Orthodox England | events blog

Time 2020-12-07 18:03:58

Web Name: Orthodox England | events blog

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I spoke recently to a Romanian parishioner who had lived for a very long time in the Middle East and married a charming man, originally a Muslim. Taking him to a certain Romanian elder, who is still alive, she expected whom she supposed to be a very conservative elder to condemn her for marrying a Muslim and berate the Muslim for being such. Instead the elder came out and warmly embraced the Muslim and treated him as a brother. It was not long before the Muslim had joined the Orthodox Church. The story illustrates the old saying that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.The point is that the Spiritual is not conservatism. The Spiritual is the Tradition, the ever-renewed Inspiration of the Holy Spirit over the millennia, which is quite different from conservatism. Indeed, it is precisely in the absence of the Spiritual that conservatism, with its killing moralism and dead ritualism, takes over. Moralism is a sign of the end of the living, not of life. Both modernists and conservatives (‘traditionalists’) are moralists, because neither has the Spiritual, both lack Love, the very thing that they both claim in their self-delusion to have.We saw it in the time of Christ with the Pharisees with their censorious judgementalism. We saw it with the Calvinistic Puritans, so intolerant that they could find nowhere to live in Europe and so had to go to America, where they slaughtered the native people and hunted innocent women to death as witches. We saw it with the Jesuits who preached hatred in the Name of God. We saw it with the Zoe and Sotir brotherhoods in Greece, who turned so many against the Church. We saw it with psychopaths and fanatics who tried to turn the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia into a mean and nasty sect. None of them knew that it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.Moralists always exploit the naïve and weak, manipulating them and making them feel guilty for not being ‘conservative’ enough. They lecture and berate others, who have experience of the inner life. This is all because the moralists themselves have no inner life. And because they have no inner life, they pre-judge and condemn all others. And they pre-judge and condemn because they have no compassion and love for human weakness, only hardness of heart which destroys both themselves and others. Moralism is spiritual death; only the Spiritual gives Life, for only the Holy Spirit is the Giver of Life. Who Betrayed the Europeans?By the geographical centre of Europe, at Dilove in the Carpatho-Russian hills, an Orthodox shepherd, clad in his embroidered Hutsul sheepskin, plays his mountain pipe and sings of all the sorrows and of all the joys of the Europeans.Far to the north-west, in the wild Hebrides, where the Atlantic wind comes blowing over the sunshone and deserted shell-white strand, bagpipes play out the tunes of the old piety for Mary and her servants Brigid and Columba, whose servants in turn brought the Word of God here nearly twenty thousand moons ago.Far to the south-east, on the dry hills of eastern Cyprus, looking across the azure sea towards the centre of the world in Jerusalem, just over the horizon, a choir sings the folk songs about Christ, whom the old ones on the island loved and revered before the times changed.On the cliffs of Cabo da Roca, not far from Lisbon, the most westerly point of the Eurasian landmass, by the old lighthouse, where twenty-five years ago I stood with Archbishop Seraphim and our Russian parishioners sang to him Many Years, they pray for the Europe which lost its soul and still seeks it.Far to the north-east, in Romanov na Murmane, for now still miscalled Murmansk, by the Arctic shores of the White Sea, where St Tryphon of Kola converted the Lapps, a balalaika lament and a triumphal hymn can be heard for all the churches that the enemy of mankind began to burn and for all the saints that the enemy of mankind began to make, these one hundred years ago.In the Ural foothills on the border of Asia and Europe, just outside Ekaterinburg, which became the spiritual capital of martyric Europe on that fateful night of 4/17 July 1918, a choir sings in praise of the Great Martyrs, a Russian-Dane and an Englishwoman from Hesse and all their beautiful children and faithful servants, who showed Europeans the path of repentance they must take for the salvation of their souls. Let him who has ears, hear.Who betrayed the Europeans?Popes, Luthers, Napoleons, Marxes, Kaisers, Hitlers and all who were deluded by the promises of the evil one and went and followed them over this thousand years. They preferred the spiritually ugly to the spiritually beautiful. That is why all of them are called apostates. From the Introduction to the Online Encyclopedia of the Orthodox Church, 1 December 2045Introduction: From Moscow to JakartaThe potential beginning of the solution to the century-old canonical problem of the Orthodox Diaspora first glimmered in the Year 2000. After the repentance for its politically-enforced paralysis expressed at its Jubilee Council in Moscow in August 2000, the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) was reconciled to