Not of This World book review

Some added facts, to add to the book review by Monk Sergie

Book Review by novice Sergey 

Orthodox Life, Vol. 43, No. 5. (1993)

Not of This World 

the Life and teaching of Father Seraphim Rose

Pathfinder to the Heart of Ancient Christianity

1993

[1st edition]

http://remnantrocor.blogspot.com/2012/12/not-of-this-world-another-book-review.html

Some further explanatory facts, which I personally know are true, and others, as personally related to me some years back, by Fr. Lawrence (Williams), of Etna, California:

1) THE  main issue, and the sole reason & the content of their testimonies, as to why the 4-6  various official accusers against Fr. Herman to Archb. Anthony made their sorrowful testimonies was: his active/secret homosexual activities.

All accusers told the Archbishop of these misdeeds by Herman, and all were his victims or his propositioned attempted victims.  And all were sincere Orthodox Christians, myself included, who were deeply scandalized and shocked by ABBOT Herman's sexual advances/acts, or who had witnessed such activities.

(one such testimony was of him and a Platina brother, twice!, being discovered, naked on top of each other, having sexual acts, inside a home of a believer in Mulino, Oregon.)

Abbot Herman-Podmoshensky drove a number of souls from ROCOR, from Orthodoxy and even from God, by his uncontrolled lusts of the flesh.  Only God knows who or how many. 

True, he was subsequently 'disobedient', (the official public canonical charge against him in the end), to his bishop, but that was connected to his total lying and refusal to repent of his unabashed homosexual pursuits.

2) At some point (date unknown), when Fr. Herman was either about to be suspended or shortly after, he secretly visited his old friend down in San Francisco, MP Archb. Mark (Shaviakin), who privately took him under his MP

omophore.... thus placing him,'canonically'  in the MP!... the bogus 'Russian church' which Stalin founded in 1943.

3)Then, again at some point (date unknown), Herman sent his two faithful followers,"my men" as he called them, Damascene and Gerasim, to Russia, where they were ordained to the MP priesthood, by an MP Metropolitan John (of Leningrad, I believe), and not telling him the full truth of their precarious uncanonical situation or that of Herman's true situation either, to that MP metropolitan, hence they gained the MP-priesthood, by fraud.

But then, after all, the MP –an organ of the Kremlin– was the outright enemy of the Church Abroad anyway.

And all the accusers against Herman, in San Francisco, made OUR sworn/signed testimonies in person & in writing, (in two languages), kissing the Gospel and Cross, and personally giving details to Archbishop Anthony (as I did), in the presence of two or three  priests.

The Archbishop, to protect the church, ordered us all to keep silence about what we knew, (most especially about the sexual sins of Herman), while Herman eagerly spread calumny and slander against us, for years and years and years.  And he never told the truth to our Archbishop.  NEVER!!!

And to add further insults and injury to us whom Herman offended, the Archbishop... behind our backs, said that he thought that this was all "a KGB plot", and that we "all were KGB agents":... as he could not believe that "an Igumin, [especially one that he had made an Igumin!], COULD do such terrible things!".

The Archbishop, whom Herman claimed hated and persecuted him, (all a total bizarre mentally-ill lie), was 100% on Herman's side from the start!

But after 4 years, his patience wore out, and the hard facts were too undeniable to suppress.

On Forgiveness Sunday, in the Novi Sobor in San Francisco, Archbishop Anthony (Medvedev) read a short statement about Herman, and asked in tears as he bowed to the congregation, to "forgive me for my not being a good or wise bishop" (in regards to Herman and Platina).

Herman's downfall, deeply hurt & affected the Archbishop to the end of his life, that he said, "I will never again ordain any American!", as he had previously entrusted Herman and Platina Monastery with that special outreach.

The priest Peter Perekrestov, now a big supporter of that foul 2007 're-union' with the KGB run MP, who at first also defended Herman, & who always agreed with anything his boss, the Archbisop believed or said, said later, "Herman has wrecked havoc in the diocese!", (after Herman was defrocked).

With the further ensuing outrageous behaviour of unrepentant Herman Podmoshensky (now, in his last days,  entering a nursing home in Minnesota), and with all of the changes in his/Fr. Seraphim's monastery, plus now with that foul 2007 -union with the MP, and with the passage of all these years, it is long overdue for us who directly knew these facts back then, to speak up, if only to warn others to not blindly follow self-appointed false/deluded/in prelest 'elders' as poor unbalanced Herman saw  himself as, in these end times., and also to flee apostate worldly-Orthodoxy.

Archbishop Anthony's former order of temporary silence, to us who were witnesses and who suffered much abuse, because we told the truth, in order to save souls and to protect the Church, no longer applies.

He himself, had in the end to also see the full facts, and to recognize the truth, lamentable as it was and very deeply painful to him.  Too many souls have  already suffered".  The cat is long, out of the bag. 

This is all the truth, as God is my witness,

Rd. Daniel Everiss