[Enjknsua]

Dear John:
I appreciate you bringing us back around to the gospel. How simple life would be if we just did this.

Olga,
I am sorry, I still don't know that I agree with your view.
The Esphigmenou brotherhood took it upon themselves to refuse to commemorate the Patriarch (from Athenagoras onwards, including Bartholomew), and regard themselves as the custodians of "true orthodoxy" (hmmm .... where have we heard that before? ). Dare I say it, but this unilateralist approach is utterly opposite to the collegiality of Orthodoxy, it is rather the feature of the post-Reformation churches which have led to the innumerable churches we see today in the Protestant world: "I don't agree any more with the mother church, so I'll set up my own." By contrast, how has the Orthodox Church dealt with heresies in the past? Councils, ecumenical and local, and, in the case of examination of individuals, a conference of bishops or other higher clergy. A conciliar, collegiate response, not a schismatic one. If the errant party (individual or group) refuses to be corrected, then the Church has the right to regard that party as heretic and/or schismatic.

If a priest, bishop, or higher-ranking cleric has fallen into heresy, then the people, and/or his fellow clerics have the right and duty to correct the situation. If you use this opinion and apply it to St. Anthansius, then he would have been excommunicated since the rest of the "world" did not keep the faith. In the end though, he was proven the victor of the controversy though he was the sole believer.

I am not trying to debate, I am just suggesting these particular monks have a view they believe strongly enough in to abandon their loyalty/obediences and perhaps someone should pay attention and figure out what is in their craw who is not religiously political (is that a real term?) in the Patriarch's camp.

I am the terminal peacekeeper sometimes to a fault. If these monks are in the wrong, then so be it. If not? Who is willing to listen to them now that the liberal media is "on top of the story?" They will be vilinized even if they are found to be in the right.

in love,
Paul