Two Examples of Panteleimonite Ad Hominem/Slander

And responses thereto

1. Fr. Victor Potapov’s supposed “Concelebrated Wedding” with an Episcopalian Priest

The Charge Repeated on the Orthodox List

On July 17, 1988, the same Fr. Victor Potapov celebrated a joint wedding service with an Episcopalian minister. (There is a videotape of this service.) Again, no public rebuke was ever issued over this matter. On the contrary, the one who reported and censured this travesty was the one = who was officially rebuked by the Russian Synod hierarchy! (See Bishop Hilarion's letter of 2/15 October 1988 to Anastasia G. Shatilova.)

The Truth

This is a classic example of HTM misrepresentation. I have spoken with Fr. Victor, as well as with another person who was there. What actually occurred is as follows:

The Episcopalian Minister was the Father of Bride, and was allowed to speak a few words at one point.

He had asked Fr. Victor if he could participate in the wedding, and was told that he couldn't and why. He then asked if he could say a few words at some point, and Fr. Victor agreed – since he was, after all, the Father of the Bride, and certainly one would not want to mare such a joyous occasion by alienating a Father and daughter unnecessarily.

So after the betrothal, Fr. Victor preached a brief sermon, and then the father of the bride came up to say a few words. However, he also said a prayer with a blessing for the couple. Fr. Victor was caught off guard, but wasn't sure what to do -- since the only alternative to ignoring this would have been to have abruptly stopped him, and no doubt hurting the feelings and offending most of the bride’s family. Fr. Victor chose to ignore this, and proceeded on with the service.

Now, who can blame him for this? Nevertheless, Fr. Victor did asked for the Metropolitan’s forgiveness… though clearly there were no good options, and he had to make a snap decision. But even if the worst face were put on this, this was one isolated instance, and clearly the ROCA did not sanction or wink at a “concelebration” with an Episcopalian.

Pastoral circumstances often get sticky. I know of a woman, who was in the Synod but was married to a vagante priest. They had a baby which he wanted to baptize -- she wanted the baby baptized by a real priest of course, but also she and her priest wanted to try to keep the marriage together. HTM was consulted (this was when they were still in the Synod), and THEY suggested that that he be allowed to do the Baptism, but that a Synod priest then chrismate her.

Now, to me this sounds a bit odd -- but I would hardly have accused HTM of Ecumenism for perhaps making a mistake for the sake of trying to salvage a marriage.

2. Matushka Ann Lardas’ Family slandered, and her reply

The Slander

I wondered why Matushka Ann Lardas (whose maiden name is McLellen) has

recently poured out her disdain.

Since I am reasonably new to the Boston area, I asked several people in the

Russian parish what evil had been directed by this man against Matushka Ann?

I was told that the McLellen family came to Orthodoxy from Roman Catholicism

by way of the Holy Transfiguration Monastery. Fr. Panteleimon was the one

who gave the family spiritual stability when the family was most needful:

there was a tragic divorce, Ann's father was imprisoned, than he remarried.

Ann was loosing it to such an extent that she wanted to commit suicide from

which Fr. Panteleimon saved her. There was an icon dedicated to Ann and her

two brothers - it was the three children in the fiery furnace of Babylon.

Yes, a great family tragedy and the monastery with Fr. Panteleimon were

always there to help them.

What could possibly change Matushka Ann's feelings about the priest that

helped them so much?

Could it be the strict ecclesiology, that HTM acquired from the ROCA's

Bishops of the 1970's and continue to hold that uncompromising position

towards the Moscow Patriarchate?

I was told that the McLellen family always wanted to be Russian. Then,

there was, and is, the influence of their spiritual father, Fr. Roman

Lukianov, who is adamant for the union of ROCA with Moscow Patriarchate.

Also, there is her brother Joseph Maclellen who studied in the Holy Trinity

Seminary where several professors are from the Moscow Patriarchate.

