______________________________
I got this from several Cabinet members:
Dear brothers and sisters,
I want to bring to your attention the true situation about rumours in circulation that assert that “Archimandrite Tikhon Shevkunov blessed” the opening of a new church in Orange County, allegedly directly subordinate to the Patriarch of Moscow. This is pure spam and malicious misinformation coming from certain, shall we say, foes of the Russian Orthodox Church, in particular the parish of St Barbara in Irvine CA, it’s knowingly false and untrue!
In November 2012, Fr Alexander Lebedeff was in Moscow and personally asked if Archimandrite Tikhon had given such a blessing? To which, of course, Archimandrite Tikhon answered, “No”. He went on to say that, in actuality, he wouldn’t be able to give a blessing for the opening of a new parish in Orange County, as he was only an archimandrite, not a ruling diocesan ordinary, and, in any case, such a blessing would be illicit without the blessing of Patriarch Kirill Gundyaev. Furthermore, he explained that even if he were a bishop, the canons would prohibit him to bless such a proceeding on the canonical territory of another diocese, especially in the case of the ROCOR, which is under the Patriarchate of Moscow and all the Russias. Moreover, to do so (to give a blessing to an endeavour in another bishop’s diocese) is categorically impossible in the normal course of events under the canons without the consent of the ruling bishop of the diocese, in this case, His Eminence Kirill Dmitrieff, Archbishop of San Francisco and Western America.
It’s time to disprove these rumours; they evidence an elementary misconstruction of canonical order as it exists in the Russian Orthodox Church, indeed, as it exists in any canonical Local Church. Therefore, consider these things!
With love in Christ,
Fr Georgi Gulin
Rector of the Parish of St Barbara, Irvine CA
PS
I ask you to send this on to as many people as you know so that everyone in Orange County would know the truth of this matter!
******
Why, then, does the OCA official website list Georgi Gulin as assigned to St Nicholas Cathedral in the District? He’s from Russia, but multiple sources tell me that he came on the Orange County scene when Fathausen was OCA First Hierarch… is he is a cleric of the MP, OCA, or ROCOR? Will the real Georgi Gulin please stand up? I checked the parish website and oca.org myself, and I found that the e-mail address listed for Georgi Gulin in both places was identical… ergo, it’s the same guy. Busted! This is passing strange… and perspirin’ minds wanna know…
BMD
Voices from Russia 
American Government Opposes Court Ruling on Jewish Archive and Russia
Tags: Chabad, Chabad Lubavitch, Jewish, Jewish history, Jews, Jews in Russia, legal affairs, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Russian), Orthodox Judaism, political commentary, politics, Red Army, Religion, Religion and Spirituality, Russia, Russian, Russian history, Russian State Library, Schneerson, Soviet Union, United States, US Department of State, US-Russia relations, USA, USSR
______________________________
On Thursday, a US State Department spokesman said that the US government disagreed with a federal court’s decision to impose a 50,000 USD (1.52 million Roubles. 37,500 Euros. 31,400 UK Pounds)-a-day fine on Russia for failing to comply with an earlier order to hand over religious texts to a New York-based Orthodox Jewish group. On Wednesday, a federal judge in Washington DC ordered Russia to pay a fine for every day it fails to return the Schneerson Collection of sacred Jewish books to the Chabad-Lubavitch Chasidic movement, headquartered in Brooklyn (a borough of New York City). Whilst the US government supports the group’s “assertion of ownership” of the collection, State Department spokesman Ariel Vaagen told RIA-Novosti that it doesn’t believe the ruling by Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the US District Court for the District of Columbia is “appropriate in this case. We respectfully disagree with the court’s order imposing such fines against the Russian Federation”.
Vaagen added that the US government doesn’t believe that the fine will compel Russia to hand over the Schneerson collection, which consists of thousands of books and religious documents. The Chabad-Lubavitch movement assembled the texts over two centuries prior to World War II in Belarus. Vaagen told RIA-Novosti that the USA “offered diplomatic channels to help facilitate a solution, and will continue to work towards an amicable resolution to their dispute”.
The Bolsheviks nationalised part of the Schneerson library amassed by Lubavitcher Rebbe Yosef Yitzchok Schneerson in 1918. About 25,000 pages of manuscripts fell into the hands of the Nazis; later on, the Red Army captured them, and handed them over to the Russian State Military Archive. This part of the Schneerson Library is now in the archive of the Lenin Library in Moscow. Schneerson took the remaining part out of the USSR when he emigrated in the 1930s.
Since Schneerson’s death in 1991, leaders of the Chabad movement have tried to regain possession of the library, claiming that the Soviet authorities illegally held it after the war. In 1991, a Moscow court agreed to turn over the library to Chabad, but after the USSR collapsed, the ruling was ignored. Now, the Russian government says it wants to keep the archive for future scholars. On Thursday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MID) called the US court’s ruling imposing a fine “absolutely unlawful and provocative” and “fraught with the most serious consequences”. The MID also said that it’s also “ extraterritorial and at odds with international law”.
According to the Associated Press, Chabad’s legal team said that it’d strive to enforce the ruling, including targeting the Russian government’s property in the USA under the US Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. Vaagen said the US government doesn’t believe the ruling to impose the fine is a “proper application” of the act. She directed further inquiries to the US Department of Justice, which declined to comment when reached by RIA-Novosti on Thursday. Seth Gerber, a lawyer for Chabad, declined to comment when reached by telephone Thursday afternoon, but said the movement would be releasing a statement later in the day.
18 January 2013
RIA-Novosti
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20130118/178850108/US_Govt_Opposes_Courts_Jewish_Archive_Ruling________.html
Editor’s Note:
Where’s the legendary “Yiddishe kup” (“Jewish brains”… literally, “Jewish head”)? This is just red meat for anti-Semites… they’ll say, “See… those Yids are only interested in money and in using the courts to harass those that they don’t like”. Let’s be blunt… the jabronies in Brooklyn NEVER owned this collection. NEVER. NO WAY. NO HOW. That is, they’ve no legal right to sue to own it. What they want to do is to restrict the access to the library to only those whom they approve of. Other Russian sources have stated that the Russian government’s wise to all this shit… they want ALL scholars to have access to the library, not just a select few. What absolute cheek and hubris! It only goes to show you the strength of the Jewish Lobby… and I’m no anti-Semite for pointing up its existence. Rather, it saddens me… for it’ll increase hatred of Jews in certain circles, and it was all so avoidable.
BMD