Letter of GOC-K in Athens to under-ban Bp. Andronik

Informational General Sharing: Letter of Archbishop Kallinikos GOC Synod in Athens, to under-ban Bp. Andronik (Kotlaroff)-and below it, the link to read what Australian 'bishop' Andrei Erastov says in response to it-    Inbox

Dan Everiss <oregdan@hotmail.com> Wed, Feb 21, 2018 at 5:12 PM Reply | Reply to all | Forward | Print | Delete | Show original      In short:   This official GOC of Greece, declaration states their decided position:  They call our Mt. View schimatics, lead by under-ban Bps. Andronik (Kotlaroff) and Sophrony (Musienko) to iron out mere- 'administrative  issues', which lesser non-theological issues they, The Holy Synod of our ROCA's sister church, the Genuine Orthodox Church of Greece under Archbishop Kallinikos of Athens and All-Greece, see as very do-able and  possible......  to make peace over,....  and THEN for them- to return to lawful canonical obedience to our canonical ROCA, lead by our Vladyka Metropolitan Agafangel, and his Holy Synod. Once again, as previously, the Greek GOC is offering to try to be the peace-makers between our ROCA and our schismatics.  I have read what schismatic 'bishop Andrei' responds, -here below, but I must say:  It is his typical disjointed and illogical non-Orthodox garbled and non-applicable nonsense, of the rebellious power-hungry schimatics attempting to build some illusionary 'legal case' against our Metropolitan, but by them  miss-quoting/taking out of context, and juggling of various canons, either obscure ones or major ones, or from miss-quoting of  various sayings of various saints, and their imagined infractions of them, by the 'immoral' (?), Metropolitan.  It really is simply them refusing to submit to his lawful episcopal authority, which episcopal authority is  guaranteed in our Orthodox Church canons, & defaming and slandering him.  They want to remove him, so that they can take over the leadership/monies/properties and direction of our world-wide ROCA remnant, [which they are helping to weaken and divide and destroy at this time... all to the joy of the KGB/FSB controlled MP in Moscow]   -as they claim that they  can do a much better job of running it, than Met. Agafangel. Could they? From what I have seen and read from them, so far, I could not possibly conceive that they are more worthy or better to run ROCA. Rd. Daniel in Oregon # 2676 Athens, 10/23-01-2018 To His Eminence Andronik, Archbishop of Syracuse, NY The Most Reverend Vladyka, The Lord Jesus Christ, Who appeared in the Jordan; May He, always abundantly grant His enlightenment from above to you. At the meeting of our Holy Synod on December 8/21, 2017, it was decided, after a consultation with the members of the Holy Diocesan Synod of our Church in America, to address you with this fraternal letter in order to express our pain and sorrow for the continuing division among the Hierarchy of our beloved brother Hierarchs of the Russian Church Abroad. We therefore wish to share our thoughts with you, emphasizing that we all pray that there is a way out of this painful crisis as soon as possible. Firstly, we report that the forthcoming issue has repeatedly been the subject of conversations, as much for our Holy Synod of the Church of the GOC of Greece, as for the Diocesan Synod of America. And because, as is known, this crisis of the ROCA is also causing problems for the Church of the GOC of Greece, especially in a geographical place abroad, where the parishes of both Churches are present. Most Rev. Metropolitan of Toronto, Moses, was very sad when he learned that his friendly visit to the neighbouring Russian Parish was misunderstood and that despite his good intentions, this event, quite unfairly, was the reason for the aggravation of the mutual relations of the two sides that remain in disagreement within the ROCA. All Bishops of our Holy Synod believe that the disagreement between you and the clergy of Met. Agafangel relate not to dogmatic, but administrative issues, for which it is quite possible to find a solution through dialogue. However, it should be noted that your party hastened to arbitrarily ordain the bishop for Australia and accept in communion another bishop in America; these actions, in our opinion, are hasty, and aggravate the difficulties for reconciliation. In addition, we do not approve of certain promulgations and official statements and declarations on your part, by which you are trying to justify the fragmentation of the Church into many parts, which give a cause to Metropolitan Agafangel and those with him to condemn you more sharply. In any case, we think that through honest and sincere dialogue it is possible to find solutions to all this. In the direction of the opening of the dialogue, we ask Your Eminence to appoint a suitable person from your clergy who is familiar with these administrative problems so that he participates in a dialogue with such a member of the Clergy from Metropolitan Agafangel’s side. Most Rev. Archbishop Sofroniy in his Report “The Causes of Crisis in the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia”, in the end, says: "For many years we have made every possible effort to find a conciliar solution to these problems" (second paragraph of the conclusion). There is no reason for interrupting the effort now, the more so as we also propose to promote it to the extent possible. We will continue to encourage Metropolitan Agafangel to refrain from taking disciplinary action against you and instructively participate in this way in dialogue. We ask you not to close the door of the dialogue, because if something like this happens, then the effort on our part to persuade Metropolitan Agafangel to hold a moderate position will become impotent. In this case, the consequences will be very painful and we will come to the conclusion that the burden of responsibility rests with the party that interrupted the effort to reconcile. In the hope of a positive response on your part, we remain faithful in the brotherly love in Christ, Chief Secretary of the Holy Synod † Photios of Dimitriad ================================================================================================================================ Unhappy response to this official GOC pronouncement:  by Mountain View-schismatic under-ban 'bishop' Andrei Erastov in Australia: http://www.rocana.org/page/home.en/557 Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. Dioceses of Syracuse-St ... www.rocana.org Russian Orthodox Church Abroad Dioceses of Syracuse-St. Nicholas and Ottawa-Canada