How quickly we forget the good things for which we should be ever grateful…

The Truth

I am prepared to accept a retraction and an apology from "Alexey Mihailov,"

"Nona Below" and the other assorted authors of and contributors to "Baffled

in Boston's" outrageous post yesterday, in lieu of other consequences. The

post wasn't "over the top" or "probing;" it was fallacious and malicious. It

would be bad enough if these people had simply dragged out the details

surrounding my parents' custody battle over us kids twenty-five years ago.

But to embellish the account of that time with self servingly nuanced

falsehoods moves the post from malice to actionable speech.

I don't think anyone should have to explain his childhood. But yesterday's

post mingles truth with falsehood, reality with speculation, to the point

that the whole thing resembles a surrealist painting of an event that the

artist heard of but never witnessed. And so I will touch briefly upon a few

points.

For starters, I''ve read several posts talking about "Matushka Ann's

problems." These "problems" are the invention of a malicious imagination.

Let's be clear about one thing: I have never been suicidal. I'm far too

stubborn for that. Also, I've always known that such is a sin against the

Holy Spirit. It is a lie, and must be retracted for the sake of the souls of

those who posted it, as well as for the sake of the truth. That someone would

create such a story to glorify himself reflects more upon Fr. Panteleimon

than on me. I attribute our deliverance from the difficulties which beset us

in the seventies to the prayers of Metropolitan Philaret and my godfather,

Sergei Iulievich Conus, both now departed. Fr. Panteleimon baptized me, but

it would be wrong to assume that we had a deep and caring ongoing pastoral

relationship. The last time I went to confession to Fr. Panteleimon I was

twelve years old and he fell asleep during my confession.

What were the difficulties from which we were delivered? A bitter custody

battle, in the midst of which first my father and then we children converted

to Orthodoxy against the wishes of my mother and the court.

Nobody divorces because they are happy. My parents had their differences, but

the court intensified them. Judge Mary FitzPatrick who, like my mother, was

both Irish and Roman Catholic, had kept returning us to our mother's custody

so that we would not become Orthodox, even though poor Mamma was not able to

care for us adequately . My mother never converted and died before the

divorce proceedings were final. She has been dead for twenty-five years now.

I ask your prayers for her; her name was Pauline.

My father had always thought of the seventeen days that he spent in the

Charles Street jail over Pascha, 1974, as a badge of honor. Others agree. At

my father's funeral, during one of the four eulogies, Hieromonk James said

that "In an age when fathers are sent to jail for failing to support their

children, James went to jail for protecting his children." He was jailed for

contempt of court, not for anything more interesting, because he refused to

disclose to the court our whereabouts when he had sent us to a safe location.

Dad was under Fr. Panteleimon's spiritual care at the time that he sent us to

safety, so I assume that both our disappearance and his refusal to discuss it

with the court were done with the monastery's blessing and consent. The

subsequent remarriage, after my mother's repose, was with Fr. Panteleimon's

encouragement. He not only attended the wedding and participated in it by

blessing the removal of the crowns at the end, but he also stood in the

reception line after the bride and groom, handing out prints of an icon of

the Savior and the Mother of God and at the reception he sat at the center of

the head table, between the bride and the groom. It took a long time for me

to discover that this was not standard monastic practice.

Nona writes of our family icon:

>There was an icon dedicated to Ann and her two brothers - it was the three

children in the fiery furnace of Babylon.

Yes, a great family tragedy and the monastery with Fr. Panteleimon were

always there to help them.<

The truth is less dramatic, and reveals more about HTM than about us.

My father did help underwrite the painting and distribution of the icon of

the Three Holy Children in the Fiery Furnace. At a time when he was

vulnerable, beset by legal fees and child support and hostile elements, Fr.

Panteleimon suggested that a substantial donation of money to underwrite

would help my father's cause before God.

Again, I attribute our deliverance from the difficulties which beset us in

the seventies to the prayers of Metropolitan Philaret and my godfather Serge

Conus, also to the intercession of the saints, mainly St.John (whom we, in

our ignorance, called "VLAD-ika John") and St. Xenia, at whose glorification

my father spoke.

