18 October 2012. London Conference Starts Today… MP Priest’s Take on It and on Stokoe

______________________________

I got this from an MP priest:

Thanks for sending Stokoe’s interview. It’s sheer fantasy! Clearly, he’s frightened of the ROCOR. A certain person at the Centre DID choose and favour JP. He’s just been to Rome, and he’s hobnobbing at Sophrony’s now. The Conference of 23 bishops from all over the diaspora starts today (by the way, no announced agenda, yet). Sadly, Alfeyev will be at it, which may compromise it, but the others should put paid to him.

Again, what more can I add, save to say that the news coming out of this conference should prove to be interesting… even if it’s “business as usual” (not likely, but one has to mention all possibilities). Let’s wait for the news releases…

BMD

18 October 2011. Dezinformatsiya from Lyonyo and Jillions Purporting to Come from ADS’ Widow

Editor’s Foreword:

Do read the following. I don’t have a URL, as one of my correspondents sent it on to me. Yes… read it. You’ll retain your lunch at the end of it all. It’s supposedly from Matushka Juliana Schmemann… but it’s got Lyonyo’s and Jillion’s fingerprints all over it. As my friend wrote me:

GAG! They’re desperate! (Emphasis and bold in the original)

You have to know what they’re sayin’… then, you’ll know how to cosh ‘em without them being able to cosh YOU back. Read…

BMD

******

Matushka Juliana Schmemann: Hearing “Still Small Voice” of the Lord

In an open letter addressed to His Beatitude, Metropolitan Jonah; the members of the Holy Synod of Bishops; and the membership of the Orthodox Church in America in mid-October, Matushka Juliana Schmemann shared her insights into the forthcoming 16th All-American Council of the Orthodox Church in America. Matushka Juliana is the widow of the late Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann, dean of Saint Vladimir’s Seminary. Fr Alexander, as is well known, was most instrumental in the granting of autocephaly to the OCA and was a key figure in the OCA’s All-American Councils from the 1960s until his repose in 1983. Matushka wrote:

As we assemble with hope and anticipation to share our care and our love for our Church in America, we are painfully aware that the past few years our beloved church has been torn asunder by an overwhelming amount of trouble, both personal and corporate. We went through anger, mistrust, suspensions, reinstatements, accusations, hope, and discouragement… all of this endangering the very existence of our OCA. Yet, in spite of this, the bells of our churches continue to ring, gathering the faithful to celebrate and to give thanks to God. The people come, the Eucharist is celebrated, the church lives. We keep the vision with hope and trust in the Lord. Chaotic changes, discouraging events lacking love, peace, and truth have not kept the faithful away.

On the feast of Transfiguration, we hear the story of Elijah as he seeks to hear the voice of the Lord (III Kings, 19.11-12). And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice. We have become deaf to that “still small voice” of the Lord. We are looking for it in the wrong way and in the wrong places. Indeed, we have to work on finding solutions to the crises that our church is drowning in. But when the solutions are reduced to condemning words, dramatic expulsions, and blind reliance on rules and limits, then, we’re going about this the wrong way. If resolving our problems is not centred on listening to the still small voice of the Lord and on feeling the gentle breeze of the Holy Spirit, we aren’t leading our beloved church to a life filled with love and peace.

This assembly must return to what is essential for all the members of The Orthodox Church in America. We can’t tamper with what we as an American church have achieved through hard work, loyalty, dedication, and love. The efforts of generations of American Orthodox are evident in the parishes both large and small, the missions, the monasteries, the institutions, the outreach programs. The hard work of countless priests and their flocks is evident from coast to coast. So, in the midst of fire, and wind, and anger, and destruction, let’s listen carefully to that still small voice of the Lord. Let’s listen with an open humble heart and by so doing we can have a peaceful, a glorious and a truly Christ-centred assembly.

Matushka Juliana resides in Montréal QC Canada.

******

Yes… she lives in Montréal… where she attends one of the most rabidly Renovationist parishes in the OCA, where they don’t even have an iconostas! That’s also very close to Ottawa… guess who lives there? Yes, indeed… John Jillions! This smells like something that Lyonyo and Stokoe ran up on the QT (it’s got all of Stokoe’s gaseous usages in it) and e-mailed it to Jillions for Matushka Juliana’s signature. This hasn’t got any play on oca.org or on Stokoe’s site, yet… now, that I’ve broken it, watch for them to ignore it. That’s their usual MO… of course, they could break the pattern, that’s true. They ARE that desperate. Watch for smarmy treacle from Serge Schmemann and for some “affirmative” New Age rubbish from Seraphim Sigrist. NO doubt, Stokoe will haul out Hopko père, and have him write a hand-wringing missive. Dreher and the Coneheads will be their cowardly selves and continue to post under usernames. They’ll trundle out Breck and Berzonsky père (one wonders if they’ll use Vlad Jr, too?), and Hatfield and Meyendorf fils. They’ll exhaust all their efforts… but…

This is nothing but desperate dezinformatsiya and I advise everyone to read it, note it, but don’t fight it… it’s a waste of time and effort (besides, they want to make us look like we’re attacking an old person… that’s dodgy and low, isn’t it?). The important task facing us is the removal of the OCA and its replacement with a united Russian Church body in the USA. Replying to such manifest dreck isn’t a wise use of our time and resources. We have MUCH more important fish to fry. We have a United Russian Orthodox Church to establish, in the USA, in Canada, and in Alaska. Anything else, at this point, is froufrou.

