Dear Alexey,<\/p>\n
We greet you on the Feast and pray this finds you well and in good spirits before your long pilgrimage.<\/p>\n
The events and revelations of recent months have driven us to some sober thoughts, in particular about the future. In reading the new Boston epistle to Metr. Anthony Bloom (which is, of course, mostly \u201ccorrect,\u201d as usual, but wrong in tone), only one thought stands out: this is a rehearsal for a very similar epistle to our own bishops! They feel themselves so strong and \u201csassy\u201d now that it is obviously only a matter of time before they weary of the \u201cincorrectness\u201d and \u201cinconsistency\u201d of our bishops in not breaking off communion formally with all the Orthodox Churches. Doubtless they are already furious with us for revealing to the world in our new Orthodox Word that we have not broken with them\u2014we will just have to get an Open Letter for that! \u201cZealotry\u201d is definitely in the air now, has even become the fashion in the English-speaking wing of our Church, and the more moderate position of our bishops will now come to seem intolerable to those who think \u201clogically.\u201d All of which raises questions for us: where do we stand now? Where do we go from here?<\/p>\n
We cannot follow the line of \u201cBoston Orthodoxy\u201d\u2014which is actually a kind of right wing of \u201cParisian Orthodoxy\u201d\u2014a \u201creformed\u201d Orthodoxy which happens to be mosdy \u201ccorrect,\u201d but is actually just as much outside the tradition of Orthodoxy as is Paris, just as much the creation of human logic. A terrible temptation for our times\u2014but most of the converts will probably be drawn into it. The rest of us will remain with our \u201csimple\u201d and \u201cunsophisticated\u201d and \u201ctheologically inept\u201d Russian bishops. We fear that all our articles about \u201czealotry\u201d in the past years have helped to produce a monster! For the future we will have to emphasize the \u201cfeel\u201d of Orthodoxy, without which zealotry is empty and even harmful.<\/p>\n
The \u201cright wing\u201d of Orthodoxy will probably be divided into many small \u201cjurisdictions\u201d in future, most of them anathematizing and fighting with the others. If only our Russian Church Abroad can stay whole and on a sound path, not inclining to the \u201cleft\u201d as a reaction against the \u201czealot\u201d wing\u2014it will be enough for us. We must keep up the living contact with the older Russian clergy, even if some of them may seem to us a little too \u201cliberal\u201d\u2014otherwise we will become lost in the \u201czealot\u201d jungle which is growing up around us! First of all, of course, our instructors must be the giants of that older generation: Vladika John, Vladika Averky, and those like them. Vladika Nektary is the most precious of that generation remaining to us\u2014may God preserve him yet for many years! Vladika Laurus is also very precious to us\u2014because, despite perhaps some \u201ctheoretical\u201d shortcomings, he has several invaluable qualities: simplicity, honesty, \u201cunpoliticalness\u201d (despite being in the center of the Synod!), and being a litde \u201cnot of this world.\u201d The Boston party hates him and laughs at him\u2014but for all their \u201cwisdom\u201d and money, they will never have those qualities he has. By the way, Vladika Laurus was just elected Abbot at Jordanville; may God preserve him for many years and give him wisdom!<\/p>\n
We who wish to remain in the true tradition of Orthodoxy will have to be zealous and firm in our Orthodoxy without being fanatics, and without presuming to teach our bishops what they should do. Above all we must strive to preserve the true fragrance of Orthodoxy, being at least a little \u201cnot of this world,\u201d detached from all the cares and politics even of the Church, nourishing ourselves on the other-worldly food the Church gives us in such abundance. Elder Macarius well says in a letter (in his Life which we have just published\u2014the copies arrived Saturday from Taiwan): \u201cFanaticism limits a man\u2019s way of thinking, but true faith gives him freedom. This freedom is revealed by the firmness of a man in all possible cases of happiness and unhappiness.\u201d That freedom is the sign of our Orthodoxy; that is precisely why the \u201cJosephites\u201d separated from Sergius in 1927: not for \u201cincorrect ecclesiology\u201d or violation of canons, but because he deprived the Church of the thing most precious to her: her internal freedom. But to see this one must have the savor of Orthodoxy\u2014let us not lose it!<\/p>\n
Please pray for us in the weeks ahead, and especially on the day of Vladika John\u2019s repose (especially during the Liturgy in the Sepulchre, between 6 and 8 a.m. our time). We feel very crucial times ahead for us and our whole Church, and we want to ask Vladika John very fervently now just what we should do, how we should proceed. By his prayers may we stay on the right path and stay firm in the midst of the temptations ahead!<\/p>\n
With love in Christ our Saviour,
\nSeraphim, monk<\/p>\n
P.s. Greetings to Susan on her approaching namesday!<\/p>\n
P.p.s. We will be very interested in your impressions of your meeting with Andrew Bond. Perhaps you will have a chance to meet some other converts there too. There is Father Yves in London, and also a Hierodeacon Nikan Wilkans with a chapel of St. Alban somewhere. Of course you will have to be careful not to \u201ctake sides\u201d in the argument there! We have written a letter to Andrew expressing approval of his anti-fanaticism and trying to console him for the \u201cBoston encyclical\u201d he received; but one would like to be friendly with the \u201czealots\u201d also, hoping that they will not fall into a \u201cparty line.\u201d We are not fanatically against the \u201crebaptism\u201d of those who insist on it, in cases where the bishop approves\u2014but this should not be allowed to set a fanatical \u201ctone\u201d to our Orthodoxy, which is what shocked Andrew.<\/p>\n
David arrived last night, and God willing will be helping us in our impossible task to finish our two publications before July 2. Frankly, we have been \u201cputting him off\u201d as long as possible, knowing that only great eagerness will be able to endure\u2014not any superhuman struggles, but just the daily unglamorous round of monastic life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear Alexey, We greet you on the Feast and pray this finds you well and in good spirits before your long pilgrimage. The events and revelations of recent months have driven us to some sober thoughts, in particular about the future. In reading the new Boston epistle to Metr. Anthony Bloom (which is, of course, […]<\/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-1396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1396","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=1396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1396\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}