"At least I'm not in a traditionalist Orthodox church."
For instance, there's the Colorado Craziness in AROC/ROAC. Elsewhere I have commented some on this (see here and here) and you can see a long letter about the deposed Gregory here. So now a monk gets into a squabble, and we have numerous diatribes about this. So I replied:
"And groping I continue to do. I grope for someone to understand. I grope for a kind word. I grope for someone to say, "You are for the Truth Nathaniel, and I stand with you.""
Perhaps it is not clear to you that we do stand with you as to the unworthiness of the deposed Gregory, and that indeed not only have doubts been expressed here since well before the crisis of fourteen months back, I myself have seen a document by one of Gregory's former superiors expressing not doubts but indeed severe reservations, in which stories of his misdeeds are related. But then I have also heard stories about how Gregory was reading men's souls.
So we are not surprised that that there continue to be problems with Gregory. What concerns all of us is the manner of presentation.
In a public forum, the expression of personal concern is very difficult. But what we see is not just the defects of Gregory, but your own airing of what I think all of us believe to be a private matter of your discipline within the monastery. But somehow it is being used as the basis of someone's diatribes against Gregory. And I do not feel that they are truly your diatribes-- not that you have not written them, but that they have perhaps unwittingly been written in the furtherance of another's agenda.
"People complain, "We are sick of hearing from you, Nathaniel. You are a lone voice.""
I do not recall anyone saying anything of the kind-- well, at least not the second sentence. I must confess that I am tired of hearing you, but it's mostly because the hysterical repetition and elaboration of the same accusations does get tiresome, even if I do agree that the object of those accusations is someone to be avoided.
Interest in those accusations has faded as your continued posts reveal more of yourself and nothing more of Gregory.
"Yet for all the "everybody knowing about gregory," he remains alive and well, ravaging and devouring unsuspecting souls, and like a canker worm, eating away any attempts to bring wholeness to the OC scenario."
But I can do nothing, and frankly I think that by now those who can be warned have been so already. And increasingly there is a tone of self-righteousness in the posts, a theme of pride in your self-appointed prosecution.
"Do we really need another OC Jurisdiction in the likes of a GOCA/ gregory? (No) thanks to me, it will not happen this October as was defintly planned by gregory and Angelos. And if it does, everybody will be sickened by the fact that a known pedophile, Angelos, had "laid hands" on the head of Fr George."
But in this you are wrong. The severe problems concerning Gregory were widely known well before his elevation, both testified to by those who knew him personally, and inferred by those who only heard about him second-hand. All of this failed to stop his consecration. Indeed, I am tempted to read between the lines that Valentine did not realize the error of elevating Gregory until he came to Colorado and saw the problems for himself. Thus it seems to me that there will be a good chance that George will feel that hands of consecrating bishops at some time or another, because the lack of order in traditionalist Orthodoxy seems to bring out these crises as a matter of course. We read about the wanderings of Vladimir Moss, Constantine Wright, and the deposed Gregory, and they seem the rule, not the exception. So do not congratulate yourself that George's consecration has been blocked, or for that matter, that you had a part in the current delays.
There is an obvious message in your statement that "I have been in two back to back OC cults": that you are not a good judge of whom you should trust. You should be considering that before you continue. I do not ask you to trust me, though I think my guidance might betray you less than others. But I believe that even now your trust may be misplaced, and that you are being used as the mouthpiece for another's attacks upon Gregory and the skete.
Why am I copying this post here? Read between the lines-- it'll come to you.
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