A Letter 1/31/09

Joanna shares parts of a personal letter.

St. Ninnidh Inismacsaint
Holy Fathers Athanasios and Cyril, Arcgbishops of Alexandria
January 18/31

Dear ___N___,

Clearly we never should have received St. Andrew's parish into our ROCA(A) with all their doubts. It has turned out to be a major embarrassment and we embarrassed ourselves. I like how you say that we let them in with a banana peel under each foot.

The battle that Vl. Agafangel is having with defining our position regarding the MP is a battle that has been going on for decades. St. Philaret of NY was also criticized and misunderstood from both the left and the right.

The R-splits (super-correct) have always been demanding a black&white statement from us. But now there is another group with the same debating/official/statement mentality who are not super-correct. They seem to be ROCOR Refugees, but with that same "horizontal" legalistic mentality of the super-correct. They do not recognize that ROCO(A) is the sole valid continuation of ROCOR, but it seems they would like to have it PROVED to them. It is obvious they are in distress.

But they do not seem to accept any help except in the form they want - which is more and more "official statements." And that does not help them. It only encourages their legalistic thinking. I had one even tell me that he would not use prayer to help him understand, the only thing he would use is official statements. This particular one has interpreted ROCA(A)'s policy to mean that we definitely say the MP has grace, therefore he believes if he is in the MP he is in the Church.

. . .

All through ___xxx___'s letters to me you can see where he is putting words in my mouth that make extensive and grand assumptions from just a few of my words. I read some of the stuff he writes about what he thinks I said and WOW! Where did he get that? It was turning into one of those situations where the more I said, the more material I gave him to misinterpret.

The other guy who was like this with me recently (see Cyprianites blog - the "Joanna's Tangle") accused us (I assume he meant ROCA laymen) of giving "nebulous" answers.

How can we make ourselves understood to those who do not have the capacity to understand? This has been a long-time question. To try to answer that, we explain that MP is "sick." I've twice now used analogies that basically show this concept of "sick." With the first ("Joanna's Tangle") I used the analogy of my dog being stolen. With another guy I used the analogy of Hitler still being a human even though he was evil. Both of my attempts to verticalize their horizontal thinking were met with THEM starting to get angry and cutting off the conversation. These people are not super-corrects, but they have that same black&white mentality. They are not World Orthodox either. We are seeing a new brand of horizontal thinking - could it be from the new brand of ROCOR which is now ROCOR(MP)?

What should I call these folks? The number of them I've met is growing. Maybe just "legal types" will do for now.

These people find that they do not FIT either in World Orthodoxy or in the Super-Correct. But since ROCOR(MP) left the Royal Path - then WHERE ARE THEY? This clearly shows that the Royal Path is not a MIXTURE of the World Orthodoxy and the Super-Correct. When you leave this Royal Path you've entered into SOME kind of horizontal path and way of thinking. And it appears that the horizontal paths are just incapable of seeing the Royal Path. Because of this, they draw their own insulting conclusions about us, rather than try to understand.

We must not let ourselves be disturbed by what other people think. It is not that we don't define the Royal Path - it is that the horizontal thinkers either CAN NOT or WILL NOT understand.

The Church is a living organism. A body. Bodies have the capacity of being sick, imprisoned, mistaken, tortured, possessed, kidnapped, overfed, underfed, ___fill-in-the-blank___- all these things can happen without the body being instantly totally dead. And it is possible to heal. We must maintain that, despite the shrill criticism from the super-correct. For lack of a better way to express the Royal Path, we must not be afraid to say "sick" in describing the MP. Otherwise we inadvertently condone the idea of "why not join them, then?" to our weaker brothers.

Cyprianite! And proud of it! This is the Royal Path! We are in good company!

As far as the MP getting better some day - YES! We fully expect that. This is why one of the things we are praying for is the "restoration of the throne of the Orthodox Tsar" which is something Vl. Agafangel has said we need to pray for (officially) and in our daily home prayers. The future Tsar is going to purge the MP of all the false clergy - and that is going to be virtually all of them.

Because of the way horizontal thinkers abuse official statements - I'm glad we avoid making one. They extrapolate and twist what they imagine to be between the lines. We are better off suffering our present grief. Vertical thinkers will find us, as God leads them to us.

Love, Joanna