Dear Dr. [John] Johnstone,
\nIn truth Christ is risen!<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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 \u2014 and in the main I have found them to be such a caliber of people, from bishops to laymen \u2014 Orthodox through and through, aware of what\u2019s going on today, and ready and willing to suffer and die for their unashamed faith \u2014 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 \u201cfree\u201d Orthodox just can\u2019t imagine.<\/p>\n
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) \u2014 at a cathedral where there are no English services or sermons, no priest who speaks fluent English (they all speak \u201cpassable\u201d English, however), and no \u201cconvert\u201d program whatever. And almost all of them are being successfully rooted into the faith. Here the language problem is obviously secondary to something else \u2014 which can be seen also in the fact that several of the most recent converts have come from the Greek Archdiocese and the Metropolia.<\/p>\n
About the Moscow Patriarchate, by the way, contrary to common impression our Synod has never \u201ccondemned\u201d it, reserving that judgement to a future All-Russian Sobor; but the Synod\u2019s 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\u2019s, we\u2019ve printed almost nothing yet of the available material on the schism of 1927 \u2014 when the majority was anti-Sergian, and the \u201cSoviet Church\u201d triumphed only because its opponents were imprisoned, murdered, and driven underground. And now the Metropolia, for the sake of the \u201cPatriarch\u2019s\u201d signature, has prejudged the case of the Soviet Church and found it \u201ccanonical\u201d \u2014 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 \u2014 with the current of the times; and we will print several critiques of its theologians to point this out in detail.<\/p>\n
By the way, do you know Hieromonk Seraphim of St. Tikhon\u2019s 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 \u201chumility\u201d and \u201cobedience\u201d in order to extract a full retraction of things which are, after all, true! Please pray for him.<\/p>\n
We hope to hear more from you.<\/p>\n
With love in Christ our Saviour,<\/p>\n
P.s. Platina is on most maps, I believe \u2014 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 \u201cprimitive\u201d \u2014 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 \u201cescaping\u201d! If God blesses our venture, of course, there will be more provision for visitors in future.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s so old that I\u2019m afraid Father will have to pray for us every time just to get it started! Glory be to God for all things!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}