MEMO
To: The OCA and its well-wishers
From: Laura Jones - http://www.mamaleh-larisa.com
new site - http://how-soon-jerusalem.weebly.com
Date: May 14, 2011
Subject: The orthodox Church in America
Now that the dust has settled after the meeting of the OCA Synod of Bishops and the gang-of-however-many, known as the Metropolitan Council – don’t they have job descriptions for Council eligibility? I mean, we have this criminal, Fr. Ted Bobosh, who actually heads the (egregiously misnamed) “Metropolitan Council ‘Ethics’ Committee”, although by his own admission Fr. Bobosh does not even know whether the latest incarnation of the anti-Christ, his parishioner, Mark Stokoe, is ethically sound or reprehensible, despite said parishioner’s responsibility for the fraudulently anti-Christian caricature of the OCA website (http://www.oca.org/), videlicet Mark’s website, OCANews, which “repeatedly reports half-truths and confidential information [such that]…his reporting [has been found by everyone who has laid eyes upon it] to be biased, distasteful, and to have caused unnecessary controversy and division in the OCA [so that] Mark Stokoe has proven that the upkeep of his website and his membership on the Metropolitan Council are in conflict of interest.” http://www.ocatruth.com/?p=224
This being the case, why don’t they get rid of this farcical fiend?!?!?
Maybe the answer is that it is better for the OCA to rest content in gratitude to God as it emerges unified, simplified in its make-up, and cleansed of many of its own false deceits after the hellish agony it has been put through during the past several years -- and leave this impotent idiot to stew in his own juice.
The (orthodox) Church in America in its entirety would do well to take a page from the OCA Mother Church in Russia, which, let us not forget, was raising up more martyrs than at any time since the early pagan persecutions of Christians – during the century in which the west was growing secularized-and-selfish (I hyphenate them as these character deficiencies are inseparable), its Church enslaved to partisan political considerations – as both responsible Catholics in the US as also the Head of Russian Patriarchal Dioceses in the USA are noting even as I write this:
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/11/catholic-professors-want-boehner-to-reconcider-cuts/
Catholic professors blast Boehner's record over cuts to poor
By Eric Marrapodi, CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor
Washington (CNN) - When House Speaker John Boehner steps up to the podium at the Catholic University of America's commencement on Saturday, he'll be tap dancing around the line between faith and politics.
On Wednesday, a group of 70 professors, priests, nuns and others from the Washington university and other Catholic colleges around the country fired off a letter calling Boehner on the carpet for what they say is his lack of support of legislation for the poor.
"Your record in support of legislation to address the desperate needs of the poor is among the worst in Congress. This fundamental concern should have great urgency for Catholic policy makers. Yet, even now, you work in opposition to it," the letter reads.
Boehner, Catholic by faith and Republican by party, was able to garner enough votes in the House for the passage of HR 1, the House budget proposal that has drawn the ire of many religious leaders.
The group of professors said the proposed cuts in the budget to Medicare, the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) nutrition program and food stamps "guts long-established protections for the most vulnerable members of society."
Along with their letter they sent the speaker the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, a Vatican document on the teachings of the Catholic prepared in 2004 by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
The compendium cites specific guidance for lawmakers: "Those who exercise political authority must see to it that the energies of all citizens are directed towards the common good; and they are to do so not in an authoritarian style but by making use of moral power sustained in freedom."
Stephen F. Schneck is a professor at the Catholic University of America and director of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies. He is one of the signers of the letter and said the impetuous for it took root early in the budget debate.
"It was probably the contrast between what the bishops were telling us about paying attention to the needs of the poor and the actual budget that passed through the House of Representatives," Schneck said.
"One of the most ancient teachings of Christianity is preferential treatment of the poor, and it seemed that in the way in which the ... budget tried to address the deficit and the debt, it was particularly targeting programs that serve the poor," Schneck said.
"We thought that was an inappropriate balancing of the various interests of society. It seems to us these examples that we gave were illustrations of what were really egregious targeting of really valuable programs to the poorest and most vulnerable people in America."
Schneck and the other signatories on the letter are urging Boehner to join with a group of religious leaders who have been calling for a "Circle of Protection" to be formed around federal programs for the poor. That group grew out of what some have said are liberal Christian activist groups but in recent weeks has grown to include a broad scope of Protestant, Catholic and evangelical leaders.
“Lawmakers need to understand what a circle of protection means," Jim Wallis, the head of Sojourners, said on a conference call with reporters last week about the effort. "It means if you come after the poor, you will have to come and go through us first."
The coalition of religious leaders behind the "Circle of Protection" also has drawn the ire of conservative media outlets.
Rush Limbaugh said on his radio program last month, "A favorite tactic of the left, you know, when it suits them they'll talk about Jesus Christ. When they can convince or try to convince everybody Jesus Christ was the patron saint of liberalism, then they will herald Jesus Christ."
Russian bishop: America has problems with democracy
Saratov, May 11, Interfax - Head of the Russian Patriarchal Dioceses in the USA Archbishop Justinian of Narofominsk believes the USA still has to work hard on its democracy.
"Economic living standards in the US are much higher than those in Russia… At the same time, I wouldn't regard the situation in the United States as ideal," Archbishop Justinian said in an interview published by the Pravoslaviye i Sovremennost (Orthodoxy and Modern Times) magazine of the Saratov Diocese.
According to him, several-thousand-strong demonstrations may be held in America where people freely express their opinions and protests but "they often receive no response from the Government: "Do you want to speak out? You are welcome, this is America, and we have democracy. But the authorities will continue to pursue their own government policy."
"It is evident. There are problems here just as in any other state, including problems with relations of nationalities," Archbishop Justinian said.
However, he believes that a perfect democracy or "to put it better, a perfect freedom of which we sometimes dream is unfeasible on Earth," as "a perfect freedom can be only in Christ."
Patriarch Kirill urges to develop Russia on Christian values
Moscow, May 12, Interfax - Russia will see a success, if it combines its development with faith, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia believes.
"We should build our motherland with humility, firmness and deep Christian commitment, we should pursue the development in all areas of popular life, both economy and policy, and take care of social and material well-being of people," the Patriarch said.
He urged worshipers to focus on a "religious attitude to things happening to humans in general and to each of us in particular. We will succeed, if we have spiritual life as our priority," the Patriarch stated.
Patriarch Kirill believes Russia should develop "and preserve its real independence from other global influential forces; it should preserve its ability to build its national life relying on a great tradition – that of the Russian state."
