Saturday, December 31, 2016

THE BISHOP'S PLACE: A powerful episcopal declaration

THE BISHOP'S PLACE: A powerful episcopal declaration ........Short Address by Metropolitan Cyprian, about the charity work of church members, and also about the central place of the canonical ruling BISHOP in directing it all, etc.

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Dan Everiss

<oregdan@hotmail.com>
Sat, Dec 31, 2016 at 6:32 PM



My added and most sincere comments:

 To what is expressed in this GOC epistle, addressed to his Greek flock mainly, but which  also coincidentally, its main implications apply fits  our current ROCA chaotic internal situation:


 Without the proper and God-ordained authority of the lawful canonical Orthodox ruling bishop, in our ROCA'S case, our VERY SOUNDLY ORTHODOX,  and anti-ecumenist and anti-Sergianist, Vladyka Metropolitan Agafangel with  his Holy Synod, they who are  successors of the Apostles and of Jesus Christ Himself,.... they who themselves obey what the Holy Orthodox Faith teaches,  there is NO ORTHODOX Church....NONE!...not anyway for us who claim to be a part of our continued Russian Orthodox Church Abroad.

A newly founded  miserable, dishonest,  and unjustified parasynagogue, which is  lead by retired-bishops, Andronik Kotlaroff, and Sofrony Musienko,( whose total true motives are still not clear to this day) now centered at Mountain View,  New York, has no right to call itself, The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad! It has no authority to call or organize any 'sobor', of any sort.

Therefore, that unjustified and slanderous and malicious and  unlawful schismatic rebellion against THE ruling bishop's person or sacred apostolic authority, [as is now underway, like a fast spreading deadly malignant cancer,  in our North American and Australian ROCA flocks], is rebellion against Christ Himself! Those who are so foolishly and so ignorantly entrapped, have already left the Holy Orthodox Apostolic and Catholic Church, and they are self-condemned and grace-less and they need to STOP their nonsense and REPENT, and return to the Faith, and to proper obedience to our ruling hierarchy. Renegade false-'bishops', and any lower clergy  obedient to them,  we all  need to reject and to flee from. We all know their names. Those two, self-serving and deluded power-hungry men, & those others with them motivating and directing them for their own dark or confused purposes, and who do not obey or respect their fellow bishops, [they reject conciliarity /sobornost],  THOSE FELLOW BISHOPS, and the METROPOLITAN  WHO CONSECRATED THEM TO BE BISHOPS!, and who can thus, remove them as fellow bishops!,  so why should we obey those two? We should not  obey or respect them! They are no better than MP pseudo- 'bishops', or ecumenist heretical betrayers.

Those who make or lead such lawless mindless anti-Orthodox schisms,[to the joy of Satan himself and of all of our enemies],  or who blindly or willingly take part in them, will have to answer for it at their judgments.
The Holy Fathers warn that such participation is a straight path to Hell eternal.

This power-grabbing  angry and irrational impious schism has nothing to do, in reality,  with their avowed righteous sounding purpose, of  'cleansing and purifying the church', and of convicting and booting out, Met. Agafangel because of his [unproven!] supposed 'crimes', etc. and their other RUBBISH nonsense!

In America, however, they will end up as just another weird, though 'colorful and exotic', religious sect, of which we already have many, or some... or most of them will, finally,  simply join ROCOR/MP's Hilarion Kapral's gang, under their 'Mother Church', the [KGB/FSB run] Putin's/Stalin founded,  'Moscow Patriarchy'....or join themselves to worldly-Orthodoxy.

This new month of January will tell us, who is in our remnant-ROCA church and who has left us.

And a.... personal... hatred/dislike...for Vladyka Agafangel, does not qualify as a just excuse for this schism.

Many in our world-wide ROCA, love and respect him, as they also do of our other honorable bishops.

Those fanatical rebel Putin worshipping Ishevesk clergy, left us on their own. Our Metropolitan and our other bishops would not/COULD not bless Putin's immoral bloody invasion of Ukraine, or his annexation of Crimea, so...they accused us, of  'mixing politics into the church', and of being, 'pro-Ukrainian-Kiev-Nazi sympathizers', and other vicious, UNTRUE,  pro-MP Putin's Kremlin propaganda, nonsense...and then, cursing us as they ran off, ... THEY LEFT US  ON THEIR OWN!...our Metropolitan  did not 'throw them out'. His only later reject, after they left us, was to admit that he regretted ever receiving them. And by the way, some of their flock has stayed loyal to us.

Those pathetic Ishevesk clergy are good typical products of soviet-culture, and totally MP creations. Truly, they were never sincere members of our ROCA, just more 'plants' inside of our church.

Stop swallowing pure slanders, libel, and lies, people, and care to learn the truth, and then you will not keep attacking our righteous Metropolitan or our ROCA!

Or are you really doing this, because...you are anti-American, and that you do support war-loving mass-murderer Vladimir Putin and his Stalin-founded Moscow Patriarchy?... either for pay or for ignorant neo-soviet-'Russian nationalistic' devotion? Is what he is doing, truly, "restoring Russian national pride"?..is it?

Vladimir Putin and his gang, are preparing the world for World War III, a nuclear nightmare for the entire earth, including for Russia.
Dictator Putin is another Adolph Hitler, a Lenin, a Stalin, a for-runner of anti-Christ.

