The Orthodox Church in America

[Pensees]

For several reasons, I decided to leave the Indian Orthodox Church, and after giving it much prayer, visiting the church for six months, and discussing the matter with priests, family, and friends, I've decided to join the Orthodox Church in America. I know that, as "Old Calendarists," you claim to dislike the OCA, but what is it specifically about the OCA that gives you reason to find fault or error? I'm not inviting you to sling mud, but to share whatever legitimate concerns you have, if you have them.

[GOCTheophan]

This was written by my friend Nicholas Candela. Of course I would also recommend you to read what was posted here recently by Andrew Wales on the New Calendarist schism.

The Spiritual Meaning of OCA.

I have responded in depth to the question of the
canonicity of the OCA because the subject entails a
discussion of the Church vs. schism, Patristic
Orthodoxy vs. Renovationism, Sergianism
(Caesaro-Papism) vs. sobornost, the Church vs. the
ecumenist heresy---in short, true vs. counterfeit
Orthodoxy: themes frequently sounded on this list. Not
every question can be answered in a headline. What I
have written is extensive but by no means exhausts the
topic.

We owe it to Christ not to seek a false peace
with those who either couldn't care less about Truth
or who impiously marvel at the infernal abilities of
those who deform it.

---

Those who became the OCA left the ROCOR for no
canonical reason, but to make a deal with the
uncanonical Moscow Patriarchate to acquire
"autocephaly" (which even Mount Athos, today no great
beacon of Orthodoxy, does not recognize). Since the
MP that gave the OCA its existence was uncanonical
(tell me which canons permit agents of a
Christomachist government intent on vitiating the
Church to appoint or become bishops and priests); and
since the MP cannot, therefore, canonically bestow
anything on anyone, having lost the Apostolic
Succession when Metropolitan Sergius broke with his
lawful superior Metropolitan Peter of Krutitsa, "which
is to say it has lost the Grace of Christ": thus
teaches Metropolitan Vitaly, Chief Hierarch of the
ROCIE (LETTER TO A PRIEST CONCERNING THE ORIGIN AND
STATUS OF THE MOSCOW PATRIARCHATE, June 12, 1998); and
since the OCA, after having received its "autocephaly"
from the uncanonical MP, has expended its
ecclesiomachist-funded energies in perverting
Orthodoxy and in vilifying the ROCOR it had
uncanonically abandoned---is it a lie to say that from
its inception the OCA has been uncanonical? No. It
is, rather, a lie to say it is canonical. It is also a
sign of egregious pride to tolerate no refutation of
this lie.

Under the PseudOrthodox influence of those who
formed it, and as per its agreement with the MP, the
OCA has dutifully and "canonically" served the
apostasy with all her puny might, reliable member of
the ecumenist juggernauts the World Council of
Churches and the National Council of Churches,
stubbornly and proudly remaining a scandal through its
perpetuation of the Renovationism so beloved by the
decadent intellectuals who inspired the mavens of the
OCA and by the theomachist communists who granted this
"church" its life. I will substantiate my assertion by
presenting objective facts of Church history, which no
one may ignore because he or she does not like them:
what's true is true, regardless of our opinion of it.

Let's explore the dark fetid pagan labyrinth
constructed by the spiritual ancestors of the OCA.

"Sophia" is Greek for wisdom, in this case Divine
Wisdom. I quote from the book ECUMENISM: A PATH TO
PERDITION by Dr. Ludmilla Perepiolkina (now a nun
whose name I do not know), published by the St Nephon
Brotherhood, NY, 2001 (all quotations, except where
noted, are from this book): "As used in the Bible,
(Sophia) designates a general attribute of Divinity,
His all-wise authority, as well as His superior
reason...(The word) Wisdom, (as) used in the Old
Testament, particularly in passages akin to the New
Testament and the revelation of Christ, was
unanimously perceived by the Fathers as the Person of
the Son of God. For instance, such is the general
Church understanding of Wisdom as portrayed in the
Book of Proverbs (9:1-9)." In other words, the Church
did not see any theologically significant import in
the fact that in Greek the word Sophia is a feminine
noun: the Fathers applied the word Sophia to Christ,
Who is male. Archbishop Seraphim Sobolev says that
the teaching of the Fathers about Jesus Christ as the
Wisdom of God was accepted "as a clear and
indisputable truth by the entire universal Church"
(THE NEW TEACHING CONCERNING SOPHIA THE WISDOM OF GOD,
1935, p. 121). And yet...what Dr Perepiolkina calls
"the pseudo-wisdom of this world," transmitted by the
Russian philosopher and fantasist Vladimir Soloviev
(d. 1900)---who insisted that Russia can solve her
Church problems only when she submits to Rome (see his
book RUSSIA AND THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH)---influenced him
to assert that Sophia was not only Christ but also the
soul of the world, ideal and eternal humanity, the
Mother of God, the guardian angel of the world,
Goethe's Ewig' Weibliche (the Eternal Feminine, a
cohering principle underlying all our intellectual and
spiritual striving, and reality itself: what Faust
pursued; what witches and lesbians today call "the
Goddess"). Soloviev's teaching "arose on the basis of
Romanticism, rabbinic Kabbalah, and stormy Gnostic
fantasy."

