The Shepherd, February 2009
POINTS FROM CORRESPONDENCE
USUALLY in this section we respond to a query or comment made by a reader. This month, we devote the space to a letter sent us by a correspondent in the USA. The writer, Xenia Endres-Nenchin, lived in England for a period and was baptized here. As her letter demonstrates, she has been closely associated with the Synodal Residence of the Russian Church Abroad (now ROCA-MP) for over two decades. She is responding to a rather puerile and ill-informed article published on the internet which, in apparently attempting to bolster the new position taken by the ROCA-MP, stooped to attacking the memory of two of the most distinguished hierarchs who served the Church Abroad during the period of her heroic resistance to Ecumenism and Sergianism. Both of these hierarchs are dear to our community. Metropolitan Saint Philaret ordained our abbot and blessed the foundation of the Brotherhood and the reception of the Sacred Relics of St Edward the Martyr. Although on two or three occasions we had serious disagreements with Bishop Gregory, he more often gave us wise and godly advice, guided the initial course of our community and often sprang to our defence when we faced opposition. He came to England to bless the church in 1984, and himself received and enshrined the Sacred Relics at that time. We are publishing Ms. Endres-Nenchin’s letter, with her kind permission, because the memory of righteous hierarchs, who were and are our benefactors, was besmirched in the internet article which she addresses. We only wish that one of our community members had had the competence to address the question so prudently. We might say in passing that Ms. Endres-Nenchin is still a communicant member of the Synod under the presidency of Metropolitan Hilarion and has been a member of that jurisdiction for considerably longer than the writer of the original article, who has been in two or three jurisdictions during his time in Orthodoxy. Before sending her letter, she wisely and humbly had it checked for errors of fact and infelicities of expression by several others in the church administration including at least one of their Bishops. She writes:-
Bless! I am responding to your web posting of late December entitled “ROCOR and Old Calendarism.” I have been a member of ROCOR since I became Orthodox in 1978, and am the translator of Dr. Gernot Seide’s book on the history of ROCOR. I am writing to you now about two bishops whom I knew very well and under whom I worked at the Synod for nearly a full decade between 1982-1990. The comments you have made about both of them are tendentious and at odds with reality.
Bishop Gregory
Concerning the late Secretary of the ROCOR Synod, your charges are not only unsupported, they verge on disrespect. You refer to Fr. George Grabbe, later consecrated Bishop Gregory, as if he did not have a name. Let us examine what you have written about him:
You remark that he and his family “came to power” between the 1960s and 1990s, amassing “great power during the time of Metropolitan Philaret.” There is little doubt that Bishop Gregory, formerly Protopresbyter George Grabbe, played an important role in the life of ROCOR. His biography bears witness to that. He was a close disciple of Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky), who persuaded him to join the staff of the Synodal Chancery in the early 1930s. He continued his labors in the Chancery throughout the subsequent tenure of Metropolitan Anastasy. When Metropolitan Anastasy retired, Protopresbyter George continued to serve in the Chancery through the entire tenure of Metropolitan Philaret, during which time he was consecrated to the episcopacy. In short, Bishop Gregory served in the Chancery for over half a century. To this day, no one has equaled this accomplishment.
In the aftermath of World War II, he used his position at the Synod Chancery, and his personal rank as a nobleman, to rescue many from the camps and from forced deportation to the USSR. Furthermore, he saved the most important documents in the Synodal archives when the Synod was forced to evacuate from Belgrade to Munich, though it meant that his own family had to leave behind many of their personal possessions. After the Synod was relocated to the United States, he worked tirelessly to help in the resettlement of refugees and to consolidate our Church’s position in the USA. As Protopresbyter George, he served as Secretary of the Synod prior to 1967, at which time the Council of Bishops elevated the newly-consecrated Bishop Laurus to that post and appointed Fr. George to head the Church’s Department of External Relations. In 1978, following the death of his wife, he received the monastic tonsure, and on May 12, 1979, with the approbation of the Council of Bishops, he was consecrated vicar Bishop of Manhattan, and became Secretary of the Synod again. In 1981, he became ruling Bishop of Washington and Florida. In 1986, at the beginning of Metropolitan Vitaly’s tenure, Bishop Gregory resigned from his diocesan and synodal duties. (See Seide’s Geschichte)
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