***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****
I believe that what the Head of the Russian Patriarchal Dioceses in the USA, Archbishop Justinian, as also the group of 70 professors, priests, nuns and others from the Washington university and other Catholic colleges around the country who fired off a letter calling Boehner on the carpet for what they say is his lack of support of legislation for the poor, recognize and are scandalized and thoroughly disgusted by is precisely the relegation of religion to a tactic of crassly self-serving political manipulation such as characterizes the mindset of Stokoe, Bobosh, and others of their ilk - Rush Limbaugh, for instance, who said on his radio program last month, "A favorite tactic of the left, you know, when it suits them they'll talk about Jesus Christ. When they can convince or try to convince everybody Jesus Christ was the patron saint of liberalism, then they will herald Jesus Christ."
No, Mr. Limbaugh, you miss the point altogether! What is going to rouse this sluggish nation out of its sterile auto-eroticism – which is same-sex eroticism taken to its logical conclusion – is the acquisition of civilized habits for getting out of our narrow selves and all of our self-serving compulsion to just take whatever we want to take, with no concern for the needs of others ---- I bet in Russia this compulsion is still recognized as stealing. Here, it comes under the rubric of “self-fulfillment”!!!
The Orthodox Church in America just emerged from meetings of its Synod of Bishops and its so-called “Metropolitan Council” – the latter trying to pull a “wag the dog” on the former, which, however, fell through inasmuch as the campaign of unsupported allegations (against their enemies) coupled with unconvincing denials (where their own buddies were concerned) on the part of the Stokoe faction and their ilk in their effort to compromise various members of the episcopacy and the higher clergy just fizzled out.
The smear campaign fell through because the OCA, with all it’s problems, nevertheless still views sex within the context of the fecund union between loving spouses who GIVE THEMSELVES TO ONE ANOTHER BECAUSE THEY HAVE FIRST GIVEN THEMSELVES TO GOD, AND BELIEVE THEIR UNION TO BE HIS SALVIFIC PLAN FOR THEM, AND THIS FROM ALL PRE-ETERNITY. For this reason a candidate for the priesthood who wishes to be married typically must make this decision and enter into marriage before his priestly ordination.
Moreover, most of our priests are married – it is contrary to approved practice to have celibate archimandrites serving as parish priests, and when it is allowed as an exception it invariably leads to problems.
Those Orthodox with a priestly calling who do not wish to give themselves to God in union with a spouse, give themselves in love to God within a monastic community – which, again, is, within Orthodoxy, a true brotherhood, not just a male dormitory --- such as, if you go down the roster of Catholic sex offenders, you will find most of them housed in.
Genuinely Orthodox monasteries are, like spiritually healthy families, devoutly loving communities, including those with a strict rule of silence, indeed love is nourished by silence. I suggest you virtually visit the Hermitage of the Holy Cross, a ROCOR monastery in Wayne, West Virginia – I can personally vouch for the formation in holiness provided by this monastic community, having lived through a number of very revealing experiences with my Russian friends who are spiritually fed by it. The url is: http://www.holycross-hermitage.com
I suggest you do as I did on my first visit: “Fr. Artemy Vladimirov's Talk on the Jesus Prayer” (upper left on home page) caught my interest – and so powerfully held it that I was ineluctably drawn into it, and it proved to be quite a long and ever more fascinating account! So to temper my American-style impatience, I clicked on “Photos” – and, in effect, I found myself living the Jesus Prayer with the monastic community from its founding to the present!!! I was thus left with an invaluable personal experience of growing in God – growing INTO God – through the Jesus Prayer, which supports me still, even as I am writing this to you. Try it! You won’t be sorry!
I can hardly believe there are not some few -- surely not in my chat group, but others into whose hands this e-mail might possibly fall -- who are infected by the same crassly Godless cynicism which has devoured any shreds of the human decency so tragically alien to the likes of “Rush” – his name alone says it all! – Limbaugh, & Stokoe et al, and so I would like any such scoffers to meet my poet-grandson, Dominic. It would be interesting to see how Rush would fare in his presence. Here is an excerpt from his latest poem – I am posting it in its entirety on my mamaleh-larisa website:
Mind / Flow
By Dominic Jones
The ink tip
Hits that papyrus
I'm hoping that the flow
Spreads like a virus
I must keep this going
Hang onto this vibe …
When I get antisocial
In a room full of peers
It's because my thoughts
Flow like this ink
Coloring outside the lines
Trudging forth into new, unexplored horizons
And getting me to think
Reality sink
Propped up by sunshine
I am part of the divine
Copyright (c) 1998-2011 Dominic Jones. All Rights Reserved.
Dominic Jones, writer
Creativity Unlimited, LLC
Click here for my poetry on Tumblr
***** ***** ****** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****
I invite you, dear friends in Christ, to take note of the significance of the latest Roman Catholic “Changes in the Parts of the People in the Revised Order of Mass in the Roman Missal, Third Edition Approved by the USCCB, June 2006; Confirmed by the Holy See, June 2008” in the Creed regarding God the Father and God the Son (at the moment I observe what I believe to be prudent silence re God the Holy Spirit):
I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father…..
For I don’t know how many years, English speaking Catholics have been reciting, instead of this last phrase:
“….begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father.”
If you queried any kindergartener, I think you would see that the child would recognize that whatever is - whatever has being - is, ipso facto and obviously to the human mind, “one in being” with all other things which “are”, i.e., which “have being”. It’s so immediately and axiomatically obvious, I fear obscuring the reality by any attempt to dissect it. Like “a straight line is the shortest distance between two points”: if a person fails to recognize this, there is no way to further “explain” it to them -- although you might want to confine them in some way as they likely will be unable to navigate from one point to another.
When I mentioned this to a Catholic friend, the former translation was rationalized to me on the basis that the people didn’t know what “consubstantial” meant. Wouldn’t you say, brothers and sisters, that the Catholics, including all the priests, bishops, popes, and whoever else who either did the mistranslation or allowed others to mistranslate this vitally crucial passage – also did not know diddley about either the word (which is actually very easy to break into its components to understand the meaning of the word itself: “con” and “substance” are very commonly used terms) – provided one has the prudence and good will to make the effort to understand how such a term is necessary to express the divine reality – which is not like our everyday run of the mill father-son relationships.
