(St. Hermogenes of Moscow)<\/p>\n
Dear Father Laurence,<\/p>\n
May the blessing of the Lord be with you!<\/p>\n
Thank you for the news and the copies of Fr. Lev’s letters. We have heard from Fr. Herman from Athens, Thessalonica, and Karyes; but no word yet whether he will be able to stay more than four days. The Metropolitan of Thessalonica gave him the permit with no difficulty.<\/p>\n
We too are sick of the \u201cpolarization\u201d in the Church; I think a better name for it is \u201cpolitics\u201d and \u201cparty-line\u201d\u2014the rest of us don\u2019t want to be \u201cpolarized\u201d and are content to leave the party-line to itself. I once thought that the Party would gradually mellow and come together with the rest of us; but now I\u2019m inclined to think that the silly extremisms are necessary to the Party in the same way that atheism can\u2019t be separated from communism: once you take them away a person might begin to think for himself on other points also, and then the party discipline is ruined. It is so silly (but also so tragic) that even \u201ctheologians\u201d and \u201cThDs\u201d think so much in terms of prepared slogans and cliches and refuse to look at things with an open mind. The Shroud of Turin is indeed a very interesting question to anyone willing to look at the evidence; there are some difficulties and \u201choles\u201d in the evidence, but also much that is persuasive. There is a new book (by Ian Wilson in England) that explains the \u201cmissing links\u201d in the Shroud\u2019s history by hypothesizing that it is actually the same as the Image not Made with Hands, and that it wasn\u2019t until the 11th or 12th century that it became generally known that the folded-over image was actually the whole body and not just the face. This theory seems rather plausible to me, but unfortunately he has no very solid evidence to back it up, just circumstantial evidence. Probably there will never be \u201ccertainty\u201d on this question\u2014but the very fact that someone like Fr. Constantine of Jordanville should accept the Shroud so wholeheartedly is already enough to silence any arrogant denials of its authenticity\u2014at least for those who are sensitive and respectful of opinions outside one\u2019s own circle (a rare quality nowadays, which is itself a symptom of the lowness of our church life).<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, the many \u201cdisciples\u201d and would-be \u201ctheologians\u201d who surround Party Headquarters with adulation make it all the more difficult for the party people to break out of the mold. Perhaps the best hope is when individual party members are placed out in the \u201creal world\u201d of non- party members and are forced to become more realistic and less doctrinaire. From what we hear, this has been happening to Fr. Alexis in England, although it remains to be seen how free he will actually become, especially since the rest of the Church seems so passive with regard to the doings of the Party.<\/p>\n
About life after death: Yes, I think that the experiences of the \u201csectarians and idiots\u201d should be taken seriously, because the experiences are obviously real, and while on the one hand they confirm what Orthodox sources say about the first moments of death (and thus give an opportunity for some people to find out about and accept the whole Orthodox teaching), on the other they most logically point to a non-Orthodox conclusion about life after death. The object of our articles is to place them in the whole context of Orthodox teaching, and incidentally to set forth this teaching in detail. Our model is Bishop Ignaty Brianchaninov\u2019s volume III, where he speaks in detail of the Roman Catholic teaching in order to set forth the Orthodox teaching. Many of our Orthodox people, I think, have very vague notions about this teaching\u2014as witness the support some of the parishes are giving to Fr. Lev\u2019s lecture on the subject, which, judging from what I have seen, is far from the Orthodox teaching and falls into several of the Roman Catholic pitfalls which Bp. Ignatius warns against. Even after all the Patristic citations in our article on the toll-houses, and Fr. Michael Pomazansky\u2019s article on the same subject, Fr. Lev continues to repeat his Schmemannisms about the toll-houses, and people like Fr. Neketas support him. This, by the way, is what I think is Fr. Neketas\u2019 weakest point\u2014not so much that he joins \u201cbandwagons\u201d as that he is a 100% party-man and refuses even to look at evidence that contradicts the party line. (Although from what I hear lately, Fr. Panteleimon himself is not so much against the toll-houses any more; but evidently the party hasn\u2019t heard this.) I\u2019m sorry if We ourselves have given the impression of jumping of a \u201cbandwagon\u201d; but is this really such a sin, if what one says is accurate and relevant?<\/p>\n
Fr. Alexey Young is off to a good start in the Medford mission\u2014please pray for him, as it will be difficult. God sends His grace, but the odds against any kind of spiritual life today are so strong. Fortunately, there are quiet workers like him here and there, and the Church is not yet\u00b7, entirely swallowed up by politics.<\/p>\n
May God give you strength to bear your cross with courage. For a little struggle, God gives a great reward. Please pray for us.<\/p>\n
With love in Christ,
\nUnworthy Hieromonk Seraphim<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(St. Hermogenes of Moscow) Dear Father Laurence, May the blessing of the Lord be with you! Thank you for the news and the copies of Fr. Lev’s letters. We have heard from Fr. Herman from Athens, Thessalonica, and Karyes; but no word yet whether he will be able to stay more than four days. The […]<\/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-1444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1444","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=1444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1444\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}