vladika had in mind only that Vladimir go to Jordanville to be tested, and perhaps to spend a few days there, meet the seminary instructors, etc. And so, apparently we will be mostly conducting his “course,”

Dear Brother in Christ, Alexey, Greetings in our Lord Jesus Christ. We received Fr. Ephraim’s “Open Letter” today, together with your note. Yes, we found too that he completely missed the point, and all the very nice quotes from the Fathers on the different degrees of knowledge mean nothing when one stops to realize that

Dear Brother in Christ, Alexey, Greetings in our Lord Jesus Christ. Both Fr. Herman and I read the article on Humanism and received about the same impression from it: that each point taken by itself makes sense, but that the whole article is too long, tries to include too many different citations and strands of

Your Grace, Dear Vladika Laurus, Blagoslovite! Please forgive us for disturbing you once again with a “problem,” but this “problem” is fortunately not one that concerns us personally, but is rather something more general, about which we think you are probably well aware already. We are rather upset by it, and we beg your advice

Dear Irina Constantinovna [Vagin], Christ is risen! Enclosed are two recent articles of Fr. Theodoritos, which we hope you will be able to tell us something about. The printed article is evidently directed against some “uncanonical activities” of Fr. Panteleimon concerning the Old Calendarist situation (Fr. Theodoritos supports one group of Old Calendarists, Fr. Panteleimon

Dear Sister in Christ, Sylvia, Christ is risen! It’s Sunday and apparently Vladimir isn’t coming this weekend. The new Orthodox Word is out, so I’m able to think straight for a while (we have that problem too!) so I’ll write these comments on your letter. Yes, you have problems, but they aren’t necessarily as bad

Dear Brother in Christ, Alexey, In truth Christ is risen! My letter crossed yours in the mail, but even so I think I answered most of your letter in mine already. Please forgive me if I somehow offended you in my previous hasty letter. The comment on “no letters to bishops” was written rather tongue

Dear Fr. Neketas, In truth Christ is risen! Thank you for your letter and the advice concerning “spiritual” vs. “polemical” orientation. I think on this point we are quite in agreement. We have nothing to add to our earlier letters, but we are very concerned that we have not gotten across to you the very

Dear Brother in Christ, Alexey, CHRIST IS RISEN! We trust that you and your family spent a spiritually profitable Pascha. We had a peaceful and quiet day here, after going to the “world” earlier in the week to receive Holy Communion and being there impressed by the deep spiritual bond which unites us supposed “desert-

Dear Brother in Christ, Alexey, Greetings in our Lord Jesus Christ, in Whom rejoice always! We received your new letter with the sad news, and in the same mail installment no. 2 of Fr. Neketas’ displeasure, for which I’m afraid you have given him cause (he hadn’t received our first letter yet.). We’ve written him

Dear Father Neketas, Evlogeite! My dear, my dear, what to say now?! In the same mail with your latest letter came a letter from Alexey about the “news” which he is sure will be greeted by us with “sighs and sadness” — that he decided to send out the “Shroud” article over our objections, and

Dear Father Ioannikios, Blagoslovite! Thank you for remembering us poor sinners. The subscription has been entered for the slave of God Constantine. May God hear his prayer and grant him the true grace of repentance! We feel deficient in our desire to keep in closer contact with you in your very difficult path. It seems

Dear Alexey, Just a note. We received Monday a rather shocking letter from Father Neketas expressing extreme displeasure with your “evolution” article. He apparently sent you a letter too, a copy of which he said he was enclosing in his letter to us (but he didn’t). After reading his letter, we read your article together

Dear Father Neketas, Evlogeite! We hasten to reply to your letter regarding Alexey Young and Nikodemos, which frankly caused us some astonishment. Concerning some of the points you raise we can set your mind at rest, for Alexey is quite innocent with regard to some to your fears, but I’m afraid regarding some other points

Dear Sister in Christ, Nina, Greetings in our Lord Jesus Christ. This will be mainly replies to your questions. We have no immediate plans to reprint the “charismatic” article, so Fr. Neketas is certainly welcome to do so. If no one does reprint it, later we might collect that series of articles on non-Christian religions

Dear Father Neketas, Evlogeite! We are very glad to hear your positive reply to the proposed periodical. We are very grateful for your offer to print it for us. However, the printing itself would be the least of our labors, as we would plan to print 4 pages at a time (smaller than Orth. Word),