Bishop Agafangel's comments on "Metropolitan Lavr's Response

to Questions from the Editors of the "Vestnik"

of the Odessa Theological Seminary"

 

 

            In his responses to questions from the “Vestnik” of the OTS of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church(MP) (UOC), his Eminence was inaccurate when he rebuked those who decided not to unite with the MP, saying that they suffer from the delusion that being separate from the MP allows them to “save the Church, which in fact is ‘sergianism’ in reverse.”  This statement is essentially at odds with reality, since we do not desire to save the Church, but to be saved within our Russian Church Abroad.  Saving ROCOR is actually what those who changed ROCOR by joining it with the MP thought they were doing (a matter which can lead to many other questions and determinations).  Let me add, that I personally do not believe one can be saved within the MP, as I am acquainted with many of the members of that body and the state of internal affairs in the MP.  I believe that neither union with those people (and there are many such people in the MP), nor with the administration of this body, nor with their unique “confession” of Orthodoxy, can bring salvation to anyone.

 

            Unfortunately, in this interview, Metropolitan Lavr allowed many other “ecclesiological and factual inaccuracies,” which I have no desire to discuss at length.  In the end run, one can sadly say that the Metropolitan Lavr that answered the questions posed by “Vestnik” was not the one we all knew and loved.  We can already clearly see, even in these “Answers,” the initial fruits of merging a part of ROCOR into “the process of reviving the Russian Church and its long-suffering people.”  Bitter fruits…

 

                                                                                                            + Bishop Agafangel

                                                                                                            13/26 October, 2007  

                                                                                       The “Iveron” Mother of God Icon

                    

                     http://www.russianorthodoxchurch.ws/synod/2007/10print_mlvestnik.html

 

A Necessary Explanation:  Metropolitan Lavr’s statement that “the Synod of Bishops forbid Bishop Agafangel to serve because of his opposition to his superiors and his incitement of schism” also does not square with the facts.  A legitimate Ukaze of my forbidding to serve does not exist, as I received an Ukaze to serve temporarily in the South American diocese, which no has cancelled and which is in effect to this day.  When was the Ukaze forbidding me to serve issued?  Such an Ukaze was also not received after May 17, 2007.  I do not have (have not received) an Ukaze forbidding me to serve, as it does not and cannot exist.