A "mystical" experience of "Sophia" flooded
Soloviev's life and work. He'd had what he believed
was a visual perception of "Sophia," and his lyrical
and erotic descriptions of his encounters with "her"
influenced the Russian Symbolist poets. Dr
Perepiolkina calls Soloviev's anti-Church obsession
"obvious spiritual delusion." Archpriest Georges
Florovsky writes of the "turbidity of (his) erotic
delusion." Soloviev's unOrthodox teachings influenced
Fr Pavel Florensky (of whom Metropolitan Vitaly wrote:
"This outstanding priest with a turbulent soul...threw
himself into the sea of theology without a
compass...and is sailing towards a goal which is not
known to anyone, including himself": see THE ORTHODOX
MESSENGER, #30, 31, pp. 5,6) and the first Dean of the
Saint Sergius Institute in Paris, Archpriest Sergius
Bulgakov---indefatigable elaborator and promulgator of
"Sophianism," who doubted the eternality of hell and
therefore wrote sympathetically on the heresy of
apocatastasis (that is, everyone will be saved), a
heresy condemned by the Fifth Ecumenical Council in
553 A.D. Archbishop Seraphim calls Archpriest
Bulgakov's teachings on Sophia "truly heretical...,
with a Gnostic and pagan world view," leading to
"dogmatic chaos" (ibid., p. 513). He calls Fr
Bulgakov's transmission of Sophianism "not only an
abnormal development of theological thought, but also
the most serious sin. According to the Fathers, the
gravest sin is the sin against the Orthodox Faith,
because it is not rooted in excusable weaknesses of
human nature, but is a sin of our spiritual nature
depriving us of the grace of the Holy Spirit" (THE
DEFENSE OF THE HERESY OF SOPHIANISM BY PROTOPRIEST S.
BULGAKOV IN THE FACE OF THE BISHOPS' COUNCIL OF THE
RUSSIAN CHURCH ABROAD, 1937, p.9). Compare Archbishop
Seraphim's Orthodox assessment with that of the
previous Dean of the OCA's Saint Vladimir's Seminary,
Fr Thomas Hopko, who writes in the forward to
Bulgakov's THE ORTHODOX CHURCH: "Father Sergius
Bulgakov was not a heretic, (but) a bold and brilliant
thinker..." (1988, p. x). We'll soon see why there
obtains this sympathetic resonance between the Saint
Sergius Institute in Paris and the OCA.

On October 17, 1935, a Bishops' Council of ROCOR
condemned the teaching of Fr Bulgakov, declaring it
heretical. The Moscow Patriarchate, of course, "has
been popularizing the false teaching of priest Pavel
Florensky and Archpriest Sergei Bulgakov for a long
time. Many hierarchs of the MP have been speaking and
writing about it, among them the now Patriarch Alexey
II (Address Delivered at the 8th General Assembly of
the KEC: see JOURNAL OF THE MOSCOW PATRIARCHATE #1,
1980)." Dr Perepiolkina lists many other MP hierarchs
who are disseminating this heresy under the guise of
"theological creativity." Sophianism introduces "a
fourth, feminine person into the Divine Trinity by
means of a cunningly conceived teaching rooted in
Plato's pagan philosophy, in Kabbalistic doctrine, as
well as in Gnosticism, which is condemned by the
Church...A few more steps and we are close to a
'theology for women' and (the) ecumenist...dream of
'feminizing' God...At the 6th Assembly of the WCC in
Vancouver (1983), where the 'priesthood' of women was
legalized, many participants 'urged women to replace
the idea of God the Father with that of the
goddess-mother' (THE PROTESTANT MAJORITY [IN THE WCC]
MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO DECIDE ON BEHALF OF THE
ORTHODOX, K. Galitis, Orthodoxos Typos, #576, 1986, p.
4)...The representatives of the 'theology of women' at
the last 7th Assembly (of the WCC) in
Canberra....(posed) a question similar to that of (New
Age "theologian") Margo Kessman from Germany: 'Is Eve,
who strove for knowledge, so sinful after all?'"
(WOMEN WANT MORE THAN TIMID CHANGE, 7th Bulletin of
the WCC Assembly Line, #1, 1991, p. 3).

I dilated on this heresy of Sophianism because I
want to show the "creative theology" (and its fruit)
practiced both by the Saint Sergius Institute in
Paris, which shaped the minds of OCA
"theologians," and by the MP that gave the OCA its
life.