WHO DO YOU SERVE?
Reader Daniel Everiss in Oregon

==============================================================================================================================================



Address by Metropolitan Cyprian
at the Second Recognition Dinner for the
Association of Volunteers of our Holy Metropolis
Monday, November 22, 2016 (Old Style)

Solidarity,Volunteerism, Ministry: Safeguards

My beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ; Co-ministers, Assistants, and Fellow Co-workers; Clergy and Laity:

I bow down and noetically kiss the prints of your feet, with sincere gratitude for the divers ways in which you cultivate your charisms, offering them to the glory of God and for the alleviation of the pain of our neighbor. This is our second recognition dinner honoring the association of volunteers who, with sacrificial love and self-denial, assist the ecclesiastical, charitable, and cultural work of our Holy Metropolis.The Orthodox Church never separates spiritual needs from the material needs of Her members, and of all of humankind in general.

It would be akin to monophysitism [from monos, “only, single” and physis, “nature”]—that is, a heresy—were we to concern ourselves solely with that which pertains to the soul or spirit, while disregarding all things pertaining to the body: the social aspect of our existence, our responsibilities to our neighbor, and our concern for the common good.
* * *
Hence, my beloved co-ministers, assistants, and fellow workers, you are worthy of honor and gratitude, in that you did not choose evasion and indifference in the face of the drama of our neighbor.

The social problems and our multifarious interventions in every aspect of it all, have always been at the heart of the immediate interests of the Orthodox Church.

Our stance, our sensitivity, concerning everything pertaining to the social drama constitutes a criterion of the genuineness of our application of the precepts of the Gospel.

We must make clear, however, and stress that our active participation in dealing with this multifaceted drama does not constitute an end in itself, but rather a genuine expression of the social aspect of the Gospel and an active love to one’s neighbor.

The Way and Truth and Life, that is, Christ our Savior, guides us to a heroic and self-sacrificial exodus from the prison of our own selves, in order to encounter our brother, and, through him, our Lord and God, in an eternal communion of love.

Ministry and the Cross are at the heart of the Evangelical ethos; they are the quintessence of the Gospel; they are a source of inspiration and strength; they are at the essence of the prayer, “Thy Kingdom come. . .on earth as it is in Heaven.”
* * *
My beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Co-ministers, and Assistants:
Our Concerted Ministry of Volunteerism constitutes an initiation into the
Mystery of Solidarity and of Social Responsibility. Solidarity is a resolute commitment; it is an attitude of life; it is a genuine encounter with our neighbor; it is a sense of responsibility for our neighbor; it is loving-kindness and tenderness in Christ for our neighbor; it is the Crucifixional-Resurrectional experience of writing the bright side of history, together with the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the naked, the imprisoned, the ailing, the strangers, and the refugees;

together with the victims of the frightful modern-day slave trade, of the violence of fratricidal wars, of the horror of drug addiction, and of the corruption, perversion, and degeneration of human dignity.

This burden of social responsibility requires constant vigilance, in prayer and repentance, for therein lurk the dangers of adulteration: the danger of losing our Christocentric vision, and of our ministry, which should be in imitation of Christ, deteriorating into one of domination: the danger that the humble spirit of washing our brother’s feet be replaced by a love of primacy, self-admiration, self-promotion, the appropriation for ourselves of the Work of God, and
self-idolization.

This deadly danger arises when we forget the Apostolic, Patristic, and Synodal Teaching of our Holy Church: “Let the Bishop have the care of all the matters of the Church, and let him administer them as under the scrutiny of God” (Thirty-eighth Apostolic Canon).
“Let not the Presbyters [ the priests] or Deacons do anything without the sanction [blessing]  of the Bishop; for it is he who is entrusted with the people of the Lord, and of whom will be required the account of their souls” (Thirty-ninth Apostolic Canon).
"DO NOTHING WITHOUT THE BISHOP",  (Epistle of St. Ignatios of Antioch to the Philadelphians, 7:1); “Let no man do anything pertaining to the Church without the Bishop” (Ibid., Epistle to the Smyrnaeans,8:1); “He who honors the Bishop has been honored by God; he who does anything without the knowledge of the Bishop, does [in reality] serve the Devil”(Ibid., 19:1)
* * *
My beloved Brothers and Sisters, Co-ministers, and Assistants:With profound gratitude and affection, I embrace each one of you individually and all together, in the
Theanthropic Embrace of our Church. It is my wish that we continue our voluntary and self-sacrificial offering to our neighbor, working together peacefully, with the followingsafeguards:
1) Always serve with the knowledge, blessing, and consent of your Bishop and be in spiritual unity with him in Christ;
2) Let us always have in our mind’s eye,  Christ our Savior, kneeling and washing the feet of His Disciples;
3) Let us constantly hearken to the exhortation of our Lord that we
be, by means of love and humility,
“the last,” “ministers,” and “servants”of all.
4) Love is the common factor in all of our ministries in the Church; hence, it is not possible for the practice of our ministries to occasion divisions, superiors and inferiors, masters and servants, psychological dependency, fear, and anxiety.
5) The hierarchy of ministries is a hierarchy of love, which is crowned by the ministry of the Bishop, who should be a paradigm of love, emulating the self-emptying love of Christ our Savior.
* * *
With these humble thoughts, we humbly invoke upon all of us the
blessing of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, through the
intercessions of the All-Hymned Theotokos and of all the Saints.
May the blessing of our Elder and Father, Metropolitan Cyprian of
blessed memory, ever be for us a source of strength, guidance, and 
protection.
Amen!
I thank you!
Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos and Phyle,
November 22, 2016 (Old Style)
To God be
Glory and Thanksgiving!
AMEN!




From: Saint Edward Brotherhood <info@saintedwardbrotherhood.org>
Sent: Saturday, December 31, 2016 1:02 PM
Subject: Short Address by Metropolitan Cyprian


Bless!  From the Oropos & Fili website today:

Solidarity, Volunteerism, Ministry: Safeguards  


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