Dear Brother in Christ Laurence,<\/p>\n
Congratulations on your namesday! May God grant you to grow with each year in Christian virtues and attain in the end to His eternal Kingdom!<\/p>\n
Enclosed is our official epistle to you to help you make up your mind about joining us. What does it say to your heart?<\/p>\n
Fr. Fyodor s being so upset is apparently significant of something; he complained also to Deacon Nicholas. As for giving advice, he asked for it, telling Fr. Herman that he was dissatisfied where he was, that he had a chance to go to Vlad. Vitaly, or maybe he would join us, and what did Fr. Herman think? Fr. Herman’s reply was by no means unkind or sharp, but it was very definitely based on the idea that we could not possibly ask someone to travel 3000 miles to our primitive conditions when he was no more than casually (if at all) interested in what we are doing. Fr. Herman suggested that he read several issues of the OW if he wanted to know what makes our community \u201ctick,\u201d but that probably he would find himself more at home with Vlad. Vitaly’s Russian-oriented work. That Fr. Fyodor could get so upset at this leads one to suspect that he indeed did have in mind just what he told you: that he, being experienced (?) in monasticism, wanted to come and \u201crun the show.\u201d<\/p>\n
But of course he is correct when he says that what we are doing is \u201cirregular\u201d \u2014 from the point of view of the prevailing Russian Church practice. There are, however, plentiful precedents from the lives of Saints \u2014 St. Sergius, for example \u2014 for going to the wilderness to save your soul. \u201cEstablishing a monastery\u201d is another matter, but we did not come here with the intention of \u201cestablishing a monastery,\u201d and in fact we\u2019ve had nothing but trouble since Vladika A. \u201cestablished a monastery\u201d for us; but if this is what God wills and the Church desires that we have, then we will fight to have a real one, and not a fake one that is just a bishop\u2019s whim, and we will fight for the genuine, independent monastic spirit and not be tempted by any barren fig trees that come around boasting of their \u201cexperience,\u201d ukases, organizational ability, or whatever.<\/p>\n
In the prevailing Russian understanding today a \u201cmonastery\u201d is a place with an incidental collection of people, with a definite function in the Church: to serve as a bishop\u2019s summer residence, picnic center, manpower pool for church needs, etc. And \u201cmonks\u201d are those people who becomes slaves, crushed by the authorities for the sake of \u201cobedience,\u201d who can be used by the church organization: the more hopeful ones as bishops, the less hopeful ones as hieromonks in parishes that can\u2019t afford anything better, and the complete fools to remain in the monastery and tend the cows. Against such a perverted idea, both of monasteries and of \u201cobedience\u201d and the monastic virtues, we emphatically protest, and if God grants us to have a real monastery here, it will fit into this \u201caccepted\u201d picture only over our dead bodies. This is what V. A. has in mind (and Vlad. Vitaly also, who recently forbade an Athonite hieromonk to reestablish the skete at Grad Kitezh or anywhere else), and this is apparently what Fr. Fyodor thinks also. In this concept \u201cmonasticism\u201d has become some kind of spiritual gymnastics (pokloni, obediences, etc.) which can be acquired by living for a while in a \u201cmonastery\u201d and once you have it you can become an incidental member of any other \u201cmonastery\u201d and offer others the fruit of your gymnastic experience \u2014 in the meantime rising in the hierarchy of church ranks until, if you\u2019re lucky, you become a bishop and you can run your own show. No! Monasticism is a disposition and effort of the soul striving for salvation, and its coenobitic form is forged by living in community with others of the same mind and soul and coming to be one in aspiration with them, each one spurring the others on to salvation. This, from all signs, is what Fr. Panteleimon has, and the Greeks in general seem still very aware of monasticism in itself and not just as a function in the Church at the mercy of bishops. Fr. Neketas was shocked when we spoke to him of Fr. Panteleimon as a candidate for bishop; an abbot isn\u2019t supposed to be \u201cpromoted\u201d to bishop, but remain where he is for life; and if Fr. Panteleimon did become a bishop, except in an extreme emergency, he would lose all respect in Greece.<\/p>\n
This concept, however, seems to be dying out among Russians, certainly among bishops.<\/p>\n
Concerning your quitting your job: it would doubtless be best for your peace of mind (\u201ceconomic security\u201d) if you took a \u201cleave of absence,\u201d preserving the right to return to your job; this would be normal and we would not regard it as a lack of faith in us or anything of the sort. However, in this way you would not get your retirement money and so would not be able to take your trip?? or maybe a shorter trip?? Decide what is wisest, by normal human standards.<\/p>\n
This will be background for the accompanying epistle. We hope to see you on Uspeniye, when you will see the fantastic invention being put into operation for us by our Redding Orthodox neighbors.<\/p>\n
With love in Christ,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear Brother in Christ Laurence, Congratulations on your namesday! May God grant you to grow with each year in Christian virtues and attain in the end to His eternal Kingdom! Enclosed is our official epistle to you to help you make up your mind about joining us. What does it say to your heart? Fr. […]<\/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-1215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1215","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=1215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1215\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}