Former ROCOR hierarch Metropolitan Evlogy tore
the West European diocese away from ROCOR and united
it with the Ecumenical Patriarchate. In their Epistle
written in exile in Sremsky Karlovtsy, August 24,
1927, the ROCOR bishops declared: "To our profound
regret we must note that in the days of its suffering
under the yoke of the Bolshevik rule, our Russian
church suffered persecution and oppression from the
Patriarch of Constantinople not less than from the
'Living Church' and from other schismatics and
Renovationists." Orthodox Christian scholar Ivan M.
Kontzevitch explains that "in May 1922 there arose (in
Russia) a Church schism:..., the so-called Living
Church, which attempted to unite Christianity with
Marxism. Members of the Living Church, together with
the Cheka (the secret police) warred against the
'counter revolution.' They seized churches and
destroyed monasteries. Concerning the Living Church,
Elder Nektary of Optina stated his opinion resolutely:
'There is no grace there. By rebelling against the
lawful Patriarch, Tikhon, the bishops and priests of
the Living Church have deprived themselves of grace
and have lost, according to canonical ruling, their
hierarchal office. Because of this, the Liturgy
performed by them is a blasphemy'" (ELDER NEKTARY OF
OPTINA, 1998, p. 209). The ROCOR bishops go on to
speak of the EP's violation of canons when, contrary
to their protest, the EP "seized many regions of our
church (Polish, Finnish, Estonian) and attempted to
take away Russian dioceses in Amercia and Western
Europe. It has given its blessing to the Polish,
Ukrainian, and Georgian churches to separate from our
church and acquire autocephalous status. But even more
horrible than that was the following: when such
schismatic communities as the 'Living Church' and
other renovationists appeared in the bosom of our
Church, the Patriarchate of Constantinople entered
into relations with these henchmen of the atheistic
Soviet regime. It acknowleged the schismatic council
of 1923 which condemned the holy Patriarch Tikhon,
suggesting he be defrocked and deprived of monastic
rank. It agreed to send its representatives to Moscow
in order to interfere in the affairs of our Church,
and even suggested that our Patriarch should leave his
see and abolish the very office of Patriarch." The EP
forbade then-Archbishop Anastassy, future Chief
Hierarch of ROCOR, from serving in Constantinople. No
ROCOR clergy were allowed to commemorate Patriarch
Saint Tikhon. The EP placed Renovationist bishops in
ROCOR churches. In 1923 it held its "Pan-Orthodox"
Assembly (composed only of representatives of the
Greek, Romanian, and Serbian churches---oh yes, and
the Anglicans) and tried to pass resolutions, in the
spirit of Renovationism, on married bishops, on a
second marriage of clergy, on the new calendar, on
civil clothing for clergy, on shortening the fasts,
etc. This "Pan Orthodox" Assembly "deliberately spread
the false information that the entire Orthodox Church
had adopted the new calendar," thus temporarily
deceiving Saint Tikhon. In 1924 the EP forcibly---that
is, uncanonically---imposed the anathematized papal
calendar on its flock: its Patriarch, the Mason
Meletios Metaxakis, helped to orchestrate this, in
violation of thirteen councils, three of which were
TRULY Pan Orthodox; he also founded, in 1922, the
Greek Archdiocese of America, to promulgate ecumenism;
he was the one who recognized the "Living Church" as
the only true Russian church (he also recognized the
validity of Anglican Orders). The EP effected the
compulsory introduction of even the new Paschalia in
Finland. Archbishop Nikon Rklitsky writes: "...A
schismatic Council of Renovationists was to be held in
Moscow. Vasileus the Patriarch of Constantinople and
Meletios of Alexandria (where he'd fled after defiling
the see of Constantinople) agreed to participate in
this gathering devoid of grace. Thus the Patriarch of
Constantinople is a staunch supporter of the Living
Church and other Renovationists in Russia, violator of
the holy canons concerning Pascha, and the initiator
of discords snd schisms in all the Orthodox churches.
Non-Orthodox governments, Renovationists, members of
the Living Church, groups of clergy, Masonic
organizations striving to deprive Orthodoxy of its
individuality to distort it---they all have now found
their strong support in the Patriarchate of
Constantinople" (LIFE OF BLESSED ANTHONY, METROPOLITAN
OF KIEV AND GALICIA, 1961, pp. 204-26).

And it was to this Patriarchate that Metropolitan
Evlogy, the former ROCOR hierarch, had united himself
and his flock. And it was this Metropolitan Evlogy who
founded the Saint Sergius Institute in Paris!---so
what kind of Orthodoxy do you think would issue from
it? That's right, RENOVATIONIST. Metropolitan Evlogy
eulogized Fr Bulgakov thus: "(He was) a teacher of the
Church in the purest and most lofty sense, enlightened
by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Wisdom, the Spirit
of Understanding, the Comforter to Whom (he)dedicated
(his) scholarly work" (THE ORTHODOX CHURCH, p. xi).
Let us read a few of Fr Bulgakov's "pure and lofty"
teachings (from his THE ORTHODOX CHURCH):

"...There exists a sort of 'subterranean'
connection between Egyptian piety in the pagan world
and Orthodox (piety) among Christians" (p. 181).

"The Patristic works can be considered only as
monuments of the Orthodox conscience of a given
historical period" (p. 85).

"...Orthodoxy, while safeguarding essential
dogmas necessary to the faith, knows no theological
doctrine obligatory for all..., for theology and its
teachings are not identical with the dogmatic..." (p.
83).

"Relations with heterodox confessions may aid the
Orthodox Church to attain greater plenitude and
breadth" (p. 191).

"...Catholicism is something greater than
Papalism. It may well be said that the Monarchy of the
Vatican is a sort of shell, beneath which is the
living body of the Church" (p. 190).

"I shall not touch here upon the subject of the
validity of Anglican orders, merely a canonical and
not a dogmatic question..The Episcopal church is...,
of all the Protestant world, the nearest to
Orthodoxy...We may hope that the reunion (sic) of
Orthodoxy and of the Episcopal churches of England and
America will be a decisive phase in the
re-establishment (sic) of the unity lost to the Church
(sic)..." (p. 191).

"...Soloviev..., Fr Florensky..., Berdyaev and
others...express, each in his own way, the Orthodox
conscience, in a sort of theological rhapsody"
(p. 84)---as if the Church were a piano concerto and
each of us contributes his own cadenzi, no matter the
key, the rhythm, or who has trained us (or not).

Dr Perepiolkina: "The history of the Church
discord (in the 1920s) and of the creation of the
Theological Institute in Paris are tightly
interlaced." In its Epistle of March 18, 1927, the
ROCOR Sobor noted that the Theological Institute "was
established by Metropolitan Evlogy (in 1925) without
the knowledge and blessing of the synod and the
Council. It was established in accordance with the
program disapproved by the Synod and the Council, and
persons who had not received higher theological
education or whose Orthodoxy was regarded by the Synod
and the Council as rather dubious were invited to
teach there." Nearly all these teachers were members
of the Brotherhood of Saint Sophia the Wisdom of God,
headed by...Fr Sergius Bulgakov. The Brotherhood
members included:

Kartashev. The OCA's Fr Schmemann was his pupil.
In his memorial bio. of Fr Schmemann, the OCA's Fr
John Meyendorff wrote of Kartashev's "brilliant
lectures and skeptical mind," which he said matched
"Fr Schmemann's own tendency to critical analysis of
(the) reality around him"---which Fr Schmemann
unleashed upon the Divine Liturgy: see below.

