Dear Alexey,<\/p>\n
David brought us Nina\u2019s note saying that she wants to send copies of Fr. John\u2019s letter to Fr. George Grabbe and Fr. Panteleimon; and she is confused about whether to send also an \u201cinvitation\u201d to Fr. John with the letters. Good heavens! If she is going to go on like this there is sure disaster ahead. How would you like Fr. Panteleimon as the \u201coverseer\u201d of your community?\u2014that is what is coming if Fr. John comes. (Nina told us that Fr. Neketas is strongly agitating to get all the \u201cAmerican\u201d parishes into a separate organization.)<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve sent her a letter bawling her out, and most of all for treating her own bishop as a mere figurehead who \u201cdoesn\u2019t understand\u201d the needs of Americans, etc. Vladika Anthony does not want Fr. John in his diocese right now, and his reasons are better than Nina suspects. Don\u2019t let her get you embroiled in her \u201cconvert syndrome\u201d with all its problems. I told her that she has no right to usurp the bishop\u2019s rights by \u201carranging\u201d priests for his diocese\u2014that is his affair and it should go only through him.<\/p>\n
With Vladika Averky’s repose, Laurence\u2019s departure (probably as soon as Fr. Herman comes back), and the three young converts (including David) who have visited us this week\u2014I sigh and think, is it worth it to get across the real understanding of Orthodoxy, when there are so many now who \u201cknow better,\u201d and the ones who don\u2019t are as weak as spaghetti? Or maybe, as our young Thomas once brightly suggested: If everyone else thinks differently, then maybe we\u2019re really wrong? But then I think of Vladika Averky, Fr. Michael Pomazansky, and all that older generation that is now almost gone\u2014and I want to weep for the young \u201cknow-it-alls\u201d that have missed the point. But the understanding comes only through suffering, and how many can do that?<\/p>\n
Pray for us. We trust in God and the prayers of Vladika John.<\/p>\n
With love in Christ,
\nSeraphim, monk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear Alexey, David brought us Nina\u2019s note saying that she wants to send copies of Fr. John\u2019s letter to Fr. George Grabbe and Fr. Panteleimon; and she is confused about whether to send also an \u201cinvitation\u201d to Fr. John with the letters. Good heavens! If she is going to go on like this there is […]<\/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-1390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1390","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=1390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1390\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}