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Anyway, that tells you a bit about where I'm coming from. We share lots of interests in common, and so I'm sure we'd have lots to talk about, and if I keep editing things, then I'm sure we'll keep on bumping into each other! And if I'm bombastic, I'm most likely not entirely serious...,
Regards,[[User:Maxim|Maxim]] 01:44, June 29, 2006 (CDT)
== Various ==
Dear Dcn. Andrew,
Thanks for your comments. It is a difficult situation re Sourozh/Exarchate. In fact, I'm not as opposed to Bishop Basil's actions as it probably seems from the edits. For what it's worth, part of me has a great sympathy for the situation of the English wing of Sourozh. And certainly I am deeply unsure of medium-term DECR politics (DECR, after all, was set up by the Communists to eliminate the Russian Churches outside Soviet territory). No part of me supports any Russification of Sourozh, etc.
I have already expressed my worries about the effects of Bishop Basil's actions upon UK Orthodoxy, and I wonder whether it is really worth the pain and division it is causing and will cause. This said, my real problem with the Oxford-London wing is the deep ambiguities that surround Basil's actions and the attitudes of his followers. To take one example - which I've never tried to put on an encyclopedia article - I once asked Bp Basil why he could not provide Sourozh priests for the Russian Orthodox in the major cities in Scotland. His answer was that the diocese has no money/people to do this. In fact, one of the things that has emerged from this controversy (indeed, from Basil's own first letter to Patriarch Alexei) is that this is not true - he DID have money & people, but these were only available on condition that the priests/churches would follow the standard Russian typikon. Now my problem is this: there are hundreds of people who cut off from the Russian Church because preserving the 'Sourozh ethos' is more important than meeting the spiritual needs of these Russian Orthodox Christians. And why is this so important? Because the interests of the Oxford-London group must take priority. It's like saying: you have can't have communion, because we don't want to wear headscarves. It's like saying: only we matter, and if you don't fit into what we want, then we'll just pretend you don't exist. Of course, no-one in Sourozh will say that to the face of these Orthodox Christians; they will just avoid them and pretend they are not there. When Bp Hilarion came to the Diocese of Sourozh in 2002, one of the first things he found was that there was a parish (outside the Oxford-London corridor) which had not had an episcopal visit for EIGHT years. Imagine that! When there are three bishops and less than 30 parishes and communities combined! (Needless to say, that parish was not Oxford...)
A great deal of this tension within Sourozh diocese has arisen from these issues. And of course, the Oxford-Sourozh group (who, after all, write most of the English-language internet material on the subject) want to pretend that these issues don't exist. But they do, and they have a great deal to do with socio-cultural and ecclesial attitudes which are common within the English part of the Diocese of Sourozh.
And these matters don't just affect Russian Orthodox. They are also some of the main reasons why so many of the English converts who don't come from the 'right' social background have ended up becoming Antiochean. If you ever speak to these Antiocheans, the story is always the same: at first they looked to Sourozh; but their face didn't fit; Sourozh didn't want to know; after despairing for a while, they found their home in Antioch. The most clear divide between English converts in the Antiocheans and Sourozh have been their social class and their geographical origin. And, although it's not something you can ever put in an encyclopedia article, you just need to hear the jokes that the upper middle-class English converts tell about the Antiocheans to become fully aware that their issues with the Antiocheans are mainly to do with social background.
Now, my problem then when it comes to encyclopedia articles is that (a) material which ignores these issues, and which presents the matter as if it were just an ethnic divide, or a plot by the 'evil Russian DECR' is unacceptably skewed; but that (b) full-scale academic research on the history of UK Orthodoxy has not yet been undertaken, which means that one must either undertake fresh research oneself (which is not then suitable for inclusion in an encyclopedia article), or one must footnote informal sources which present opinions (e.g. Andrew Phillips' site).
RE my edits, you're certainly right that sometimes I let the possibilities of hyperbole get the better of me. Partly its because writing something here is a slapdash quickfire affair - far more like public speaking than scholarship - and sometimes I just stick something up without perhaps toning it correctly. This, of course, is why it is so good that there is a community of people all correcting each other, &c. E.g. What was very good for me was your major edit on the stuff I'd written on Sourozh on wikipedia. That showed me how someone else reads what I wrote, etc. and actually helped me express myself better on the matter (not just in wikipedia, but generally). It should be clear that I don't have a problem being corrected, and am perfectly happy to hold my hand up when I'm mistaken. (But the other side of that is that I'm not so wary to express myself hyperbolically - but that's perhaps a celtic thing...) Also, I haven't said anything I don't firmly believe to be true.
RE Bishop Basil's comments on the suspension of Fr Andrei, I'm actually not aware of anything in print regarding his personal motivations for the suspension of Fr Andrei. If you know of something, by all means, put it up - please! The one thing I would add though is that his motivations are a subject of controversy. (Indeed, for many, they are rather typical of the customary Sourozh mode-of-behaviour, which, particularly in the latter years of Metropolitan Anthony, was arbitrary and despotic, and which refused to make clear its motivations for action (Cf. Gill Crow's book for explicit recognition of this).) Proof is needed to avoid POV issues.
Above all, my concern is that what is true be put up and made public. Unfortunately, this in-and-of-itself brings me into conflict with certain strands within the Oxford faction who, history will show, prefer that as much as possible be hidden behind closed doors.
Lastly, I've enjoyed working/sparring with you over the last wee while. Certainly for me it is constructive to interact with an American who clearly thinks in a very different way from me. It interests me how we do misunderstand each other regularly. It's not so much language that divides us as differing forms of thinking. And of course, it's not disagreeing or misunderstanding that are the problems, so much as being able to resolve and work through disagreements and misunderstandings.
Oh, and BTW, I rather like T.S. Eliot as well!
Best wishes,
[[User:Maxim|Maxim]] 16:56, June 29, 2006 (CDT)