Bezobrazov. He was ordained a priest by the
schismatic Metropolitan Evlogy. In his memorial bio.
of him, Fr Schmemann brags that Bezobrazov "was active
in the ecumenical movement." He exults that he and
Bezobrazov were guest-observers at Vatican II.

Vysheslavtsev. Not Boris, whose book blurb calls
him "one of a constellation of Russian thinkers,
including Soloviev, Berdyaev, and Florensky," but
V.V., of whom I could find no information, many of
these "great men" who wanted to leave a lasting
impression having left none at all.

Frank. Brotherhood member Nicholas Berdyaev wrote
approvingly: "The thought of S.Frank moves within the
tradition of Platonism and German Romanticism; he is
closest of all to Nicholas of Cusa and in regard to
him develops his basic thoughts" (PUT', #446, 1939).
Nichola of Cusa was a 15th century Roman Catholic, a
cardinal, who preached the unification of "the three
monotheistic Faiths" on the basis of a bare minimum of
agreed-upon doctrine.

Zenkovsky. In his paper ESSENCE OF ORGANIC LIFE
IN RUSSIAN ORTHODOX AND MODERN PHILOSOPHICAL
TRADITION, Yevgeny Arinin writes that Zenkovsky's
"theology is...based on the ideas of Bergson, Teilhard
de Chardin, and Hegel."

G.N. Trubetskoy. In his memorial to Trubestkoy,
Berdyaev calls ROCOR "the Karlovtsky schism." He says
that the Prince was "quite sickened by the splintering
of the Christian world, and he was quite interested in
the movement toward the rapprochement of the churches
and faith-confessions,(taking) an active part in the
inter-confessional gatherings of the Russian Orthodox
and French Catholics and Protestants; with him there
was always a great interest and sympathy toward
Catholicism..." (PUT', # 21, April 1931)---but the
Orthodox Church teaches through her Christ-bearing
saints that "the Latins are not only schismatics, but
heretics as well" (Saint Mark of Ephesus, ARE
PROTESTANTISM AND ROMAN CATHOLICISM HERETICAL?: THE
POSITION OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH:
www.orthodoxinfo.com); "...We declare that the baptism
of the Latins is one which is falsely called baptism,
and for this reason it is not acceptable or
recognizable...., because they are heretics" (Saint
Nikodimos of the Holy Mountian, THE RUDDER, p. 72);
"...On departing from the Truth, (the Roman Catholic
church) has entered into heresy" (Saint Ambrose of
Optina, ELDER AMBROSE OF OTPINA, p. 176). "There is no
church among them" (Saint John of Kronstadt, ORTHODOX
LIFE, July-August, 1970, p. 140; "(By the) 12th
century...the Western church...had already fallen away
from the Universal Church and thereby lost the Grace
of the Holy Spirit" (Saint John Maximovitch, THE
ORTHODOX VENERATION OF THE MOTHER OF GOD, p. 32).

Struve (remembered only for having left
communism), and...

Nicholas Berdyaev, whom Bulgakov praised as an
"Orthodox" rhapsodist. Berdyaev wrote contemptuously
of "the monastic ascetic spirit of historical
Orthodoxy," celebrating his disdain for "conservative
Christianity which...directs the spiritual forces of
man only towards contrition and salvation." He,
rather, sought the "inward Church, the "Church of the
Holy Spirit," the "spiritual view of life which in the
18th century found shelter in the Masonic lodges."
Like the Jesuit paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin
(who helped give the world the faked Piltdown Man),
Berdyaev wrote that "the world is moving towards a new
spirituality and a new mysticism: in these there will
be no more of the ascetic world view." He vaticinates
the arrival of a "New Christianity (he's RIGHT: but he
thinks it's of God, when it's of antichrist), a new
mysticism, which will be deeper than religions and
ought to unite them..., (for) there is a great
spiritual brotherhood...to which not only the churches
of East and West belong, but also all those whose
wills are directed towards God and the Divine, all in
fact who aspire to some form of spiritual elevation."
Hieromonk Seraphim of Platina (+1982) writes:
"Nicholas Berdyaev in any normal age would never have
been regarded as an Orthodox Christian. He might best
be described as a Gnostic-humanist philosopher who
drew his inspiration from Western sectarians and
'mystics,' rather than from Orthodox sources. That he
is called...an Orthodox Christian is a sad reflection
of the religious ignorance of our times...There is
clearly nothing whatever in common between these
super-ecumenist fantasies and Orthodox Christianity,
which Berdyaev in fact DESPISED" (ORTHODOXY AND THE
RELIGION OF THE FUTURE, 1990, p. 22: quotations from
Berdyaev are from ORTHODOX LIFE, #6, 1962, citing
NICHOLAS BERDYAEV: PROPHET OF A NEW AGE by J.
Gregorson).

Fr Bulgakov had asked Prince N.S. Trubetskoy to
join his Brotherhood of Saint Sophia the Wisdom of
God: he replied, "We are dealing not with a usual type
of Orthodox brotherhood, but with an organization
unprecedented in Orthodox practice...Theoretically the
situation is conceivable where a bishop finds himself
in spiritual subordination to a priest who is the
spiritual head of the Brotherhood, which is
canonically inadmissible...The Brotherhood thus
creates a special hierarchy, and the coexistence of
this special hierarchy of the Brotherhood with the
canonical hierarchy...is absolutely inadmissible from
the Orthodox point of view." In the Brotherhood of
Saint Sophia, Gnostics were attempting to put
themselves in charge of the teachers of the Church,
true bishops. Bishop Gregory Grabbe concluded that the
Brotherhood "was created for a definite and
conspiratorial struggle" (THE CHURCH AND ITS TEACHING
IN LIFE, 1992, p. 97), which is "the development of
the teaching on Sophia and the spreading of this
teaching not only by means of published works but also
by means of the usurpation of the leading influence
upon the affairs of the Russian church" (ibid., p.
92). Dr Perepiolkina: "...In the course of 70 years
Sophianism has become one of the predominant teachings
of the Moscow Patriarchate and other 'Orthodox' and
non-Orthodox ecumencial churches, having found its
logical completion in the zeal of feminists."