the Synod of ROCOR (the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia) in 2007. Both sides had dropped nonsensical Cold War political claims and lost the often naïve extremists who had actually believed in those claims. Following their liberation from politics, new horizons for the unity of the whole Church were gradually opening up.Thus, the first little-noticed step towards structural canonical unity at last came twelve years later. Then, in November 2019 the ROCOR Synod gave up its parishes in Eurasian Indonesia to the new South-East Asian Exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, as the ROCOR Synod was no longer able to care for them. However, the very next month phyletist Constantinople and Alexandria fell into schism and in 2020 other Greek nationalist organisations in Greece and Cyprus fell in the same way. This happened during the chastisement of all the Local Churches by the Covid pandemic. All had now become possible. In just one generation, between 2020 and 2045, long anachronistic Church structures were to be wiped away, like a house of cards collapsing.Africa and the AOC: 2025After the phyletist Greek Patriarchate of Alexandria had fallen into schism in 2019 under pressure from the US-manipulated Greek Foreign Ministry, pleas from the African faithful eventually forced the pastoral conscience of the ROC to set up an African Exarchate. This was done in 2022. At last freed of Greek nationalist control from Alexandria, a Patriarchate which a century before, already absurdly enough, had claimed the territory of Egypt, let alone all Africa, at last African Orthodox set out on their path of destiny to their own Continental Church. For the ROC at once set about consecrating twenty African bishops for the Exarchate.Finally, in 2025 the autocephalous African Orthodox Church (AOC) was at last born. Only the historic title ‘of Alexandria’ was retained by the new black Metropolitan Nectarios in Nairobi. He was enthroned 105 years after the repose of the great and much slandered frustrated Alexandrian missionary St Nectarios of Pentapolis. The old schismatic and now bankrupt Greek Patriarchate of Alexandria finally died out altogether in 2029, ten years after its fall into schism. At last the black African people and clergy now had their own black African Metropolitan and Synod of bishops of All Africa. Since then promising talks have been taking place between it and the Miaphysite Coptic, Ethiopian and Eritrean National Churches.Western Europe and the EOC: 2028In 2025 ROCOR parishes in Western Europe, at the other end of Eurasia from Indonesia (see above), became part of the by then decentralised and internationalised Western European Exarchate, originally set up by the ROC in 2018. They were soon after joined by hundreds of parishes from other Local Churches. Together they formed a large and multinational Exarchate and in 2028, exactly ten years after the Exarchate had been born, the new European Orthodox Church (EOC) was born, its first Metropolitan, John of Paris and Western Europe.Oceania and the OOC: 2031In 2028 the ROC set up an Exarchate for Oceania. Three years later, in 2031, ROCOR and other parishes in Australia and New Zealand, as well as those on Pacific islands, formed the Oceanic Orthodox Church (OOC). Its first Metropolitan was Thomas of Sydney and All Oceania.Latin America and the LAOC: 2034In 2031 the ROC set up an Exarchate for Latin America. At last, in 2034, much neglected Latin America also came to have its own Latin American Orthodox Church (called IOAL in both Spanish and Portuguese). Centred in Rio de Janeiro, its first Metropolitan was called James.North America and the NAOC: 2037In 2034 ROCOR and ‘OCA’ parishes in North America joined to form a new autonomous North American Orthodox Exarchate under the ROC. ROCOR had made up with the OCA, both Cold War structures, but only once the OCA had rid itself of its Schmemannite Protestant modernists. (They had left for the then still existing, but ultra-modernist and much diminished schismatic Greek-Protestant Archdiocese much to everyone’s relief). Only with such mutual maturity, at last freed of Cold War politics, was this unity possible.This unity was sealed by hundreds of parishes of other Local Churches which joined the united Exarchate. They had also abandoned both the backwards-looking petty nationalism of the immigrant ghetto, so much exploited by impoverished Mother-Churches, and the new calendar inferiority complex imitation by Orthodox immigrants of American Protestantism. In 2037 all the Orthodox-believing elements in North America in this Exarchate became part of the new North American Orthodox Church (NAOC). Centred in Washington, its first Metropolitan was called George.Conclusion: The Ten Local ChurchesThus, in a matter of only twelve years, both the tens of millions of Orthodox of Africa and the tens of millions of Orthodox of the New World Diasporas found themselves belonging to five new Local Churches. It was not long before the twelve other Local Churches in Eurasia, chastised by Covid, regrouped themselves canonically into five Patriarchates. Thus, the old anachronisms and nationalisms disappeared before the worldwide mission God had called on the Church to undertake.In 2037 in the Balkans a new multinational Church was formed. Calling