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а я с удовольствием ему отвечу, но только здесь; он сам, если захочет, распространит дальше.
September 29, 2005
Dear Vladimir,
It is a honour to receive such a detailed letter from your part.
Indeed, I am pleased by the fact that you address me as "Dear", even if below you compare me with Satan. I appreciate your ambivalent attitude toward me and know that it is for you psychologically well founded.
Your knowledge of Russian is admirable and your work as a translator, too. I say this absolutely frankly. However, there is an obstacle that affect both your understanding of the texts you read and that of the situation in the real life: your lack of the sense of humour. It is especially unhappy when you deal with the stuff from a foreign culture, where you are not inculturated enough.
So, the key alineas of your letter (starting from the following quotes from my own letter to the Metropolitan) are based on such a misunderstanding:
"We must think together about the future of ROAC. As you said more than once
before, the question of this future is the question of the organisation of
the higher Church authority. I truly value your services in the matter of the
organisation of the True Orthodox Church of Russia. Now for all of us one
more action of yours is necessary. This action must by no means consist in the
correction of certain private decisions; I am not at all asking you to rescind
those decisions that were taken in relation to me. It must consist in
something quite different.
"We must all together with you, dear Vladyko, think about how we are to
elect the next First Hierarch..."
I have to say: your impudence, and calculated sang-froid is astounding! It
all sounds - and this is no doubt the impression you are intending to produce
- that you are not in the slightest bit upset by your defrocking, and don't
even want it reversed, uncanonical though you consider it to be, because you
have no ambition whatsoever with regard to an ecclesiastical career. All you
are interested in is having a nice, quiet chat on the future administration of
the Church with the man who defrocked you for heresy...
As if he or any of those who supported his decision want to have anything
more to do with you!
(and so on...)
In plane words, I say here nothing more than, despite the hope of the Metropolitan that now I will leave him alone, I assure him that we will continue our somewhat forced collaboration until the time when he will be able to retire without stopping the management of the ROAC. And that I am not inclined to overestimate the value of the papers he may stamp about my canonical status.
So, Dear Vladimir, let us both be a bit simplier.
Cordially,
Yours
hegumen Gregory
( текст письма В. Мосса )
September 29, 2005
Dear Vladimir,
It is a honour to receive such a detailed letter from your part.
Indeed, I am pleased by the fact that you address me as "Dear", even if below you compare me with Satan. I appreciate your ambivalent attitude toward me and know that it is for you psychologically well founded.
Your knowledge of Russian is admirable and your work as a translator, too. I say this absolutely frankly. However, there is an obstacle that affect both your understanding of the texts you read and that of the situation in the real life: your lack of the sense of humour. It is especially unhappy when you deal with the stuff from a foreign culture, where you are not inculturated enough.
So, the key alineas of your letter (starting from the following quotes from my own letter to the Metropolitan) are based on such a misunderstanding:
"We must think together about the future of ROAC. As you said more than once
before, the question of this future is the question of the organisation of
the higher Church authority. I truly value your services in the matter of the
organisation of the True Orthodox Church of Russia. Now for all of us one
more action of yours is necessary. This action must by no means consist in the
correction of certain private decisions; I am not at all asking you to rescind
those decisions that were taken in relation to me. It must consist in
something quite different.
"We must all together with you, dear Vladyko, think about how we are to
elect the next First Hierarch..."
I have to say: your impudence, and calculated sang-froid is astounding! It
all sounds - and this is no doubt the impression you are intending to produce
- that you are not in the slightest bit upset by your defrocking, and don't
even want it reversed, uncanonical though you consider it to be, because you
have no ambition whatsoever with regard to an ecclesiastical career. All you
are interested in is having a nice, quiet chat on the future administration of
the Church with the man who defrocked you for heresy...
As if he or any of those who supported his decision want to have anything
more to do with you!
(and so on...)
In plane words, I say here nothing more than, despite the hope of the Metropolitan that now I will leave him alone, I assure him that we will continue our somewhat forced collaboration until the time when he will be able to retire without stopping the management of the ROAC. And that I am not inclined to overestimate the value of the papers he may stamp about my canonical status.
So, Dear Vladimir, let us both be a bit simplier.
Cordially,
Yours
hegumen Gregory
( текст письма В. Мосса )