So these are the people who fuel the Saint
Sergius Institute: Sophianists, ecclesiastical
"reformers," and disciples of the Protestant ecumenist
YMCA, who publish the books of these "spiritual
geniuses." Archbishop Nikon: "One of the main reasons
why the Russian Bishops' Synod of the Church Abroad
did not agree with the direction of Church life in the
West European dioceses was Metropolitan Evlogy's close
collaboration with the American organization the YMCA,
which was in charge of the youth's upbringing" (ibid.,
p. 63). Dr Perepiolkina: "The negative attitude which
the ROCOR had towards the YMCA was explained by the
fact that the Association, while uniting under its
banner young people, i.e., the most impressionable age
group, was propagandizing the equality of all
religions and sects, and thus developing a complete
confessional indifference in them...The Association
(has) introduced the most diverse heresies (including
the rejection of the Divinity of Christ)..."
Archbishop Nikon: "More than dubious appears also the
YMCA's rejection of the Christian emblem---the Cross,
the sign of the Son of Man and of His redeeming
sacrifice. This rejection of the Cross, i.e., of
Christ's suffering and death, cannot but leave its
mark on the ideology of a person who...has to come
into contact with the Association in the sphere of
ideas" (ibid., p. 64). Dr Perepiolkina: "However,
Metropolitan Evlogy and the Theological Institute (he
founded) communicated with the YMCA not only in the
sphere of ideas. This institution was founded using
rather dubious resources. Metropolitan Evlogy himself
wrote: 'The Chairman of the World Committee of the
YMCA...was quick to respond to our project and gave us
a large subsidy for the establishment of the new
institution (the Theological Institute in Paris) (THE
WAY OF MY LIFE: RECOLLECTIONS, Metropolitan Evolgy,
YMCA Press [big surprise!], 1947, p. 447). The
Bishops' Council of the ROCOR of 1926 passed a
resolution which expressed "its wish that the
Theological Institute should be freed from financial
assistance offered by Masons." Archbishop Nikon:
"Metropolitan Evlogy did not comply with this
resolution of the Bishops' Council, and acted
independently with regard to the Theological
Institute" (ibid., p. 160).

Bishop Gregory Grabbe showed that "the roots of
the Church discord (the title of his essay) were to be
found in various theological tendencies and groups of
people such as Bulgakov and Berdyaev, Kartashev and
others, who surrounded Metropolitan Evlogy and who
sought 'new revelations' and reassessment of the
entire doctirne of the Church. Bishop Gregory called
the Brotherhood of Saint Sophia 'the center of the
reformist movement.'"

And so we behold the barren tree from which
demonically grew the poison fruit of the OCA's
"theology" and praxis:

The roots: Vladimir Soloviev's eroticization of
Sophia. Fr Pavel Florensky's brilliant but empty
virtuoso variations on the theme of Sophia, as
composed by Gnostics, Kabbalists, and Soloviev: both
men thinking of Sophia outside the limits defined by
the Church.

The trunk: the schismatic ROCOR hierarch
Metropolitan Evlogy, who united his flock with ROCOR's
and all true Orthodoxy's worst enemy, the heretical
Ecumenical Patriarchate. He established the Saint
Sergius Institute, headed by Fr Sergius Bulgakov,
Sophianist extraordinaire, head also of the
Brotherhood of Saint Sophia the Wisdom of God, whence
he took teachers for the Institute. Metropolitan
Evlogy funds the Institute through the Protestant
ecumenist YMCA, denaturer of Christ, purveyor of the
Institute's Parisian "Orthodoxy."

The branches: first and second generation
anti-ecclesial and anti-Patristic "theologians":
Berdyaev, Schmemann, Meyendorff, and the oestral poet
of marital love as a means of union with God (whom
Svetlana praised on this list), Paul Evdokimov, whose
strange views are refuted by Archimandrite Luka in his
article NEW AGE PHILOSOPHY, ORTHODOX THOUGHT, AND
MARRIAGE (in ORTHODOX LIFE, May-June, 1997, pp.
21-37).

The leaves: OCA-style PseudOrthodoxy, perfectly
aligned with the satanic ecumenist EP's agenda AND
with the anti-Orthodox teachings of all who conspire
to make this agenda seem to be the Orthodox Church IN
ITS APOTHEOSIS---a new Church, a better Church, "the
religion of the future."

