Presbyter Neketas S. Palassis, Editor
October16/29, 2000
SUNDAY OF THE HOLY FATHERS
Ninteenth Sunday after Pentecost.
Vol. XXXIV, No. 3 (1502)
Epistle: Titus 3:8-15. Gospel: Luke 8:5-15. Tone: Pl. IV.

    At its recent Clergy Synaxis in Boston in October of this year, the Metropolis of Boston received Priestmonk Sergios, Abbot of St. Gregory of Sinai Monastery in Kelseyville, California, and his synodia under the omoforion of Metropolitan Ephraim of Boston.  St. Gregory of Sinai began to organize as a monastic community during Father Sergios' tenure at the OCA's Boston cathedral in the late 1970's and early 1980's.  Ordained in Alaska in 1969 with a promise of early release to monastic life, only in 1983 did he finally receive permission to leave parish work and enter monasticism. In 1983 he was invited to the OCA's California diocese and in 1984 the monastery acquired property in far-northern Trinity County, where a small multi-purpose building was constructed and a simple monastic life begun. Throughout these years Father Sergios was assisted by Monk Simon, an ikon painter, who serves today as the Monastery's "Devteros" -- second-in-command.

    That time came when the community - now 5 - left a small rented house after 7 years in Richmond, near Berkeley, and moved to Lake County, some 3 hours northeast of the Golden Gate Bridge.  A small vacant horse ranch was rented on November 1, 1999, and since then, the community has been praying and searching for a site compatible with the monastic life - a site combining solitude and silence with some capacity for agriculture. During the year just ending, a sixth man joined the brotherhood.

    Some four years ago, after viewing a video produced by the World Council of Churches that included footage from its Vancouver and Canberra assemblies of the kind of communion in prayer and worship disallowed by the Sacred Canons - in which Orthodox delegates were clearly participating - we began to question our long-held opinion of the innocence of the full-membership in ecumenism's chief institutional expressions, the World and National Councils of Churches.  We sadly learned that the ecclesiastical leaders to whom we directed our concerns and questions were unable to answer in a way  that seemed consistent with the Church's traditional position.  This left us with a growing unease concerning the problems raised by partnering the heretical Christian confessions in an organization like the WCC and NCC, and in the end, after considerable research and prayer, we became aware that we could not in good conscience continue to hold communion with an episcopate clearly committed to the goals, ways and means of modern syncretist ecumenism, and notified our former ecclesiastical authority that we wished to be removed from its roster of those clergy and institutions.
While the chief justification for full membership of ecumenist bodies seems to be the need to witness to Orthodoxy to non-Orthodox, our own overwhelming sense of the thing is that the witnessing is going on in the opposite direction.  We had held out some hope that the Thessaloniki conference, called on the eve of the WCC's most recent assembly, in Harare, would publicly recommit the Church to its own canons.  When its decisions were published, however, we were surprised that a group describing itself as the eirenic, caring, inclusive one, commited to the ways of patient love, chose this conference to invoke an amazing invective against Orthodox who choose not to participate in the ecumenist enterprise, and we were yet more discouraged when we learned that although Thessaloniki did indeed promise to abide by the canonical prohibition against communion in prayer and worship, the Orthodox delegates at Harare participated as fully in the communion in prayer and worship at Harare with heretical groups as they have done since the abandoning in the late 1950's, at the insistence of the late Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople, of Father Georges Florovsky's carefully-defined and structured participation of Orthodox with non-Orthodox delegates and activities which had left no question at all regarding the Church's self-understanding.  After Harare, our own path was clear and straight.

    On the Feast of St. Nicholas, December 6/19 of this year, the Monastery acquired a 165-acre site on the southwestern slopes of Mount Hannah, a 4000-foot-high extension of the Mayacamas range, in the small northern California town of Kelseyville, about 50 minutes from Ukiah and 90 minutes from Santa Rosa.  At the same time, an offer was accepted on an additional 135 acres just south of the first parcel. The acquisition of this large heavily-forested site was made possible by generous gifts from donors who prefer to remain anonymous, whose names and great hearts are well-known in the heavens.

    The site has no developed roads, no water, no power, and no buildings.  The forest is best described as "wounded", so heavily did its previous owner cut it down, leaving a thick carpet of not-taken trees and branches which  constitute a fire hazard and scar the entire site.  Clearly, among the ongoing tasks of the brotherhood will be the healing of this wonderful mixed forest of conifers and hardwoods, even as we ourselves are healed of the effects in us of the fall of our foreparents.

    The brotherhood has supported itself by painting ikons and selling greeting cards (which can be viewed on its website at saintgregorysinai.com).  Its resources are slender and its rented property, consisting of a large main house and an adjacent two-story barn, has been purchased by a Roman Catholic community which has asked us to vacate the site at the end of March.  This gives the Monastery a very short time in which to attempt a building program which, however austere, still needs to pass through the usual county planning departments.  A construction engineer in our southern California parish has volunteered to prepare a plan for an initial multi-purpose structure which we hope to complete through the shell stage by March 30 of next year, if God wills.

