Your Grace, Dear Vladika Laurus,
\nBlagoslovite!<\/p>\n
Please forgive us for disturbing you once again with a \u201cproblem,\u201d but this \u201cproblem\u201d 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 and a word of encouragement.<\/p>\n
As you know, from the beginning we have given full support to our \u201cGreeks\u201d in the Synod, Frs. Panteleimon, Neketas, and others, because we have seen them to be \u201czealots\u201d of true Orthodoxy and an inspiration for others to follow. Occasionally, it is true, we have noted in Fr. Neketas\u2019 Orthodox Christian Witness some statements that seem rather \u201cnarrow,\u201d and a few completely unnecessary comments that do more harm than good (such as his comments on the Metropolia\u2019s Mexican bishop). However, we have always excused these failings, recognizing that no one is perfect and that all of us in the missionary field within our Russian Church Abroad must always be willing to forgive and defend each other and not make big issues out of points which are of secondary importance. And so we have never mentioned these things to the \u201cGreeks\u201d or tried to correct them.<\/p>\n
However, in the last few months we have become increasingly disturbed over some of the things which our \u201cGreeks\u201d have been doing and saying. At first our good friend Alexey Young began to tell us that he was very disturbed by the fact that Fr. Neketas was trying to \u201cpressure\u201d him to join his parish in Seattle (instead of going to the Russian Cathedral in San Francisco) and to tell him what he should not be printing in his periodical Nikodemos. Here I should say that from the beginning of Nikodemos Alexey has asked our advice and has even submitted articles for us to correct, and he has always (except once \u2014 which I will mention below) taken our advice. Unfortunately, he reacted rather emotionally and hastily to some things which Fr. Neketas said about \u201cevolution,\u201d and this led him to give material to his friend Sarah Hoffman, which she used in the letter which she sent to all our bishops, accusing Fr. Panteleimon, on very flimsy evidence, of \u201cheresy.\u201d This was unfortunate and due to his inexperience. Then, however, Fr. Ephraim wrote a reply to Alexey which was chiefly an excuse for him to express some of his own (or Fr. Panteleimon\u2019s) theological speculations, but he ‘did not at all answer Alexey\u2019s questions, and besides that he even dragged in Metr. Anthony\u2019s \u201cDogma of Redemption,\u201d showing that he did not at all understand the errors and dangers of the \u201cDogma.\u201d<\/p>\n
When we heard that the \u201cDogma\u201d had been mentioned, we wrote Fr. Panteleimon a letter warning him about this controversial issue, and when Fr. Panteleimon was in Seattle several months ago I went there and gave to him, with the approval of Vladika Nektary, a \u201creport\u201d on the \u201cDogma,\u201d telling him of the errors in it which have been pointed out by Archbishop Theophan of Poltava, Fr. Michael Pomazansky, and others. At the end of my \u201creport,\u201d Fr. Panteleimon acknowledged that he had not known about some of these points, but that anyway he was not really thinking of publishing anything on the subject. I went away encouraged, and from my personal contact with Frs. Panteleimon and Neketas I did not feel that they were trying to \u201cpressure\u201d anyone or \u201ctake over the convert movement,\u201d as some people have been telling us.<\/p>\n
Not long after that, however, Fr. Neketas became very upset with Alexey for publishing an article on \u201cEvolution\u201d and then the pamphlet on the \u201cHoly Shroud,\u201d and since then he has been telling everyone that Alexey is \u201cstill a Catholic\u201d and should not be supported or trusted. This has made us very sad, because we know Alexey very well and he is very willing to accept correction and to learn when he is wrong. We did not find anything wrong with the article on evolution, although of course it was much too short to say much about such a complicated subject, and it is possible to have different opinions on some aspects of the question \u2014 nonetheless we thought his approach was basically right, more so than the approach of Fr. Neketas, who seems to be more under the influence of \u201cmodern ideas.\u201d Nonetheless, even here we should all be meek and forgiving of each other, so we think, and we were simply amazed that Fr. Neketas should react so violently against the article.<\/p>\n
As for the pamphlet on the \u201cHoly Shroud,\u201d we warned Alexey that he should not print it without removing all the Roman Catholic references (\u201cStations of the Cross,\u201d etc.) but unfortunately he had already printed it before he received our letter, and of course it had a violent effect on Fr. Neketas. We ourselves do not claim to know absolutely that the Holy Shroud is genuine, but from all the evidence it seems very likely to be so, and we respect the opinion of Archimandrite Constantine and others who have accepted it; but when the Greeks shout to us that it is some kind of demons\u2019 work, we feel very uneasy, especially because so far they do not give any definite evidence to prove the fact. It seems, in fact, that their reaction is very largely emotional, based on their violent anti-Catholicism.<\/p>\n
From all that has happened in the last few months we have discovered several facts which disturb us:<\/p>\n