Dr Perepiolkina: "'Behold, he travails with
iniquity and has conceived mischief, and brought forth
falsehood' (PSALM 7:14). These words of the Holy
Psalmist adequately characterize the 'school of
Paris.' Its teachers, predominantly members of the
Brotherhood of Saint Sophia, Renovationists...
'mystical anarchists'---as Berdyaev defined
himself---or simply Sophianists, created an 'Orthodox'
laboratory of false teachings and heresies." Bishop
Gregory Grabbe: "This was done with a distant
objective in mind. For seven decades this 'laboratory'
has been attracting young people who sincerely love
Orthodoxy, thus poisoning the conscience of these
future priests and theologians with the false wisdom
of Sophianism and ecclesiatical modernism. This
influence has not been limited to Paris. It has taken
root in the minds of the future Russian church
community, spreading in the Russian church, moving
from there to the universal Church, and reforming it
slower but more effectively than all kinds of
'Pan-Orthodox' Conferences organized by Renovationist
hierarchs." Dr Perepiolkina: "All these Berdyaevs,
Bulgakovs, Schmemanns, and Meyendorffs were and still
are persistently bringing spiritual damage into the
Orthodox world. In an ineradicable pride of mind and
submitting to the spitrit of anti-Christian apostasy,
they keep preaching an ecclesiastical and doctrinal
freedom in all its impetuosity and destructiveness. It
is not for nothing that their unrepentant schismatic
(spiritual father) Metropolitan Evlogy declared
shortly before his death: 'The most tenacious struggle
of my entire life was for the freedom of the Church.'
Freedom from Whom and what?! From dogmas, canons, and
obedience to the Holy Church? Or maybe from its Head
Himself?! 'While they promise them liberty, they
themselves are servants of corruption' (2 PETER 2:19).
All these teachers of the 'Paris School' in their
lectures, papers, and publications have persistently
and under the guise of 'spiritual creativity'
disseminated throughout the world that which the
Bishops' Synod of the ROCOR defined as an 'impious
novelty.' For several decades the Saint Sergius
Institute has been the hothouse of all the most
'fearless' (i.e,. without fear of God) thelogoumena
and out-and-out heresies passed off as the ultimate
word in theological quest and 'dogmatic
creativity'---as if creativity were admissible in
dogmas! Apart from confessing ecumenism, this
Institute has advocated Sophianism and the deification
of the Name of God...as well as all kinds of
renovationism...The most tempting aspect of the 'Paris
School' is the falsification of Orthodox teaching
under the guise of a creative
theological-philosophical quest. The spiritual climate
of the Paris Institute, with its altar turned facing
the westerly direction, is imbued with haughty Western
pseudo-wisdom and Gnosticism. It is sufficient enough
to attend lectures at this Institute to become
convinced of the spiritual lightheartedness and the
plain heresy of its teachers."

A schism preaching heretical "theology," the
transmission of which is funded by YMCA
Masonic-ecumenist "Christians" of course affects the
everyday life of the OCA. These aberrations are not
abstractions:

The OCA is uncanonically on the anathematized papal
calendar.

The clergy of the OCA are uncanonically coiffed and
shaven: one of its most renowned "luminaries," the Fr
Alexander Schmemann who clinched the deal with the MP,
sported a beatniky goatee instead of a priestly beard.
He also taught an anti-ecclesial theory about the
Divine Liturgy, in his re-heated Higher Criticism
slumgullion called INTRODUCTION TO LITURGICAL
THEOLOGY---published by [guess who?] the Protestant
ecumenist YMCA: it was his doctoral dissertation for
the Saint Sergius Institute---in which he claims that
the Liturgy was barnacled with many
merely-historically-conditioned accretions which need
to be scraped from the bark of Christ: I suppose he
would have liked an "Orthodox" version of Pope Paul
VI's Puritan Mass---denuded, populist, unrooted in any
tradition but modernity. The OCA services are
abbreviated (at "St Vlad's" Seminary the bookstore is
bigger than the chapel); pews are permitted, to
accommodate laziness; the services sound operatic
rather than compunctionate, and their meaning is often
perverted when explained by its "theologians."

The SAVOR of the OCA is one of wordliness. A
condescending attitude toward the Holy Fathers exudes
from the notes of the Patristic books it publishes;
one feels one is reading the "scholarship" of modern
Roman Catholics. Well, Fr Georges Florovsky DID say
the OCA was "Uniate in tone." And he should know: he
was Dean of Saint Vladimir's Seminary, until thrown
out for speaking too much truth.

The previous Dean of the OCA's Saint Vladimir's
Seminary, Fr Thomas Hopko, apologist for Bulgakov,
said his church would not cease its involvement with
the ecumenical movement until an Ecumenical Council
told it to. Not surprisingly, he's got a Phd. in
Theology from a Roman Catholic university (Fordham),
and yet he wouldn't need to ask Papists alone for
advice on how to further ecumenism, since already in
1933 his church's spiritual mentor Sergius Bulgakov
was defending Orthodox involvement in the Ecumenical
Movement: "Dissociation in prayer...became
consolidated and firmly established in Church canons
which, although they were laid down in the 4th-5th
centuries, have until now the power of law in force,
and although not repealed formally, they are not
observed in practice...We cannot unite in prayer with
our brothers in everything. In particular we cannot
offer a prayer to the Mother of God and saints
together with Protestants...For the sake of unity in
prayer with them Orthodoxy has to disparage itself, as
it were. Of course, inasmuch as it is done out of love
and condescension, for the sake of Church economia
this may be permitted as a sacrifice to love, as an
absence of inexorable maximalism, in accordance with
Apostle Paul's way, 'to be everything for all'"
(CHRISTIAN REUNIFICATION: THE ECUMENIST PROBLEM IN THE
ORTHODOX CONSCIOUSNESS, YMCA Press, 1933, cited in THE
ACTS OF THE CONFERENCE OF THE HEADS AND
REPRESENTATIVES OF THE AUTOCEPHALOUS CHURCHES IN
CONNECTION WITH THE CELEBRATION OF THE 500 YEARS OF
THE AUTOCEPHALY OF THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH, 1949,
p. 148). To which Dr Perepiolkina responds: "Thus,
ecumenist condescension calls on Orthodox Christians
to sacrifice not only Church canons, allegedly
obsolete and 'abolished in practice,' but also prayers
to the Mother of God and saints. The father of lies,
speaking through such conciliators as Sergei Bulgakov,
passes off these blasphemous concessions of
'self-disparagement' as a 'sacrifice of love.' On the
contrary, Saint Mark of Ephesus, the Orthodox
luminary, wrote that 'works of faith do not permit
economia.'"

It was the OCA abbot of New Skete who taught in
the monastery's newsletter than the Roman Catholics,
the Orthodox, and the Monophysites are all Christ's
Church.

