Re: Goodbye Moscow. (for those who are interested in Russian things)


Dmitry wrote:
Well, England is a free country. I am sure that if the Russian Orhtodox
congregation shares ex-Bishop Basil's Russophobia,

So you call any disagreement with Moscow - russophobia?

they will quit the
"KGB-controlled" official Russian Orthodox Church in Great Britain and
will join him in a new church. But my guts tell me that few if any
people will do that.

We'll have to wait and see what happens. One thing is for certain, the
existing Diocese will split. Note that other Orthodox Churches in UK
don't split; in fact British Orthodox Church has joined Patriarchate of
Alexandria about 10 years ago.

As I said, most newly arrived Russians settled in London.


Wouldn't you say that the vast majority of "old arrived" Rusians live
in London as well?

Yes, and "old arrived" were happy with Diocese of Sourozh. It seems as
if for newly arrived the Church is not Russian enough. Apart from this
Church issue, they can't get in terms with the fact that the country
they came is not Russia. I have observed this phenomenon in Latvia for
many years.



The rest of
the country's Parishes will most likely remain loyal to Basil


Well, you are probably talking about a thousand people or so.

That's about right.

And I bet
they will choose to stay with their fellow Russians and will not join
the Russia-hating foreign ex-bishop. Want to make a bet?

Basil is not foreign, he is English. Alexy II is foreign.


Thanks, Dmitry, for drawing our attention to this very interesting
story.

It is interesting to compare different views, many of which are linked
at Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diocese_of_Sourozh

Excerpts from comments I found revealing --

"Not only is this Diocese the most profound experience of Orthodox
worship that I have experienced, it also represented a beacon of hope
for the many, many Russians I know who are searching for depth and real
worship in their Church and do not desire a Church that is just an
extension of Russian state power or the propagator of an aggrandizing
national myth. So many young people in Moscow that I know have cut off
all relations with their Church disgusted at Church abuses of power
there that it is hard not to cry. Others such as a group of students at
the Lomonossov Moscow State University I spoke to recently have held on
to the example of Bishop Basil as an exception but also as a beacon of
hope. As one girl at the University put it to me: 'if only the Church
here [in Russia] could be more like that'. The lack of spirituality and
the worship of power in the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church in
Russia has reached such a point of crisis that in a number of Russian
regions, for example Iaroslav, there are now more Roman Catholic
churchgoers than Orthodox.

"I write all this with great sadness, for I am an Orthodox believer and
I love Russia. The issues involved in the Diocese of Sourozh at the
moment are not about Bishop Basil himself, though he is an outstanding
person and one of the very few truly deep Christian Bishops today. The
issue is whether the Orthodox Church will turn itself into a club for a
few immigrants in England, an extension of state power in Russia..."

http://www.dioceseinfo.org/PERSONAL/beacon.html

Contrast the strange, imperialistic nostalgia maintained by some of
Basil's enemies --

"It was clear that this desertion of the Russian Church was not so much
about political opposition to the atheist persecution of the Church in
Russia, but more about the Exarchate implementing its own anti-Russian
politics. Its claims to be apolitical were in fact wholly political.
Indeed, even today it is apparent that many in the Paris emigration, as
among the Sourozh dissidents, are the physical or spiritual descendants
of those who actually encouraged and welcomed the Kerensky Revolution
of March 1917, rejoicing at the downfall of the Russian Empire. Little
wonder that Kerensky himself went to live in exile in London."

http://www.orthodoxengland.btinternet.co.uk/timebomb.htm

In summary --

"Once more the Patriarchate of Moscow shows that it does not apply its
own rules and that it just wants to be trusted and obeyed! We are back
to the Soviet mentality, without any law or respect for the law.
Instead of sobornost' we are asked for obedience."

http://www.dioceseinfo.org/PERSONAL/answerseng.html

This letter was particularly despairing, and agrees with what Dmitry
writes regarding not coming to "terms with the fact that the country
[to which] they came is not Russia--

"Some of them find our worship difficult to follow because they do not
know any English, but our English-speaking Orthodox (and these include
the children and grandchildren of the original Russian founders of
Sourozh community) do not understand Church Slavonic. The many converts
in the UK (and this includes the majority of our priests) have learnt
to follow the services with the assistance of books - Sourozh has
published the full text of the Divine Liturgy in a parallel edition.
This is used as a matter of course by us, the old-timers, the founder
members of the community, and the newcomers ought to follow suit. Many
do. A few militate for an exclusively 'Russian' worship and an
exclusively 'Russian' community in the most disgusting ways, physically
pushing the local people, insulting them to their face, not to speak of
pouring hatred and lies over our community in print and on the
Internet.

"Unfortunately, over the years we have seen the highest church
authority in Moscow listening to these people who bring our Church into
disrepute and who bring great hatred and unhappiness into our places of
worship, our community meetings, our common work. We see that their
petitions, full of lies and distortions, are accepted at face value and
we see with horror that the liars are believed while the real community
is completely disregarded.

"The authorities in the Patriarchate do not seem to understand us, and
they certainly behave as if they had the right to impose their will on
us - including their own choice of leadership - although this goes
directly against the teaching and practice of the Orthodox church. It
is by encouraging the divisive activity of the 'militant Russians' who
follow the traditional techniques of Soviet propaganda professionals
and by encouraging the creation of enclaves of direct patriarchal rules
on the territory of an established Diocese that the leadership in the
Moscow Patriarchate, our own Mother Church, has encouraged and
exacerbated the current problems of our Diocese."

http://www.dioceseinfo.org/HISTORICAL_BACKGROUND/Sourozh/openletter.html

/P

.

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