In the Orthodox Church, the Sunday after Ascension Thursday is dedicated to “the holy and God-bearing Fathers at Nicaea”, and the services (Saturday evening Great Vespers, Nocturns, Matins, the Liturgy and Sunday Vespers – are all recapitulated in the daily services throughout the following week) explore, in the theological hymnology composed by its saints in the course of more than a millennium, all aspects of the teaching on the Holy Trinity as also its ramifications in our lived daily experience. Met. Hilsrion – my very dear friend and one of the most devotedly indefatigable members of our hierarchy – has noted that Orthodoxy has not been plagued by heresy as has the western Church, precisely because its theology is not consigned to books (the Soviet regime actually helped purify the faith of the Church by destroying all the books it could get its hands on because the books they had access to were not written by saints such as St. Theophan the Recluse, but were the kind of shallow, westernizing writings popular in certain trendy circles in capital cities such as St. Petersburg and Moscow, expressing the mindset exported to this country by such as Frs Schmemmen and Myendorff. In the monasteries, monks continued, even under the Soviet persecution, to hymn the ages old theological poetry because the atheistic officialdom considered such folk ditties of no account – as, apparently, did also the bookishly pseudo-intellectualized Catholics, to judge from their emaciated liturgical traditions. I was delighted, when I attended Mass with my children on the Sunday after Easter, to see that the Gospel reading, on “doubting” Thomas, was the traditional reading, but the Catholic priest in his sermon failed to draw upon the rich theology of Thomas’ “believing unbelief” which “established the world-saving arising for the world’s assurance” most notably in regard to the indwelling of the Holy Three-in-One in us whereby we are deified – and this through her who is the Mother of God.
“Aforetime the unbegotten Father was proclaimed by the wise in an image as Mind; the CONSUBSTANTIAL Son as co-beginningless Word; and He that effected the Word’s incarnation in the Virgin, as Holy Spirit.” I think when the faithful encounter the term consubstantial in such prayers, they will – uh get the point!
Again: “Thou [Mary} art become the house of the unwaning Sun Who in an almighty manner created and ordered the great luminaries, O immaculate Virgin, Bride of God. Do thou rescue me now from the GLOOM OF THE PASSIONS.
Should this e-mail mistakenly fall into the hands of any of the types whose minds stubbornly refuse to comprehend the meaning of an unfamiliar term like “consubstantial”, let me point out that the GLOOM OF THE PASSIONS is typically referred to in our post-Freudian age as DEPRESSION. An instance of how this works out in practice is my friend Hildegard, who tells how she had been clinically diagnosed as manic-depressive and placed on medication – although during the years she lived in our community with Herbert, she didn’t take any medicine, yet in those years she was free of manic-to-depressive-and-back-again mood swings.
If, upon Herbert’s demise, Hilde “neutralized to zero” as the Logos programmers who were grateful for her superb typing skill, but often frustrated that she had no sense of the meaningful context of it all (not that the programmers et al did - see below), said she “neutralized” upon completing each task, she was far from being the only one at Mt. hope to do so. Indeed, following the lead of the gang of four, our Dominican priest Fr. Rover, the former mother of our family Sis Mellet, Bud Scott who claims to be “chief architect” of the Logos system (despite the fact that they had to get me to do the system specs; he tried, but ….. ), and Dr. Gerry Hurley, our Harvard PhD who was formerly Mother Hurley of the Madames of the Sacred Heart of Jesus – following their lead it was those who remained in the Logos subset of our community who jumped ship the fastest.
As I reflected on this, because certainly Hilde has good will, she is my best friend and I know this, and it is not for me to negatively judge either her or anyone else, it was born in on me in a very personal way how endemic to our western culture is the divorce of “theology”, which has been reduced to a purely theoretical science, from any relationship to real life whatsoever. When, some years ago, the young Russian Bishop Nikon (as I recall his name, I believe that after kicking up one helluva ruckus, he was retired at his own request to the Pskov monastery) – so this fine young bishop actually, according to the reports I read, built a real fire and consigned to it --- well, I don’t know what all, but basically everything I myself would consign to an auto da fe if the opportunity to do so presented itself. I recall that Fr. Schmemmen’s widow was – uh, extremely irate, and my dear friend Pat Aleksi went to some lengths to calm the waters while stopping short of repudiating the fine young bishop.
So if what Herbert taught us did not carry over into the people’s lives after his repose – although, interestingly enough, as I have pondered this through all these years, I cannot help being struck that it is those from our community who have fallen asleep in the Lord who in fact lived and died in the “odour of sanctity”: for instance, Bill Davey, Paul Davey, and now more recently Toppy (with whom I spent lots of time traveling, so I know whereby I speak), of course my preternaturally patient husband, Gordon, Lupe’s daughters, Elisa Suarez and Anita Carver (as she was dying I had an experience in which the Biblical account of the words of Jesus on the Cross to the repentant thief, “today you will be with Me in heaven” came to me – I shared the experience with my Carmelite sisters in Mexico, Mothers Josephine and Margarita), Agnes the nun ....…… If this e-mail reaches any Mt. Hopers, I am sure they will agree with me and not be able to remain dry eyed. There are more names, but I can’t call them all to mind right now.
Yet I have already related how I submitted to St. Vlad’s Theological Quarterly my paper on the French philosopher Jacques Lacan, and they rejected it on the basis that they consider themselves to be a “theological” journal, and do not accept anything having to do with the real world, to wit, the human psyche.
Yet it is precisely this contemporary French philosopher, Jacques Lacan, who – being also a practicing psychiatrist -- clinically verified and taught just what Herbert taught us regarding the Trinity as also the life of theosis whereby we are enlivened, indeed deified by the Triune God. This teaching as also the life lived in accord with it, in turn squares precisely with what the Fathers of the Council of Nicaea taught - the Sunday after Ascension Thursday being, in the Orthodox Church, devoted to these Council Fathers.
I have earlier indicated in my memos how the teaching on theosis is expounded at the beginning of Great Lent, with the subsequent Sundays building and expanding on this, culminating with the saints John of the Ladder and Mary of Egypt (ca. 344 – ca. 421), each of whom exemplify in their own “style” the day-by-day lived life of divinization, the one saint in community with others, the other in a life of solitary reclusion in the desert beyond the Jordan – where she nevertheless was taught the Scriptures and came to profoundly understand the teaching of the Church, to the utter amazement of the monk, Zosimas of Palestine, who discovered her near the end of her life, and passed on her story until her Vita was written by St. Sophronius, the Patriarch of Jerusalem (634 - 638).
Should you need to refresh your memory, please see my webpage for the theology of the Holy Trinity:
http://www.mamaleh-larisa.com/MANIFESTO.PDF, you can scroll down to the Rublev ikon of the Holy Trinity.
