Great Lent 2011 
Fourth Week, St. Mary of Egypt 

To the clergy of the Izhevsk and Udmurtia Dioceses: 
Archpriest Sergey Kondakov 
Archpriest Mikhail Karpeev 
Fr. Aleksandr Maliy  

Dear Fathers in the Lord! 

With great spiritual exhilaration and gratitude to our Lord God, I read your open  letter to Patriarch Kirill (Gundayev) of the ROC(MP). 

The warranted distress over the Russian Orthodox Church (MP) expressed in your letter is similar to the spiritual anguish in the hearts of all members of the Russian Church in the Homeland and across the world. 

Your  letter caused a great uplifting of spirits and hope in the clergy and flock of the Russia Orthodox Church Abroad. 

It caused a great uplifting of spirits because the appeals made in your letter to the Patriarch coincide in many ways with what Orthodox Russia has been expecting from the Moscow Patriarchate for decades. 

It caused hope because one wants your letter not to be grounds for retaliatory measures by your church administration, but to be accepted as the distillation of all the desires of the clergy and flock of the ROC(MP) and to serve as a call to action to bring the Moscow Patriarchate within the confines stipulated by the Canons and 

Holy Fathers, your comments regarding the Russian Church Abroad were accurate, as they apply to the part of It that remained loyal on May 17, 2007, to the Status of the ROCA and  resisted premature canonical unity with the MP.  If the Moscow Patriarchate would only welcome the requests shared by both of us, then the long-awaited and genuine unity of the Russian Church based on Truth would be achieved. 

Be strong and may the Lord protect you! 

 

+Humble Servant Andronik
Archbishop of Syracuse and Nikolskiy