itself the Patriarchate of Constantinople (the Greek nationalist version of which had died out in Istanbul in 2034), it was centred in Bucharest. It included six former Local Churches, those of Romania, Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Albania and their canonical territories. In 2039 the Patriarchate of Antioch helped organise large-scale missions to Turkey and the Arab World, its headquarters at last moving back to Antakya in Turkey, the real Antioch. In 2041 the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, at last freed from Greek colonial status and with a new multinational episcopate became the international centre for Orthodox pilgrims to the Holy Land.In 2043 the now decentralised Patriarchate of New Jerusalem and All Rus (formerly ‘of Moscow’) was joined by the former Churches of Poland and Czechoslovakia, which became Exarchates, like that in Belarus. At the same time the Patriarchate also granted autonomy to its missions in South-East Asia and the Indian Subcontinent, making altogether four Autonomous Churches in its jurisdiction (Japan, China, South-East Asia, the Indian Subcontinent). As for the once small Patriarchate of Georgia, in 2045 it took responsibility for the great mission to Iran. The Orthodox Church had remoulded itself as a family and confederation of Ten Local Churches, five Patriarchates and five Metropolias, covering the whole world, and looking forward to the birth of four more Autocephalous Metropolitan Churches from the Autonomous Churches in due course.1 December 2045 The sad news came that Archbishop Chrysostom of Cyprus had commemorated the defrocked schismatic Sergei (‘Metropolitan Epifany’) Dumenko as the canonical Metropolitan of the Ukraine. It came two years after he had denied any possibility of this absurd and uncanonical action. However, it still came as no surprise. What price he was paid (by the US ambassador?) or had to pay (in order to keep his job?) for leading the Church of Cyprus into schism we do not know. Now he has divided the whole Synod of the Church of Cyprus into two camps (nine bishops including himself in favour of the schism and seven against).It is now clear that the schismatic Patriarch Bartholomew has not only led his own Patriarchate into schism, but also the Churches of Greece, Alexandria and Cyprus. Thus, all ethnic Greek Orthodox, numbering on paper nearly 15 million souls, or 7% of the Orthodox world, have fallen into schism. The other 93% remain firm, free of US blackmail and bribery. Of course, the number gone into schism will in reality be far fewer. All practising and canonically conscious Greek Orthodox will remain in the Church. Already African Orthodox, with no loyalty to Greek racism, are in revolt, hoping to free themselves from Greek ethnic oppression and looking for their own long-overdue African Orthodox Church.The situation mirrors that of 1054. Then, the senior bishops of the Western Patriarchate fell into schism through putting their local Latin ethnic identity above the Universal Church. Now, the senior Greek bishops have done the same, putting their racial identity above Christ, casting aside the foundations of the Church and the age-old order set by the Apostolic canons. This has been on the cards ever since the tiny, rebel Patriarchate of Constantinople abandoned the Orthodox calendar nearly a century ago and supported Communist-backed schismatics in Russia against the holy Patriarch Tikhon. For nearly a century the Church has shown patience with Constantinople. Now it is finished.Now the Church will go on without them. Like a hen gathering her chicks all over the world, the Church will ignore the irrelevant schismatics who have fallen away under secular pressure, abandoning Christ. We shall gather together all those faithful to Christ and who want to be faithful to Him, building up the Church. From Australia to the Philippines, from Japan to Thailand, from the spiritually unconquered masses of China to the vastness of Siberia, from India to Iran, from the African masses to Darkest Europe, from Alaska to Patagonia, we shall win in the Name of Christ, building up real Orthodox Christianity everywhere. “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”Saying Attributed to Abraham LincolnAlthough nobody dies of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19), they do die with it. It now looks as though, directly or indirectly, it will cause the deaths of more than 0.1% of the UK population, that is, more than one in a thousand. (The natural global death rate is over 10 times higher, round about 10 in a 1,000, since death is inevitable and few live after the age of 100). Worldwide, it seems as though the death toll from Covid will be far less, perhaps 0.03%. This is because in Western countries like the UK, the disease contributes to the deaths of those who in poorer countries already died long ago. In rich Western countries, where people live into their 80s and beyond and thanks to advanced medical technology can live for decades with chronic diseases and low immunity, Covid is taking a much higher toll.Thus, those who in Western countries survive for decades with chronic underlying illnesses are very vulnerable to Covid and must take great care. On the other hand, the vast majority, who have strong or just normal