The situation in the US wherein the term “consubstantial” – so pregnant with meaning if one exercises one’s mind, which few clearly are willing to do – was scratched by the Catholics and replaced with the simplistic “one in being” as if it were synonymous, closely resembles the intellectually moribund state confronted by the Nicaean Fathers. They found themselves up against rampant Arianism, which I will not try to define, in line with what Herbert replied when asked why the early philosophers are so easy to understand – Aristotle is even referred to as “common sense systematized” – while western philosophy becomes, over time, more and more convoluted and obscure, until in our own times we even have Heideggerians arguing over whether or not Heideggerianism remains Heideggerianism if you translate it out of the German!!! (I mean, they do have a point: Sein=being; Dasein=being there; Angst, which has become such a trendy buzz word means … plain old boringly obnoxious “anxiety”.) Herbert answered simply: “It’s difficult to express error.” Me, I have enough difficulties without getting myself into that one!
So the Nicean Fathers found themselves assaulted by a mess of Arian verbal gymnastics which at that time were dangerously, and really diabolically, confusing to the faithful as Christianity was in its infancy, so that a terminology suitable to it had not yet been worked out and officially approved within the Church. This is of course is not the case within the Church to day, so hopefully the Catholics will henceforth cease their tinkering with the Church’s Credo now that they have put it back like it was. Some of it, at least.
The terminology for the first part of the Nicean Creed was worked out by the Fathers of the First Council of Nicea, A.D. 325, attended by the father of St. Gregory the Theologian, who was brought to Christianity by his wife St. Nonna, a Deaconness. She clearly was a superb tutor, since her husband played a major role in the Council. Before his death he saw to it that his more reclusive son was ordained a bishop, and the Second Ecumenical Council, assembled in 381, elected St. Gregory the Younger Archbishop of Constantinople. He with holy alacrity came to the assistance of the Church, and by his supremely wise words and dedicated labors he freed it from the corruption of heresy. He is one of only 3 saints to have the title St. Gregory the Theologian, the others being St. John the Theologian, the Gospel writer, and St. Simeon the New Theologian.
Let us return back to the future, to the Head of the Russian Patriarchal Dioceses in the USA, Archbishop Justinian of Narofominsk, and his conclusion that a perfect democracy or, to put it better, a perfect freedom of which we sometimes dream, is unfeasible on Earth, as perfect freedom can be only in Christ.
Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia believes Russia will succeed, “if we have spiritual life as our priority.” While not mentioning any names, he also said Russia should preserve its real independence from other “global influential forces”.
It should not surprise us to see the Russians taking measures targeted at filling some of the yawning voids in --- well, what can we expect when someone like Stokoe can mendaciously represent himself as OCA News – and by and large get away with it!
A significant experience of mine indicates, I believe, to what extent the OCA – which is nevertheless the church in America which comes closest to realizing its true nature as the Body of Christ, Who is our Head – has been politicized. My travels are limited, so I speak only from my own personal vantage point, but what I see as I survey the scene is that St Tikhon’s and the Diocese of Philadelphia and Eastern Pennsylvania, as well as Bp. Michael’s Diocese of New York and New Jersey, the Diocese of the South, and the Cathedral community of the OCA Primatial Cathedral of St. Nicholas in Washington (which Jonah tried, but miserably failed, to re-fashion), my “alma mater”, so to speak, Orthodox Christian Laity, shepherded by Abp. Nathaniel – are all in superb spiritual health and raring to go!!!
But I had what I believe to be a significant experience: I was interested in Orthodoxy -- as also heaven and the way to get there! – for very personal reasons of my own. I was received into Orthodox Communion in the Moscow Patriarchate, in their spiritual mission in Jerusalem, and the only Orthodox person I was somewhat drawn to in the US was Fr. Hopko. When the time came that I thought I should make contact with the OCA, I made an effort to get to know Fr. Hopko, and I thought we were friends. Then time goes by, again I’m trying to reach out to the OCA because I was interested in having a church in my town. In getting to know the pastors of the parishes in my area, there was one young priest, who happened to be married to one of Fr. Hopko’s daughters (although this circumstance didn’t enter into the relationship, I don’t know anybody at all in the Hopko family besides Fr. Tom.) I thought I really clicked with this young priest, he even told me he liked me (for the record, this was in no way a come-on!!! At that point in my life, I had so many enemies, I really needed such reassurance!) One day I saw this priest at an event at St. Tikhon’s, and we exchanged news as usual, and I said to him, on the QT, not to tell anyone that I was very good friends with Met. Herman, because I didn’t want to get him in trouble! You know, the Met and I both had enough enemies that there was no point combining them!!
But this young priest almost stumbled and lost his footing, his mouth fell open and he was even making choking noises! I wasn’t perturbed, I just thought, you often don’t really know who your friends are, and put it behind me.
It was maybe a year or so later, again at an event at St. Tikhon’s, and there was Fr. Hopko, whom by then I hadn’t seen in years, so I did what I think anyone would do, seeing an old friend after some time, I ran over to say hi to him – but Fr. Tom, AND his son-in-law and daughter who were with him ----- cut me deader than I have ever been cut, and, given my penchant for making enemies, that’s saying a lot.
This is the extent to which these people are driven by just plain raw politics! I had thought we had a meeting of the minds, but I think these people, just like the Logos crowd, would drop dead if they experienced a real meeting of two minds in the Mind of Christ – Fr. Tom’s son-in-law almost did!
In a separate attachment I am sending photos from the visit of the Administrator of the Patriarchal Parishes in the USA, Abp. Justinian, to Mexico – along with an article Herbert wrote on Our Lady of Guadalupe. To this I would add that I don’t know of any other place on earth where Mary herself has written her own ikon!
Note that in Orthodoxy we do not say ikons are “painted”! No, ikons are “theology written in color” – they are theologically profoundly meaningful, indeed, myriad western aberrations are countered by our Orthodox ikons. I once was visited by some Jehovah’s Witnesses, who acceded to my request to witness to them, after I heard their witness. I mentioned ikons which they said were idolatry. I replied that, no, they are theology, and ended up showing them my ikon corner, which included a Nativity ikon. What caught their attention was the wise men in the distance, still traveling toward the infant Messiah! They noted that the biblical account said the Holy Family was living in a house by the time they arrived, whereas in western “idolatrous” paintings they are shown – and this even in cinema! - at the manger…….
So the Theotokos herself came to this hemisphere, the New World, as Christianity was being introduced, and she came, not to the Catholic invaders, but to a native Mexican, to whom she proclaimed herself as the Mother of our New World, and instructed the Aztec native to so inform the foreigners.
Fr. Hopko’s mantra is how America’s best-kept secret is Orthodoxy. Can it be that the Moscow Patriarchate wishes to proclaim it by a less brain-dead route than has heretofore been tried in the New World???