A friend sent me another interesting titbit that I’m going to look at next. It’s in Russian, from Portal-Credo. Yes… that’s an unreliable source and you’ve got to take anything on it with EXTREME scepticism. However, you MUST check out something that’s relevant, no matter what the source or no matter who says it (e.g., Alexander Lebedeff IS a competent canonist and educated Church historian… you wrong yourself if you disregard his facts… you don’t have to buy his crook conclusions, though). That’ll be my next post…

As for the above “open letter”… it’s clearly GIGO. Shame on Lyonyo and Jillions for using an elderly person thusly… that’s nasty and obnoxious. It tells you much about them, doesn’t it?

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Tuesday 18 October 2011

Albany NY

15 October 2011. Where in the World is Dickie Wood?

You can’t find out anything about Dickie and Velencia? Take heart… NONE of us can. Syosset screams about “openness” and “transparency” (especially Stokoe and his pals)… and THIS is what we get…

______________________________

According to oca.org, Dickie Wood is supposedly on a “leave of absence” with no mention of a suspension or any other information. That’s confirmed here. What I hear is that Mel Pleska has washed his hands of the whole banana (not just the Wood saga)… he doesn’t want to be tarred with the same brush as the Chancery Gang (which does include Stokoe… Mark’s nothing but Lyonyo’s internet sock-puppet). Apparently, there’s nothing that Mel can do about Lyonyo’s ambitious little cabal… and he’s stuck between the people and the apparatchiki, taking heat from both ends. It looks like he’s taking “a pox on both of your houses” attitude… we’ll see at the Sobor, won’t we?

As for Dickie… the question’s still open. Is he suspended? Is he in good graces? Is he in charge of the podvorie? If Dickie’s not in charge at the podvorie, who is? Can Dickie serve? Why was there a “leave of absence” in the first place? You’ll note that the other LOA is clearly labelled “for medical reasons”. There’s no mention of a temporary replacement in the “Pastoral Changes”, which is odd. I think that Bishop Mel saw this too, but that he stayed silent to screw the Syosset crowd. In short, this document not only doesn’t answer any of the outstanding questions, it adds a few more as seasoning to it all. If that wasn’t all, not only is the Dickie Wood saga unresolved, Raymond Velencia is still listed as a member of the OCA clergy on oca.org here (scroll down, you’ll see it). I’d say to the Winnipeg magistrate, “You’re a damned fool if you believe ANYTHING coming out of the mouth of ANY OCA clergyman (Velencia was supposedly “released”)”. Note well that a clergyman violated the law (“pastoral confidentiality” is a legal not canonical concept) and the OCA dilly-dallies about doing anything of the situation.

Before we go… Lazar Puhalo posted an impassioned defence of Seraphim Storheim in Stokoe’s comboxes. Puhalo was an uncanonical clergyman who was brought into the OCA as a “retired bishop” by Seraphim (that’s odd in itself). In short… Puhalo’s an “interested party” in legal terms… he and his monastery would be in the “outer darkness” if it weren’t for Storheim (Puhalo was part of the schismatical “Patriarchate of Kiev“). Puhalo’s smarmy attack on Cappy Larsen and Mel Sokoda wasn’t justified. We really have to stop making excuses for abusive clergy… whether they’re child abusers or just abusers of power. How many cases like that of Mme Plas and Kristi Koumentakos must there be until we realise that?

Pass me the jug… the world’s not stopped being crank in the last 24 hours. How much longer, dear Lord?

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Saturday 15 October 2011

Albany NY

6 October 2011. A Video Response to the Snotty and Shirty Konvertsy in Stokoe’s Comboxes… Reality vs Illusion

Remember the Meeting on the Elbe!

V Fenin

undated

******

******

Lately, there’s been some rather grotty commenting going on in Stokoe’s comboxes by the ususal cast of konvertsy ignoramuses. I’d remind them that if wasn’t for the bravery of the Russian people… Uncle Adolf would have shoved all of the Jews of Europe in the ovens and the Slavs would’ve been next. In fact, have you noticed how closely their “American Exceptionalism” resembles Nazism? Do ask the suffering people of Afghanistan and Iraq their opinion on that after living through a decade of American aggression. That’s why I posted the above video… we Russians aren’t going to roll over and play dead for a bunch of arrogant, ignorant, and hubristical Anglo-Saxons.

My view is simple… no one people is “chosen of God”… certainly, not Anglo-Saxon America, whose history is drenched in self-pious violence and bloodshed. It’s time to tend to our affairs and business… we should end the wars and we should end the multinationals’ rape of the environment and their brutalisation of foreign workers. Then, America could be a POSITIVE force in the world. Don’t forget, American and Soviet troops shook hands at the Elbe… it happened in the past, it can happen again. Oh… at that time, the USA was under the “socialistic” New Deal… it’s never been stronger… before or since. Think on that, rightwingers…

Back to the Future! It’s NOT just a catchy slogan!

PS 

To David Constantine Wright:

DO shut up. I’d LOVE to see you in the same room with Vsevolod Chaplin or Mark Golovkov… both hold the kandidatura nauka (by the way, the Blunder only holds a Western PhD, a degree inferior to the kandidatura). They’d make you eat every last one of your chuckle-headed assertions… and I’d PAY to see it (so would many others, to speak truthfully)!

BMD