genetic immunity have little to fear. However, the way in which all Western and many Non-Western governments have dealt with this relatively minor epidemic is extraordinary. Their reaction will have effects that will last for decades, long after mass immunity to the virus has been obtained, either naturally, or else through the many different national vaccines, of which the Russian was the first.After all this virus is not the Kansas flu (the so-called ‘Spanish’ flu) of over 100 years ago, let alone the bubonic plague, which killed tens and hundreds of millions. And yet governments have blighted the lives of tens of millions. State lockdowns not the ‘pandemic’ have caused widespread mental distress, depression and suicide, as well as suicidally bankrupting whole sectors of the global economy, making tens of millions unemployed and bringing mass poverty. It will take decades to recover economically and pay off the debts.All seems clearly to point to a situation in which the remedy has caused far more problems than the disease. This is especially the case in the more totalitarian States, like France, and also in the region of Scotland. These have virtually become police states. In England it is extraordinary to see a Conservative Party creating the ultimate nanny State. The consequence is that few now listen to the State-run scare propaganda of the BBC and other State mouthpieces. Widespread anti-lockdown demonstrations of up to 30,000 are not reported, except on the still free social media. In some parts of the country many refuse to wear masks, as they are seen as totally ineffective.The official State propaganda media all blame the situation on the pandemic, not on the real cause, the State lockdown. In the first UK lockdown which officially lasted for three months, many, often elderly or ill, were bullied and intimidated and actually believed the media hysteria of atheist journalists. Younger and healthy people (the under 60s) were generally much more sceptical and felt extremely annoyed by State interference in their lives. This is why the second lockdown was largely ignored. It was always ironic to sit in huge traffic jams beneath signs saying ‘Essential Travel Only’. You cannot fool all the people all the time. Many will never listen to or watch State media again; the loss of trust is enormous.Such a drastic ‘remedy’ as a lockdown merely slows the absolutely inevitable spread (you cannot stop nature) of the virus. Together with widespread censorship, this has spawned countless conspiracy theories. Most are completely absurd. Usually, conspiracy theories never account for the reality of human incompetence. No, the ‘pandemic’ did not happen because someone plotted it; it happened because governments reacted with panic and incompetence to a new virus. New viruses appear regularly throughout history. However, conspiracy theories also confuse cause and effect. No, giant online companies did not invent the virus to bankrupt small shops. The online giants simply took advantage of State lockdowns.The real reason for drastic lockdowns, imprisoning people in their homes and gagging their mouths, causing depression, suicide and mass bankruptcy, is a spiritual reason. It is the fear of death. Once again we are the victims of the atheist elite which rules over us. Just as the tragedies and atrocities of the twentieth century, whether committed by Capitalists, Communists or Nazis, were all the work of atheists, so this present tragedy, is also their responsibility. Those who believe do not fear death. Those who, incredibly for us, actually believe that this life is all we have, dread death. And so they gag us and bankrupt us. https://orthodoxethos.com/post/christ-is-bringing-a-new-crew-to-lead-his-ship-the-church?fbclid=IwAR1NIfOYo_WAWlWzsXBNlb-4d_ijl3nv6Ze6UwvWbwJNas1gk4KD44e5Dyc Too much evil has gone on for too long and with impunity. For over 100 years the sons of men have openly mocked God and openly scorned piety. Did they really think that they could continue like this, with their new Sodom and Gomorrah, without grave consequences? Did they really imagine that, having cast off the protection of God’s grace, they were not opening their doors to let the demons in? Did they really learn nothing from the World Wars? Now is the time when the nations have to pay for this impunity. Now is the time of crisis.In Greek the word crisis means judgement, so now is the time of the judgement of the nations. Judgement is here now in the form of covid. God has allowed this scourge, the mildest of scourges when we think of the scourges of the last century, as one of a series of last warnings. Either repent, or else the hordes of demons, waiting with gleeful malice to come up from the fires of hell to join their many minions already wreaking destruction and death among humanity on earth with other scourges, will set on you much more viciously.Much of the Roman Catholic/Protestant subculture of Christianity has shut down and confined itself inside, running scared of this judgement. Only the remnant of them. who have still kept some vestiges of the Orthodox Christian Faith, have resisted. Thus, Protestantism largely gave up in obedience to the secular states which created it. As for the apostates of Catholicism, Papostasy, as some have called it, they have continued