To: The OCA and its well-wishers
From: Laura Jones - http://www.mamaleh-larisa.com
new site - http://how-soon-jerusalem.weebly.com
Date: May 14, 2011
Subject: The orthodox Church in America
Now that the dust has settled after the meeting of the OCA Synod of Bishops and the gang-of-however-many, known as the Metropolitan Council – don’t they have job descriptions for Council eligibility? I mean, we have this criminal, Fr. Ted Bobosh, who actually heads the (egregiously misnamed) “Metropolitan Council ‘Ethics’ Committee”, although by his own admission Fr. Bobosh does not even know whether the latest incarnation of the anti-Christ, his parishioner, Mark Stokoe, is ethically sound or reprehensible, despite said parishioner’s responsibility for the fraudulently anti-Christian caricature of the OCA website (http://www.oca.org/), videlicet Mark’s website, OCANews, which “repeatedly reports half-truths and confidential information [such that]…his reporting [has been found by everyone who has laid eyes upon it] to be biased, distasteful, and to have caused unnecessary controversy and division in the OCA [so that] Mark Stokoe has proven that the upkeep of his website and his membership on the Metropolitan Council are in conflict of interest.” http://www.ocatruth.com/?p=224
This being the case, why don’t they get rid of this farcical fiend?!?!?
Maybe the answer is that it is better for the OCA to rest content in gratitude to God as it emerges unified, simplified in its make-up, and cleansed of many of its own false deceits after the hellish agony it has been put through during the past several years -- and leave this impotent idiot to stew in his own juice.
The (orthodox) Church in America in its entirety would do well to take a page from the OCA Mother Church in Russia, which, let us not forget, was raising up more martyrs than at any time since the early pagan persecutions of Christians – during the century in which the west was growing secularized-and-selfish (I hyphenate them as these character deficiencies are inseparable), its Church enslaved to partisan political considerations – as both responsible Catholics in the US as also the Head of Russian Patriarchal Dioceses in the USA are noting even as I write this:
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/11/catholic-professors-want-boehner-to-reconcider-cuts/
Catholic professors blast Boehner's record over cuts to poor
By Eric Marrapodi, CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor
Washington (CNN) - When House Speaker John Boehner steps up to the podium at the Catholic University of America's commencement on Saturday, he'll be tap dancing around the line between faith and politics.
On Wednesday, a group of 70 professors, priests, nuns and others from the Washington university and other Catholic colleges around the country fired off a letter calling Boehner on the carpet for what they say is his lack of support of legislation for the poor.
"Your record in support of legislation to address the desperate needs of the poor is among the worst in Congress. This fundamental concern should have great urgency for Catholic policy makers. Yet, even now, you work in opposition to it," the letter reads.
Boehner, Catholic by faith and Republican by party, was able to garner enough votes in the House for the passage of HR 1, the House budget proposal that has drawn the ire of many religious leaders.
The group of professors said the proposed cuts in the budget to Medicare, the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) nutrition program and food stamps "guts long-established protections for the most vulnerable members of society."
Along with their letter they sent the speaker the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, a Vatican document on the teachings of the Catholic prepared in 2004 by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
The compendium cites specific guidance for lawmakers: "Those who exercise political authority must see to it that the energies of all citizens are directed towards the common good; and they are to do so not in an authoritarian style but by making use of moral power sustained in freedom."
Stephen F. Schneck is a professor at the Catholic University of America and director of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies. He is one of the signers of the letter and said the impetuous for it took root early in the budget debate.
"It was probably the contrast between what the bishops were telling us about paying attention to the needs of the poor and the actual budget that passed through the House of Representatives," Schneck said.
"One of the most ancient teachings of Christianity is preferential treatment of the poor, and it seemed that in the way in which the ... budget tried to address the deficit and the debt, it was particularly targeting programs that serve the poor," Schneck said.
"We thought that was an inappropriate balancing of the various interests of society. It seems to us these examples that we gave were illustrations of what were really egregious targeting of really valuable programs to the poorest and most vulnerable people in America."
Schneck and the other signatories on the letter are urging Boehner to join with a group of religious leaders who have been calling for a "Circle of Protection" to be formed around federal programs for the poor. That group grew out of what some have said are liberal Christian activist groups but in recent weeks has grown to include a broad scope of Protestant, Catholic and evangelical leaders.
“Lawmakers need to understand what a circle of protection means," Jim Wallis, the head of Sojourners, said on a conference call with reporters last week about the effort. "It means if you come after the poor, you will have to come and go through us first."
The coalition of religious leaders behind the "Circle of Protection" also has drawn the ire of conservative media outlets.
Rush Limbaugh said on his radio program last month, "A favorite tactic of the left, you know, when it suits them they'll talk about Jesus Christ. When they can convince or try to convince everybody Jesus Christ was the patron saint of liberalism, then they will herald Jesus Christ."
Russian bishop: America has problems with democracy
Saratov, May 11, Interfax - Head of the Russian Patriarchal Dioceses in the USA Archbishop Justinian of Narofominsk believes the USA still has to work hard on its democracy.
"Economic living standards in the US are much higher than those in Russia… At the same time, I wouldn't regard the situation in the United States as ideal," Archbishop Justinian said in an interview published by the Pravoslaviye i Sovremennost (Orthodoxy and Modern Times) magazine of the Saratov Diocese.
According to him, several-thousand-strong demonstrations may be held in America where people freely express their opinions and protests but "they often receive no response from the Government: "Do you want to speak out? You are welcome, this is America, and we have democracy. But the authorities will continue to pursue their own government policy."
"It is evident. There are problems here just as in any other state, including problems with relations of nationalities," Archbishop Justinian said.
However, he believes that a perfect democracy or "to put it better, a perfect freedom of which we sometimes dream is unfeasible on Earth," as "a perfect freedom can be only in Christ."
Patriarch Kirill urges to develop Russia on Christian values
Moscow, May 12, Interfax - Russia will see a success, if it combines its development with faith, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia believes.
"We should build our motherland with humility, firmness and deep Christian commitment, we should pursue the development in all areas of popular life, both economy and policy, and take care of social and material well-being of people," the Patriarch said.
He urged worshipers to focus on a "religious attitude to things happening to humans in general and to each of us in particular. We will succeed, if we have spiritual life as our priority," the Patriarch stated.
Patriarch Kirill believes Russia should develop "and preserve its real independence from other global influential forces; it should preserve its ability to build its national life relying on a great tradition – that of the Russian state."
