StephenG wrote:I have heard from a senior Old Calendarist source in Greece that Bishop Daniel may have repudiated this declaration, it having been made under pressure from opportunists around him? Anyone know any different?
According to different sources Bishop Daniel would have given up the opposition against the MP-ROCOR and he would have "repented" and "returned" with the Uniate Synod of Lavr and he would be no longer with Bishop Agafangel.
I thought that ROCOR Bishop Daniel had made it very clear last year (2006) that he was opposed to the ROCOR-Laurus being taken over by the KGB/Moscow Patriarchate. My understanding was that he even refused to participate in the All Diaspora Conference set up by Metropolitan Laurus and his hand-picked delegates last May. Does anyone know if Bishop Daniel participated in the ROCR "All" Diaspora Conference, or the September 2006 meeting of part of the ROCOR-Laurus Synod, where the Act of Canonical Communion was officially approved? I would like to know, because there is so much disinformation circulating from the KGB/FSB that it is hard to know what is really going on.
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If Bishop Daniel did not approve of the unification with the MP, or participate in the All Diaspora Conference, why are the KGB posters on the internet now claiming that he is either demented--the same claim, incidentally, that they ciruclated about Metropolitan Vitaly (Ustinov) in 2001-- or in agreement with the ROCOR-Laurus Synod and the unification with Moscow? Someone is not telling the truth, here, and I have a vague hunch that it must be our KGB/MP "comrades" in Christ.Stumbler,
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I am quite certain that I read a written statement by Bishop Daniel last year prior to the All Diaspora Conference in which he clearly denounced the push by the ROCOR-Laurus Synod for unification with Moscow. I will have to track down the reference, but I distinctly remember reading it because, frankly, it was the only thing coming from the ROCOR-Laurus Synod at the time that made any sense, and seemed honest and down-to-earth. I don't know what to make of the conspiracy theories circulating around the mysterious figure of Pimen Simon, but I have studied the Mitrokhin archives enough to know that the FSB has interrogation, mind control, and more brutal methods of winning friends and influencing people down to a science, (and I'm not referring to the Dale Carnegie method.) It makes me wonder what Pimen and his MP colleagues are putting in Daniel's borsht.You are correct that Bp Daniel wrote a statement against the union before the Sobor. When it came time to actually ATTEND the Sobor though, Bp Daniel was declared "unable to travel" (you know, like people in jail are "unable to travel") and instead of his voice and his vote, Fr. Pimen Simon declared that he was Bp Daniel's chosen substitute delegate, and proceeded to advocate a position which his Bishop had already spoken against.
I find it so interesting how the unionists always like to talk about how important it is to follow the decisions of the hierarchy, because they are the hierarchy, and yet they find nothing wrong with the likes of Fr Pimen Simon doing just the opposite.
Without regard to the validity of the claims of heresy or Orthodoxy, this is a classic example of what happens when groups or individuals separate from the canonical structure of the Church. Division breeds division... Complete disregard for the necessity of unity... Everyone claims to be the "True Church" and everyone else is schismatic... Since when does simple adherence to the dogmas of Orthodoxy absolve you from all guilt of schism, disobedience, and prelest? As long as you maintain a relatively Orthodox confession of faith and possess some sort of episcopal lineage masquerading as apostolic succession, you are an Orthodox bishop! What a novel innovation... Of course, because there is weak justification for their separatist existence, they turn the tables and start accusing "World Orthodoxy" of all sorts of heresy... In the words of Blessed Jerome, "Every schism fabricates a heresy for itself to justify its withdrawl from the Church"... If these individuals wish to be the "standards of Orthodoxy" that they pretend to be, perhaps they should first practice basic Christian charity towards their own brethren, repent, and unify (thereby "cleaning one's own house..."), before proclaiming every autocephalous Church to be deficient in some way.