not only without repentance, but even with self-justification, merging with the world which ‘lies in evil’.However, part of the (Orthodox) Christian world has done no better and exactly imitated the apostasy of the Non-Orthodox in fear. This is all the more alarming, as the (Orthodox) Christian world has for the last 103 years been living on time borrowed from the mercy of the Mother of God. Thus, the century of apostasy and now schism of the Phanar continues. The old men’s schism, committed ‘for fear of the Jews’, has been adopted by the ageing Archbishop of Athens, Pope of Alexandria and now the Archbishop of Cyprus.The clergy of these Local Churches are split down the middle, into those who support the age-old Orthodox Christianity of all Orthodox everywhere and those who are mere careerist nationalists. These are financed by the Greek State, itself funded by the evil empire run by the State Department in Washington. All of them run scared of death and judgement, gagged in their sinister black masks. Like all nationalists, these careerists are masonic secularists. This we have just seen in the recent Greek clerical scandal in Lyons.However, the scourge has also touched the holy and righteous. In Montenegro one of the few righteous and truthful Orthodox voices in this world who had the courage and honesty to denounce the satanists, that of Metr Amfilochije, has been silenced. He knew that only the Truth sets free and always spoke fearlessly for all who seek the Truth, as I can witness from the San Francisco Council of 2006. And from beyond the grave, the blessed Fr Ephraim of Arizona has also spoken in a vision, warning all to return to Christ before it is too late.Our common vision with them, both of whom we knew, has always been that of the Restoration of Orthodox Christianity as a United World Civilisation. Since the collapse of the foreign and alien Marxist tyranny, that poisonous import into Imperial Russia from Western Europe, it is petty nationalism, an offshoot of secularism, that has become ever more our enemy in our warfare against the powers of satanism. For Satan will do all he can to prevent the return of Orthodox Christianity as a world power, as it alone is able to stand up to him.Now the scourge is speaking through the behaviour of Orthodox, both the faithful and those inclined to apostasy There are those who seem to be giving up in cowardice and running away into the waiting arms of the devil. And there are those who do not fear death because they only fear God. They know that if Universal Orthodox Christian Civilisation is restored, they belong to it. If not, they will go, fearless of death, to God, like Metr Amfilochije and Fr Ephraim. And you, whose arms are you running towards? Whose side are you on? Although the British Empire can be said to have existed for the five centuries of the Protestant ascendancy from the sixteenth century to the twentieth century, in reality its domination lasted for far less. Most would probably agree that this domination began with the final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815 and ended in 1914 with the self-destructive First World War, when the sun began to set on the empire on which the sun never set.However, its moral illegitimacy and bankruptcy were already visible in the second half of the nineteenth century with its genocides in Europe, Asia and Africa, notably with its invasion of Russia in 1854, then its massacres in China, India, the Sudan (the Maxim gun against spears) and the Second Boer War (1899-1902) (the British invention of the concentration camp). The sign of its imminent end came in 1912 with the sinking of the ‘unsinkable’ Titanic.The American Empire has also endured for about a century. The age of its domination began, arguably, in 1917 with its entry into the First European (‘World’) War. Its decline began 58 years later with its defeat by Vietnamese peasants in 1975. This was the loss of its moral legitimacy. Will its end come 58 years after 1975, in 2033? Nobody knows. But there are those who have been wondering ever more whether it will not soon split into its component parts.This could mean Canada taking over the north-eastern and north-western coastal states, Mexico taking back the Spanish-named south (notably New Mexico, in fact Old Mexico), the Russian Federation taking back Alaska, once more becoming tricontinental, California becoming independent, as also New York, Washington DC and the states around them, perhaps called Washingtonia, and the central states becoming a North American Republic.Pride goes before the fall. The British Empire fell because although it claimed to preach the Bible, it did so only in words and not in deeds. As for the reason why the American Empire fell, we will leave that to the historians of the future. As we saw with the fall of the Soviet Empire, an Empire can fall in one night. Whatever the case, we must hope and pray that all may take place in peace, even in a country where the civilian population owns nearly 400 million guns. O holy right-believing Alfred, Great King of Wessex and father of the English nation, hear our supplication.Thou hast shown us an indelible example of courage and faith in the marshes of Athelney, when all England was suffering the depredation of the heathen Danes. Thou didst build up the defenses of thy kingdom as thou didst also strive to increase the Christian Faith in thy kingly heart, showing an example of true wisdom to friend and enemy alike; enlightening thy people, showing mercy to thy vanquished foes, wisely preparing for war, but striving always for a holy peace.Thou didst love learning and render into English many holy books, sending them out to all thy people, raising up their minds and hearts in the light of true knowledge.nThou didst renew the ancient laws of England, becoming a new Justinian, showing an example of the righteous judgment required by God of all who are in seats of power.We, thy spiritual children in America, ask now thy strong intercession before the King of kings; help us in our time of trouble.  