    While we do not sponsor fund-raising drives, we would note that any readers who might have a skill that could be contributed over a long weekend or a few weekdays on our building project, and who are in a position to come to Kelseyville can count on room and board, a warm greeting and a lot of gratitude.
Other first-phase plans require that we install a well and a septic system, and we are investigating the advantages of bringing power to the building site.  In order to diversify our economic base, among the plans under consideration at this early stage is the planting of a fairly extensive olive grove.  As soon as warm weather permits in the spring, we will be putting in a good-sized garden, hoping to can and freeze some of  the produce for our own use and, if God blesses an abundance, share it with less-fortunate people in economically-depressed Lake County.

     Throughout this entire journey, we have learned that what the Fathers have said is entirely true - God closes some doors in order to open others, and those who have commited themselves to prayer and have abandoned all hope in this fallen world will see the way that has been opened for them.  We can verify that many times over in the past years, but in the months that we have been blessed to stand within the fold shepherded by Metropolitan Ephraim, we have been astonished, time and again, at the abundant mercies of the All-Holy Trinity, by the nearness of the Saints, and by their intercessory love for us.  We stand fearful before the accountability we know all this entails, and we ask the readers' prayers that we may continue this journey unshaken by the assault of the evil one.

    --Priestmonk Sergios
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    SPRINGFIELD, Ill.—A recent government-funded study in Finland shows that women who abort are approximately four times more likely to die in the following year than women who carry their pregnancies to term. In addition, women who carry to term are only half as likely to die as women who were not pregnant.
“This is an impeccable, record-based study,” said David C. Reardon, Ph.D., who authored a review of the Finland study and other related studies in the latest issue of The Post-Abortion Review. “It proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that abortion is not safer than childbirth.”

    Researchers from the statistical analysis unit of Finland’s National Research and Development Center for Welfare and Health (STAKES) examined death certificate records for all women of reproductive age (13-49) who died between 1987 and 1994 — a total of 9,129 women. They then examined the national health care data base to identify any pregnancy-related events for the women in the 12 months prior to their deaths.

    The researchers found that compared to women who carried to term, women who aborted in the year prior to their deaths were 60% more likely to die of natural causes, seven times more likely to die of suicide, four time more likely to die of injuries related to accidents, and 14 times more likely to die from homicide. Researchers believe the higher rate of deaths related to accidents and homicide may be linked to higher rates of suicidal or risk-taking behavior.

    “Even though this important study was published in the top Scandinavian obstetrics journal, it had been completely ignored by the American press,” Reardon said. “Even worse, abortion counselors continue to lie to American women. They are telling women that abortion is safer than childbirth, when this and other reputable studies prove exactly the opposite. The entire body of medical literature clearly shows that abortion contributes to a decline in women’s physical and mental health. Women aren’t hearing this. Nor are they being told that giving birth actually contributes to women’s overall health, not only in comparison to those who abort but also in comparison to women who have not been pregnant.”

    Reardon believes that abortion providers are collaborating with population-control zealots to conceal the risks of abortion in order to advance their own financial and social engineering agendas. “If they were really pro-choice, they would want women to know about abortion’s true risks,” he said. “Instead, they are offering women a bundle of half-truths and complete fabrications.”

A link to a full text copy of the Post-Abortion Review article can be found at www.afterabortion.org/hotstuff.htm

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              KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Afghanistan's Taliban rulers on Monday imposed the death penalty for anyone who converts from Islam to another religion. Any non-Muslim found trying to win converts will also be killed. Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar said on Taliban-run Radio Shariat.  Omar accused followers of other faiths -- particularly Christians and Jews of trying to convert Muslims and seeking to demonize
the harsh brand of Islam practiced by the Taliban.  "The enemies of Muslims are trying to eliminate the pure Islamic religion throughout the world," Omar said.

              The Taliban enforce a strict interpretation of Islamic law in Afghanistan. Women are barred from working, and the Taliban have stopped all schooling for girls beyond age 8.  Men are required to wear beards and pray in mosques without fail, while women must wear head-to-toe coverings.  Most forms of entertainment have been outlawed, including television and music other than religious songs.

              On Monday, Omar also announced a five-year jail term for book store owners found selling material critical of Islam and about other religions. Despite the ban on evangelism, followers of other faiths have been allowed to continue practicing their religions.  A large Sikh and Hindu community worships at several temples in Kabul, the capital, and a lone Jewish rabbi still lives in the city though most Jews left when the former Soviet Union invaded in 1979.
 
            The Taliban control about 95 percent of Afghanistan. Their opposition, led by ousted president Burhanuddin Rabbani, rules in the other area. Fighting between the two sides has raged in recent weeks in central Bamiyan province, where the Taliban said Sunday they regained control of the key city of Yakaolong.
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    To mark the 2000th anniversary of the Nativity of Christ, the Benaki Museum, the premiere Byzantine museum in Athens, mounted a special exhibition, “Mother of God,” bringing together icons and other objects of devotion from churches and eminent collections of Byzantine art throughout the world. This magnificent volume in full color, contains a wealth of detail and information from the exhibition, and about Byzantine art in general.
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