***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****
I believe that what the Head of the Russian Patriarchal Dioceses in the USA, Archbishop Justinian, as also the group of 70 professors, priests, nuns and others from the Washington university and other Catholic colleges around the country who fired off a letter calling Boehner on the carpet for what they say is his lack of support of legislation for the poor, recognize and are scandalized and thoroughly disgusted by is precisely the relegation of religion to a tactic of crassly self-serving political manipulation such as characterizes the mindset of Stokoe, Bobosh, and others of their ilk - Rush Limbaugh, for instance, who said on his radio program last month, "A favorite tactic of the left, you know, when it suits them they'll talk about Jesus Christ. When they can convince or try to convince everybody Jesus Christ was the patron saint of liberalism, then they will herald Jesus Christ."
No, Mr. Limbaugh, you miss the point altogether! What is going to rouse this sluggish nation out of its sterile auto-eroticism – which is same-sex eroticism taken to its logical conclusion – is the acquisition of civilized habits for getting out of our narrow selves and all of our self-serving compulsion to just take whatever we want to take, with no concern for the needs of others ---- I bet in Russia this compulsion is still recognized as stealing. Here, it comes under the rubric of “self-fulfillment”!!!
The Orthodox Church in America just emerged from meetings of its Synod of Bishops and its so-called “Metropolitan Council” – the latter trying to pull a “wag the dog” on the former, which, however, fell through inasmuch as the campaign of unsupported allegations (against their enemies) coupled with unconvincing denials (where their own buddies were concerned) on the part of the Stokoe faction and their ilk in their effort to compromise various members of the episcopacy and the higher clergy just fizzled out.
The smear campaign fell through because the OCA, with all it’s problems, nevertheless still views sex within the context of the fecund union between loving spouses who GIVE THEMSELVES TO ONE ANOTHER BECAUSE THEY HAVE FIRST GIVEN THEMSELVES TO GOD, AND BELIEVE THEIR UNION TO BE HIS SALVIFIC PLAN FOR THEM, AND THIS FROM ALL PRE-ETERNITY. For this reason a candidate for the priesthood who wishes to be married typically must make this decision and enter into marriage before his priestly ordination.
Moreover, most of our priests are married – it is contrary to approved practice to have celibate archimandrites serving as parish priests, and when it is allowed as an exception it invariably leads to problems.
Those Orthodox with a priestly calling who do not wish to give themselves to God in union with a spouse, give themselves in love to God within a monastic community – which, again, is, within Orthodoxy, a true brotherhood, not just a male dormitory --- such as, if you go down the roster of Catholic sex offenders, you will find most of them housed in.
Genuinely Orthodox monasteries are, like spiritually healthy families, devoutly loving communities, including those with a strict rule of silence, indeed love is nourished by silence. I suggest you virtually visit the Hermitage of the Holy Cross, a ROCOR monastery in Wayne, West Virginia – I can personally vouch for the formation in holiness provided by this monastic community, having lived through a number of very revealing experiences with my Russian friends who are spiritually fed by it. The url is: http://www.holycross-hermitage.com
I suggest you do as I did on my first visit: “Fr. Artemy Vladimirov's Talk on the Jesus Prayer” (upper left on home page) caught my interest – and so powerfully held it that I was ineluctably drawn into it, and it proved to be quite a long and ever more fascinating account! So to temper my American-style impatience, I clicked on “Photos” – and, in effect, I found myself living the Jesus Prayer with the monastic community from its founding to the present!!! I was thus left with an invaluable personal experience of growing in God – growing INTO God – through the Jesus Prayer, which supports me still, even as I am writing this to you. Try it! You won’t be sorry!
I can hardly believe there are not some few -- surely not in my chat group, but others into whose hands this e-mail might possibly fall -- who are infected by the same crassly Godless cynicism which has devoured any shreds of the human decency so tragically alien to the likes of “Rush” – his name alone says it all! – Limbaugh, & Stokoe et al, and so I would like any such scoffers to meet my poet-grandson, Dominic. It would be interesting to see how Rush would fare in his presence. Here is an excerpt from his latest poem – I am posting it in its entirety on my mamaleh-larisa website:
Mind / Flow
By Dominic Jones
The ink tip
Hits that papyrus
I'm hoping that the flow
Spreads like a virus
I must keep this going
Hang onto this vibe …
When I get antisocial
In a room full of peers
It's because my thoughts
Flow like this ink
Coloring outside the lines
Trudging forth into new, unexplored horizons
And getting me to think
Reality sink
Propped up by sunshine
I am part of the divine
Copyright (c) 1998-2011 Dominic Jones. All Rights Reserved.
Dominic Jones, writer
Creativity Unlimited, LLC
Click here for my poetry on Tumblr
***** ***** ****** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****
I invite you, dear friends in Christ, to take note of the significance of the latest Roman Catholic “Changes in the Parts of the People in the Revised Order of Mass in the Roman Missal, Third Edition Approved by the USCCB, June 2006; Confirmed by the Holy See, June 2008” in the Creed regarding God the Father and God the Son (at the moment I observe what I believe to be prudent silence re God the Holy Spirit):
I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father…..
For I don’t know how many years, English speaking Catholics have been reciting, instead of this last phrase:
“….begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father.”
If you queried any kindergartener, I think you would see that the child would recognize that whatever is - whatever has being - is, ipso facto and obviously to the human mind, “one in being” with all other things which “are”, i.e., which “have being”. It’s so immediately and axiomatically obvious, I fear obscuring the reality by any attempt to dissect it. Like “a straight line is the shortest distance between two points”: if a person fails to recognize this, there is no way to further “explain” it to them -- although you might want to confine them in some way as they likely will be unable to navigate from one point to another.
When I mentioned this to a Catholic friend, the former translation was rationalized to me on the basis that the people didn’t know what “consubstantial” meant. Wouldn’t you say, brothers and sisters, that the Catholics, including all the priests, bishops, popes, and whoever else who either did the mistranslation or allowed others to mistranslate this vitally crucial passage – also did not know diddley about either the word (which is actually very easy to break into its components to understand the meaning of the word itself: “con” and “substance” are very commonly used terms) – provided one has the prudence and good will to make the effort to understand how such a term is necessary to express the divine reality – which is not like our everyday run of the mill father-son relationships.