It was Fr Roman Lukianov, not Fr Panteleimon, who served the panikhidas for

St Xenia that preceded the miraculous help my father received from her, about

which he spoke at the trapeza following the service of her Glorification in

1978. The most I'd heard about St. Xenia at Holy Transfiguration Monastery

was when Fr. Efraim pointed to his mother, who lived at the monastery,

standing among the grapes and remarked that he thought that she resembled the

saint.

>I was told that the McLellen family always wanted to be Russian.<

This is just silly. And yet, because it's a complaint I've often heard from

people in HOCNA's sphere of influence, I will address it.

When we were baptized, we became part of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside

of Russia. At that time, Holy Transfiguration Monastery was under the

Omophorion of ROCOR, and advising everyone else to come under the same

Omophorion.

Accordingly, even though we attended HTM on Saturday mornings (which claimed

to follow Greek traditions), as a family we joined a Russian parish, where we

went to midweek services, church school, Saturday vigil and Sunday Liturgy.

Members of my family as much as they were able (and we DO vary in this)

learned the Russian language, melodies and customs, not as wannabees but as

part of the church family, much the way a daughter-in-law would learn a few

words of her husband's parents' language. We were embraced by a Russian

sisterhood, had a Russian godfather, lived a block away from the elderly

Russians in the parish house and at least once a week would eat Russian

cooking at trapeza. It's not a matter of wanting to be Russian, it's a matter

of choosing to live with Russians.

At the same time, clergy, monastics and lay people under the influence of HTM

actively disdained things Russian.I heard one snotty comment after another

about Russian cooking, chanting, iconography, bishops, etc. At first I joined

in -- I thought there was something holy about this scorn. Over time, I

learned otherwise (Fr. Roman was very, very patient), and came to see it

first as ingratitude and then as hypocrisy to boast of being under Russian

bishops on the one hand and disparage them behind their backs on the other.

By the way, our family name is spelled "McLellan," not "McLellen," although

Vladyka Constantine always pronounced it "MacMellon."

>How quickly we forget the good things for which we should be ever grateful.<

HTM's battle cry has always been "After all we've done for you!"

And yet they themselves never showed respect or gratitude toward the Russian

bishops when they were with us, and they received much from the people whom

they say they'd helped.

(By the way, my family has over a dozen letters signed by Hieromonk Isaac

attesting to the many thousands of dollars that my parents contributed to

Holy Transfiguration Monastery and Holy Nativity Convent out of Dad's

schoolteacher's salary which he supplemented with second jobs over the decade

of the 1970's and early 80's, during which time he had first three, then

four, five and eventually six children.Who helped whom? If the money donated

had been my own, I would not mention it, but the virtue is not my own and my

father is safely in the grave, where no man can be moved, neither by flattery

nor by slander.)

>What could possibly change Matushka Ann's feelings about the priest that

helped them so much?<

Is this not the heart of the matter?

When I was a child, I took everything that I was told about Fr. Panteleimon

at face value. As I grew older, his behavior led me to question the tales of

his mythical holiness. Does a righteous man launch the attack on Platina that

HTM waged through letters in the late seventies? Is it right for a monk to

yell at another monk the way I'd seen Fr. Panteleimon yell at monks and

novices, to the point where the noise he made was painfully loud and his face

turned dark? Is it Christian love for an Abbot and Archimandrite to scorn his

own Bishop and make sarcastic and cynical comments about the Synod which had

given him shelter? Why were most New Calendar Greeks excluded from Communion

but Fr. Panteleimon's mother was communed?

Later, as I "modeled learned behavior," as they say in education classes, Fr.

Roman would raise an eyebrow at some of the attitudes I expressed, attitudes

I'd learned at HTM and the convent. Mother Stephania had boasted, for

example, about how the six year old niece of one nun said, "It's not Santa,

it's St. Nicholas, and it's not Christmas, it's Nativity, and it hasn't

happened yet!" to a lady who asked her, at the store, what Santa had brought

her for Christmas. At the convent, this was seen as witnessing. In my heart,

I knew it was just rude and uncalled for.

