To: sgpm@sisqtel.net
From: fra@ctosonline.org
COPY OF AN EXCHANGE, FYI. Mostly trash but often blowing in the wind.
Your Imminence. Truly He is risen. I hate to bother you with this stuff again but it comes up and I always want to be able to answer it. X got all this it from Y who's a loud mouth and behind a lot of the stuff I hear. Sorry again. It's made its way around.
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I saw the Saint Gregory Palmas' site and it doesn't answer the questions. They can't. We consider Kyprianos and his bishops heretics because of what we have said and they can't answer:
Kyprianos was deposed by the State Church of Greece for reasons that have never been made public and which made his spiritual father Elder Philtheos split from him and both Kyprianos and Chrysostomos of Etna were deposed by the Synod of Archbishop Chrysostom II of Athens, the only canonical synod of the old calendar in Greece. Monk Kyprianos was reduced to a monk for heresy and ecumenism and changing his church views for political reasons, and Mr. Chrysostomos was deposed for being made a bishop even though he was married and for claiming college degrees that are bogus. They were tried and convicted when they refused to appear before the Spiritual Court of the Most Holy Synod.
The resistors synod in Bulgaria is also run by a married bishop who was deposed.
Auxentios of Fotikis became Orthodox without being baptized and is said tohave a criminal background.
Ambrose of Mathone is a self-admitted Jew and is also known to be without an orthodoxbaptism..
SO THE ARGUMENT'S OVER. If ou belong to the socalled resistors synod then you're also a heretic and your bishops are either uncanonical and not Orthodox or are Jews.
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Dear X,
Christ is Risen!
God bless you.
Bishop Auxentios asked me to handle this matter as I sought fit, after it was passed on to him by Archbishop Chrysostomos. I will answer harshly but keeping in mind that this is all the product of disturbed and sick persons who are in a certain way pumped up by controversy at the fringes of the Church. Since we are marginalized by the ecumenists and modernists, we are there for these ill people to see and to attack. This is an extremely sad thing because they succeed with their loudness in drowning out what we aim at.
First you should point out to your friend that the St. Gregory Palamas Monastery does not have a website, which explains why his correspondent could not find answers to the "questions" to which he refers. The Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies has a website, but it is dedicated to our scholarly work and publications.
This latest nonsense has made its way around the Orthodox world for years. It contains what are in fact criminally libelous accusations if the cowards who are spreading them will simply put them in print and attach their names.
For the umpteenth time:
- Metropolitan Cyprian was a highly respected clergyman in the New Calendar Orthodox Church of Greece. The monastic community that he headed was considered exemplary. Out of conscience, he separated from the Hierarchy of that Church on account of its ecumenical activities, innovation, and what he saw as its deviations from Orthodox standards. He did so quietly, politely, and without condemning his former Hierarchs personally. He was received into the Old Calendar movement as a clergyman. He has also held to the very same ecclesiological confession since that time, despite the vagaries of the extremist old Calendarists, who came to deny Grace in the New Calendar Church of Greece and who have separated into factions and warring groups.
- Metropolitan Cyprian entered into the Old Calendar movement with the blessing of his Elder, the Blessed and renowned Elder Philotheos (Zervakos), who praised him in writing for his courageous move. No private charges were ever made against Metropolitan Cyprian, who was simply accused of "Old Calendarism" by the State Church of Greece when he left. Father Philotheos made it clear that any act of administrative revenge against Metropolitan Cyprian had no meaning and that, in accusing him of Old Calendarism, they would likewise have to accuse all of the Fathers of the Church who defended the Church Calendar.
- Neither Metropolitan Cyprian nor Archbishop Chrysostomos of Etna ever belonged to the Synod of Archbishop Chrysostomos II of Athens, whose Synod was formed in 1985. Nor has Archbishop Chrysostomos of Etna, who was a widower and university professor before becoming a monk, ever met Archbishop Chrysostomos II. Moreover, neither was ever summoned to any spiritual court to answer absurdly stupid charges from a Synod of Bishops to which neither, as I said, ever belonged and which has absolutely no authority to do so and who jeopardize their own credibility by claiming such authority. By the way, they also claim to have authority over all of Orthodoxy and all of the Orthodox Patriarchates, whom they have proclaimed to be outside the Church and without Grace! Incomprehensible.
_ Bishop Photii of Bulgaria was also married and an assistant professor at the University of Sofia, before becoming a monk, as have been many Orthodox hierarchs, including the late Patriarch Alexey of Moscow, whose wife attended his funeral. His Eminence, a superb scholar and a man of incredible scholarly and personal repute, was formed by the spiritual children of St. Seraphim of Sofia, Archimandrites Seraphim and Sergius (also both professors at the University of Sofia) and by the late Abbess Seraphima (the former Princess Olga of the Protection Convent in Sofia.
- Bishop Auxentios of Photiki, a convert to Orthodoxy and a former student at Princeton University of both Archbishop Chrysostomos of Etna (who was teaching there while finishing his doctoral degree) and the late Father Georges Florovsky (who taught in the department of religion at Princeton), was baptized in Astoria, NY, at the Cathedral of St. Markella by the well-known Bishop Petros of Astoria and his brother, Archimandrite Niphon. At the time, Bishop Petros adhered to the very same ecclesiology as the Holy Synod in Resistance, though in 1985, having been independent for a number of years, he joined the Synod of Archbishop Chrysostomos II.
- Bishop Ambrose of Methone, whose father was a Scotsman and whose mother was indeed Jewish (though not a practicing Jew), comes from a very prominent and distinguished British family. He was baptized when he converted to the Orthodox Church.
You have heard the lies, now you have read the truth as we have made it known over and over. If my own retelling of the truth in the face of unrelenting lies seems to have a tone of impatience, my impatience is, quite frankly, simply an expression of my astonishment that liars are so persistent even when they are caught lying, and that those producing this nonsense are so consistently silly.
Those who have no real defense for their beliefs and simply refuse to admit that we are fully Orthodox in ours should simply remain quiet. Hitler was wrong in thinking that if you tell a lie long enough that people will believe it. If you tell a lie long enough, and especially when the truth has been told over and over in answer to your lies, people will in fact eventually conclude that you are quite simply a liar.
I personally see jealousy of our Synod of our Bishops behind a lot of what is said by these people who somehow get your attention. You should give them my statement and ignore them. You should also pray for them. They are sick.
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