It was an OCA hierodeacon who told me he'd love
to discuss the reasons Orthodoxy is the truth, but he
was off to work the lights in a new production of THE
KING AND I.

It was an OCA hieromonk, whose OCA publisher
describes him as a "Patristics specialist," who
assured me that the Feast of the Entry of the Most
Holy Theotokos into the Temple "is NOT an historical
ocurrence." I'd just been reading the glorious work by
Saint Paisius Velichkovsky, THE SCROLL, in which the
great Godbearing Philokalic Father accepts this
occurrence as indeed historical---why do so many
modernists consider Sacred History no history at
all?---and I sent the OCA hieromonk quotations from
saints from the 9th through the 20th century which
demonstrated that these Orthodox men, alive in Christ,
all believed that the Panagia indeed lived in the
Temple and was a hesychast warrior. I attributed his
doubting this truth of the Church to his having been
educated at an OCA seminary. His response: "Never
write to me again." (During a visit to an OCA
monastery, a ROCOR hieromonk saw cans of SPAM in a
cell. He quipped: "OCA monasticism." Saint Paisius
wrote an excellent Orthodox response to renovationists
who wanted monks to eat meat.)

It was the OCA's Fr John Meyendorff---who
completed his "theological studies" at the Saint
Sergius Institute in 1949---who taught that the theory
of evolution was perfectly compatible with the
teaching of the Holy Fathers on the book of GENESIS.
He also insisted that the ROCOR was a schism (see Fr
Stanley Harakas' 455 QUESTIONS ABOUT THE ORTHODOX
CHURCH). In June of 1991, the OCA's Fr Meyendorff
received from the MP's Patriarch Alexey II the Order
of Saint Vladimir.

It was an OCA bishop who decided to receive the
the "Holy" Order of MANS (a Gnostic group, who, when
they began apeing Orthodoxy called themselves the
Christ the Savior Brotherhood) "priests," so long as
they surrendered their property to the OCA. The bishop
did not show the slightest interest in ascertaining
whether or not these people were actually Orthodox in
their beliefs. The "spiritual" advice amounted to,
"Just get on the new calendar, cut your hair and
beards, do not separate the sexes during Liturgy,
women need not cover their heads, dress as you like,
keep a low profile, and you'll be fine. Oh, and put
the deed to your church properties in the name of the
OCA, so you can't run off when you find out we are
BOGUS." I recently saw one of the OCA golems: he'd
once worn priestly long hair and a beard, as the
canons require. He used to pray daily Matins and
Vespers in his church. Now OCA'd, he looked like one
of the Beach Boys and prayed only an abbrievated
Vespers on Saturday and Liturgy on Sunday---prayers
for the persecuted Russian church removed, of course.
This is the same man who, when I was figuring out that
his "traditional piety" had no inner content, screamed
to me: "Why should I have to renounce the Order of
MANS? That is where I met my wife!!! That is where I
learned to live in community!!!" I replied, "That is
also where you learned your founder was the
reincarnation of Saint Paul." Today he is an OCA
priest in good standing, not having to have had
renounced any of his Gnostic beliefs. Yes, his pre-OCA
traditionalism, was, alas, purely external; he was
just the kind of man the OCA can quickly snatch with
promises of "legitimacy"---for the OCA is
illegitimate, too, and wants to seem legitimate: like
seeks like. The Gnostics who ran the Order of MANS
(Metanoia, Agape, Nous, Sophia) considered the
Jordanville prayerbook "sludge from the Russian
subconscious." They believed the light they saw while
engaging in their Order of MANS practices was what the
Orthodox saints were writing about. Many of them are
now OCA, having a form of godliness, while denying its
power: they view their "Orthodox" priesthood as a
continuation of their Order "priesthood." They feel
like they're still in the Order, that Orthodoxy is the
culmination of everything the Order stood for. And
their OCA bishops, have they disabused them of their
delusion? Or do they know these "former" MANS-ers are
correct, for the OCA has preserved the traditions of
Holy Russia as authentically as had the Order---that
is, not at all. Indeed, the OCA too, SCORNED these
traditions.

In his 1997 Letter of Departure from the OCA, Fr
John Townsend says he left the OCA because it accepts
the baptism of Roman Catholics and Protestants. (When
the author who called himself "A Monk of the Eastern
Church," Lev Gillet, a Roman Catholic priest, wanted
to convert to Orthodoxy, he was taken into an OCA
sanctuary and immediately began serving: no rite of
reception whatsoever: why NOT? OCA Archbishop John
Shakovsky begged forgiveness of "our Catholic and
Protestant brethren" because ROCOR "continues to
declare as the Orthodox teaching that they are
unbaptized" [from the article on ecclesiology in the
1974 ORTHODOX WORD which faulted Alexander
Solzhenitsyn for his defense of the MP and his denial
of the Catacombniki]). Fr John Townsend says he left
the OCA because it tonsures women as Readers, that is,
to the first degree of priesthood; it participates in
ecumenical prayer; it abolished the churching of
women; it has given its "mysteries" to Monophysites.

And yet I am to believe that everything I've
written can mean only one thing: the OCA is CANONICAL!

The fruit of the OCA's having been founded in
disobedience to the Church is renovationism, heresy,
apostasy, COUNTERFEIT Orthodoxy---so whether or not
the OCA is to be regarded as canonical matters very
much. This is NOT about personalities: it is about
where the Church is. A man who spent 17 years with
the OCA---and is now a monastic elsewhere---wrote to
me in June 2000: "The OCA is a modernist church, and
very ecumenical, with both the Papists and the
Protestants. The jurisdictional squabbles going on in
Orthodoxy are NOT political: they are of the Faith. We
need to discern where the TRUE Church is. The OCA
accepts the baptism of anyone who has any sort of
Trinitarian baptism, and the ordination of any Papist
priest. I did not realize just how much modernism and
ecumenism we were tolerating. So we left. I would do
anything I can to dissuade anyone from joining the
OCA. I've heard from many people who have done so, and
regretted it."

