CHRIST IS RISEN!
\nDear Father Neketas,<\/p>\n
Evlogeite! It was good to hear from you again, even if some of the news is bad. But it is all our common sorrow, and only emphasizes how careful we must walk these days, and how close the small flock of Christ must be bound together in mutual love and concern.<\/p>\n
My how the Metropolia must be hurting to come out with such an irrational attack! One almost feels sorry for them \u2014 the Greeks don\u2019t recognize them, their patron Moscow is being discredited everywhere, and the Synod kidnaps her own people by \u201cfanaticism.\u201d Nonetheless, one cannot forgive them for one thing: they call themselves Orthodox; and so we have to keep speaking the truth! And my, Father George is a real fighter, isn\u2019t he! That\u2019s refreshing, even though we wouldn\u2019t use just the same approach ourselves \u2014 but they won\u2019t forgive him for it!<\/p>\n
We haven\u2019t heard about Father Lev\u2019s and Vassily\u2019s troubles. But frankly, we\u2019ve been rather concerned about them for some time, seeing in some of their actions and letters many of the symptoms of an all-too-often fatal convert\u2019s disease: overly-critical, \u201cknow-better\u201d attitude, somewhat flippant tone, frequent running about, hypersensitivity, etc. When Father Lev was ordained, our concern only increased, because if these symptoms are accurate then ordination might be just the fatal step from which it\u2019s impossible to turn back and be just an \u201cordinary Christian\u201d again. But all these speculations don\u2019t help the situation; we can only pray for them and ask God\u2019s mercy for us all. Any more news of them?<\/p>\n
The April Logos brings yet a stronger dose of Pentecostalism, and some of their defenses against the arguments you and others have been raising; which helps us strengthen our own article. Fr. Eusebius\u2019 \u201ccharismatic\u201d experience is not nearly as spectacular as many others\u2019, and in fact seems to belong more to the category of Protestant-revival type emotional release than to some of the darker aspects of the \u201ccharismatic\u201d movement. Frankly, I doubt that he\u2019s had the full \u201cBaptism in the spirit,\u201d because in \u201ccharismatic\u201d literature it\u2019s unheard of for someone who wants \u201ctongues\u201d not to get it if they\u2019re really \u201cbaptized.\u201d Our article will be quite strong, as it becomes increasingly evident that the movement could become widespread \u2014 the necessary conditions are all present in the \u201cAmerican\u201d jurisdictions. And who is the Synod priest Emmert mentions as having \u201cadvised\u201d him? We fear it sounds like Fr. James Griffiths, about whom we\u2019ve been receiving alarming indications of late. Both Emmert and Monios, by the way, have recently become subscribers to Orth. Word.<\/p>\n
We received a good letter recently from Fr. Michael Dudas in Florida (Metropolia), who gets your Witness (and agrees \u201c90 per cent\u201d with it), and sees through Eusebius very well.<\/p>\n
The True Vine\u00b7. We were waiting for your comments before giving ours, but we\u2019ll go ahead anyway! Laurence Campbell sent us a copy of his letter to Vladika Vitaly \u2014 it displays of course his usual lack of tact! Also it pays perhaps undue attention to some small points which in all charity could be overlooked. However \u2014 it\u2019s doubtless very disrespectful of us! \u2014 we find its bluntness rather refreshing and perhaps even useful for the common task, entering as it does a context where the expected response is \u201cYes, yes, very good,\u201d etc. (while in the meantime one says what one really thinks behind the scenes where the \u201cofficial\u201d people don\u2019t hear). And frankly, considering the material which Vlad. Vitaly had to work with, the first issue really is a disgrace. Knowing Vlad. Vitaly and his Russian publications (the article on \u201cEcumenism\u201d is a rather notable exception) we expected something like this; and in fact I told Fr. Herman sometime before the first issue appeared: \u201cif he puts a Dore on the cover, it\u2019s the last straw! That will crush the Greeks and converts!\u201d Mercifully, he saved his Dore for an inside page! We will make three frank comments:<\/p>\n
(1) The editor does not have the feeling for what\u2019s going on: what inspires converts, iconographic taste, the approach to the whole subject of mission. The periodical is not conceived as a missionary publication; it is an immigrant jurisdictional publication, Victorian in taste, the contents of which are entirely incidental and do not point up a single theme or point of view. Its power to inspire is zero.<\/p>\n
(2) The \u201cEditorial Staff\u201d cannot possibly be responsible for this! We heard Fr. Panteleimon was to be in charge of art \u2014 if so, he should be fired immediately! It would seem that whatever advice the \u201ceditorial staff\u201d gave was not listened to very seriously \u2014 on the principle, most likely, that the \u201cbishop knows best.\u201d Do you know how Vlad. Vitaly referred to The True Vine in his Diocesan bulletin in Russian? \u2014 \u201cunder the editorship of Archbp. Vitaly with the cooperation of the most outstanding theologians of true Orthodoxy.\u201d This all sounds to us suspiciously as though advantage is being taken of the \u201ceditorial staff\u201d in order to put across something they don\u2019t entirely sympathize with! They don\u2019t claim to be \u201coutstanding theologians\u201d at all; they are zealots of Orthodoxy \u2014 but \u201ctheologians\u201d sounds more important and official!<\/p>\n
Saturday
\nSt. George the Great Martyr
\n(What a wonderful text to his service \u2014 full of Pascha and spring! But too difficult to translate because of all the variations \u2014 until we finally have our English Paschal Triodion. So much for us all to do!)<\/p>\n