You can't serve two masters, you cannot uphold two traditions, and you cannot

answer to two hierarchies. Either one can obey Fr. Panteleimon or one can

follow the bishops of ROCOR. They led in divergent ways and held divergent

doctrines even back then.

Also, though parish life I came to see an Orthodoxy that was lived from the

heart instead of from books. Converts love things like the St. Herman's

calendar because it would say, in black and white, what you could or couldn't

eat that day. If you read all the prayers that were in the prayer book and

only ate the things that the calendar said you could eat, you'd be okay.

While the Russians.... they lived differently. Sometimes they had fish on a

non-fish day, or oil on non-oil day, or even milk on a fast day. But, they

loved God and the Church. They prayed hard when they prayed. They celebrated

lavishly when they celebrated. And when they put their minds to fasting, it

was dismal stuff, boiled potatoes and stewed fruit instead of the monastery's

shrimp pilaf or salad with avocados. And when they loved you, you stayed

loved. I came to see that Orthodoxy wasn't what you do, it's who you are in

relation to God and the people He made. If you love God, you do the other

things because they help you behave. Not, you love God to the extent that you

do the right thing. There's a difference.

Fr. Roman led me to see that I had responsibilities, not to make sure that

other people were doing what they were supposed to but rather to see if I

myself was doing what I should. Confession brought a whole new set of

questions. Had I prayed? Had I fasted? Had I done my homework and housework

cheerfully? Conversely, had I quarreled, had I judged, had I nursed a grudge

or harbored anger? Every moment we breathe we make a choice, which way to

follow. Are we acting to fulfill the will and law of God or are we acting to

please ourselves? I came to see that under HTM we were in danger of thinking

we were making God happy by pleasing ourselves by doing everything better

than Those Other People. And so my young soul made a choice.

Fr. Panteleimon's personal sins were almost irrelevant to my decision not to

follow him into the inevitable schism which eventually came to pass. They DID

come as a shock, but by the time I'd learned of the accusations against him,

cognitive dissonance had already set in. I sensed that if I chose to be under

HTM's influence, rather than that of Orthodox bishops and the priests who

obeyed them, I would feel very, very good about myself but I would lose any

chance I had of eternal happiness. If I stayed with the Russians, there would

be conflict, there would be kasha, there would be cabbage -- but, when they

say "Christ is in our midst," you know that it's true; you can feel it. I

would have my faults explained to me, and I would have to do something about

them. This is the rock tumbler of parish life, that turns dull rocks into

precious stones, polished and suitable for use by the King.

But also, by their fruits you shall know them. When someone leaves ROCOR, we

mourn and we get over it. When someone leaves HOCNA, or even just speaks the

truth about the time that its clergy spent in the Church Abroad, the most

unbelievable biographic details about the whistleblowers are put forth as

fact -- he was a bad monk, she was on the verge of suicide, they would have

been nowhere without the monastery -- where is Christ in this?

No, this is not an environment where the soul can find salvation.

Baffled's take on everything else about ROCOR is as warped as his or her (or

their) account of my life and times. (A well informed child can see through

it. Yesterday when I told my daughter, who was wondering why I was laughing,

that someone on the internet had claimed that I'd been suicidal and had been

saved only by this alleged holy elder, she looked at me and said, after some

reflection, "No, I just don't see it.")

The Christian life must be grounded in truth.

Baffled's comments were not.

But, glory be to God for all things. Now I've joined the ranks of those

slandered by HTM's minions, who managed to spread a mixture of details about

the most painful period from my family's past and out and out lies meant to

make Fr. Pantelimon look like our family's savior.

We have a Saviour, and He is not Panteleimon.

The truth bending statements and outright fabrications in yesterday's post

were quite distorted and, in fact, actionable as slander and libel. However,

a retraction and apology, which are in order, would be welcomed and accepted.

I imagine that there are some Jordanville alumni who would also want to

address some points made in yesterday's baffling post.

In Christ,

Matushka Ann Lardas