2) Now we understand why Metropolitan Philaret,
Chief Hierarch of ROCOR---who did more to confess, to
defend, to explain True Orthodoxy than any World
Orthodox bishop during the same period
(1965-1985)---said, "To such a degree do I not believe
in the grace of the schismatics' manipulations that in
the event that I were dying and it was necessary to
give me Communion, I would receive it neither from the
Parisians (the Evlogians) nor from the American False-
Autocephalites (the OCA), lest in place of the Holy
Mysteries I should swallow a piece of bread and some
wine" (letter to Abbess Magdalena, November 26, 1979).
He taught that the OCA was a graceless schism---and
now we know WHY. It is not because he was unkind or
intolerant or mean-spirited: it is because he loved
Christ's Church. His words did not evince merely his
personal taste: they were a matter of CHURCH TRUTH,
perfectly consonant with the Patristic canonical
consensus: this is sobornost. Perhaps, though, his
letter is a forgery. No, it is truly a true letter
written by a true hierarch whose opinions were formed
by THE CONSCIENCE OF THE CHURCH (Scripture, Councils
Ecumenical and local, canons, writings of saints,
Divine Services, living as a podvizhnik) and a deep
serious regard for the ACTUAL history of that Church
as it pertains to Russia. Therefore the Metropolitan's
words possess a WEIGHT that the wors of the World
Orthodox do NOT.

Fr Mark Smith (of ROCIE) posted here that the OCA
is not the Church and therefore has no bishops. This
is the way traditional Orthodox regard the OCA. Fr
Elia said the OCA is not only not the Church, "it is
not even a Christian organization." One of its
priests bragged to him of how often he engages in
sexual perversion. The monastic who'd been with the
OCA for 17 years told me immorality is rife among the
OCA bishops, so there's no one to stop it. Born in
defiance of the Church, what else can you expect but
false teachings, which lead to moral decadence?

True Orthodox Christians have a mistrust of (and
some an outright HORROR of) World Orthodoxy. I know a
Godly GOC priest who, in obedience to his bishops and
out of his own heartfelt belief, will not receive a
member of ROAC except by chrismation, because ROAC
derives its Episcopal Orders from ROCOR after
Metropolitan Vitaly had become the temporary victim of
a coup and many of his rebellious clergy continued to
concelebrate with the ecumenist Serbs even after the
1983 anathema issued under Metropolitan Philaret
forever banned such activities. Such is the phronema
of this true Orthodox priest of the GOC, who views
World Orthodoxy as a source of spiritual contagion and
respects the spirit of the canons by honoring the
Church's judgment as expressed in her anathemas. In
other words, HE is canonical. Don't call him names,
Svetlana; don't lie and say he' basing his
ecclesiology on forged documents. Look at what the
bodies of World Orthodoxy teach and do---and then weep
for having defended their apostasy by calling it
canonical.

This is NOT about politics---despite Svetlana's
assesertion that the "Church is, by its nature and its
mission in the world very political" (post #75774 on
Paradosis). The LORD Jesus Christ declared, "My
Kingdom is NOT OF THIS WORLD." It's one thing to
leaven the "real" world with the Gopspel; it's another
to become a thrall to the dark powers that rule this
"real" world. No, this discussion is not about
politics.

Neither is it about personalities, about who
likes whom; who dislikes whom. Irrelevant. This is
about THE FAITH. THE FAITH OF THE MP AND THE OCA IS
NOT THE FAITH OF THE TRUE ORTHODOX CHRUCH. The union
of ROCOR (L) and the MP is NOT a renunion of "the
separated parts of the Russian church"---for the
Russian church was never united with the Renovationism
incarnated by the MP and its satellite the OCA.

No pietistic sentiments about our "love"---so
obviously superior to the love of the Holy Fathers who
taught us to SEPARATE from those posing as the Church,
be they schismatics, heretics, or any kind of
Renovationists---will sway God to judge us with mercy
if we stand in His Face on That Day and insist that
our counterfeits are ineedd His Church, and He will
just have to accept this.

Woe to us.

[Pensees]

Is that just something you've cut and pasted, or something you've learned from personal experience?

[尼古拉前执事]

QUESTION:

Is that just something you've cut and pasted, or something you've learned from personal experience?

ANSWER:

This was written by my friend Nicholas Candela. Of course I would also recommend you to read what was posted here recently by Andrew Wales on the New Calendarist schism.

[Pravoslavnik]

Wow. My family and I have been on the verge of joining the local OCA parish--after more than a decade in the ROCOR--but I must say that the lengthy essay about the OCA by "Nicholas Candela" on this thread has given me pause. Two questions. 1) Who, pray tell, is Nicholas Candela, and 2) How, then, can any man be saved? I ceased attending divine services in the ROCOR one year ago--after the ROCOR Synod "voted" (some in absentia, apparently) to accept the "Act of Canonical Communion" with the Moscow Patriarchate--and I have realized by now that I cannot survive as an Orthodox Christian without a bishop or a parish.

[Pensees]

I ceased attending divine services in the ROCOR one year ago--after the ROCOR Synod "voted" (some in absentia, apparently) to accept the "Act of Canonical Communion" with the Moscow Patriarchate--and I have realized by now that I cannot survive as an Orthodox Christian without a bishop or a parish.

Given that there can only be one autocephalous jurisdiction in this country, ROCOR needed to rejoin the Moscow Patriarchate. It was proper and just to do so.

[stumbler]

ROCOR was never a part of the Moscow Patriarchate, which was established by Stalin and his government. How many times must we refute the propagandistic revisionists who call it a "rejoining?"