Drinking Tea (Vasili Nesterenko, 1997)
Editor’s Foreword:
This started life as a reply to a comment of Fr Andrew Morbey of Minneapolis MN. Well… it just GREW, like Topsy. To do it justice requires a full post. Fr Andrew, thank you for getting the ol’ brain in gear. Oh, by the way, do you take cream in your tea or do you take it straight, in the Russian manner?
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I would not say that Honeycutt and Greene are “Orthodox apologists”. Both are nothing but half-baked Evangelical Anglicans with the thinnest possible Orthodox veneer. Honeycutt’s corrosive Russophobia is never far from the surface. As one Russian bishop rightly said, “Russophobia is a form of Christophobia”. Greene is nothing but a “pushy American female”, as a Russian priest-friend of mine remarked (I would add that she is bezkulturny). Honeycutt and Greene are nothing but Grabovois, and the mirage of the American church they advocate does not exist, save in their disordered imaginations.
In addition, both are apologists for the “American Church”, not Orthodoxy, and one can see how their work is immersed in Evangelical Protestantism and American Positiivism (as is virtually everything written by Anglo-Saxon converts, I am afraid). Besides this, they are out of the AOCANA, which is only formally Orthodox. The Antiochians are nothing but Evangelicals/Anglicans with an Orthodox ritual (any group with a LAYMAN as chancellor is hardly churchly). Ergo, anything that arises from them must be ignored, and, indeed, fought. They are the American equivalents of the “Patriarchate of Kiev” and Philip Saliba is nothing but an American Philaret Denisenko. To join the AOCANA is to run to an American Penza Cave, huddling in the dark away from the ordinary Orthodoxy of the ages. To tell the truth, I refuse to set foot in any of their conventicles, they present “a likeness of power without the substance thereof”.
The bishops of the MP assembled outside the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow for the Archpastoral Council
A choice is coming. We may follow Moscow, or we may follow the various pied-pipers out there. Saliba is one, Black Bart is another, SVS leads another cohort. If one follows SVS or Black Bart, one is on the high road to Uniatism. Dangerous, indeed. However, Philip Saliba is the most dangerous in a churchly (tserkovnost) sense. He has placed American phyletism as the driving engine of his movement, just as Philaret Denisenko places “Ukrainian” phyletism as the driving force of his. Any nationalism in church life is corrosive, and American nationalism is no exception. The fact that 70 percent of the AOCANA clergy are converts (most ordained before they were ready, as Mr Honeycutt illustrates so abundantly) is a weakness, not a strength. Compare this to the fraternal unity shown at the late Archpastoral Council in Moscow. Bishops from all over the world, of all nationalities, united together in holding high the banner of Orthodoxy. You can have UNITY (as shown by the MP) or you can have notional ISOLATION (as shown by AOCANA, OCA, and the Paris lot).
American converts are the largest portion of the Orthodox voices on the internet. Therefore, the world has gained a distorted view of the Church. All too many American converts are nothing but spoilt children in soiled nappies daring to lecture at the MDA. They have never faced the test, and they must have the humility to listen to those who have faced such, although I believe that shall require a miracle of the Lord. All too often, I come away from a convert or from one of their writings with the sad conclusion, “You can tell a convert, but, you can’t tell ‘em much”.
In short, we Russians have faced Butovo and Solovki, our Church is founded on the blood of millions of martyrs, and many of us here in America faced the useless (but, damaging) and bitter jurisidictional wars of the 70s and 80s. I should add that the worst (and most fanatical) actors in those bitter wars were the Anglo-Saxon converts on both sides. I should say that I find the current crop of converts no different. They are moralistic Savanarolas ready at the drop of a hat to light the fires of the auto dà fé under their opponents. They have no idea of the actual tolerance of the Church. I have heard “baba’s religion” and “nominal Orthodox” from Anglo-Saxon mouths once too often. Indeed, this website is a reaction to all that. They oppose a bloodless vision of the church to the rich and lively lived tradition of the Church. Of course, the wheat is mixed with the tares. Didn’t our Lord Christ say so?
Archbishop Vikenty of Yekaterinburg (1953- ), one of the greatest (if not the greatest) pastors in the Church today
We can see the result of the above in our church life today. The OCA is a grinning and lifeless corpse with its devotees dancing about it in a grisly (and very sad) analogue of a pagan sacrifice, whilst the AOCANA is nothing but Billy Graham with Byzantine make-up. For all its faults (and it DOES have them, by God!), the MP stands for the Orthodoxy of the ages. Compare Herman Swaiko and Philip Saliba to Archbishop Vikenty of Yekaterinburg, Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev, Metropolitan Sergei of Voronezh, or Metropolitan Mefody of Kazakhstan. There is NO comparison. We either stand with Moscow or we shall stray away from the Orthodoxy of the Holy Fathers. I wish that there was a kinder way of saying this, but, there is not.
We have the ill-fortune (or, is it a privilege?) to live in “interesting times”. What we do now shall have resonance for our grandchildren. That is why we must give decent burial to the corpse of the OCA, reject the siren-call of Saliba, and follow our elder brothers in the Faith in Moscow. God shall bless us for showing humility, at the least. The blood of the martyrs calls us! Shall you ignore the call? Remember for Whom the martyrs shed their blood (and are still shedding their blood in the Baltic states, the Ukraine and Carpatho-Russia, by the way)…
I am following the call of the New Martyrs of Russia, what about you?
Vara Drezhlo
Friday 11 July 2008
Editor’s Afterword:
One should note that opinion pieces, such as the one above, always go out under my name, and, if express opinion on an article posted, it always as an openly-labelled editor’s note. I stand tall, I am not ashamed, and I do not hide behind the mask of “Anonymous”.
Bog blagoslovit, my friends. May God give us the strength to face and overcome the coming trials.


















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