In the Orthodox Church, the Sunday after Ascension Thursday is dedicated to “the holy and God-bearing Fathers at Nicaea”, and the services (Saturday evening Great Vespers, Nocturns, Matins, the Liturgy and Sunday Vespers – are all recapitulated in the daily services throughout the following week) explore, in the theological hymnology composed by its saints in the course of more than a millennium, all aspects of the teaching on the Holy Trinity as also its ramifications in our lived daily experience. Met. Hilsrion – my very dear friend and one of the most devotedly indefatigable members of our hierarchy – has noted that Orthodoxy has not been plagued by heresy as has the western Church, precisely because its theology is not consigned to books (the Soviet regime actually helped purify the faith of the Church by destroying all the books it could get its hands on because the books they had access to were not written by saints such as St. Theophan the Recluse, but were the kind of shallow, westernizing writings popular in certain trendy circles in capital cities such as St. Petersburg and Moscow, expressing the mindset exported to this country by such as Frs Schmemmen and Myendorff. In the monasteries, monks continued, even under the Soviet persecution, to hymn the ages old theological poetry because the atheistic officialdom considered such folk ditties of no account – as, apparently, did also the bookishly pseudo-intellectualized Catholics, to judge from their emaciated liturgical traditions. I was delighted, when I attended Mass with my children on the Sunday after Easter, to see that the Gospel reading, on “doubting” Thomas, was the traditional reading, but the Catholic priest in his sermon failed to draw upon the rich theology of Thomas’ “believing unbelief” which “established the world-saving arising for the world’s assurance” most notably in regard to the indwelling of the Holy Three-in-One in us whereby we are deified – and this through her who is the Mother of God.
“Aforetime the unbegotten Father was proclaimed by the wise in an image as Mind; the CONSUBSTANTIAL Son as co-beginningless Word; and He that effected the Word’s incarnation in the Virgin, as Holy Spirit.” I think when the faithful encounter the term consubstantial in such prayers, they will – uh get the point!
Again: “Thou [Mary} art become the house of the unwaning Sun Who in an almighty manner created and ordered the great luminaries, O immaculate Virgin, Bride of God. Do thou rescue me now from the GLOOM OF THE PASSIONS.
Should this e-mail mistakenly fall into the hands of any of the types whose minds stubbornly refuse to comprehend the meaning of an unfamiliar term like “consubstantial”, let me point out that the GLOOM OF THE PASSIONS is typically referred to in our post-Freudian age as DEPRESSION. An instance of how this works out in practice is my friend Hildegard, who tells how she had been clinically diagnosed as manic-depressive and placed on medication – although during the years she lived in our community with Herbert, she didn’t take any medicine, yet in those years she was free of manic-to-depressive-and-back-again mood swings.
If, upon Herbert’s demise, Hilde “neutralized to zero” as the Logos programmers who were grateful for her superb typing skill, but often frustrated that she had no sense of the meaningful context of it all (not that the programmers et al did - see below), said she “neutralized” upon completing each task, she was far from being the only one at Mt. hope to do so. Indeed, following the lead of the gang of four, our Dominican priest Fr. Rover, the former mother of our family Sis Mellet, Bud Scott who claims to be “chief architect” of the Logos system (despite the fact that they had to get me to do the system specs; he tried, but ….. ), and Dr. Gerry Hurley, our Harvard PhD who was formerly Mother Hurley of the Madames of the Sacred Heart of Jesus – following their lead it was those who remained in the Logos subset of our community who jumped ship the fastest.
As I reflected on this, because certainly Hilde has good will, she is my best friend and I know this, and it is not for me to negatively judge either her or anyone else, it was born in on me in a very personal way how endemic to our western culture is the divorce of “theology”, which has been reduced to a purely theoretical science, from any relationship to real life whatsoever. When, some years ago, the young Russian Bishop Nikon (as I recall his name, I believe that after kicking up one helluva ruckus, he was retired at his own request to the Pskov monastery) – so this fine young bishop actually, according to the reports I read, built a real fire and consigned to it --- well, I don’t know what all, but basically everything I myself would consign to an auto da fe if the opportunity to do so presented itself. I recall that Fr. Schmemmen’s widow was – uh, extremely irate, and my dear friend Pat Aleksi went to some lengths to calm the waters while stopping short of repudiating the fine young bishop.
So if what Herbert taught us did not carry over into the people’s lives after his repose – although, interestingly enough, as I have pondered this through all these years, I cannot help being struck that it is those from our community who have fallen asleep in the Lord who in fact lived and died in the “odour of sanctity”: for instance, Bill Davey, Paul Davey, and now more recently Toppy (with whom I spent lots of time traveling, so I know whereby I speak), of course my preternaturally patient husband, Gordon, Lupe’s daughters, Elisa Suarez and Anita Carver (as she was dying I had an experience in which the Biblical account of the words of Jesus on the Cross to the repentant thief, “today you will be with Me in heaven” came to me – I shared the experience with my Carmelite sisters in Mexico, Mothers Josephine and Margarita), Agnes the nun ....…… If this e-mail reaches any Mt. Hopers, I am sure they will agree with me and not be able to remain dry eyed. There are more names, but I can’t call them all to mind right now.
Yet I have already related how I submitted to St. Vlad’s Theological Quarterly my paper on the French philosopher Jacques Lacan, and they rejected it on the basis that they consider themselves to be a “theological” journal, and do not accept anything having to do with the real world, to wit, the human psyche.
Yet it is precisely this contemporary French philosopher, Jacques Lacan, who – being also a practicing psychiatrist -- clinically verified and taught just what Herbert taught us regarding the Trinity as also the life of theosis whereby we are enlivened, indeed deified by the Triune God. This teaching as also the life lived in accord with it, in turn squares precisely with what the Fathers of the Council of Nicaea taught - the Sunday after Ascension Thursday being, in the Orthodox Church, devoted to these Council Fathers.
I have earlier indicated in my memos how the teaching on theosis is expounded at the beginning of Great Lent, with the subsequent Sundays building and expanding on this, culminating with the saints John of the Ladder and Mary of Egypt (ca. 344 – ca. 421), each of whom exemplify in their own “style” the day-by-day lived life of divinization, the one saint in community with others, the other in a life of solitary reclusion in the desert beyond the Jordan – where she nevertheless was taught the Scriptures and came to profoundly understand the teaching of the Church, to the utter amazement of the monk, Zosimas of Palestine, who discovered her near the end of her life, and passed on her story until her Vita was written by St. Sophronius, the Patriarch of Jerusalem (634 - 638).
Should you need to refresh your memory, please see my webpage for the theology of the Holy Trinity:
http://www.mamaleh-larisa.com/MANIFESTO.PDF, you can scroll down to the Rublev ikon of the Holy Trinity.