(1) Fr. Neketas has said that there are \u201cgreat theologians\u201d in Holy Transfiguration Monastery and that the converts should trust them and not anyone else, and certainly not anyone from the \u201cJordanville school,\u201d which Fr. Panteleimon finds to be not very Orthodox. (We suspect he is rather under the influence of Vladika Vitaly in this respect.) This point disturbs us very much, both because of the disdainful attitude which the \u201cGreeks\u201d thus show to such a truly great theologian as Fr. Michael Pomazansky, and because the \u201ctheology\u201d of Holy Transfiguration Monastery, as shown in Fr. Ephraim\u2019s letter to Alexey, does not at all seem to us to be sound, but rather fidl of self-importance, exaggerated arguments, and a very bad light-minded tone. Nonetheless, Fr. Neketas has now printed this letter for everyone to see!<\/p>\n
(2) The \u201cGreeks\u201d find \u201cCatholic influence\u201d to be everywhere, even in our great Russian Fathers such as Metr. Philaret of Moscow. But they do not know the Russian language, and their con- vert-translators are not at all familiar with the Russian theological tradition, and when they begin to tell the rest of us what is right and wrong in Russian theology, they are going to make terrible mistakes, such as they have already made regarding the \u201cDogma of Redemption,\u201d Further, they seem to be so fanatical concerning \u201cCatholic influence\u201d that they are not capable of distinguishing between small failings such as any great theologian might have, and great theological errors. To deny the importance of Metr. Philaret of Moscow, who was exactly a great champion against \u201cCatholic influence,\u201d just because of some small points which may (or may not) be influenced by Catholicism \u2014 is a terrible error and a sign of a theologically unbalanced outlook, so we believe.<\/p>\n
We already know that not all Greek \u201czealots\u201d think like Fr. Panteleimon. For example, Frs. Panteleimon and Neketas have been trying to persuade us to throw Blessed Augustine out of the Orthodox Calendar. We told them we do not have the authority to do this, and besides, we know that Vladika John has great veneration for him and celebrated the service to him every year. Nonetheless, Fr. Neketas says that he is in the Russian Calendar because of \u201cUniate influence.\u201d However, we investigated and found out that he was introduced into the Russian Calendar in the 19th century on the authority of St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite, a Greek anti-Latin zealot! We asked Fr. Theodoritos of Mt. Athos about this, and he wrote back: \u201cYes, I think Augustine must be a Saint, because St. Nikodemos placed him in the Synaxarion.\u201d Of course, we all know that Blessed Augustine had theological errors or at least wrong emphases, but that does not prevent us from paying the due reverence to him. Therefore, the \u201cfanaticism\u201d of our \u201cGreeks\u201d on this point seems entirely unnecessary and a cause of vain disputes.<\/p>\n
(3) Most of all we are disturbed because it does indeed seem to be true that our \u201cGreeks\u201d wish to \u201ctake over the converts\u201d \u2014 and now even our Russians too! We have known Fr. Panteleimon for many years and greatly respect him and his labors, but we know that he has faults, make many errors, and also that in many respects our Russian tradition (especially the Typicon of Divine Services) is much more complete than the tradition Fr. Panteleimon follows. Also, they are \u201cAmericans\u201d and have many of the typical symptoms of \u201cconverts.\u201d We feel strongly that they cannot be made the only standard for the whole Russian Church and not even for all converts. That would be very dangerous for them and for everyone. We have already noted that their \u201cauthoritative\u201d attitude has been very discouraging for a number of converts whom we know, \u2014 that is, for those who do not want to have Fr. Panteleimon for their \u201cstarets.\u201d (We also are very much afraid of the possibility of \u201cfalse starchestvo\u201d in him, because we have seen several suspicious cases of people who have been under his influence.) Our \u201cGreeks\u201d are very \u201cintellectual,\u201d but we feel that they do not understand much of the \u201cwisdom of the heart\u201d which some of our simple Russian batyushkas have, even though they may not be \u201cgreat theologians.\u201d<\/p>\n
Please forgive this long letter, dear Vladika. We very much hope to receive from you a letter telling us what you think of all this. We feel that some kind of disaster may be coming in the future because of these things, which would effect not only our converts but Russians also. Please tell us what you think.<\/p>\n
By God\u2019s grace we are well and working hard and peacefully. Br. Laurence has been with us for two months now and is struggling.<\/p>\n
We beg again your blessing and prayers.<\/p>\n
With respect and love in Christ,
\nSeraphim, monk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Your Grace, Dear Vladika Laurus, Blagoslovite! Please forgive us for disturbing you once again with a \u201cproblem,\u201d but this \u201cproblem\u201d 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 […]<\/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-1291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1291","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=1291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1291\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}