Appeal to the hierarchs, clergy and faithful of ROCOR

DIscussion and News concerning Orthodox Churches in communion with those who have fallen into the heresies of Ecumenism, Renovationism, Sergianism, and Modernism, or those Traditional Orthodox Churches who are now involved with Name-Worshiping, or vagante jurisdictions. All Forum Rules apply. No polemics. No heated discussions. No name-calling.


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尼古拉前执事
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Appeal to the hierarchs, clergy and faithful of ROCOR

Post by 尼古拉前执事 »

An Appeal to the hierarchs, clergy and faithful children of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad

We, members of the clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, appeal to our Synod of Bishops, the clergy and the faithful.

With deep filial love and respect, we note with sorrow that storms of doubt and confusion assail the Church. We know that these storms are temporary and the Church will remain firm and steadfast.

In order to allay the fears of the clergy and faithful who may feel Isolated and alone in their confession of the Faith, we feel it necessary to voice our concerns. In regard to the proposed union with the Moscow Patriarchate, we have several points that we ask the Synod of Bishops to consider. Firstly, we must state that responsiveness to reconciliation is essential.

There could be no greater joy than that the Orthodox people of Russia and abroad should be united in truth. However, there are major obstacles to reconciliation.

The issues that have always been considerations for the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad are the glorifications of the New Martyrs and the Royal Martyrs, and involvement in the heresies of Ecumenism and Sergianism.

Also of serious consideration is the future role of the American Metropolia, known as the Orthodox Church in America. We are reminded that two resolutions, in 1971 as well as 1990, declare that we do not recognize the legitimacy of the elections, nor the actions, of the patriarchs of Moscow since the time of the betrayal of Metropolitan Sergius. These resolutions have never been rescinded. We do not recognize the Moscow Patriarchate as the “Mother Church” nor the legitimate heir to the Church of St. Tikhon and the New Martyrs.

Some of these issues have been addressed, yet others remain considerable obstacles that would preclude any intercommunion or concelebration.

Prior to intercommunion the process should be genuine and transparent. There must be not even the appearance of one sidedness or even the appearance of machination. Intercommunion is the result of one-mindedness; it does not create one-mindedness. From the Divine Liturgy we are taught to recite the Symbol of Faith before we are able to share in the Divine Body and Blood of Christ.

It would be utterly impossible for us to share in the Eucharistic Mysteries before there is complete unity of Faith, in honesty and fidelity to the legacy of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and Her God-granted mission to preserve the Truth.

Archimandrite Alexis (St. Edward’s Brotherhood)
Mitred Archpriest Vladimir Schlenew
Archpriest Nikita Chemodakov
Archpriest Sergei Okunev
Archpriest George Petrenko
Archpriest John Stukacz
Archpriest Michael Konstantinoff
Archpriest Peter Semovskih
Archpriest Gregory Williams
Archpriest Andrei Alexiev
Archpriest George Lapardin
Archpriest George Lagodich
Archpriest Basil Grisel
Archpriest Wsewolod Dutikov
Hieromonk Theophylact (Clapper-DeWell)
Priest Thomas Maretta
Priest Constantine Bussyguin
Priest Alexis Duncan
Priest George Primak
Priest Nicholas Rabbe
Priest Seraphim Stephens
Priest Vladimir Petrenko
Priest Mark Gilstrap
Priest Vladimir Tsukanov
Priest Anastasy Yatrelis
Priest Victor Dobroff
Priest Peter Baulk
Priest Christo Kralstev
Priest John Moses
Priest Onuphry Keith
Priest Leonid Goferman
Priest Michael Metni
Protodeacon Basil Yakimov
Protodeacon Basil Hadarin
Hierodeacon Sabbas (St. Edward’s Brotherhood)
Deacon Nicholas Chernjavsky
Deacon Nicholas Lukianov
Deacon Eugene Braga
Deacon Kesarii Mortari
Deacon Anthony Bridges
Deacon Vasily Milonov
Subdeacon Joseph Zurhmuehl
Subdeacon Jospeh Brinda
Reader Oleg Rodzianko
Reader Peter Bushunow
Reader John Qualls
Reader Peter Lukianov
Reader Benjamin Popov
Reader John Dunn
Reader Mark Alexiev

To add your name to this appeal, send an email indicating this to: appeal@orthodoxinfo.biz

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strastnaya
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Post by strastnaya »

This "appeal" was penned prior to the May Sobor and the issues they raised were addressed there in San Franscisco.
One wonders why at this moment when the ROCOR Synod has gone ahead with reconciliation that a deacon in the ROAC would re-post such a thing?
Face it, after Met. Lavr went to Russia it was only a matter of time for the Russian Church to come together in unity.
There are no more reasons for separation, the Church in Russia is free and those who want to remain Russian Orthodox need to be joined to the Patriarch.
In Christ,
Deacon John

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尼古拉前执事
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Post by 尼古拉前执事 »

strastnaya wrote:

One wonders why at this moment when the ROCOR Synod has gone ahead with reconciliation that a deacon in the ROAC would re-post such a thing?

Dear Fr John,

Welcome to the forum. As to why I post things, you may wish to read the disclaimer in my signature. And for the record I posted this before the publication about the ROCOR Synod approving the communion with the MP which was 2 hours later and I promptly posted it at http://EuphrosynoCcafe.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7010 .

You may want to read other articles about the MP in this World Orthodoxy section if you care to see how in many ways the MP has not changed.

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strastnaya
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Post by strastnaya »

You may want to read other articles about the MP in this World Orthodoxy section if you care to see how in many ways the MP has not changed.