The situation in the US wherein the term “consubstantial” – so pregnant with meaning if one exercises one’s mind, which few clearly are willing to do – was scratched by the Catholics and replaced with the simplistic “one in being” as if it were synonymous, closely resembles the intellectually moribund state confronted by the Nicaean Fathers. They found themselves up against rampant Arianism, which I will not try to define, in line with what Herbert replied when asked why the early philosophers are so easy to understand – Aristotle is even referred to as “common sense systematized” – while western philosophy becomes, over time, more and more convoluted and obscure, until in our own times we even have Heideggerians arguing over whether or not Heideggerianism remains Heideggerianism if you translate it out of the German!!! (I mean, they do have a point: Sein=being; Dasein=being there; Angst, which has become such a trendy buzz word means … plain old boringly obnoxious “anxiety”.) Herbert answered simply: “It’s difficult to express error.” Me, I have enough difficulties without getting myself into that one!
So the Nicean Fathers found themselves assaulted by a mess of Arian verbal gymnastics which at that time were dangerously, and really diabolically, confusing to the faithful as Christianity was in its infancy, so that a terminology suitable to it had not yet been worked out and officially approved within the Church. This is of course is not the case within the Church to day, so hopefully the Catholics will henceforth cease their tinkering with the Church’s Credo now that they have put it back like it was. Some of it, at least.
The terminology for the first part of the Nicean Creed was worked out by the Fathers of the First Council of Nicea, A.D. 325, attended by the father of St. Gregory the Theologian, who was brought to Christianity by his wife St. Nonna, a Deaconness. She clearly was a superb tutor, since her husband played a major role in the Council. Before his death he saw to it that his more reclusive son was ordained a bishop, and the Second Ecumenical Council, assembled in 381, elected St. Gregory the Younger Archbishop of Constantinople. He with holy alacrity came to the assistance of the Church, and by his supremely wise words and dedicated labors he freed it from the corruption of heresy. He is one of only 3 saints to have the title St. Gregory the Theologian, the others being St. John the Theologian, the Gospel writer, and St. Simeon the New Theologian.
Let us return back to the future, to the Head of the Russian Patriarchal Dioceses in the USA, Archbishop Justinian of Narofominsk, and his conclusion that a perfect democracy or, to put it better, a perfect freedom of which we sometimes dream, is unfeasible on Earth, as perfect freedom can be only in Christ.
Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia believes Russia will succeed, “if we have spiritual life as our priority.” While not mentioning any names, he also said Russia should preserve its real independence from other “global influential forces”.
It should not surprise us to see the Russians taking measures targeted at filling some of the yawning voids in --- well, what can we expect when someone like Stokoe can mendaciously represent himself as OCA News – and by and large get away with it!
A significant experience of mine indicates, I believe, to what extent the OCA – which is nevertheless the church in America which comes closest to realizing its true nature as the Body of Christ, Who is our Head – has been politicized. My travels are limited, so I speak only from my own personal vantage point, but what I see as I survey the scene is that St Tikhon’s and the Diocese of Philadelphia and Eastern Pennsylvania, as well as Bp. Michael’s Diocese of New York and New Jersey, the Diocese of the South, and the Cathedral community of the OCA Primatial Cathedral of St. Nicholas in Washington (which Jonah tried, but miserably failed, to re-fashion), my “alma mater”, so to speak, Orthodox Christian Laity, shepherded by Abp. Nathaniel – are all in superb spiritual health and raring to go!!!
But I had what I believe to be a significant experience: I was interested in Orthodoxy -- as also heaven and the way to get there! – for very personal reasons of my own. I was received into Orthodox Communion in the Moscow Patriarchate, in their spiritual mission in Jerusalem, and the only Orthodox person I was somewhat drawn to in the US was Fr. Hopko. When the time came that I thought I should make contact with the OCA, I made an effort to get to know Fr. Hopko, and I thought we were friends. Then time goes by, again I’m trying to reach out to the OCA because I was interested in having a church in my town. In getting to know the pastors of the parishes in my area, there was one young priest, who happened to be married to one of Fr. Hopko’s daughters (although this circumstance didn’t enter into the relationship, I don’t know anybody at all in the Hopko family besides Fr. Tom.) I thought I really clicked with this young priest, he even told me he liked me (for the record, this was in no way a come-on!!! At that point in my life, I had so many enemies, I really needed such reassurance!) One day I saw this priest at an event at St. Tikhon’s, and we exchanged news as usual, and I said to him, on the QT, not to tell anyone that I was very good friends with Met. Herman, because I didn’t want to get him in trouble! You know, the Met and I both had enough enemies that there was no point combining them!!
But this young priest almost stumbled and lost his footing, his mouth fell open and he was even making choking noises! I wasn’t perturbed, I just thought, you often don’t really know who your friends are, and put it behind me.
It was maybe a year or so later, again at an event at St. Tikhon’s, and there was Fr. Hopko, whom by then I hadn’t seen in years, so I did what I think anyone would do, seeing an old friend after some time, I ran over to say hi to him – but Fr. Tom, AND his son-in-law and daughter who were with him ----- cut me deader than I have ever been cut, and, given my penchant for making enemies, that’s saying a lot.
This is the extent to which these people are driven by just plain raw politics! I had thought we had a meeting of the minds, but I think these people, just like the Logos crowd, would drop dead if they experienced a real meeting of two minds in the Mind of Christ – Fr. Tom’s son-in-law almost did!
In a separate attachment I am sending photos from the visit of the Administrator of the Patriarchal Parishes in the USA, Abp. Justinian, to Mexico – along with an article Herbert wrote on Our Lady of Guadalupe. To this I would add that I don’t know of any other place on earth where Mary herself has written her own ikon!
Note that in Orthodoxy we do not say ikons are “painted”! No, ikons are “theology written in color” – they are theologically profoundly meaningful, indeed, myriad western aberrations are countered by our Orthodox ikons. I once was visited by some Jehovah’s Witnesses, who acceded to my request to witness to them, after I heard their witness. I mentioned ikons which they said were idolatry. I replied that, no, they are theology, and ended up showing them my ikon corner, which included a Nativity ikon. What caught their attention was the wise men in the distance, still traveling toward the infant Messiah! They noted that the biblical account said the Holy Family was living in a house by the time they arrived, whereas in western “idolatrous” paintings they are shown – and this even in cinema! - at the manger…….
So the Theotokos herself came to this hemisphere, the New World, as Christianity was being introduced, and she came, not to the Catholic invaders, but to a native Mexican, to whom she proclaimed herself as the Mother of our New World, and instructed the Aztec native to so inform the foreigners.
Fr. Hopko’s mantra is how America’s best-kept secret is Orthodoxy. Can it be that the Moscow Patriarchate wishes to proclaim it by a less brain-dead route than has heretofore been tried in the New World???
