A Reply to the Chairman
of the RTOC Synod Archbishop Tikhon
On his letter from August
13/26, 2007
Your Eminence!
I received your letter
in which you reproach me for not contacting you personally or through the
address of your Synod. I would like to
inform you that I do not know your personal address, except for the mailing
address of Remeslenniy
Street in Omsk. Your email address, and the email address of
the RTOC Synod, is set up in Ukraine,
and therefore, as I understand it, it is not your personal address, but that of
some intermediaries. I would like to
speak directly to you. Similarly, I
received your letter by email from an intermediary, and therefore, I do not
feel, as do you, that I received some official letter from you (especially
since the letter I received does not have the main features of official
correspondence: an original signature and seal, a
issuing number, or an indication to whom the letter is addressed). I am sorry that the contents of my letter,
which appeared on the Internet, “were not known to us [you] right away.”
Having found no
proposals in the letter to me from August 13/28, except for the proposal to
conduct the dialogue “without any personal distractions,” I intended to contact
you in Omsk,
but then I saw your letter on the RTOC website.
To that end, I do not completely understand what that means, that “the
dialogue must proceed without any personal
distractions.” Personally, I am open to
dialogue in any shape or form, as long as it is not conducted through the
involvement of your advisors, and that the matters discussed will be made known
to the flock.
Since you are often in
Odessa, I suggest meeting with you here, during
your next visit, and without any assistants or prompters, so that we may
clarify and agree on the future course of the parts of the Russian Church.
I hope that this time
you will not be kept in the dark very long and you will be able to read the
text of this letter soon. (This letter
is also being posted on the Internet.)
With Sincere Good Wishes,
Chairman of the ROCA PSCA
+Bishop Agafangel
August 18/31
Martyrs Florus
and Laurus