Be like Elijah and grant us a double portion of thy spirit that thirsted after these virtues of courage, faith, steadfastness in the face of uncertainty and fear, the love of the Lord that brings holy wisdom, and righteous and merciful judgment in the fear of God.O Alfred, wise king, do thou entreat Him to guide us steadily, as He guided thee, and to grant order, justice, peace and tranquility to our native land.In the name of the Father to Whom thou drawest nearer every day, the Son Whose Love thou didst teach to all, and the Holy Spirit Who fillest thy heart, now and ever and unto the ages of ages.  Amen.Priest Christopher Johnson  7.10 am. Leave for the church in Essex where at 8.00 I have to meet an engineer about a fault in the sound system in the church. I get there early and he too. We shall need one new microphone and two extra speakers.8.30 am. I have time to tidy the church and then see a Bulgarian woman who has problems with her son who is studying medicine.10.00 In September a drunken man crashed into the perimeter wall of the church at 3.20 in the morning. He managed to get out of his car unharmed though the car was a write-off. Having found out the car registration from the police, now I have an appointment with a builder who is to give a quote to our insurance company to repair the wall. It will cost them several thousand pounds. For some reason he wants to see me and not the caretaker. He turns out to be an Irishman who wants to talk to a priest.10.25 Get the church caretaker to be present for the fitting of a new smart meter for the electricity in the church.10.40 I call on two parishioners in Colchester, originally from Saint Petersburg, a mother and daughter. The mother, born during the German siege in the War, has dementia.11.30 Visit a parishioner in Colchester whose husband is Turkish and hesitating about being baptised. We already have three Turkish parishioners and I want him and his wife to come tomorrow where I will be baptising another Turkish man. Once he has accepted baptism, I will be able to marry him and his civil wife.12.15 Visit the graves of my parents and my brother fifteen minutes away. Tidy them12.40 Phone call from a parishioner in Thetford in Norfolk whose friend’s mother has just died. I will serve a panikhida tomorrow, St Dimitri’s Saturday. O Lord, give rest to Thy servant Larisa who has fallen asleep.2.00 pm. Despite the covid lockdown, I have to go to one of the prisons in west Suffolk, about an hour away, where I am the Orthodox chaplain for an emergency, to see a Russian man on suicide watch. He is clearly suffering from severe depression. I manage to listen to his first ever confession and give him communion. He says he feels better.4.00 Call in on a parishioner about forty minutes from the prison. She obtained British nationality two years ago, but her foreign-born daughter still does not have it. She is panicking and tells me that her daughter may be deported. I reassured her and telephoned an advice centre, who inform me that there is no hurry and that the daughter will obtain a British passport within six months, after payment of just over £1,000. The problem is only financial, not worse. We read the akathist to St Nicholas together in her icon-corner.6.00 Get home which is thirty minutes away. Answer two letters and pick up messages from parishioners left on the landline.7.30 E-mail the lists of parishioners with a circular about arrangements for confession and communion during the forthcoming new closure of churches. A rush of phone calls on my mobile starts.8.00 Tell the cleaner that she need not come in next week because of covid-19.8.05 Phone the second and third priests about the new arrangements.8.15 Phone-call with the future deacon about service-books.8.20 Phone call from a couple whose marriage at crisis point.8.40 Order a mantle for the Bishop from the Ukraine.9.00 Phone call from a Moldovan woman in East London: Please pray for my uncle and aunt, Sergei and Elena. They were climbing in the Himalayas when they fell into a crevasse on a glacier. Their bodies cannot be retrieved for burial, at least not for some centuries. She is in tears.9.10 Answer e-mails, including an e-mail from a family who have had to move to a place on the other side of the country where there is no church. I tell them that if they can find other Orthodox there and premises, we can ask the Bishop about the possibility of starting a mission. But we are so short of priests; we need at least three more just in our area.

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