Dear Fr. Dcn. Nikolai,
I know all the news and articles concerning the life of the MP.
The MP is not teaching anything other than the Orthodox faith, is spite of some of the poorer members of the body of Christ who do mess up.
The essential questions are: whether the faithful of the Russian Orthodox Church accept them as the Church and they do, and whether the rest of the churches of Orthodoxy accept them as the Church and they do.
I am sorry, but to deviate from that definition of "where the Church is" takes you into some strange territory.
In Chrsit,
Dcn. John

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Post by Joseph »

Are you not aware that the MP is a full member, participant and promoter of the teachings and goals of the WCC? This is clearly teaching that is contrary to the Orthdoox Faith.

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jckstraw72
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Post by jckstraw72 »

i thought part of the union btwn ROCOR and MP included that the MP must quit the WCC

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George Australia
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Post by George Australia »

Nathanael wrote:

Are you not aware that the MP is a full member, participant and promoter of the teachings and goals of the WCC?

Oh really?
Well the WCC doesn't seem to think so, nor did the Russian Orthodox delegates to the WCC Assembly in Harare.
Perhaps you need to keep more abreast of current affairs:

Russian official tells WCC it must reform to retain its Orthodox members
http://www.eni.ch/assembly/0557.html
ENI-98-0557

By Stephen Brown
Harare, 7 December (ENI)--The World Council of Churches (WCC) assembly - which is meeting in Harare - has been warned by a representative of the Russian Orthodox Church that unless there are radical reforms of the WCC, more Orthodox churches will quit the organisation.

Dr Hilarion Alfeyev, leader of the Russian Orthodox delegation to the WCC assembly, told delegates during a debate yesterday 6 December about the future direction of the WCC, that "two Orthodox churches have already left the WCC [and] some other Orthodox churches have decided to send reduced delegations to Harare".

"If the structure of the WCC is not radically changed, other Orthodox churches will also leave the WCC," Dr Alfeyev said. He denied that his remarks were "a threat or blackmail", but rather "an outcry of pain" and stressed that the Russian Orthodox Church - which is the WCC's biggest member church - did not want to leave the WCC but preferred to "continue our journey together".

"We want the WCC to be radically reformed so it becomes a true home for Orthodox in the 21st century," Dr Alfayev said, during a debate on a document entitled "Towards a Common Understanding and Vision of the WCC (CUV)".

The CUV document is intended to focus and give direction to the work of the WCC in the years ahead. It has also provided the basis for a major restructuring at the WCC's headquarters in Geneva. However, many Orthodox church representatives have said they would like to see more thoroughgoing reforms, to transform the WCC so that it becomes representative of the main church "families" rather than of individual churches as it is at present.

Last year the Georgian Orthodox Church announced its withdrawal from the WCC, blaming the WCC's "failure to take interests of Orthodox churches fully into account". Since then the Bulgarian Orthodox Church has also announced that it will leave the WCC, although the WCC has yet to receive official notification. There has also been strong pressure within a number of other Orthodox churches, including the Serbian and the Russian churches, to quit the WCC, most of whose 339 member churches come from Anglican and Protestant traditions.

The issue of Orthodox participation in the WCC has emerged as a major issue in the WCC's assembly, which opened in Zimbabwe's capital on 3 December. In a written message sent to the assembly, Bartholomeos I, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, who holds the position of "first among equals" among Orthodox leaders, warned that since the WCC's last assembly, held in 1991 in Canberra, "a series of liberal, theological and moral positions [had been] adopted and brought into the life of the council by a variety of member churches, mainly of the Northern hemisphere".

In his speech, Dr Alfeyev, who is an official of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, warned that Orthodox churches and churches of Protestant tradition were "developing in the opposite direction".

Orthodox churches were maintaining "traditional Christian values", he said, whereas many Protestant churches were "adopting Western liberal values and throwing out traditional Christian values, one after the other".

Dr Alafeyev's speech to the eighth assembly was the first by a representative of the Russian Orthodox Church. Discontent with WCC policies has been growing in the Russian church in recent years, particularly in past months. The Russian church drastically cut the size of its assembly delegation which, unusually, includes no senior church leaders.

"The Orthodox cannot affect the agenda of the WCC because they are a minority," Dr Alfeyev said. "What about the veneration of the Virgin Mary, the veneration of icons and the veneration of the saints? These [Orthodox practices] cannot be discussed because they are divisive. But what about inclusive language and the ordination of women?" he said, referring to subjects that are frequently mentioned by liberal Protestants. "Are these not divisive?"

Among other Orthodox speakers during the debate, Leonid Kishkovsky, of the Orthodox Church in America (which is linked to the Russian Orthodox Church), said that the WCC had been formed primarily to deal with questions linked to the 16th-century Protestant Reformation.

"The churches of the East were not and are not part of this story. The Reformation is not our story," Kishkovsky said. "Its theological debates and presuppositions are not our theological debates and presuppositions."

But the assembly gathering was also electrified by a staunch defence of ecumenism by Rose Hudson-Wilkin, a priest of the Church of England, who said that the debate was "really about power" being "wrapped up in theological and ecclesiological language".

Referring to Kishkovsky's remarks, she said that at the Decade Festival of the Ecumenical Decade of Churches in Solidarity with Women, which preceded the assembly, "we said just the opposite: Your story is my story.

"If we're going to listen to each other, we cannot do it from a distance. That means walking side by side with me, even if you are uncomfortable." [841 words]

"As long as it depends on Monothelitism, then Miaphysitism is nothing but a variant of Monophysitism."

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