Since beginning this we\u2019ve received your note, which seems to confirm the first two points above. But it\u2019s the next point that\u2019s most disturbing to us.<\/p>\n
(3) We\u2019ve known for years that Vlad. Vitaly does not approve of the \u201cJordanville ideology,\u201d that (at least 10 years ago when Fr. Herman visited him) he purposely does not even receive Orthodox Russia, that at the Synod\u2019s 50th anniversary celebrations he spoke of the need not only for an English publication but also for a Russian one \u201cbecause there is no satisfactory Orthodox publication in Russian\u201d (approximate quotation). (We also have our complaints about Orth Russia \u2014 but nonetheless it\u2019s fully Orthodox, has its definite function in our common Orthodox task, and now that Fr. Constantine is failing in health we dread to think of any conceivable alternative to it; many people are \u201ctired of Antichrist\u201d \u2014 but the subject is precisely becoming most relevant right now!) We know also that despite his many words about the need for English publications, Vlad. Vitaly has never even mentioned in his Russian publications or in his small correspondence with us (except to grant us permission to translate and print his article) either Orthodox Life or Orth Word \u2014 the reason in our case being apparently, as he once told a friend of ours, that we have \u201cgone overboard\u201d on the subject of Archbishop John, with whom his differences were apparently not merely personal, but seem to involve a whole different orientation to Orthodox life and mission.<\/p>\n
And now in The True Vine we find that no other Synodal publication is mentioned (except for the Witness, which is not however identified). Further, the lengths he goes to avoid using the word \u201cJordanville\u201d are truly astonishing: he lifts a whole article from OL without a word as to source; he reprints \u201cFeofil\u201d and barely manages to say \u201cHoly Trinity Monastery\u201d (but not \u201cJordanville\u201d); he \u201csteals\u201d the whole translation, word for word (and it is still in print!) of \u201cSt. Mary of Egypt\u201d from Jordanville (and he sets it up again himself, while one of his priests tells us that his English-language publications have cost him a great deal of effort), and goes out of his way to say that he \u201cencountered it in the English language\u201d!!! Likewise the \u201cNew Martyrs\u201d gives no credit to Jordanville.<\/p>\n
All this is quite distressing to us, because it shows a total and evidently deliberate setting aside of the \u201ccommon task\u201d which the rest of us have been working and sweating over for some years now. It is almost as if, now that the \u201cofficial\u201d publication has come, all the rest of us \u201cunofficial\u201d laborers in the vineyard can quietly retire, or perhaps pay our dues to the central organization!<\/p>\n
Well, we don\u2019t want to upset you, which is also why before The True Vine came out we never mentioned to you or others our fears about VI. V. We have always placed the common missionary and Orthodox cause for which were all working above every kind of personal difference or suspicion, and will continue to do so. But it is essential for all of us for whom this cause is not merely an \u201cofficial\u201d assignment, but our very life\u2019s blood, to be aware of certain tendencies and dangers. Judging from the first issue we personally doubt that The True Vine will ever amount to much, and very , likely it will more or less die out by the third or fourth (increasingly tardy) issue \u2014 unless a real \u201cofficial\u201d campaign is made for it and it becomes fully subsidized. In any case, the \u201cunofficial\u201d labors of the rest of us become all the more important!<\/p>\n
About this whole thing there are other points we would like to mention, but we will save them until we see you personally. The ground is a little dangerous!<\/p>\n
Concerning 2nd Sorrowful Epistle: By all means keep the St. Nectarios masthead on, and we won\u2019t need over 100 copies at most. We\u2019ll give your address, but some just might find it easier to order from us.<\/p>\n
We haven\u2019t seen the reviews of The True Vine by Dr. Johnstone or Fr. Photios. Where are they?<\/p>\n
Good for our confessor Polycarp! But what a sad situation it reveals! We dread to think of how typical it might be. Thank God for you Greeks, who are forcing some of our Russians to take steps they otherwise might not have thought of for some time. (But don\u2019t tell that to Basil \u2014 rather Vassillyy!) \u2014 who when you mentioned something like that to him before almost accused us of selling out to the Greeks!)<\/p>\n
We will be very happy to see you and your parishioners in June. We will be here all the time, God willing, except on July 2.<\/p>\n
Monday we start setting up our \u201ccharismatic\u201d article \u2014 our biggest bombshell to date, and it really contains our whole missionary confession of faith. Please pray for us that we can see it through to completion, and that it will open some eyes to the truth!<\/p>\n
With love in Christ our Saviour,
\nSeraphim, monk<\/p>\n
P.s. We\u2019ll write the Governor \u2014 \u201cobedience\u201d! What texts did you send him?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CHRIST IS RISEN! Dear Father Neketas, Evlogeite! It was good to hear from you again, even if some of the news is bad. But it is all our common sorrow, and only emphasizes how careful we must walk these days, and how close the small flock of Christ must be bound together in mutual love […]<\/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-1263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1263","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=1263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1263\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}