www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Old Believers in Alaska

did any one (besides moi) see the decent segment on the Today show about Old Believers in Alaska this morning? well done and respectful. there is a village in Alaska that was settled by the Old Believers about forty years ago. I watched with I guess the same eye a Mennonite would watch a segment on the Amish. nothing amiss. kudos to the Today Show.
Much Love,
Jonn

I saw it and enjoyed it very much.

Joe

I watched it with interest. When I lived on the Kenai penninsula in Soldotna, old believers would come into the store I worked in. I was always kind of fascinated with them. I don't know if they were from that community or if there are others on the Kenai. In fact, once when I was swimming at a lake there was a group there and one of the ladies dried her husband's feet off when they came out of the water. I was struck by that and still remember it. I've always wondered what the reason was behind it.

I do have a question about their priest. He was a fisherman and then they asked him to be their priest. How would he have been ordained? I'm just curious.

I don't know how Old Believers in AK get priests, but I can tell you from living there that their communities are, sadly, the worst examples of Christian life, especially when it comes to social problems.

I know that sounds harsh, but it is a very light treatment of the problems which their communities are, well, frankly not dealing with at all. Worse than any village anywhere, including the worst Native villages.

Again, I know that sounds harsh, but you don't want to see the ugly side of life there.

Would love to see the segment on the Old-Ritualists in alaska - did anyone by any chance record it?

Ordination of priest - it would have been done on presentation by the faithful to the relevant hierarch (who the relevant hierarch was will depend upon when the ordination took place). Does anyone know the priest's name?

The currently responsible hierarch for that community is His Grace Archbishop Sophrony, who lives part of the time in Oregon (someplace near Mount Angel Abbey) and part of the time in Sydney, where he has a cathedral and is completing the iconography there.

Anyone who considers that he has solemn information to the discredit of any parish should bring it to the attention of the relevant hierarch rather than simply posting it for anyone to read. I have no means of going to Alaska to investigate, I am not a hierarch at all, and I have no authority to act in the matter. Others who have visited that community have much more favorable things to say.

Fr. Serge

Father Serge bless!

The segment on the Old Believers is online at:

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26574964

In Christ,

John

Just watched that lovely piece on the Old-Ritualists in Nikolaevsk. Beautiful! Also inspiring.

By the late nineteen-nineties, there would have been no difficult in having the priest ordained, provided that the parishioners and the bishop found him suitable. Once the Communists were out of power in Romania, the Metropolitan of Bila Krynytsia and All the Old-Orthodox Christians speedily dispatched a hierarch to Oregon, and things began to take shape. Prior to that time, there was no hierarch able to do anything for the diaspora, and I believe that there was no priest still alive in the diaspora. This, in turn, is why the parish in Erie went to the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia - it was impossible for the Metropolitan of Bila Krynytsia to act at the time. When the times changed, Father Pimen and the parish took the correct view that they had, in fact, committed themselves to the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia and they could not morally "jump jurisdiction" when the Church to which they belonged had received them, restored the Priesthood and the Eucharist, and had in no way abused them.

As to Nikolaevsk, the church is beautiful, and there is not the slightest hint of the sort of thing that Prester John accuses them of.

Father Serge

That is an excellent story! Thank you for letting us know about it.

Ray