A friend of mine at the Centre emailed me and asked me to pass the word that Schema-Archimandrite Ilya Nozdrin, Patriarch Kirill’s confessor, is in a very bad way. His health has taken a turn for the worse and his doctors don’t have much hope. Pray for him and ask your priest to mention him at the Proskomidi tomorrow. We’re Christians… that’s what we do…
BMD
A friend of mine at the Centre just informed me that Schema-Archimandrite Ilya Nozdrin (the confessor to Patriarch Kirill Gundyaev) is in very poor health. If you could add him to your prayer rule, that’d be a good thing (especially, as this is a Lenten period). Fr Ilya is one of the few genuine startsy in the Church today (we don’t have any here in the American diaspora… the loud konvertsy claims of such are loud and clanging rubbish).
Pray for Fr Ilya’s health… we’re Christians! That’s what we do…
BMD
I’ve never put clergy on a pedestal. Firstly, there are too many rum sorts in riassas. “You have to respect me because I’m a priest”… yadda, yadda, yadda. These men are the greatest recruiters for atheistic secularism that I know. They make Christ’s Church look like a cheapjack personality cult (or an Anti-Christian Evangelical conventicle).
Secondly, clergy and monastics are real people. They aren’t special. They don’t have anything that the rest of us don’t have. They have the same feelings and urges that the rest of us do. They’re as capable of friendship as any of us are (and of hate, too). Unfortunately, too many people only see the riassa. They don’t see the real person in the riassa! They think that they have to be “religious” with clergy and monastics. That’s absolute bullshit and hooey. Be REAL with clergy and monastics. That’s showing them real respect. Interact with them as people. Don’t make them into something that they’re not. You’ll find that decent clergy and monastics will thank you for that. As for the rest, what need I say? Ignore them, for the most part, and oppose them if you must.
Remember… real people EARN real respect. Anyone who “demands” it is rather dubious (some men are in the clergy because they know that they couldn’t do as well in the secular world). Have a care. There be rum sorts afoot…
BMD
The ungrounded think that holiness resides in “purity” and fighting evil. It doesn’t. No way; no how. Holiness consists in overcoming our human inclination to do wrong to others. In short, to “love our neighbour as ourselves”. Until you’ve mastered that, I’d advise you to be silent on others’ faults… and to stop complaining to the bishops about those you consider “unclean”. I think that there are more than a few “logs” in the eyes of the konvertsy out there, wouldn’t you say?
BMD
Voices from Russia 
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